Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Assessment/Assessment Drive/June—September 2007

Outriggr' script
"To keep your counter of articles assessed accurate make sure you don't click the grade you want to give an article more than once, since the script counts how many times you've clicked one of the grade links" Well, I accidentally clicked on the actual count figure for Outriggr' script and the count zeroed and that was that. Took me by surprise. If you want to know your actual count, stay away from the figure as well.--Natsubee 08:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * And don't mix it up with other project's assessment. My best bet is to keep a note of # of biography assessment you made on your talk page, then reset the counter to zero before you close your web browser. This way everytime you start an assessment you start with "1", and when you are done, all you need is get the total # that you did on that day and add up the one on your talk page.  OhanaUnited   06:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much what I do. Whenever I finish up for the day (i always stop at an increment of 50 just in case) I reset it to 0, this way I remember where I left off. It's helping out quite a bit so far. I also assess things in clumps of 10 or so so that I know how many I've assessed, though the script hasn't been causing me too many problems.-- Wizardman 17:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Use of "needs-infobox" parameter
As we are assessing articles, I'd like to request discernment / restraint regarding the use of the "needs-infobox" parameter. As per the header at WP Biography/Infoboxes, for some types of biographical articles, there are groups of editors that would strongly prefer not to have infoboxes on the articles. My opinion is that the Biography project, within activities at the meta-project level, such as this article assessment drive, for the sake of good PR, should avoid unnecessarily stirring up ill feelings. Hence, with the assessment, let's just stick to setting the following parameters: living, class, (priority= ), and assigning a work-group, where one is relevant. I'd suggest leaving the needs-photo parameter, and especially the needs-infobox parameter, as something to be addressed at a future time, if necessary, by the appropriate projects or work-groups. Respectfully, Lini 12:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with this view; although I admit I would put that parameter. After realizing this point, I shall avoid doing that, and encourage others to do the same. Lordevilvenom 04:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Assessing new Articles
Along with chipping away at the vast amount of Unassessed articles we are faced with, if anyone else wants to be diligent and help tag new biographical articles as they come (before they just get slapped with the WPBiography template with no assessment) - let me know. Perhaps we can make a minor sub-task for that with this Assessment Drive. --Ozgod 12:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I just count them in my running total. I've come across several of them already. It's the number of assessed articles that counts after all, isn't it? Er rab ee 23:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep, the table hopefully shows that we're counting all assessed articles. It's important to get the unassessed ones done, but new ones should be tagged as well. --  Psych less Type words! 16:34, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Redirect problems
Someone who knows more about redirect problems and who hasn't recently had a concussion (like myself), should take a look at Talk:Chon Duhwan. It may be that my brain is still addled, but something seems a little off to me here. Thanks. Awadewit | talk  18:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I've come across these as well. I think what happened is that an article was moved to a new location, but not its talk page. We should remove the biography template on the old talk page and add it to the new one, if it doesn't already exist. I did so on Talk:Chon Duhwan. MahangaTalk 22:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

New Workgroups
I do not know how many others feel this way, but in all the assessing I have done, I am beginning to see we definitely need more. Activists, religious figures, historical figures, etc.. I keep running into a lot of biographies from various Asian Dynasties and it is tough call to put them appropriate workgroups. --Ozgod 04:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Personally, the addition of a religion workgroup and a literature workgroup would help out a lot. I'm skipping putting many in work groups since I flat out don't know where to put them.-- Wizardman 17:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Doesn't literature fall under "arts"? Awadewit | talk  13:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I have a related question: what is the workgroup for daimyos? Politics and Government? Cattus 14:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I would say definitely P&G. Awadewit | talk  23:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If anything, I think we need a business-oriented workgroup for people who founded corporations, etc. Also, where do inventors go? Are they "science and academia" because they are technology? Awadewit | talk  23:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I normally put Inventors in Science and Academia (if that helps any). --Ozgod 01:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That is what I have been doing, but it seemed wrong. Awadewit | talk  18:30, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Are there any new workgroups in the pipeline? I think a crime one would be useful too. RHB - Talk 23:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * For crime there is WP:CRIMINAL, but I do not see much activity out of it. I think a workgroup for Criminal Biographies could be suitable - would have to inquire with that group. --Ozgod 00:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Awards
Hello, I'm the newest award committee member. After some discussion with Psychless, we agree to change and add some awards. Nothing is final at the moment, but be assured that you'll be getting awards and barnstars easier than the current posted version. Come back to this section once in awhile for the latest updates. OhanaUnited   Talk page   06:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I was noticing that. In the spring assessment drive, you got a barnstar for 500, which is significantly easier than 1000.  Just a thought, let's be consistant.

Cam 18:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Might as well keep it at 1000. I mean, people are getting to that already.-- Wizardman 01:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I completely agree. I know I don't own the drive but please don't change the awards without significant discussion. I personally think 1000 is better since you had one month to get 500, this time you have three months to get 1000 articles assessed, which some people have done in three days... Also, I think literature and religion work groups sound useful. --  Psych less Type words! 03:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I also stand strong on 1000 asessments to get a barnstar. I have discussed the details with Psychless and this is what we talked about. I might want to impose a flexible special awards system. If there are many people at the end (say August) then it wouldn't be quite fair because some start later than others; and those who start early have more competition. What I am thinking is that if the # of participants exceed a certain amount, then I will change # of Silver and Bronze WikiAward being handed out. Right now, there are 1 gold, silver, and bronze to be handed out. If the # goes too high, I might change it to 1,2,3 respectively. And if the # of participants get way out of hand, I'll change it to 1,3,5 respectively to keep those hardworkers happy.


 * My proposal: 200 edits - WikiThanks, 500 edits - WikiCookie, 1000 edits - Original Barnstar, 2000 edits - Tireless Contributor Barnstar, 3000 edits - The Working Man's Barnstar, 4000 edits - The Barnstar of Diligence, 5000 edits - The Biography Barnstar. These are all blueprint. If the top reviewer doesn't even reach 3000 then it's not reasonable to have no person awarded with Working Man, Diligence, and Biography barnstar. Then I will lower the #'s. OhanaUnited    Talk page   06:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I like this last proposition. I think it will motivate the people from the drive to assess as many articles as they can. ZOUAVMAN LE ZOUAVE  06:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The spring assessment lasted just over a month. We now have 3 months time to assess articles, thus the amounts necessary should be higher as well. Er rab ee 12:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Whoever reaches 10,000+ assessed gets a free snow cone. --Ozgod 13:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with OhanaUnited's ideas. I don't think we need to worry about the number of participants getting out of hand ;). More help is always good. The point of the drive, after all, is to get articles assessed not win awards.
 * I also agree with OhanaUnited, those are good levels for different awards. Of course, you may need to re-think things depending on what levels people reach by the end of the drive. Although awards shouldnt be our main focus, some sort of award scheme will encourage people to assess more articles than they normally would, and will probably net WP:BIO some extra members because of this drive - • The Giant Puffin •  15:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

One final discussion, do you guys want both award and barnstar? Or just barnstar? (Using my example again) If you made 2000 assessments, do you want to receive: I would like to hear your ideas.
 * WikiThanks, WikiCookie, Original Barnstar, and Tireless Contributor Barnstar (and flooded your userpage with awards and barnstars)
 * 1 award and 1 barnstar? That is, WikiCookie and Tireless Contributor Barnstar
 * 1 award and many barnstars? WikiCookie, Original Barnstar, and Tireless Contributor Barnstar
 * Only the barnstar/award that you reached and nothing else? Tireless Contributor Barnstar

Note: The Golden, Silver, and Bronze WikiAward are handed out separately and are not part of this discussion. OhanaUnited   Talk page   05:24, 9 June 2007 (UTC)


 * How come there is no WikiMilk to go with the WikiCookie?   ludahai 魯大海 14:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I would prefer a single award rather than an assortment. Awadewit | talk  02:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

At the end of the drive have a place for people to sign if they do not want all awards. If they didn't sign this, and they really don't want all of the awards, they can just delete the ones they don't want, or they could create an awards sub page. --  Psych less Type words! 01:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Would this take into account assesments made between award thresholds, say 2,600? -- Broken Sphere  01:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

There are people who are likely to reach 5,000 articles in a week or two. What awards do you get if you get over 5,000. Bernstein2291 16:43, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, we'll have to find some more awards I guess. Maybe an award for 7,500 and 10,000? -- Psych  less   18:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Na, it probably won't reach there.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   06:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Really? Ludahai's on pace for 10k easily I think. And I might just try and get 10k for the drive just to prove you wrong :) Wizardman  11:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * But we ran out of relevant awards & barnstars, unless you have some suggestions.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   16:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * What about adding the Special Barnstar to the mix? However, keep the threshold for the Bio Barnstar at 5K, as it doesn't make sense if only one person over that number of assessments made receives it.  Also, how about adding the Zen Garden Award at least on top of the prize for the most assessments?  -- Broken Sphere  01:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I noticed now that OhanaUnited is handing out the highest awards that people qualified for. Is the above suggestion by Psychless still in effect re. if you just want the highest one, or all the ones you qualify for?  If people want to pick and choose then it's up to them say if they don't want Wikithanks or Wikicookie but would like the barnstars.  -- Broken Sphere Msg me 18:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm dishing out the highest award, since it doesn't make sense to get 4 or 5 awards for doing the same task.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   14:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd like to see how the other assessors feel about this; I noticed from the spring drive that Wizardman and Giant Puffin for example, did receive multiple awards for taking part in that drive and if I'm not mistaken, people were assessing in the belief that the more articles they assessed, they would get all awards at the end of the drive that they qualified for and not just the highest one possible for a certain amount, as it isn't explicitly stated on the drive page that you only get the highest one you qualify for. Especially for the top 3 assessors, at the end it was hard work to push above and beyond to assess up to 5K more as Ludahai for example did, so I think they deserves all the ones they qualify for besidess the Golden, Silver and Bronze Wikis; now whether they want to accept all of them or not is up to them.  As mentioned above in earlier discussion, if someone qualifies for say 7 and only wants 5 (they don't really care about Wikithanks or Wikicookie), then they can leave those on their talk page and do what they want with the others.   Broken Sphere Msg me 14:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * As far as I can tell, the top three, only received the Wiki awards. I was under the impression, especially when in the top three, that both the Biography Barnstar and Golden/Silver/Bronze Wiki would be awarded. Indeed, on the drive's page, it says "There will also be a "race" to see who can assess the most articles." It would therefore appear that the "race" was a bonus, and that the top three assessors would (at the very least) receive their respective Wiki awards along with the highest possible Barnstar they were entitled to. Ludahai, Wizardman and Captain Panda assessed a collective total of 26,440 - over 25% of the drive's combined total of 103,940 assessed articles. They should be recognised for that achievement by more than just one award. As for the matter of multiple Barnstars, this may well be appropriate. Broken Sphere rightly noted that Wizardman and myself received multiple awards for the previous drive, and so it would only seem logical that everyone received every the hightst Barnstar that they were entitled to for this drive. Of course, for the top 3 that would mean eight awards; 4 to 6 seven awards; and so on. Some people will see this as too much, and they are within their right to post as many or as few awards as they like in a prominent position on their user pages or appropriate sub-pages. However, on the other hand, people will say Giving out so many awards may devalue the whole thing. But only 26 of the drive's 62 participants will get more than one award. Of those 26, 7 won't even receive a Barnstar. That leaves 19 - 30% of the drive's participants - receiving more than one Barnstar. That's not exactly a huge chunk of the participants. - • The Giant Puffin •  19:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that it would be more appropriate to have the highest award. I would feel kind of weird if I had five barnstars including four obtained for the same task. I expected to get the highest award I qualified for, and I thought it was matter of common sense.  Zouavman   Le   Zouave   17:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Hm. The way I feel is that the top three users get those wiki awards, from there we just go to the top award that one has earned. So me, Ludahai, and Captain Panda would receive two "official" awards, the others one. This is of course not counting if someone wants to give a barnstar to someone just because. So what The Giant Puffin says in the top couple sentences sounds right. Wizardman  18:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * My opinion (now) is that we should that the top three should receive their x wiki awards and the highest barnstar, the rest of us would receive the highest barnstar we can get. I really think 8 barnstars for this one task is ridiculous. Yes, they did a wonderful job, but the point of this drive was to reduce the backlog of unassessed articles, not win awards.  Psych  less   19:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed.  Zouavman   Le   Zouave   19:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems that for a longer and more sustained effort than the spring drive which was one month, scaling back the conferring of awards seems contradictory given the higher thresholds that were set and more than met. E.g. User:Carom, who participated in the spring drive but not to the same extent in this one, received 5 barnstars for assessing 1,405 articles.  The language in the Awards section of the current drive page is highly suggestive because it still states "you will be awarded one or more awards".  It does not say that you only get the highest that you qualify for and only that.  It also indicates that the awards for the top 3 positions are separate from this criterion (discussed above).


 * I like Psychless' suggestion above (still applicable?) that people be allowed to pick and choose what they want to receive and if some only want the highest they qualify for or others want say all x, then that is up to them because obviously everyone's take on the relative value of Wiki awards is highly subjective. Because discussion on this particular issue stopped in June, I was operating under the belief that Psychless' suggestion was what would apply.   Broken Sphere Msg me 19:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I support the suggest of giving the top award to each person and giving the top three people the wiki award as well as the highest award. It seems like the best idea, although I would not mind if it was done by each person choosing whatever awards they qualified for. Captain   panda  23:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * My apologizes for not responding for such a long timespan. I'm helping out with frosh week at my university from 8am to 10pm. I would like to ask everyone not to compare this drive with spring drive, as they should be treated individually. I will hand out 3 additional rewards to the top 3, but others will only get their top award. Obviously not going to give them out as I'm about to hit the sack, but I'll get it all straighten out during the weekend.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   04:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry if I can't help but compare this drive to the spring one, as I have no other frame of reference, but I still perceive there to be a striking disparity between this drive and the previous one in appearing to be underappreciative of more work, effort, and sacrifice over a more sustained period of time and not making this clear until post-drive while allowing such room for vagueness during the drive itself.  As a laborer I am only asking for what I perceive due.  No one posted any comments or tried to clarify the current position that appears to be restricting awards to the top ones you qualify for only until now, post-drive.  Why are we all of a sudden throwing out Psychless' suggestion that appeared to stand for the past 2 months?  I do not see the harm in being generous (you can be less next time) and if people want to be equally magnanimous in declining awards, then that's fine too.  Next time, make it very clear what will happen if awards are given out as well as the award criteria so that misunderstandings like this are less likely to occur.   Broken Sphere Msg me 04:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * (editing from university) The true purpose of this drive is to reduce backlog, not winning awards. Brokenshpere, in short, you got your priorities wrong and obsessed with awards. I'm pretty surprised that there's these problems in this drive because the other ones such as GAC backlog elimination drive have no problems about this because people know they're getting 1 award for helping out in 1 drive, even without stating it specificly. You should always go for the spirit, not the wordings on the page.   OhanaUnited    Talk page   15:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe that is true to some extent - I did find out about this drive on the TheTranshumanist's awards page after all where Psychless posted it. Now look at it from my POV - This is the first assessment drive I've participated in, so I have no other frame of reference for anything like this save the spring drive and how it turned out.  How can I not compare that drive to this one?  I took what I saw here in good faith based on what was put down in black and white at face value - I didn't try to read between the lines and second guess what the authors of the statements on the drive's talk page or on the drive's page meant.  This is not verbal communication where I might be able to detect nuances in meaning based on tone and the other person's demeanor.  So now at the end of the drive, I perceive that people are going back on their word and telling me to not focus on the awards now that I am bringing this issue up because of vagueness and lack of follow through that created the situation in the first place.  All I am asking is that the people uphold what they have said and not renege on what they have put forward and what has stood for months.
 * I have basically now gotten the sense that this drive asked for and got more work out of its participants above and beyond what was asked, but is now arbitrarily cutting back on what it suggested could be earned after the work was completed - how do you think that makes me feel? Now Wiki awards aren't the reason why we're here and we have our own reasons, but they do serve the purpose of providing some modicum of appreciation of all the work and effort that we sink into this project because we want to when we could be doing other things.  As I've said, their perceived value is highly subjective - I for example don't consider Wikismiles to be "awards" in the sense of the term while others do.  While I appreciate all the barnstars I've gotten, I also enjoy handing them out and have given out more than I've received.  If what has been put forward recently was the drive's intent in the first place, it should have been stated upfront and the language on the project modified to reflect that so that people really knew what they were getting into.  Maybe other assessors knew this but obviously I didn't and all I am asking for now is that all participants be given the option put forth by Psychless above that will let them pick and choose.  If you are concerned about the WP:Bio assessment drives turning into "get your Barnstar here" type of deals, then make this particular the one the last time it happens because of ambiguities.  Make it clear for a 3rd drive that it will be different from the Spring and Summer '07 drives in terms of awards distribution with clear, unambiguous language and do not assume that all potential participants will be able to read between the lines as OhanaUnited is suggesting I should have done but only found out about now.   Broken Sphere Msg me 15:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems there was an implied promise to hand out all the applicable rewards. Regardless of whether or not this was a good idea, is is very bad form to change the conditions after people have put in the work. I think that breaking the (implied) promise is much more harmful (to your personal credibility/future drives/Wikipedia) than handing out a few extra awards, to people who really want them. If you promise a reward for certain work, have people perform the work, then reduce the reward, it is basically a kind of fraud. Of course it was all done in good faith, but I think you are making a mistake if you change this now. ssepp(talk) 16:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to add that although my last post might sound a bit harsh, it doesn't mean I don't appreciate all the work the organizers have put into the drive. Without organizers, there would be no drive. ssepp(talk) 16:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that getting several awards for this drive is a little excessive and maybe only one should have been the reward from the beginning, a different one depending on which threshold you passed. However, I certainly got the impression from the drive page and the earlier comments above that all the awards would be given, and it's probable that many other people got that idea too. It's quite right that the goal should be reducing the backlog and we shouldn't be focussed on barnstars, but it's a fact that many people respond to rewards when persuing goals and many people are probably attracted to projects & drives by perceived rewards. I'm not saying that's right, we should be doing things for the good of wikipedia, that's what we're here for after all, and really barnstars don't really mean anything in reality. I do think though that things should have been clearer from the beginning, and it's not really fair to change the goalposts after the fact.-- Beloved Freak  17:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the best way to go might be to post a list of who potentially qualifies for what and then ask them to respond whether they want all the awards they could receive or only the "top" one, with maybe the default being all the awards. That way, those who signed on to get all the grades lowest to highest can still get them without being made to look particularly greedy for doing so, since that was kinda the implicit way it was supposed to go from the beginning. John Carter 18:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I've been asked for my opinion on this matter, and so I shall oblige. Forgive me for not reading through all of the above, but I'm only here to offer my ¢2, not to support or oppose any individual views (I'm only eligable for one barnstar anyway, so it makes little difference to me one way or the other). To me, there is no ambiguity at all regarding the wording in the "Awards" section on the drive page; it says "you will be awarded one or more awards", i.e. a barnstar, cookie or thanks based on the number of assessments made, plus a Wiki Award for each of the top three assessors. The idea that someone who made 5000+ assessments should get all seven awards seems somewhat silly to me, a bit like buying a single raffle ticket and expecting to win all the prizes. The Wiki Awards aside, I don't see any good reason why people should get multiple awards for doing the same task; that's not what the drive was for, and anyone participating just so they could slap a bunch of awards on their userpage was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Heck, what are these things worth anyway besides a bit of fun, it's not like you can cash them in or anything. The real reward should simply be in the knowledge that you've made a positive contribution to the project. So that's what I think, and you can make of it what you will. But whatever you guys decide, can it be done quickly and amicably? This drive has achieved much, and it would be an awful shame for things to end on a sour note. PC78 18:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify what I mean by Psychless' proposal put forth earlier which I keep alluding to, copy and pasted from earlier in this section and my emphasis added (please do not edit within the blockquote in order to preserve the integrity of the original discussion):

One final discussion, do you guys want both award and barnstar? Or just barnstar? (Using my example again) If you made 2000 assessments, do you want to receive: I would like to hear your ideas.
 * WikiThanks, WikiCookie, Original Barnstar, and Tireless Contributor Barnstar (and flooded your userpage with awards and barnstars)
 * 1 award and 1 barnstar? That is, WikiCookie and Tireless Contributor Barnstar
 * 1 award and many barnstars? WikiCookie, Original Barnstar, and Tireless Contributor Barnstar
 * Only the barnstar/award that you reached and nothing else? Tireless Contributor Barnstar

Note: The Golden, Silver, and Bronze WikiAward are handed out separately and are not part of this discussion. OhanaUnited   Talk page   05:24, 9 June 2007 (UTC)


 * How come there is no WikiMilk to go with the WikiCookie?   ludahai 魯大海 14:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I would prefer a single award rather than an assortment. Awadewit | talk  02:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

'''At the end of the drive have a place for people to sign if they do not want all awards. If they didn't sign this, and they really don't want all of the awards, they can just delete the ones they don't want, or they could create an awards sub page. --  Psych less '''Type words! 01:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Because of Psychless' role as lead coordinator for the drive, it has been my belief since I saw this posted that this was what would happen come post-drive. I am failing to understand why this has now been abandoned without further discussion and post-drive at that, when it has been left unmodified and unamended since June 12 and thus open to being construed as this is what will be done regarding the awards policy. Now that I have reraised the issue and am asking for some accountability in regards to these statements, I am basically being told to ignore this. Broken Sphere Msg me 21:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I have said that before, but I think repeating it won't hurt anybody. I would go for the last option "simply the highest award you earned".  Zouavman   Le   Zouave   22:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * This is why Psychless' the recipient gets to choose proposal makes sense by giving each person a choice as to what they would or would not like to receive. If I feel weird by having multiple barnstars from this drive then I can put my name down, but on the other hand if it doesn't bother me as much, then I won't.   Broken Sphere Msg me 22:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok here is my view since there seems to be confusion over it. The point of giving out the barnstars was to recognize the work they did for the drive. The barnstar should say "Person X assessed x amount of articles for WikiProject Biography's Summer Assessment Drive" or something very similar. I, and hopefully everyone who participated, appreciated the work of other assessors greatly. However, I don't agree with how the Spring Assessment Drive handed out awards (i.e. picking a few random awards and handing them out to everyone). Whether you receive one barnstar or ten barnstars you still assessed x amount of articles. I really think you should win one award for each task you did: assessing a certain amount of articles and being in the top three assessors. However, I was ambiguous when I wrote the awards section, so I'm not going to force anyone into accepting just one award. For the next drive, we will need to write the awards section clearer. While a disagreeing with accepting many awards for a bigger "pat on the back" we never made it clear enough you couldn't. It's too late for change it now, so let's just move on - it's just an image. Instead we should be celebrating our accomplishment of assessing over 100,000 articles, which is very amazing. Good job everyone.  Psych  less   01:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * So - will your previous proposal re. the method of accepting all/one/whatever via this list that was referred to now be implemented?  Broken Sphere Msg me 01:08, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Since I was amibiguous in my original wording, yes, if you qualify for the award you can have it. If you qualify for four awards you can have one, two, three, four, or zero awards: whatever you want.  Psych  less   01:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you. After that's implemented and sorted out I'll consider the matter closed.   Broken Sphere Msg me 01:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * My impression is that of everyone here, only you were upset about not getting more than 1 award. In real world, you always get the highest award. In Olympics 100m sprint, will you get gold, silver, and bronze medal all together just because you are the quickest to reach the finish line? I don't see any real life scenarios that rewards its recipients like what you describe. I, and almost everyone else, are happy enough even if we only get 1 award.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   03:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * You are still misconstruing my intent in raising this issue. I got more upset over what I have pointed out above: what appeared to be a lack of good faith among the drive's coordinators who said one thing 2 months ago, then later on changed their minds without making this intent clear to everyone else.  Meanwhile they apparently assumed that somehow other people were supposed to be able to read their minds based on vague language, and then had to be reminded about what they said when their actions were questioned while flip-flopping on their previously stated positions that have been outlined here and on the project page without apparent justification.
 * If you still cannot understand why I felt indignant about this and still think that it is because of an obssesion over Wiki awards, put yourself in this position - you tell me that I will get y if I do x for you; I accept what you say and do x in the expectation of getting y because this is what you said. Then after I do x and ask for y, which I am due and which you told me I would get, you give me z, which is not what you said you would give me for doing x.  You never said that you would give me z instead of y and you are now going back on your word to give me y.  I held up my end of the deal and I expect you to hold up yours.  This is not about the awards - it has gone beyond that to become a matter of principle and accountability.
 * Now based on what Psychless said, once his proposal is implemented and executed, let's learn from this whole drive experience, what worked and what didn't, what can done in the future, and move on.  Broken Sphere Msg me 05:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's really about the number of awards. I personally would prefer just to receive one, but I do think that an apparent change of mind from the original discussions without discussing it is unfair. I'm sure that was no one's intention, but as Psychless said, there was a lot of ambiguity. From what I've read, I don't think BrokenSphere's desperately trying to get ten barnstars, but is more concerned with fairness & consistency. Anyway, hopefully we can all move on now & no doubt any future drives will be far more clearly worded. -- Beloved Freak  10:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So you're pointing your finger at me for Psychless' ambiguity? OhanaUnitedTalk page 15:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Who me, or BrokenSphere? I'm not pointing fingers at anyone for anything.-- Beloved Freak  17:03, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You're cool. I'm referring to BrokenSphere. OhanaUnitedTalk page —Preceding unsigned comment added by OhanaUnited (talk • contribs) 18:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Whoever wrote the language re. the awards on that section of the project page. What was said earlier in this section in early June is quite clear.   Broken Sphere Msg me 05:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * So much discussion over awards. As for me, I have my golden wiki.  Personally, the highest level barnstar and the wikithanks and cookie are enough for me.  However, I think each participat should be able to choose as the wording in the drive page is rather unclear regarding the number of awards to be awarded.  I am just glad we got the backlog down a bit - though I hoped we could have gotten it under 50,000.  Well, I will come back for some more during the Chinese New Year break.  ludahai 魯大海 11:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Have the awards been handed out now? I don't want to complain about missing the wikithanks I believed that I'd earned when so many others worked so much harder than I did, but if there was some problem with my assessments then it would be useful to know for future reference. Cheers, Espresso Addict 16:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, we need to reach a consensus on this matter before more awards are handed out. OhanaUnitedTalk page 09:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I think we should let the assessor choose if he wants to receive just the highest award or several awards according to his assessment count. It'd be both silly and awful if we lost some dedicated assessors because of something like this. MahangaTalk 14:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems that Psychless is busy and unable to participate in the discussion like the rest of us as of late. OhanaUnited, have the 2 of you been communicating regarding this?  Because it seems that otherwise you're both sending mixed messages about this issue now and at this point I'm tending to go on what Psychless said earlier on Sept. 7.  Also, is it possibly a bit late to be calling for a consensus on this issue?   Broken Sphere Msg me 15:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * This is my last and final proposal in the hopes that it will compromise both sides. I will hand out 1 award + 1 barnstar + golden/silver/bronze wiki (if applicable) to everyone that qualifies for awards. Then if anyone who wish to get more than one, leave your name here, not my talk page and I'll dish them out afterwards. OhanaUnitedTalk page 02:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Blimey, we're not still debating this are we? As I said above, the wording on the project page seems perfectly straightforward to me, but Psychless already seems to have made a decision on this issue (above, 7 Sep), so if BrokenSphere wants his multitude of awards then let's just give them to him and be done with it. As for myself, the barnstar will do just fine, so please don't bother with the wikithanks or cookie. PC78 08:05, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Anti-awards?
Can we have anti-awards for people who generate the most number of complaints? :-) Actually, unless Category:20th century deaths has been added to WP:WPBio recently, then you might not get many complaints. Good luck with the assessing, but please can I ask that people don't take the race too seriously? It is better to read and assess ten articles accurately (and learn something), rather than rush through 100 articles. Carcharoth 16:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, Carcharoth, with your last point. I keep having to stop and read the article I'm about to assess, do a little clean-up, leave a template behind, click on another link, end up reading about the history of the Ming dynasty, forget what it was I was doing, etc, etc... :) María ( habla  con migo ) 16:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but this idea is against WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. I have caught someone giving out wrong assessment ratings but I didn't go ranting about this. I left a message on his talk page and ask him to be more careful next time. I think you can follow this as well to resolve this problem.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   17:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I apologize if I missed something, but who's ranting? I see Carcharoth's comment as a friendly reminder to take one's time in assessing articles, something I highly agree with.  Maybe we should all AGF, yeah?  María ( habla  con migo ) 17:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * You read it wrong. Seems like I have to repeat this phrase that I told my buddies plenty times. "MSN (or anything in text) is the worse way of communication because you can't see the expression of the person who wrote it." On another note, I would encourage people to tag new articles that are not tagged. A good way to spot them is go to your local artist, politican, singer, or musician's page and start Wikilink-surfing. I just hope that everyone's still having good health and not take this kind of assessment as a full time job where you have to skip lunch to do 10 extra article assessments.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   17:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I didn't read anything wrong, I just didn't taste the flavoring you added to the stew. Perhaps sarcasm (is that correct?) would be easier to detect if it were alluded to, what with the textual innuendo so hard to catch and all.  What am I, a mind reader? ;)  (Note winky-smiley for playful comment.) María ( habla  con migo ) 18:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * May I remind everyone to remember WP:AAGF - • The Giant Puffin •  19:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Huh? It was joke with a serious point to it. Sheesh. Maria took my comments in exactly the spirit they were meant, for which I'm grateful. Carcharoth 22:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

First Week
Congrats everyone! 12k+ articles assessed in the first week. At this rate we could easily wipe out the entire backlog of Unassessed articles by the end of August. --Ozgod 11:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The non-bio parameter
I have tried my hand at assessing a few articles, avoiding the stubby ones in favour of the start/B class ones, and I came across Duke of Somerset, which comes across as a cross between a list of bios of different Dukes of Somerset at various times, and an overview of the history of this title. I've left it as a bio article, as it contains lots of biographical information, but was wondering what advice people would give about this sort of thing? There are also various "family" articles floating around as well, such as Fry family (chocolate). These shouldn't use the non-bio parameter, should they? But should some sort of label be used to distinguish these from ordinary bios about a single person? Carcharoth 12:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I also removed the WP-Bio tag from the talk page of Forrest Gump. The article is about the film, not the character, it is a fictitious character, and if film people want to work on it, they have the film WP tag, and don't need the film bio-work-group tag. Carcharoth 12:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hang on. Does that count for the total. No, don't answer that, as I don't care about the totals! :-) Carcharoth 13:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I've run across a few movies and non-biography related articles in the filmmakers and actors section, as well. From what I gather, they were added by a bot to incorporate the film-bio workgroup, and it made a few mistakes because of the articles' eponymous titles like Forrest Gump and Annie Hall.  No biggie, I've just been removing them.  Silly bots.  María ( habla  con migo ) 13:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Just removed one from Lighting technician... Do you think Duke of Somerset is a list or a bio? I don't like the list class, because lists themselves should be assessed in the same way as articles. Carcharoth 13:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, man, I'm not sure. Technically the article is about a title and not an individual person, so I'd be tempted to remove it, but I can see how others could argue otherwise.  María ( habla  con migo ) 13:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * How about The Yes Men (about an activist organisation, rather than a person). I was going to remove the WP-Bio tag, but then realised that that would leave it with no WikiProject. Though that wouldn't be a disaster, I would prefer to replace it with something else. How are articles about music groups handled? Carcharoth 13:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there some sort of organisations wikiproject that deals with that sort of thing? Its definately not a biography, but I cant think of a wikiproject that it would fit in to - • The Giant Puffin •  18:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I dumped it on the Film and WikiProject Sociology projects... There, it is out of our hands! :-) Carcharoth 13:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Removing the template? Uh oh
Just pointing out guys, we need to keep an eye out for people who are removing the biography templates and our assessments. I rechecked by contributions and found a guy who's blanked a couple due to no comments after the article being assessed. I notified User:Opus33, one who I found blanking. I assumed good faith and told him about our drive, so we'll see about that. If you know of anyone else post them here so we can keep an eye out on them.-- Wizardman 15:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You can keep track of that at the end of each two day period by reviewing Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Biography articles by quality log. Look down the list and see if articles have been removed because they have been deleted, or if they have been removed because the tag has been removed, or if the assessment has been changed. Though having said that, I can't work out why there are so many "removed" on that log, when as far as I can see, they haven't been removed! Carcharoth 16:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Having said that, I agree with Opus33 that if someone requests comments, we should supply them. Hopefully a bit more helpful than at Talk:Joseph Haydn/Comments, but still, it only takes a few seconds more to say what needs doing to reach the next level of assessment, about the same time as it takes to read the article. Surely an AWB script can come up with standard reccommendations that can be adapted on the fly by those doing assessments that way? Carcharoth 16:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep in mind that not everyone is able to use AWB because of its 500 mainspace article requirement. You could be the winner of this assessment drive race and still not able to use it. The admin in charge doesn't give a crap if you assessed 10,000 articles, answer 1000 questions at help desk, or partcipated in numerous MfD, AfD, RfA; he will just turn you down for approval to use it because you're not a "trusted member". And I was turned down as one of those "not-trusted member".  OhanaUnited    Talk page   18:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Update - I've left comments on the three articles I could find where User:Opus33 asked for comments: Talk:Joseph Haydn/Comments, Talk:Ignaz Pleyel/Comments, Talk:Anne Darwin/Comments. This is an important part of improving the articles. I realise there is a backlog to clear, but leaving comments really, really shouldn't be brushed aside in favour of a race to the finish line. Also, I suggest people use an edit summary that points people to the assessment drive and says "if you want more comments, ask me on my talk page". Carcharoth 17:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, certainly if someone asks for comments we should supply them. I'm just saying that asking for comments is certainly better than flat out removing the template.-- Wizardman 17:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * On the subject of that log, we need to make sure to check that every so often, I reverted about 10-15 talk pages of vandal blanking.-- Wizardman 17:33, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

He seems to be the gatekeeper on that article, he deleted the template back in March as well, and did it again at least twice after that - • The Giant Puffin •  18:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Just my thoughts: I think it's at the very least bad form to remove a template that was placed by a project, regardless of whether it's been assessed or not. Providing comments is optional and highly recommended but, not required and not a reason to remove the template. If there is disagreement on whether an article is within the scope of a particular project, discuss it on the article's or project's talk page. The same with the assessment. -- Kimon talk 19:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Every time WP1.0 bot updates the biography logs, I check for articles that were removed, and for articles that were upgraded to FA, A or GA class. It takes quite some time, but I think it's worth it. Er rab ee 17:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the template on four or five pages. One was clearly a case of inappropriate use of bio (meaning it wasn't a bio article). The others were all for redirect pages. ludahai 魯大海 14:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Opus33 has now resorted to just blanking our comments from his talk page, as shown in his talk page history - • The Giant Puffin •  17:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * At this point, can we through "Assume Good Faith" out the door? Will anyone press for action against him?  ludahai 魯大海 02:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

List Class dilemma
If you assess an article as List, it will still be in the unassessed category. I think altering the template to accept List class would be more trouble than it's worth. The servers don't need that kind of strain. I think we should just assess list articles as normal articles. It would get B if the list was complete, or very close and it had references. Post your comments on this idea, and if consensus agrees with me then the page should have a notice about this. --  Psych less Type words! 17:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Nothing we can do about. The bot doesn't accept List, Template, Disambig (Dab), Category (Cat) or N/A. I have asked this question to an admin somewhile ago, and he says he's not sure about this. He directs me to look at WikiProject_Religion/Assessment. What puzzles me is that there are articles tagged as list-class in this religion project, yet the bot doesn't recognize it as unassessed-class. However, going to the bot's page, it doesn't show any recently tagged lists treated as list-class, but instead assessed as stub class. There has to be a way to make the bot ignore list and non-article class. I just asked Warlordjohncarter because he tagged a list-class article recently and now I'm waiting for his answer.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   18:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It would certainly be preferable if the bot did accept list-class articles. Many of the articles on here are lists, and yet they are still officially seen as unassessed, even if the list-class is applied. If we could get the bot to recognise list-class articles, I think it should be done. It would help to clear the categories a bit more - • The Giant Puffin •  18:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Warlordjohncarter answered me. He said he don't know.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   12:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm fairly positive it's the template not the bot. I'm looking over the template to see how it could be altered right now. --  Psych less Type words! 20:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, lists can be and are featured. Other projects I've seen have simply give featured lists FA-class, and I strongly believe that the best thing is to classify things as lists another way (using the template), and to assess lists like any other article (stub, start, B, GA, A, FA). Carcharoth 08:12, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Carcharoth, please read what I wrote and think about it before you type it out. What I meant is that the major contributor/creator of the article don't score points, NOT the person doing the assessments. I stronlgy oppose the idea that only people specialized in the area are allowed to rate it. Once again, Wikipedia is a collabration project. It is intended for everyone to do stuff, not a few selected individuals receiving special privilieges.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   15:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Um. This is nonsensical because you have put your comment in the wrong section (search for "points" and you will find the right section). Would you like to move it to the right section, or shall I? For the record, I was talking about people doing the assessments getting points. What do you think the 'race' for awards on the front page of this drive is all about? Carcharoth 14:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Where is the list?
Where is the list of articles that need assessment? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Category:Unassessed biography articles contains all articles tagged with the WP:BIO template that have not yet received an assessment. Carom 02:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment Committee?
I have a sugesstion - due to recent removals of the WPBIO tag on some article pages, is that after the Summer Assesstment Drive is over, we sweep through all the Stub/Start article, providing comments as to why they are only of that class and improvements they can use. The Winter Comment Drive :-P :) --Ozgod 05:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, the old "do it in two separate stages or do it all at once" dilemma! I still think a boilerplate comment could be added to all stubs and starts. There are several standard reasons that crop up again and again - lack of pictures, lead section needs expanding, some sections are short and stubby, material is not organised into sections, lacks references, and so on. It should be possible to have those (and others) as options to check when assessing, and dump a bullet-pointed list into the comments section. Even better would be if that included categories, so you could then go to a category of articles lacking in one particular way, and work on improving that. Some such categories already exists, such as the ones for "needs a picture", but more could be done on this. Would be quite a lot of work to set up though. Carcharoth 09:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I have no skill at scripting, but if this could configured into Outriggr's Assessment Script (possibly via checkboxes and a comment entry bar), so when we do the assessment it automatically does the assessment and leaves the comments we placed in the bar on the comment page for the Article. --Ozgod 11:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Something automated would certainly make it easier and faster. Stub articles all need basic improvements like expansion, sources, etc. Most start articles need more sources and basic expansion. Although there would be a few exceptions, automated comments would apply to the bulk of start and stub articles, so somehow building that into the template would be very usefel. As for B articles, maybe a link to GA criteria would be appropriate? - • The Giant Puffin •  12:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I would also say link to FA as well as GA. Some of the better B-class articles have editors who look down on GA and see it as an insult to suggest they go there, and are aiming directly for FA. As for A-class articles, how many formal processes are in place for that? As far as I know, not that many, but if people are aware of relevant ones, then link to those as well. Carcharoth 13:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thats true. Linking to GA and FA for B-class articles would be preferable. We could also link to FA criteria for GA- and A-class articles, as that is the next step to take in most cases - • The Giant Puffin •  18:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

My opinion on it is this. If the article is a stub or start it should be fairly obvious how to improve it. If it isn't obvious then it probably isn't a stub or start article. To give suggestions on how to improve a B class article is essentially giving it a peer review. Also, if someone is trying to improve an article to GA or FA from B a link to the criteria isn't useful at all. I really don't see any point in giving every article comments. If someone wants to improve an article they will seek comments. But if we must give articles comments, then The Winter Comment Drive will be the best option, in my opinion. And if we do than Outriggr, or anyone with good scripting skills for that matter, needs to design us a script so we can use a bullet point format. Unless doing it by hand sounds like fun, there's only 300,000 articles or so that need comments... --  Psych less Type words! 19:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Although that would be endless hours of fun for all of us, I think a scripting option would be best. And comments are useful in stub/start articles, as some people may want to improve the article but don't know specifically is required. Either way, it makes things easier for future improvement - • The Giant Puffin •  20:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I have a different winter idea which might work. We either have the aforementioned comment drive (stub and start only, or maybe even stub only), or we have some sort of destubbifying drive, trying and get many articles up to start class. Either one we go would be hard though.-- Wizardman 22:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * A comment drive on stub-class articles is not really effective, I think. There is still so much to expand upon with stubs, that I wouldn't even know where to start. To a lesser degree this is also the case for Start-class articles. Where comments are really helpful, is with B-class articles. These contain the majority of the material needed, but need help in presentation, where gaps in material are, etc. Er rab ee 23:23, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * In retrospect a drive would be silly - but an updated script with a comment bar would be extremely helpful. --Ozgod 02:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, but I think it would be difficult to implement. Er rab ee 08:12, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that comments for the most part for stub and start class articles are pointless. The weaknesses and needs are usually pretty obvious.  After this rating drive is over, I will endeavor to upgrade any Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan, or Vietnamese related article to start status, though this will take a lot of time.  ludahai 魯大海 15:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

List class again
I see that we are now assessing lists as normal, and not using List-class. Is there any alternative way to tag lists as lists? Also, would articles about titles, and the history of titles, count as non-bios? See my edit here for an example. The Peerage workgroup category has a lot of these lists as well. I'll find some more examples. Carcharoth 18:44, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Talk:Pre-1876 Life Peerages is a classic example of a list.
 * Duke of Somerset is a bit more complicated. It is a mish-mash of a history of the title (the first bit of the article), various biographies of people who held the titles, and then various lists at the end. I've rated it start, but left it within the scope of WP-BIO (ie. not put non-bio=yes), as it does still contain biographical material.

I suppose my question is whether a list containing nothing more than birth and death dates is still a WP-BIO article. My thoughts are now changing to think that it is still a biographical article, but we do need some way to label them as lists. Carcharoth 18:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Since we are assessing List articles as normal, are there any guidelines on how to assess them? I am a bit confused as to what would make a list a stub- or a start-class article for example. -- Beloved freak  12:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Not to name names...
We do need to keep going through our logs. Some people think this:

"Removing ratings - you shouldn't rate unless you leave comments"

"These banners serve no useful purpose, please don't post them."

Look out for people like this and try to make them see reason. We cannot peer review 100,000 articles. --  Psych less Type words! 15:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC) 21:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * He even removed it from an article where I had added comments. I will discuss on his talk page. Carcharoth 00:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I especially like his comments here as to why . --Ozgod 02:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Letter Focus?
I propose that we focus our efforts on one letter at a time. Let's say we start with, say: B. Under the header ==Leter Focus== we would put:

We are currently focusing on the letter: B Sign up for a subsection of the letter:
 * Ba-Bd - User1
 * Be-Bg - User 2

I think this will help since we will more easily be able to see progress. We will have to sign up for a subsection though, so two editors aren't working on the same section. Post your thoughts on this... --  Psych less Type words! 03:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Or we could sign up for sections of 200 articles? --  Psych less Type words! 03:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I am focusing on letter combinations common for Chinese names so I can also tag them with WikiProject Taiwan and WikiProject China tags. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ludahai (talk • contribs).

Drive Userbox
I was wondering if we wanted to have a userbox for the drive. This would be the current version. When the drive is over it can be edited to a past tense version. When there is another drive it could be edited to say "This user is invited to join the Biography Project's Autumn Assessment Drive" or the like for a period of a week before being switched back to the past tense version. What do you think? -Thereen 07:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I just put it on my userpage.  Like I needed another userbox... ")  ludahai 魯大海 15:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thats a good userbox, I'll add it to my userpage - • The Giant Puffin •  17:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Good userbox, I'll add it to my page. I hope we won't need another assessment drive though. --  Psych less Type words! 23:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

A VERY Important Notice
We need one person, or better yet two people to check up regularly on Opus33's contributions. Please alert an administrator immediately if he starts removing our template again, our is convincing other people to do the same. He apparently doesn't have a very thorough knowledge of how Wikipedia works, despite him having many months of experience here. Check our logs often to make sure other people aren't doing this as well. I'm not sure if he is really done removing our template. --  Psych less Type words! 23:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Luckily, although disruptive, his edits to talk pages are few. Since I'm an admin, I'll take action if it gets to that point.-- Wizardman 00:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * From what I can see, he does good work on writing the encyclopedia. If I may give advice that applies here, as well as in similar cases over the coming months during the assessment drive, don't push this just to prove a point. You will meet other editors (often those who write good content in specific areas, but don't venture much outside of that) who object to drive-by assessments with little feedback, so a bit of diplomacy from the assessors is probably the best way to avoid ruffled feathers from these writers. As for the current situation, I think it can be managed as it is at the moment. He seems to have got the message, and having lots of different people trying to push the point home won't really help. Part of experience on Wikipedia is being able to judge when to push a point and when to leave it. Just be nice when people complain, and try to de-escalate any situations, rather than saying "I will take action if I need to". Explain, and if someone doesn't understand, explain again. :-) Carcharoth 01:27, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I would like to apologize for not being as nice as I could have to him. However, what I don't like is that he still thinks we're doing something completely wrong, he's just going to ignore it. We can probably leave it in this situation, but next time it'd be better if we got the person to understand. Most of my anger at him was because he completely ignored my request to discuss the situation on my talk page. Hopefully the next situation will go better than this one. --  Psych less Type words! 03:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think he removed the discussion on purpose during archiving. Anyways, someone needs to run the main page's bot manually, it's not updating itself.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   04:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I restored what he tried to delete, so his third archive now includes our messages - • The Giant Puffin •  15:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, that is really not necessary. Trust me. People are allowed to selectively archive, and remove warnings, and there have been lengthy discussions about this. See Removing warnings for some history. Apologies if you already know this. Carcharoth 01:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Anyways, I'll try to run the bot again, I've tried to run it three times but it stops before it gets all the way through. -- Psy  c  h  less   17:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Carcharoth, who showed true courtesy in putting comments on Joseph Haydn when I asked, and in redirecting me when I couldn't find them. The comments are useful, and I'm working on addressing them. As for you others, I will refrain from comment, other than to suggest you read Golding's Lord of the Flies. There's no need for a high-level alert, since I will not be deleting any more of your little boxes. Opus33 20:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Please be WP:CIVIL. I quite like Flies, though I fail to see your analogy.  We aren't little warring teenage boys on an island, we're just assessing to better serve the WikiProject and therefore all biography articles on Wikipedia.  María ( habla  con migo ) 20:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * There are lots more where Opus33 came from. I've been following his edits to Joseph Haydn, and he is also improving the encyclopedia. Please, please, when there is a culture clash like this between writers and assessors (and I know some are both), just politely tip-toe around each other and don't make a spectacle out of it. Carcharoth 01:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't run the bot manually, it stopped in the middle as well.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   04:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I really want to laugh at Opus's reply on Wizardman's talk page. Let's see what he talked about:
 * Hello Wizardman, sorry if reverting the template seems rude; at least, that isn't my purpose in reverting. Rather, I'm doing a little bit of civil disobedience re. a project that I think is not a good idea, and is creating a certain amount of unhappiness among other editors. Thank you for responding courteously to my revert. Yours sincerely, Opus33 18:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think he's going to offend a lot of people if he thinks biography project is not a good idea. And when he said unhappiness among other editors, he meant himself. Does anyone else spot someone is unhappy other than him? If he's planning to go for RfA, I will be the first to oppose strongly. OhanaUnited   Talk page   10:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think this (a public forum) is a proper place to patronize/threaten/humiliate a fellow editor, OhanaUnited, despite this user's strange ideas and statements. Again, let's be WP:CIVIL.  This thread had a purpose, and that was to warn of certain users reverting assessments.  I propose we end this discussion.  María ( críticame ) 12:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I was stating the truth, wasn't I? Wikipedia is open to people with different opinions, but not for people stepping over the line. If he disagrees with the assessment, he should come here and ask for reassessments instead of removing the template. I (and most of us) think this is rude.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   12:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's rude, but that doesn't mean you need to return it with similar rudeness. If you disagree with the user's disagreement of the assessment, then at least bring it up with them personally.  However, it would seem that they've moved on, and that comment you quoted above was made a week ago.  Again, please let's keep this talk page for relevant issues pertaining to the project.  María ( críticame ) 12:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, there are disadvantages to very large wikiprojects like this one, but this probably isn't the right time to go into detail on that. Carcharoth 22:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this "project" is going to offend a lot of people (the ones writing articles) if it continues with its hamfisted, zero-input, zero-addition, misbegotten, misapplied, and mismanaged effort to stamp every article on the site with a rating that has every bit as much meaning as it does deliberation, which has as much validity as it took time to produce, which is absolutely as helpful as it is individually considered. I am pleased as punch to never write above a "start class" biography.  Scavengers are happiest when their targets are dead.  Geogre 22:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
 * What is your suggestion for change, then Geogre? Was there something in particular that happened with an assessment rating that offended you personally? --Ozgod 23:32, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that people do a couple things. 1) Make sure you know something about the topic.  Many of the articles tagged as start-class contain all the available information about that person; the start-class rating has clearly been put there in thirty seconds or less, based on the length of the article, or some other feature visible to someone who has never heard of the person being assessed.  2) Make sure you know something about the available sources, for the same reason.  These things will take time, and will of course slow down the assessment drive.  But as it is being run, at speed, by bots, by non-experts, indeed by people who in many cases know absolutely nothing about the topics being assessed, this drive is actively harming Wikipedia.
 * I think the drive should stop at once, but do not seriously expect you to heed my advice. Failing in that, I'd like to see people actually try to learn something about a topic before assessing its article.  Thank you, Antandrus  (talk) 23:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Geogre, we'd be happy to improve in an area, but hurling insults at us and calling our work useless doesn't help anyone. Antandrus, we aren't all professors, and you don't have to be one to assess an article's quality. If it has references and good coverage of the subject it is B class. Researching each article we assess to make sure we give it the correct rating would be optimal, but isn't realistic for a project of this magnitude. If an article, or a group of articles, has been assessed wrongly bring it up here, or at the assessor's talk page and the assessor or assessors will look over the article more thoroughly and reassess it if necessary. Some articles aren't going to be assessed properly, but we try to make sure as many as possible or assessed properly. Assessments should be viewed as a way of helping us find articles that need improvement. No, we will not be stopping the drive at once. I really don't consider the assessments to be actively harming Wikipedia. Irritating a few editors is not actively harming Wikipedia. Large wikiprojects such as these require organizational activities that do not directly improve Wikipedia. This is one of such activities. I welcome any reasonable suggestions  Psych  less   00:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I might add I have actually seen articles that were previously orphaned get development after being assessed. I also try, when I have the time, to tag the articles appropriately (for referencing, notability, expansion, etc.). I do not see the harm in assessments, really. I take the time peruse each article I am reviewing and give it an appropriate class. For future editors who wish to expand, they can see it falls into the Stub or Start category. They then can refer to the criteria for classes in the Biography project and see what the article is lacking, or requiring to get it to its next class assessments. I will be honest; I am aware some subjects are so obscure they may forever languish in the Stub/Start class, but the hope is they will be better developed by future editors (if not personally tagged by myself for future researching @ the library). --Ozgod 02:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Stub or Start doesn't mean the article sucks. It just means that there're still plenty of things that can be added to the article.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   06:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * There are cases though where an editor has clearly assessed an article purely on length, without noticing that there are sources, and without realising that that (a) all available sources have been used; and (b) all available information has been included. I suspect what is needed here is some way of having the original authors rate these articles as B-class, but tag the assessment as requiring confirmation by an independent expert in the subject area. We also need a way to say things like "no picture likely to be available", rather than "picture needed". Carcharoth 08:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

BTW, using fairly old pictures from war zones to humorously illustrate Wikipedia conflict is probably fine, but using ones from recent conflicts, involving recent deaths, seems wrong to me. I'm removing the second picture. Carcharoth 08:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

There are indeed cases where articles are incorrectly assessed. Some are rated start class when they are in fact a b or stub class, and visa-versa. This does not mean, however, that this assessment drive is harmful to Wikipedia. As Psychless said, irritating a few editors does not mean it is harming Wikipedia. We are trying to better organise the huge numbers of biography articles on Wikipedia. If you can think of a much better way to do so, go ahead and suggest it. Otherwise, quite frankly, you will just have to put up with it. This sort of assessment drive greatly increases the chances of articles being improved in the future because rating articles tells us what state each article is in. It is true that many topics' articles will simply remain at stub or start class forever, and there's little we can do about that. Just because all of the information on the topic has been found, that does not automatically make it a B-class article or above, as many of these articles are poorly organised as well as short in length. We simply cannot become experts on every article we review and assess, it is not practical and is near-impossible. We do the best we can with what knowledge we have. A drive like this brings together many different people to help reduce the backlog, indeed over 50 people are currently helping. This brings a whole range of knowledge on different people and topics to the table. Perhaps those who criticise could bring their knowledge to the table to help us some more - • The Giant Puffin •  13:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * We have reached Wikipedia's limit. Not just our assessments, but also GA and FA process cannot guarantee that the article that is about to be promoted is being read and facts vertified by experts in that particular field. Unless there's a system during registration where we have to state what fields we are interested in and then assigned to be in that field's workgroup to be in charged of all assessments and promotion processes, this situation is unavoidable.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   16:36, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the best thing that could be done is to make more specific workgroups. Workgroups that cover over 40,000 articles each don't really help, at all. I'm starting to create a plan to implement a new set of workgroups. I will post this at the main project talk in a few days.  Psych  less   18:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

My 2 cents worth, as an editor and new-content writer: I have been very frustrated with the ratings as well. I have written hundreds of articles on Spanish colonial officials in America and the Philippines (viceroys and governors), mostly from scratch. A majority of these articles are from Spanish sources only, because there is little or nothing available on the subjects in English. I look at my contribution then as not just to Wikipedia, but to the English historical literature. But nearly all of my articles have been rated Stub or Start. I can't help feeling that this was done by people who have no idea what information is available in any language, and who very well might not even read the primary language. These are comprehensive articles, based on the available sources. I believe the current ratings are very inappropriate. It is much better not to rate articles at all than to rate them badly and inappropriately.

As to this project annoying a small number of editors. I would hazard the guess it is annoying a very large number of editors. They are just not well organized. And that is harmful to Wikipedia. --Rbraunwa 17:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The ultimate aim of the assessment drive is not to clear the backlog, but to encourage article growth and improvement and highlight the areas where work needs to be done to raise articles up to the level of GA and FA. Having looked at your extremely prolific contributions, many could be raised a class or several simply by using inline citations and occasionally copy-editing - i.e. ticking the boxes. Don't assume that given grades are a fair assessment of articles - they are extremely subjective, and with only three main grades to award, a narrow assessment. RHB - Talk 20:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Discussion on template change
Please look at my proposal and comment on it. -- Psy  c  h  less   17:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The template has been updated. See here for the bot discussion. -- Psy  c  h  less   00:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I like it. Thank you for your work on it. ludahai 魯大海 23:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, unfortunately we aren't finished yet. Trying to figure out how to transclude the comments into the show/hide section... -- Psych  less   02:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The template update is now finished, I think. Comment on the proposal to implement it here. For a more interesting version of the events that took place see here. -- Psych  less   04:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot
I tried to run the bot to update the total articles assessed, but it didn't work. Is there a problem with it? Awadewit | talk  03:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I also have this problem. The bot stopped after reaching 460. I think, but this is only guessing, that IE has a time limit on how long a page loads before disconnects. Since the bot limits how many times it gooes to the server per minute, if the assessment has too many items then it will exceed IE's limit and disconnects regardless if it's finished or not.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   05:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That isn't it. Oleg said it's the server that cuts you off. Either way I guess we just have to wait... -- Psych  less   18:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The only way to get the job done is to ask Oleg to speed up the bot so that it finishes prior to the server cuts the connection off.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   04:39, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Kudos to Everyone
We got the total number of unassessed articles below 100,000 - way to go everyone! --Ozgod 14:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * At the current rate, you should be able to get it done before the end of July, a whole month early!! Carcharoth 17:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That would be amazing :). Keep up the good work everyone! -- Psych  less   18:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems like everyone's doing their part. Even the guy with under 50, every part counts. Remember if you find tagless bios, rate them too. I'm exhausted with my pace yet I'm only in 4th...-- Wizardman 23:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I've done less than 20, I think... But if I get a bot to do 50,000, do I win? :-) There is a list of 1000 WPBiography-tagless articles floating around somewhere. I'll trade that in for, ooh, 10,000 points or so. :-) Carcharoth 00:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * In regards to tagless biographies. I've recently had this odd obsession with clicking random article and adding a relevant wikiproject template on it's talk page if it has none. It's unsettling how many times I've had to add the WPBiography template. Even more unsettling how many articles aren't part of a wikiproject. -- Psych  less   02:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Behold - our next project! Scouring for untagged biography articles and tagging newly created ones. All of us will have OCD when this over (if ever). --Ozgod 02:26, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I have really enjoyed this so far. I am reading about a lot of interesting people I have never heard of before.  I am also helping other Wikiprojects (like WikiProject Taiwan and CHina both of which I also work on) by tagging relevant articles with their templates as well.  Thank you guys for giving me the impetus to kill three birds with one stone in this way.  ludahai 魯大海 00:29, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Psychless, I do the same thing. I typically go to the main page and click on some of the biographical articles from the Did You Know, On This Day, and In the News sections and add the WPBIO template and assess them. I think the next project could be assigning WikiProject templates to articles that don't have one. For example, Wiki is not associated with any WikiProject! MahangaTalk 04:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there has been a lot of WPBiography tagging in the past (though still ongoing) using categories like Category:Living people and Category:Births by year and Category:Deaths by year. The real way to tackle this is to watch the source - get a bot to provide a weekly list of newly created articles, looking for typical birth/death date and category material (eg. living people), and use a check-list to add in all the things that people typically forget: birth/death date categories, living people category, talk page WPBiography tags, Persondata and so on - not forgetting that PRODing may be the best way to deal with a new article that probably won't survive AfD. One thing that is severely lacking though is sortkeys to help biographical lists and categories appear in the right order. There are several overlapping systems at the moment, and the data is spread around or non-existent. DEFAULTSORT, Persondata, listas (in WPBiography template), and (most commonly) in the pipe-sorting bit of one or more of the categories. See Bots/Requests for approval/Polbot 3 and User:Polbot/ideas/defaultsort for details.

So I think the next big project should be assigning the correct DEFAULTSORT sort keys to articles that don't have them. You could set up a script to default to "LAST NAME, NAMES", and humans checking the script would correct the cases where this was incorrect (eg. Prince John of the United Kingdom). Either that, or a big push to add Persondata to more biographical articles. Carcharoth 16:48, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I just hope that when people start doing the alphabets, they should also tag related workgroups because many fall into their workgroup categories but haven't tagged yet.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   09:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * We're now under 90,000 assessed articles. In a nutshell, getting the backlog to 0 by the end of August is now very possible, we're on pace to hit 0 around August 25-26, assuming the top 4/5 people keep going at their pace.-- Wizardman 22:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm tickled pink by all this, to be honest. After that I think we all really focus in on our respective workgroups now that we will have thousands of articles now correctly assigned to them. And of course, watching all new articles coming in hourly. --Ozgod 23:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Wizardman - My pace should pick up in July and August as those two months are relative down times for me in terms of work. I will be working on Chinese history articles, but I will keep up with assessing articles as well.  ludahai 魯大海 10:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm glad that the assessment drive has been a success so far. If anyone would like to help with tagging articles that haven't been tagged, then articles in Category:Uncategorized people would be a great place to start. Add categories to the article as well though :). Please check this out too! -- Psych  less   16:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * This is light work for you Ludahai? Wow, 90% chance you're gonna win then. But yeah, i never thought of looking in that category, that should help. And since i'm takign part in Gnome Week i can double dip there.- Wizardman 23:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Anyone who has access to AWB please do a favour for me. Drop a note to the active assessment members and tell them when doing A-Z, continue to put those individuals into workgroups if applied. I just did 20 assessments and 19 of them can be put into workgroups. The only individual left out is because there's no workgroup for business people.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   09:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Religious figures also do not have a work group. -- Psych  less   18:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Kudos to everyone, again
Everyone's done a great job so far. We know have less than 80,000 articles left! Sadly of the 315,000 articles assessed so far only almost 11,000 are B-Class or above, which is about 3.5% of articles assessed. For more numbers check out the main assessment page, the tables there should be updated for June shortly. Keep up the good work everyone.  Psych  less   13:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to mention that in the course of assessing I've found hundreds of articles that weren't tagged with WP:Bio that I tagged and assessed along the way, so there's still a universe of untagged bio articles out there too; given the objective of this drive however, which is to assess unassessed articles, I wouldn't put worry too much about finding untagged articles. Yes I did find them, but it's really hit and miss. -- Broken Sphere 18:08, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * There may be as many as 50-100,000 articles we haven't tagged yet. Some of these are "known", i.e. they're in a category my bot hasn't got to yet, others aren't known about (miscategorised, recently created, etc). My bot is currently doing Category:Uncategorised people which will add about another 1000 or so. --kingboyk 22:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If we want to get it to 0, we all have to work a lot harder actually, the counts are starting to fall. I've done very few assessments of late, I guess I'm partly to blame about that. Wizardman  00:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Outrigger's script
Did anyone else's script change? Mine no longer "unwatches" the page automatically, so I have to click an extra time now. Awadewit | talk  08:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I noticed a change. :) I did update the script to respect the user's "watchlist status" for a page, which is conceptually an improvement. However, for users that have the preference "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" turned on, that setting is now going to be respected as well. In response to this, I'll create an option you can add to your monobook.js to turn off page watching. But you can't have it both ways—there is no way for the script to know whether you have the page watchlisted, or have that preference turned on. Wait, there probably is, but for now I'll create the override. – Outriggr § 10:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Place the following in Special:Mypage/monobook.js so that the page edited will not be added to your watchlist unless it was already on your watchlist (this will take care of all cases; in other words including the part I said I wouldn't do yet)...

assessmentOverrideWatchPref = true; – Outriggr § 11:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you! Awadewit | talk  05:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Fact check
Just to let you know, I just fact checked the progress table while not signed in. --Dial 01:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Not to be rude, but please read the instructions in bold before you change the table. We're counting the difference between assessed articles, not unassessed articles. -- Psych  less   18:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Please comment on these two things
We need support on a simple template change, see here.

I've also proposed a new wikiproject, see here. -- Psych  less   01:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

scripts
I thought I'd let other people know 2 monobook scripts I'm using. I'm not sure if this will be of any use to anyone but me, but just in case, here it is. The first script simply adds a 'Save' button in the header tabs (where the article, talk, history, buttons are). I don't like scrolling down after selecting a rating using outriggr's script and I don't always like to press Alt+Shift-S. image here The second script is de-talkify, another tab button. The Unassessed category links the articles to their respective talk page. Well, it's a hassle opening the links and then going from the talk page to the article page. What the script does is make the Unassessed Category listing point to the article page, rather than the talk page. In conjunction with Linky, it makes assessing articles much faster. image here

Let me know if it's helpful. :) MahangaTalk 02:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The de-talkify one is great. The "save" one doesn't do much for people editing with wikEd, though. Awadewit | talk  06:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! These scripts look very useful. With Linky and Mahanga's scripts, nothing can stop us now! [[Image:Smile.png|20]] – Psych  less   18:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * They look wonderful - but I have a wretched time ever getting scripts to work right. Whenever I add a new one it messes up all the others I have and it's a matter of copying and pasting and trying to situate them in the right order so they do not cancel each other out, somehow. --Ozgod 19:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Ozgod, I was checking your monobook and I'm curious, why do you have multiple imports for the twinkle script? Anyway, I think I remember the script not appearing because twinkle was taking up all the space in the header and pushed de-talkify out of the way. I'm now using TWINKLE just for reverting, so there's no more twinkle tabs and de-talkify appears. So, check if you have a lot of tabs being used (by twinkle or other scripts). You can also try decreasing the font size in your browser (ctrl+mouse scroll wheel) and see if it appears. Note, increasing the font size a lot makes de-talkify disappear, for some odd reason. Let me know if you get it to work. MahangaTalk 21:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I have problems adding the code. I copy and paste the codes exactly and have problems. While I can add a tab for de-wikify, I can't get a tab for save. And I can't get the 2nd script working. I'm now reversing those codes added to my monobook.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   12:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Re:Mahanga - Oddly where I placed the Detalkify script in my monobook everything seems to be working fine now. I'm still very clueless as to how scripts and monobook work together. --Ozgod 12:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think monobook has very stingy requirements on indentings. If you indent one code wrong, it screws up the whole thing.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   15:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

List of problem pages
The following pages are categoriezed as unassessed biography pages, but assessment is not possible and it is unknown how to remove the tag: I fixed that one, the other one transcludes the talk pages of some of the article so it also transcludes the WPBiography template, we're just going to have to forget about that one I guess. -- Psych  less   18:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Votes_for_deletion_archive_September_2004
 * Template_talk:WikiProjectBannerShell/Example_WPBiography
 * In a similar vein there is Articles for deletion/Log/2005 January 13, with a couple of templates on, think the problem is similar - redirects from the VFD/AFD to the article so theres a transclusion of the talk page - doesnt this mean any future talk page edits are added the AFD/VFD log? RHB - Talk 23:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes it does, but it's "easily" fixed by moving the VFD debate into the redirect page. See below for instructions. --kingboyk 21:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The old VFD debates are a nuisance, aren't they?! I generally fix those by replacing the VFD redirects with the actual deletion debate, so that there's no transclusion any more. I'll do Votes_for_deletion_archive_September_2004 as an example now, and then you folks will hopefully be able to take care of others you find :) Here's what I did:
 * 1) Opened the page, hit CTRL-F and searched for Biography. The first I found was for the article Tom Smith (filker).
 * 2) I clicked the link, then navigated to the talk page. Evidently the problem is a VFD discussion on a talk page being transcluded along with our template, as you already know. Stupid of whoever did the VFD that way, but there we go.
 * 3) I then clicked what links here to find out what redirect is being transcluded by the VFD page. Turns out it's Votes for deletion/Tom Smith (filker).
 * 4) Move the VFD debate text into Votes for deletion/Tom Smith (filker). Diffs: 1,
 * 5) Refresh Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion_archive_September_2004 and repeat.

Hope that helps! --kingboyk 21:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I've done the January 13 2005 page, though my edits were a tad messier than yours. RHB - Talk 17:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Outriggr script, monobook
It seems various people's monobook pages (including mine) are turning up in the unassessed categories. I think it's a result of changes to Outriggr's script, but not sure how to fix it. -- Beloved freak  12:17, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Has anyone else had problems using the new version of Outriggr's script? Firefox has crashed several times, which never happened on the old version, RHB - Talk 15:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure if it belongs in this section, but continuing from RHB's comment; I'm having errors with it as well. Firefox and IE appear to be semi-running it, i.e., I can see what an article's rating is, but the drop down box, class parameters, etc. aren't showing up.  It was running fine this morning just before the massive lag/issues with the Wiki servers, so that may still be affecting it ATM, unless there was a change to the script right around that time.  I restarted too, no effect.  -- Broken Sphere  16:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I made a change to my monobook.js that seems to have fixed it, added this: assessmentMyTemplateCode = [""];

-- Broken Sphere 16:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC) Can anyone assist with what the problem is with my monobook? Nav-popups have stopped working too. :/ Thanks, RHB - Talk 21:47, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Image
is the #2 most linked to image. See Special:Mostimages. A little more work and we'll be #1!  Jreferee  (Talk) 21:40, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Categorization involving circa dates
What is the rule for assigning birth and death categories when you have a situation like the following: x person (b. c. 1091; d. c. 1155)?

Do you put it in 1090s births and 1150s deaths or 1091 births and 1155 deaths? My impulse has been to put them into the nearest year possible as I expect readers would expect that. Also do you link the dates themselves? I recently had an editor ask me about this. As I am assessing the articles, I like to make sure the appropriate birth and death categories are in place. Please advise --FeanorStar7 05:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I would link the dates and put them in the exact birth and death categories. Just my two cents.  Psych  less   00:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's a tough one, and it's been done inconsistently. For a long time I used the exact year, like The Psychless suggests; then I was doing the decade (e.g. 1150s deaths); now I'm back to using the specific year again, when the source gives one year (e.g. born c. 1555).  Another problem occurs when you know someone's age at death (common with Renaissance composers) but that gives you two possible birth years.  In that case I usually do the "1550s deaths" method.  I don't think anyone has come up with a standard.  Antandrus  (talk) 04:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for your input; I will continue to use the most specific date; much appreciated. --FeanorStar7 07:38, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I always use the decade in these circumstances. Using a specific year when the year is an estimate is simply incorrect, based on the knowledge we have. It implies a precision that isn't there (and in most cases never will be there). And different sources sometimes give different estimated years. Since yearly categories (like "1745 births") have direct links to the decades ("1740s births"), if you don't find what you're looking for on the first try it is actually easier to check the more general category than it is to check the one or two years on each side of the specific year. That will happen if you're working from a source that gives a different estimate for the year than we have in the article. And besides, these are precisely the circumstances for which the decade categories were created. Suppose you know the year is not known exactly; you're likely to go directly to the decade category. --Rbraunwa 14:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yup. Use decade categories for circa. Also note, that where birth and death years are not known (and never likely to be known) there is Category:Year of birth unknown. If it just isn't there, and you are not sure if it is known or not, then we have Category:Year of birth missing and Category:Year of birth missing (living people) (looks like a new category there). What I've never been able to work out is what to do when you only know the years someone was "active" (floruit). I suspect there should be a subcategory of Category:Year of birth unknown, holding those where we do know when they were active. Hmm. Carcharoth 14:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Good work everyone!
Congrats everyone! Looking at the totals of Unassessed articles vs what we have assessed we are almost midway (what we've done vs what's left to do). I really do feel we can make this happen by September 1 - again, thank you to everyone! --Ozgod 11:46, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * We've done a very good job so far. I can't stress enough though, that everyone needs to make sure their assessments are accurate, otherwise they're worthless. Thanks to everyone who's helped so far.  Psych  less   19:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The progress looks good. If we keep up the pace, it should be complete by the end of August (or very close to complete). Please remember to tag the articles into appropriate workgroups if available.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   10:46, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay. So I'm having a rough week, well month, 2007 year, whatever (opinion)
But I am (was) one of the editors who started, added to and/or completed some of the biographies (mostly American - I mean, from the United States - sculptors, but some other people too) being assessed and I have come to find these assessments as being an irritating intrusion. Some of these artists are pretty obscure and I spend a lot of time and effort pulling and putting and patting something together and for the last month or two the only edits that are being made in them is someone telling me that the article is a Stub, or Start Class, or a B or something, and I find myself thinking, ''Well why doesn't this person fix it? Why does it seem to me that they are tell me that I need to do more work on this article rather than them doing the work?''  Finding out that editors are receiving awards for this does not help. So the effect of all this assessing in my world is that it has ground my production to a halt. I no longer edit articles, new or old, I just comment about what other folks are up to. So, how does it feel? Because it is a good thing to be in touch with one's feelings. Carptrash 15:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you are putting too much weight on a simple "grade". Assessments are not set in concrete; they are fluid and are capable of changing constantly, just like any article is.  A "Stub" can become a "B" can become a "GA" can become a "B" can become an "FA" -- it all depends on the work put into it.  If you have beef with a particular assessment, contact the user personally.  Otherwise, don't take it all so personally.  María ( críticame ) 16:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Gosh Maria, it almost sounds as if you'll telling me how I should feel? Every guy knows that he better not try that with a woman, but. . ..... Carptrash 17:59, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Look at it this way. Teachers mark student's tests and exams, but is it their responsbilities to correct every single mistake the student made? Nope. It doesn't mean that everyone shouldn't bother with improving the article. It's just that the knowledge in that area shouldn't hinder the process for the assessment  OhanaUnited    Talk page   17:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * There are no mistakes in my articles. No, my issue here is really that the time spent assessing and grading and categorying the articles that I've worked on would (opinion) have been better spent improving them.  Wikipedia has become this smoldering mass of folks pointing out things for other people to do.  I have about 1,000 articles on my watchlist and most of the recent edits are pointing out some facit of them that some one else sould do.  If you want it done, then do it yourself.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Carptrash (talk • contribs).
 * I was not telling you how to feel, but rather telling you to feel less. If you didn't want a rebuttal, then why did you post to a forum?  It's not safe to WP:OWN content on Wikipedia, and claiming that there are "no mistakes" with your articles is highly suspect, so take this to heart: "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it."  Also, I would appreciate it if you kept the gender card to yourself. ;)  My double X's thank you.  María ( críticame ) 18:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Carptrash, who will choose what articles should be placed in the CD-Rom version of Wikipedia if nobody hands out class ratings? Does it mean we need to kill off RfA because it's not improving the quality of articles? Your reasons don't hold much ground.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   18:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Good catch, Maria, everything about me is suspect. But my issue is not that editors are finding mistakes in my postings.  I like that.  It means that someone is taking the time to read what I've written and taken the time to correct it or point out my errors.  That is fine with me.  It's more like someone coming along and rating Caspar Buberl as a stat class article when it has taken me 20 years to accrue all that information, that there is more there than any other single source, published or on-line than I have ever found, and I've looked.  That bugs me. Because the person rating the article really has no clue about what they are looking at.  And I still feel that telling me to not take it personally IS telling me how to feel.  That is how I feel about it.  So telling me not to . . . .. well I'm sure you get it.  I also have a race card that I'm planning on using soon.

Carptrash 18:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You seem to rely greatly on your sense of humor, which I find amusing, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you're not aware of what scale we're assessing articles?  It has nothing to do with whether or not the article is "good" or "bad," but it has to do with how comprehensive the article is.  Every user who assesses an article for any WikiProject defines this differently.  For me "comprehensive" deals mostly with reliable sources and references (including the utilization of inline citations), and not necessarily length.  As I said above, these assessments are subject to change.  I for one usually do a cursory read through the article before assessing it, even if I know nothing about the subject matter, which is usually the case.  Even then, it's still possible to correctly assess an article based on its attributes.  As for the race card, you're going to have to go for the mixed bag for me. María ( críticame ) 18:50, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, Ohana - As far as I'm concerned whom ever makes the CD-Rom version can choose what ever they want for it. If they are using the rating systen to decide - I'll not get a copy, that's for sure. Also, I'm coming from feelings, not reason, so don't expect my reasoning to make sense. It is funny that my article on Einar Jonsson just got wiped by an annon editor while we are having this discussion. Not related, I'm sure. Carptrash 18:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Your article? The article doesn't belong to you as pointed out by Maria. You can be credited as the article starter, but not the owner.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   19:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Fine. So I skip the race card, but I am glad that you're not a "Size Counts" sort of . .. person. But if everyone "who assesses an article for any WikiProject defines this differently" well, what is the point?  Oh yes, the 20 years on Buberl is no joking matter.  I'm an old guy and have been at it/him that long.  Other stuff too.  Like article ownership.  Ownership, as I use the word, is a feeling, not a legal term.   I feel that I own Einar Jonsson or Caspar Buberl and lots of othrs, because they would not exist in its current form if not for me.  I feel the same about MY children.  I don't known them but they ar MY children none-the-less.   Carptrash 19:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Not to throw salt on your wounds, Carptrash, but Wikipedia has policies against using original research in articles. As for the assessment ratings - they are things most casual viewers of Wikipedia will not encounter. They are there mostly for the Wikipedia Projects - such as this one; to give active editors in this group whether a great deal of their body of work lies. As it is, most of the articles tagged to our project fall into the Start to B class range. After our assessment drive, I personally would like to then sit through and go through all the Stub and Start articles and give them a more thorough assessment and leave a detailed message of what the article needs for improvement. Why can't I do that, you ask? Well, I simply do not have all of the time in the world to raise every stub, start, B class article to FA or improve it greatly as it would involve heading off to a major library in NYC for research (which I try to do when I can). Rather, I hope my efforts will be a sort of guideline for the next editor that comes along who is knowledgeable of the subject and has access to information that they can furnish the article with. Again, I do apologize if this drive has caused you any undue stress. --Ozgod 19:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Oz. When I drag my wounds out feel free to dump salt on them. I'm not concerned that someone else will see a B rating on one on my articles and think, Boy that carptrash is quite the slacker, that's the fourth B I've seem toady. No, it's about the fact that it makes me think (which I do at odd moments) my watch list just listed 4 assessments in a row, all articles that I busted ass on and all "'of low impotance'", or some such thing and I think, Well why don't the folks doing this assessing try to improve the articles?  The answer (but only in my mind, I'm sure) well,..........  never mind. We don't need to go there. But what I have started doing is pulling my original research out of wikipedia. So I'll now go to Lee Lawrie where all of the photographs but two, and most of the research are mine, and start removing them. I mean, you only have my word for it that the lead photo is really from where I'm claiming. Try and find that info somewhere to footnote. I suspect the best you'll do on the internet in other wikiclones. Carptrash 19:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's not what "original research" on Wikipedia refers to. According to No original research, it is "unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories. The term also applies to any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position — or, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales, would amount to a 'novel narrative or historical interpretation.'"  Your research, as long as it's sourced properly, may not violate WP:OR and therefore does not need to be removed -- unless, of course, you're doing this to make a point in a fine example of a temper tantrum.  Also, an article's "importance" has to do with the importance of a person in their field, not the person themself.  I've always thought of it as subjective, so if you disagree with someone's assessment, bring it up with them.  Again, you're being very touchy.  María ( críticame ) 20:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty comfortable with your temper tantrum scenario, but the line between original research and . . ... something else is a pretty thin one and I've decided that I'd just as soon pull my own stuff as have some bureaucrat do it. For example,  I discovered another picture of the sculpture pictured here in a 1976 MA Thesis as being a work by Buberl that the author could not discover.  Well I found it 20 later in a small town in Ohio.  But, her thesis is an unpublished document to begin with, so . . ......  I was interested to just find out that the image has been adapted by an Ohio Civil War group, which is a feel good place for me, and in that context it does not matter if the work was by Buberl or not.  So, is that documented enough for Jimbo & Co., or not? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Carptrash (talk • contribs).


 * I hope you are not confusing assessments with regards to the importance of a subject. I am pretty certain, or last I recall, we had abandoned assigning assessments to articles since that is a very subjective field and would need a consensus decision, not a singular one. If you are this concerned with the assesment of your articles, try sending them through peer review and after that a more appropriate assessment can be given. --Ozgod 21:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

For whatever its worth, I might as well state why I think the assessment drive is a good thing. It is mainly to do with organising Wikipedia's biography articles, allowing us to improve the articles in the future. How are we to improve Stub articles if we don't know which articles are Stubs? Well, we cant, and that's why we have this drive. If we know which articles fall into different quality categories, we have a better chance of lifting up those articles through the quality classes. I don't doubt that you have worked a lot on the number of articles you are currently watching, but that does not excuse these articles from falling into a particular class. No matter how many hours you have worked on it, or how many images or words you have added to an article, if it does not cite sources then it cannot be a B-class article (for example). This assessment drive assesses articles based on Wikipedia guidelines, not how much time or effort has gone into an article. Indeed, we could improve the article instead of tagging it with a "this article needs sources" template and sticking a Start-class rating on it, but this drive means that we wont lose the article in the 1.8m articles currently on Wikipedia. We can then work to improve it in the future. As has already been mentioned, ratings are flexible and are not set in stone. - • The Giant Puffin •  21:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Hard to say what I'm confusing with what except that my objection here is that folks are taking the time to label any articles (not just mine) as needing this or that rather than doing the work to fix the problem themselves. It's not that I'm feeling that my articles are being unfairly or wantonly assessed. No, I feel no need for peer review. That is just asking someone else to take time to fix something rather then them doing it themselves. Every day I get 20 or 30 or whatever (this is not a math problem) hits on my watchlist and it seems that perhaps 4 of those hits are editors doing something to improve the articles. I encourage folks to edit my stuff. I rarely revert someone else's edit unless it is absolute rot. If you want something done, do it yourself is my current mantra. Actually has been for a awile, which I wny I began editing on wikipedia in the first place. , Thank's Great Auk, for your insights. I've been pretty good over the years to mention sources, though I'm new at the citation in the article format. I mostly do it now. Then I look at my Alexander Milne Calder article, and the history page is longer than the article? But all the major sources on Calder are listed, including my original research - there is not a lot more known about the guy, yet the article is a stub. But I take your point about labeling articles now so that someone can get to them later. I just doubt that it will happen. Carptrash 21:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * We do not have enough time to improve all of these articles ourselves. Wikipedia has too many articles for the amount of useful editors. Ideally, we could improve all of these articles to B-class or above, but we have neither the time nor the manpower to do so. If one of "your" articles has been rated a Start-class, then you should continue to improve it, along with anyone else who wants to improve it. Whether we want to improve an article we have assessed is a personal choice, we aren't required to. - • The Giant Puffin •  07:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * We do not have enough time to improve all of these articles ourselves.

Yes, that is part of my point - that I seem to be so bad at making. You are doing the rubber stamp part of the job, "Looks good" STAMP - Could be better STAMP,  Needs to improve STAMP, Dull normal, STAMP all day long, STAMP, STAMP, STAMP. And it is left to someone else to do the work. And who do you think is going to do the work part to the thousands of biographies that you STAMP,STAMP, STAMP ? And don't you think. . . ........ probably not.

As far as me continuing to improve my Start-class  articles, some of them (opinion) are already the best that there is on the subject but the  STAMP STAMP STAMP STAMP folks don't know it because they don't know anything about the articles that they STAMP STAMP STAMP. That would take too much valuable time. To me, the STAMP,STAMP, STAMP is a disincentive to do more work on my articles.

"Time, time, what is time? The Swiss manufacture it, Italians squander it, French hoard it, the Americans say it is money and the Hindus say it does not exist. I think time is a crook". Peter Lorrie from Beat The Devil, 1953: Carptrash 16:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish here anymore, Carptrash. You've said your piece and several users have attempted to reason with you as to the reasons why assessing is important in a variety of ways.  I suggest that unless you have anything constructive to say about this Drive, you should perhaps take your concerns/comments to another venue or drop it entirely.  Nothing personal, of course, but there is no reason for all of us to continue to bait each other and repeat ourselves. María ( críticame ) 16:30, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Carptrash, do you know that what you're doing at the moment is violating Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point policy? You're disrrupting the assessment process to illustrate your points. Even though your points are indeed valid, disrupting it is the worse way to present your ideas.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   17:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No, we do not have time to improve the articles. We assess them simply to organise Wikipedia, and if they are the best they can be, then there is no need for us to improve them. As for the rest, well its a choice for anyone whether they want to improve an article or just read it. We don't have to improve it, this drive deals simply with eliminating the backlog of unassessed articles, not Stub or Start articles. There are simply not enough useful editors on this Wiki, but I cannot do anything about that. None of us can. Until we have an abundance of editors to improve all of these articles, you will just have to put up with this drive. Our assessment of these articles does not interfere with your editing. As for the articles being the best that they can be, well that's just unfortunate that these articles will never reach a high quality rating. That does not, however, excuse it from falling into a particular class. A Start is a Start is a Start, and no matter how much time you spend on that Start, it will always remain that way until it improves enough to become a B. - • The Giant Puffin •  19:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Carptrash: I think you need to take a step back and understand what Wikipedia is and is not. It is NOT your personal platform. This is a place where people of good intent work together to collect human knowledge. Part of that work is assessing one another's work. The subject that you cover I certainly would not feel qualified to write about, as you would not have my competence to deal with most Asian related matters that I handle. However, in assessments, we are to gague how much information is present and how useful it is to someone who is not familiar with the material. For me, there has to be a certain information threshold before I will advance the article. Especially given the biographical nature of this project, if there is a lot of information on one particular incident that may merit a B in another project, but has precious little biographical information, it may warrent start or even stub status FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THIS PROJECT. Please don't take anything personally. I think your temper tantrum is childish, something I would not even expect of my middle school and high school students. ludahai 魯大海 01:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * (Slightly out of topic)Just curious, Ludahai, are you a teacher?  OhanaUnited    Talk page   07:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I teach Middle and High School Language Arts, Social Studies, and Model United Nations ludahai 魯大海 15:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * ludahai 魯大海 said, ", as you would not have my competence to deal with most Asian related matters that I handle."
 * Well you might have a point there. On the other hand, life is complicated and I did spend 17 years in Asia, so don't jump to to many hasty conclusions about what I can and can not do.  And María, I am trying to be good, but I need some help from these folks too.  Carptrash 17:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

More doubts
This is a theme that is constantly repeated. Editors who are obviously doing good work are disagreeing with the assessments. The simple solution would be to tell them that they are free to change the assessment themselves to anything up to B-class. Anything above that, (GA, A and FA) needs to go through a formal process. I suspect that the vast majority of complaints come from editors who know that their article is (at least) B-class in terms of comprehensiveness, but may lack some of the tidy sections and formatting expected of B-class articles. I also think that the system should be changed so that people are forced to sign their assessments. With GA and FA, it is fairly easy to find out who promoted the article, or read a discussion about it. For other articles, expecially years later, it is not so easy to find out who gave it the initial assessment, so people will just change the assessment without discussing it. User:Geogre also, somewhere, made some very good points about passive voice versus active voice. Essentially, if an author with a reputable history of contributions in an area tells you that you are getting the assessment wrong, assume good faith and believe them. Too much more of this, and people will lose faith in the quality of the assessment work being done. Carcharoth 17:31, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * See User talk:Geogre. Carcharoth 17:45, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * From your title, you are having a rough week/month. But I hope this is not your way to let go of your frustrations. As for checking who handed out the assessments, you can check talk page of the article to see who added it in. And please convince us why you are allowed to determine the class of the articles and not us? Because you are a significant contributor to the article? Wikipedia is a collabration project, not just a few individuals.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   18:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Are you talking to me or Carptrash? The best person to determine the class of an article is someone who knows something about the subject. My opinion is that the primary author of an article (in cases where there is a primary author) should assess the article as part of the process. They should indicate that this is a self-assessment, and this then invites others to disagree with them and explain their reasons for disagreeing. Carcharoth 19:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * An assessment by an editor who either starts an article or who has contributed significantly to it creates a conflict of interest, doesn't it...This why I refuse to assess my own articles. -- Broken Sphere  18:32, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It would only be a conflict of interest if it was an award. An article rating is not an award for the primary author. It is a rating designed to let others know what work needs to be done on an article. If the primary author of an article knows that there is little more that can be done, a self-assessed B-class should be acceptable. If you disagree, you will have to demonstrate why you disagree. If the author says that there are no more sources to be used, and the article (although short) is complete, what are you going to say then? Carcharoth 19:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Carptrash is right, and you folks seem lunatic to me. The assessment drive is disrupting Wikipedia.  The assessment drive is acting out WP:OWN.  It is also, with some of the assessors, illustrating WP:POINT.  1. Carptrash may be the best author or the worst, but he's an author.  I may be the best or the worst, but I'm an author (and other stuff).  If we get hostile or, worse, stop, because weeks of work get "start class" because the article is short (when it is all that is known in the world), then the assessment, with no validity, has functioned to stop Wikipedia's progress.  2. The assessors are here admitting no doubts, no considerations, no discussion, but merely saying that anyone who complains is out of line.  That is WP:OWN.  Arguing that the authors (who did the words) have no input before the mighty stamping machine is exactly why we have WP:OWN: people are asserting ownership over the evaluation of an article.  3. Some of the assessors sniff and put their preferences as mandates.  For example, many of the most vacuous are claiming that an article without, of all things, an infobox cannot be above start.  That's insane, unsupported, and an affront to logic and content.  Geogre 19:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * To be fair, no-one is owning the assessments. You can change the assessments anytime you want, and should change any you feel are wrong. But then that begs the question of what happens to other assessments that are wrong. As I said above, if people lose confidence in the assessment process, then there will be problems. The other side of the coin is that there are lots of assessments that are probably correct. My view is that this is a "quick and dirty" assessment drive, and that nearly all the articles will have to be assessed again by subject experts. But there should be a way to tag the assessments as such. Bot-generated assessments are labelled as such. Maybe the assessments by this assessment drive should have been labelled as "initial assesments - will need checking - please change if you disagree"? Carcharoth 19:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I always go back to axiomatics. Any assessment made by any human depends upon a) ability and b) deliberation.  The nearer the judge is to full knowledge of the good, the better the assessment.  As Antardus has proposed, this means that experts are sometimes the only competent judges of the performance of articles on specialist topics.  Imagine me trying to assess something on Maxwell's demon, and it is to imagine slapstick.  So, on subjects where any competent, educated person is in possession of sufficient knowledge, any person may assess.  On subjects where specialist knowledge is necessary, the gulf between the expertise of the author(s) and assessor can be so large as to invalidate any assessment (both a blind "A" and a blind "stub" -- the Sokol affair is as bad as what's going on now, where, for example, Elizabeth Needham "was assessed" as "start class" even as it went on FAC).  The longer a person spends reading an article, considering it, weighing it against the ideal, the more thorough the evaluation is, as well.  Therefore, if an assessor spends a great deal of time reading every word, questioning whether the uniform requirements are apt, and educating him or herself to the subject, then the assessment can be valid.  Otherwise, the assessment is compromised or worthless.  Notable, both of these goals are defeated utterly by a mass "assessment drive."  No one wins, and especially not those who wish for solid assessments.  0.7 will be worthless if its selection criteria depend even marginally on assessments delivered at high speed by random persons.  Geogre 20:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with what you are saying here when it applies to specialist articles. But it is entirely possible (I might even venture entirely probable) that the vast majority of articles being assessed are not specialist articles on historical subjects. Sure, a lot of them will be, but not enough that incorrect assessments can't be undone. It is possible that large numbers of articles are being assessed correctly. Looking at the list of assessors, I can see several names there that I know will be assessing very carefully, and they are in the range of a couple of hundred articles assessed. When it gets up to several thousands, it is still possible that stubs are being found and correctly identified at a high rate. There are an enormous number of crappy stubs out there. The figure of 350,000+ is bandied about for the number of tagged biographical articles. Some still remain to be tagged, and more are created every day. Sometimes it seems that 1 in 5 articles on Wikipedia is about a person. Another 2 in 5 are probably stubs about roads, small towns, schools, or obscure animal species stubs. The remaining 40% are probably the serious historical ones and serious encyclopedia topics. Damn, I'm in a cycnical mood at the moment. Someone needs to do another "Random article" survey to find out exactly what Wikipedia's 1.8 million articles are... Anyway, the point is that the way to avoid drive-by assessments is to get your own assessment in first! The other key question is how many authors has the assessment drive upset who are not talking about it, but who have instead been demotivated and demoralised? Carcharoth 23:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem with what you say is that it boils down to, "Join us, or feel our lash." For the longest time, I simply ignored the assessments.  They were wrong, but I figured that it was just someone playing army.  What did I care?  You'll find that my attitude is widely shared.  Those of us who don't believe in assessments at all are going to not have looked into this stuff.  Those of us who further believe that putting all articles into one of four boxes is folly won't join in.  Those of us who dislike graphical elements loading down articles are also not going to join.  Some of us share all of those disbeliefs (me, for example), and yet our choice is either to join in or come here (not a hot page for most of us) to find out that we should just change the assessments or join in the drive.  (If anyone wants to hear my arguments against assessment itself, or the usefulness of categories of quality, or graphical elements, I can share them, but it's sufficient that I have them for now.)  Sure, most of Wikipedia is on the obvious or the trivial.  That's why I'm a "deletionist":  I don't think we really need an article explaining J-pop-boy-band-nu-metal-death-thrash albums.  I don't think we should be trying to replicate allmusic.com, imdb.com, or even mapquest.com, but the question is whether people striving for numbers will, or even can, tell when they've crossed from the latest "game music composer" to the medieval choral composer.  Geogre 02:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As I have stated before - asessments are really for those who are involved with a Wikipedia project - like this Biography Project. To us, the assessments are essential since it tells us where most of the scope of our project lies - so far the bulk of our project lies in the Stub/Start area. After this assessment drive we can focus in more on fixing what needs upgrading; going through those stubs and upgrading them; was something a B-class and get tagged as start? So on and so forth. Right now this is more of - and as you stated - a pre-assessment drive, really. Come September we can branch off into new work groups focused on improving those articles. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ozgod (talk • contribs).
 * But if someone knows so little about a subject that they get the assessment wrong, they are unlikely to be able to improve the article. It is a waste of time to assess article that you know nothing about. That should have been made clearer at the start. Carcharoth 12:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ozgod thinks that the work is in stub/start. Why does he think this?  Well, someone with neither expertise nor incentive to be accurate said so.  Now, Dionysius of Fourna is unrated.  I'm sure it's a "start" or "stub."  I am simply dying to find out what they think can be added (other than a flippin' box, of course).  Driving by, they see it's short.  Driving by, they see that the birth date isn't specified.  Driving by, they see there is no photograph of him.  Driving by, they tell the impotent Project that it must do some work on it.  I will be thrilled, and so will many scholars, to see what they find out.  The Project is misled.  The Project is never going to do the work.  The Project cannot do the work without calling on authors who (gasp) might be writing instead of working on the project.  Geogre 13:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Geogre, to be polite, in the future do not ever make a statement as to what I think. You are not in my head; thank God. I have enough voices in there. Yes, maybe some articles are short and that is all that is known on the subject - perhaps we need a template for that on the talk page so future editors are aware that the knowledge of the subject is very limited and that that is all that can be offered. In those instances a special review should be done; perhaps it was stamped Start but since the information is limited, based on that, it could be a B class. I do fail to understand, really, why this is such a big issue for you. You are not a member of the Biography project so why should you give a hoot as to our assessments? They are really only an internal aspect for the project - for the Biography project and its members. If it bothers you that much - just ignore it. How will it affect you in the long run, really? --Ozgod 14:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course you may not say what you think. I find that's common enough, but what you said was that you believed that the assessments showed the Project where it needed to work, and you even restate that belief in your reply.  I assume you think so as well.  If you do, you are basing this on flawed methodology, unfounded assumptions, and without testing the validity of your system in any manner.  You are free, of course, to be in error -- I gave up long ago trying to correct all errors -- but your errors are affecting people I care about (which doesn't include me, generally).
 * I have been clear why I care. First, and most trivially, these assessments are supposed to play a role in the RSN-really-0.7.  That doesn't worry me much, except that it's the multiplication of an error.  Secondly, the assessments are offending authors.  Thirdly, and the one that gets my goat, they are using the worst rhetorical dirty trick of all, the passive voice construction, to assert power and evade responsibility.  If you woke up one morning to find a letter saying, "You have been assessed criminal," would you not wonder who had made that determination?  Would you not wonder whether it was a prank or a legal summons?  Well, both readers and authors of articles here may well wonder who "has assessed" an article and "found" it "to be" a "start" or a "stub," and yet they have to dig through history to find out who and click through many pages to find out what the heck it means.  At the same time, the person who does the assessing gets power and a kick of status by throwing such labels about.  This is psychologically and morally reprehensible.
 * Finally, I care because the Projects are asserting rights above the editors. When an editor removed assessments, he was threatened with "action."  If I were to organize an assessment removal project, I would no doubt have the same basic, Wikipedia-determined rights (volunteers) as the Projects, but it would seem to you to be a horrible abuse, I'm sure.  Project assessments are the opinions of a person, a person who is not signing, and represent no more than that single person's opinion.  That person might be acting on the behest of a "Project" but not with the authority of any, not with the power of any, not with the consent and consensus of any.  I oppose, have opposed, and will forever oppose any attempt at growing power and differential rights on Wikipedia.  That is why I care.  Geogre 15:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * A minor correction here. I believe the case you are referring to is where someone removed the entire template, not just the assessment. Changing the assessment, or removing it as incorrect, is OK in my opinion, but the tag should be left there. The way things are set up, they are the best way of keeping track of articles about people (because Category:People is hopeless for that purpose). And yes, people articles are different from ones about buildings or empires or books, and we should have a way of at least indexing the people articles. Carcharoth 16:02, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Carcharoth, I'm talking about Carptrash's comments. He started this section with the name rough week/month/year (whatever...), so I'm talking about that. I don't see why people are obsessed with the class of the articles that they contribute in. It's just a class, you don't score points for getting an article to B-class. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by OhanaUnited (talk • contribs).
 * But you do score points for a hastily done, incorrect assessment. A slower drive, concentratiing on areas that people know about, would have been better. Some people stated they would concentrate on areas they know about, some just go alphabetically. I would hope that those going alphabetically did not rate articles they did not really know enough about. But from the looks of what happened, some people are doing that. Can we please contact everyone participating in this drive, by talk page message, to tell them not to rate obscure subject areas that they do not know enough about. Is that possible? Carcharoth 12:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If they are that obscure, Carcharoth, who will be able to review them except the editor or select few who may not even be members of the project? How much objectivity will there be if the Assessment is left to the editor who orginated the article? --Ozgod 14:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Then maybe the best solution in those cases is not to assess until an independent expert arrives. Seriously. Carcharoth 15:58, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I made a proposal over on the main Biography Talk page which would greatly benefit from your input. --Ozgod 16:02, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Here's something interesting I noticed by the complaintant. Not a single one of Geogre's article that he has pointed out/has worked on has any inline citations at all. A lack of these makes it harder to rate it as a B-class article. Just my two cents. Wizardman  15:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not interesting. It's by design.  Let me point out that no article I ever write at Wikipedia will use footnotes.  It will not happen.  I use parenthetical reference for matters that require citation, and I do not put in citations where they are not needed.  If you understand academic conventions and encyclopedia writing, you will understand why.  If you do not, your desire for notes will be an indictment of your understanding rather than the article.  Further, you will have enormous difficulty showing any place where consensus has determined that citations are desirable, much less mandatory, intralinearly for articles that contain references to their sources.  I have little doubt that many cannot understand the difference between an external link and a reference, but they're quite, quite different things.  Geogre 15:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Very well then. I'll keep that in mind, just thought I'd point it out since some assessors might take the lack of citations strictly. Wizardman 15:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Bartholomew Steer is an example of citation when needed. There is a quotation that requires a citation, and the quotation is included because of a conclusion being formed.  This conclusion, incidentally, is highly colorful and from one of the most esteemed reference works in the world.  I must regrettably inform that it did not itself have a footnote there -- an oversight from the unreliable OUP, I suppose.  Where sources have differences, cite.  Where conclusions are being formed based on evidence not present in the article, cite.  This latter is difficult for people to understand, sometimes.  If I write and give an example of twelve places where Jonathan Swift refers to bodily functions in horror and I have a sentence that says, "Whether to deflate romantic discourse or because of a personal revulsion, Swift uses scatology to invert his love poetry," I do not need to cite: I have cited.  It is a thesis derived from the presented information.  If it is only a partial truth (and that isn't), then there will be other editors and additional information.  Wikipedia is peer review.  That's its founding principle.  The world is the peer reviewer.  Geogre 17:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * that Steer fellow is actually quite a good roll model for my next wikimove - well excapt the tortured to death part and that might happen here yet. Carptrash 01:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The most reasonable idea to implement would be the one that identified the assessor. If you could take a look here you can see how it would look. The assessor would put their username in the |user= parameter and in the |date= parameter. A bot could go through and add that to the articles that have already been assessed.


 * I decline to comment on the other "problems" as I believe this discussion will never reach consensus. Each "side" has very different ideas of how things should be done. I think our assessments are valid, you do not. I think most of the articles can be assessed correctly, and are. You think we aren't competent enough to assess most articles correctly. No, I'm not telling you what you're opinions are, this is how I'm interpreting them, correct me if I'm wrong. I doubt that either of us are going to change our opinions, so I will instead focus on helping this assessment drive, instead of repeatedly trying to prove it's validity.  Psych  less   16:20, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a great idea. Have you been having lessons with Yoda again? :-) One thing, though: how would a bot retrospectively sign assessments for people? Carcharoth 01:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Or perhaps we should add yet another layer of bureaucratic possibilities? We can have more folks come in and assess every assessment that has already been made. This would allow yet someone else to go back later and fix all the assessments that someone else has decided need attention. By that time there will be 9 million articles in wikipedia, 3.7 million assessments and .92 million assessments of assessments. However since the number of articles will continue growing, so will the need for assessing and then re-assessing or assessing assessing. Meanwhile the articles needing help will sink deeper and deeper into - - well that layers of an onion thing, assessors would be guaranteed lifelong employment and everyone would be happy. except, of course, no one would be fixing the articles, but that's pretty secondary. Carptrash 12:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well to make all the assessments perfect, will need to have routine assessments of the assessments of the assessments. Anyways, I'm not really sure how a bot would perform the task, but I'm sure it's possible. A bot operator would have to answer your question.  Psych  less   04:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Workgroups: what goes where?
I'm just starting to assess articles for the drive but, having not done assessments outside the Sci & Acad workgroup before, I'm a bit confused as to what goes in which workgroup. For example, which workgroup is appropriate for authors? Do popular science/health writers go under Sci & Acad? Do academics in arts/humanities go under Sci & Acad or Arts & Entertainment?

Is there an easy reference for all this somewhere that I'm missing? Espresso Addict 00:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Authors, poets, architects, stage actors or those who are musicians/writers/actors I tend to put under A&E; academics/professors, scientists, engineers, anyone technical or highly specialized in a particular field I put under S&A. Is it possible to add multiple work groups using the drop down menu? -- Broken Sphere 05:31, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Wait a second. Actors and musicians would go in filmbio (Actors and Filmakers) and musicians workgroup, respectively. If you don't know which group to put it in then simply don't, it's not a really big deal. If you come across any religious figures, we don't have a workgroup for them so you'll have to leave them without a workgroup.  Psych  less   14:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If you look at the scope of the filmbio workgroup, their emphasis appears to be on film actors, not stage actors, which is why I was putting the latter in A&E. It thus appeared to me that it wouldn't make sense to put say a Shakespearean actor under that workgroup.  However in looking at that workgroup's page and in their discussion, they seem to be moving to include stage actors within their scope as well, but it doesn't seem to have been concretely stated yet.  -- Broken Sphere  15:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

How to get your monobook.js out of the Unassessed category
Replace:

assessmentMyTemplateCode = [" "];

with

assessmentMyTemplateCode = ["{"+"{WPBiography}}"];

I didn't include any parameters in my example but the main part is seperating the first two curly braces. It's a fairly simple fix so please do it :).  Psych  less   15:56, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Alphabetical sort glitch
There appears to be a slight oddity to the alphabetical sort for the Biography template: Louis Claude de Saint-Martin sorts separately under lower-case 'd' rather than being amalgamated with the 'D's; see Category:Unassessed biography (science and academia) articles. Espresso Addict 12:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That is as it should be, not a glitch. See here. If you want an article to sort under "D", you have to put "De Saint-Martin, Louis Claude". But note that the DEFAULTSORT on his article is "Saint-Martin, Louis Claude de". See also how "van" sorts differently from "Van". I need to look into this further, as I'm not sure what we should be doing in cases like this. Carcharoth 13:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I found one relevant discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(people). Also see Categorization_of_people, which says to use upper case (ie. in this case "De Saint-Martin", but actually, it should be "Saint-Martin", as sorting by de is wrong in this case). It is worth quoting the guidance in full here:"'People with multiple-word last names are usually sorted by the first capitalized element, though this is a complex field and there are exceptions and inconsistencies. But for coding reasons the first letter of each word is capitalized in the actual sort text. The French and Spanish 'de' or 'du' and German 'von' are usually not sorted on, except for some examples living in English-speaking countries, like Corne Du Plessis (D). But the Italian 'De' or 'Di' usually is sorted on.  Dutch/Flemish/Belgian/South African names are especially unpredictable.  Often, historical European figures with local names are treated differently from modern figures with the 'same' name living in English-speaking countries - thus Anthony van Dyck and Steve Van Dyck are sorted on D and V respectively.  Some examples: 'Ludwig van Beethoven → Beethoven, Ludwig Van', Otto von Bismarck → 'Bismarck, Otto Von', Giuseppe Di Stefano → 'Di Stefano, Giuseppe', Jan van Eyck → 'Eyck, Jan Van', Guy de Maupassant → 'Maupassant, Guy De', Martin Van Buren → 'Van Buren, Martin, and 'Jean-Claude Van Damme ' →Van Damme, Jean-Claude'.' - Categorization_of_people"
 * Hope that helps. Carcharoth 13:57, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explanation, Carcharoth. I've worked in indexing for more than one UK publisher and the sorting algorithm used was always on the de/van etc, but if there's a style then I'm happy to go with it. Perhaps the style guideline could be repeated somewhere within the project, to prevent people having to poke around in the welter of guidelines? Espresso Addict 02:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * My view is that it doesn't matter too much as long as we are consistent and leave some indication for our readers if they look the 'wrong' letter. Quite how to do that, I'm not sure. Probably need to add a link at the top of lots of 'people' categories. Carcharoth 10:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you are misreading the guideline above, Carcharoth. It says to use Upper case in the defaultsort only when adding it purely for technical coding reasons. The displayed text should use lower-case if this is what the person uses/is normally given.  Total consistency will never be possible, as people treat their names differently IRL. Saint-Martin should index under S, but a descendent living in the US etc might call himself De Saint-Martin & expect indexing under D. I'm not sure what publishers EA worked for, but if they indexed Bismark under V they were unusual to put it mildly. Johnbod 16:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I did know that. I didn't intend my comment to make you think I didn't know that, and re-reading the above I'm still unsure quite how this misunderstanding happened. I was referring to readers looking under different letters (eg. D and S for de Saint-Martin), not the uppercase vs lowercase thing, which as you say coding requires uppercase be used in sortkeys. Carcharoth 15:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It was this bit above:"...which says to use upper case (ie. in this case "De Saint-Martin", but actually, it should be "Saint-Martin", as sorting by de is wrong in this case)." This ASCII sorting thing is a real pain, & I'm not actually sure it makes any difference in reality. Johnbod 16:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) By that bit, I meant that as a French person, you would sort him under "S" and not "d", but if you did want to sort him under "d", you would change it to uppercase "De". And it does make a difference. Look at any category with an alphabetical TOC index (like Category:Living people), and you will see the names sort differently. Compare De with de. Carcharoth 17:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I can't see what these are supposed to demonstrate. De and de are mixed up indiscriminately, and often the defaultsorts use different forms.  What I am saying is that [*[Category:1647 births|Hautefeuille, Jean de]], which we are not supposed to do, seems to work just the same as [*[Category:1647 births|Hautefeuille, Jean De]], which we are supposed to use, whilst of course writing "de".  Johnbod 17:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * When the de/De is that far down the sortkey, it is highly unlikely to affect anything. I am contrasting "defaultsort=De Castro" with "defaultsort=de Castro". Please show me a case where the first letter of the defaultsort is a different case, and they sort to the same place. Otherwise my example is correct. If you look at all the "De/de" articles at De, they will all be sorted by De. They have to be, otherwise they wouldn't be there! What appears on the index (category) page is the title, not what is put in the sortkey. Possibly you are confusing the two concepts? Carcharoth 17:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok I see it does affect the sort. But I was essentially talking about cases where the de, van whatever is not indexed on, where as you say it will rarely make any difference. Mostly of those articles were of course done under the old policy, and are probably incorrect, where a small de is indexed on. Though with living people it is harder to say with confidence. Johnbod 17:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Biography articles stats
The bot is not updating again. Can someone check on that? (Or try running it manually?)  OhanaUnited    Talk page   14:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I tried manually running it yesterday - to no avail, apparently. --Ozgod 15:09, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It ran on the 25th, but nothing yet after that. Carcharoth 17:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Now updated. Carcharoth 16:18, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Want to tag some untagged biographical articles?
I've recently had a bot owner create a list of articles starting with J that don't have a talk page or their talk page isn't in any category. The lists can be found on /1, /2, /3, /4, /5, /6, /7. Each page is about 65kb long. They aren't all biographical articles of course, just look for some people's names and you can tag them. Anyone can do this if they wish. Regards,  Psych  less   13:19, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

So when I assess a bio article, it's still on the page; is it OK to remove what we've assessed from the page so that people don't click on the same article to assess x times? -- Broken Sphere 14:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean when you've tagged something in the lists above? Removing them from the page would be easiest. Easiest still would be to take the entire list, strip out non-bio ones, then pass to a bot for WPBiography tagging. Carcharoth 17:57, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Lots of them appear to be disambiguation pages. Please use class=dab for these. Or better still, if they already have hndis on the front page, leave them alone for a bot to deal with. Carcharoth 18:04, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If they are disambiguation pages just remove them from the list. If you do assess the article please remove it from the list. You can't just take all the articles that look like biographies and give it to a bot though. Some of those would be fictional characters.  Psych  less   18:08, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Fictional characters! Of course! :-) Carcharoth 00:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Alright, on untagged/5 I removed all the dismbiguations, and some other nonsense ones. It's down about 10k after that so it's easier for yo guys. I can do the other 6 if you want. Wizardman  17:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Progress report
After two months of steady assessing, the total assessed by the drive (and others assessing in the same period) has reached 73,206 - well on the way towards the target of 113,385. The average is almost exactly 1200 articles assessed per day. There is a whole month left to assess another 40,179 articles and reach the initial target. However, reducing the backlog to zero will be difficult. Over the same 2 month period a total of 31,210 unassessed articles have been added and/or tagged with the WPBiography tag - just over 2 new articles added for every 5 that have been assessed! In terms of individuals, Ludahai (6757), The Giant Puffin (5600) and BrokenSphere (5050) lead the way. Congratulations to everyone who has been assessing so far. Please keep reviewing this talk page and others in the project for more news of any changes. Carcharoth 16:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Heh, for now I've reached my goal and decided that I don't want to be assessing for the sake of racing for a top 3 spot as I have other things going on in Meatspace and my Wiki life that have been neglected during a hectic month + of assessing, so I'm done for now and taking a break from assessing; Giant Puffin seems to have halted as well as his total hasn't moved for a few weeks. Personally, I've realized that if this drive doesn't reduce the assessment backlog to 0, we can always do another one later this year, can't we?   Broken Sphere  17:05, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, though the lessons from this one need to be taken on board first. Carcharoth 17:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well if we kept Kingboyk and his bot locked up for the next two months we might get it to zero :). If we can get it down to the 30,000 range we might be able to get it done without another assessment drive. When the drive is over just continue to assess and optimistically the backlog will be gone, eventually. Thanks to everyone who's participated.  Psych  less   17:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected, as Giant Puffin is moving again. If him and Wizardman want to have at it, they're welcome to it by all means.  :)  -- Broken Sphere  18:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I had some stuff to deal with in July, so I don't think I assessed more than 1000 then; I'll see if I can move my total up to 10000 for the whole drive though. I wanted to go back to article writing, so I put this on the back burner for a while. Wizardman 00:12, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
 * My busy season is over, so I will be doing more assessing. I also hope to get to 10,000.  ludahai 魯大海 10:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

This is so awesome! Having returned from a long absence I was delighted to see this drive! I'll try and see what I can do before the deadline! --plange 01:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Should "Deaths" articles be assessed?
Should articles like Deaths in April 2005 be assessed for the assessment drive? I am not sure if they are in the scope of WikiProject Biography or not. May I have some input on this, please? Captain  panda  03:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It is a list, and should still be assessed. But we should really be marking these things as lists and assessing using different criteria. It does seem to be biographical, yes, but only in the loosest sense. We also need to distinguish these type of articles from ones about a single person. All the music group articles are about groups of people, and there are other examples of "group" biographies. Carcharoth 12:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Assessing an article as a list does not remove it from the list of unassessed biography articles. Apparently, using the list class is not going to work. Captain   panda  15:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I meant use the not-yet-existing list=yes parameter. :-) But whether or not this is biographical, it certainly isn't a 'normal' article, and we want some way to filter those out. Putting class=list, or list=yes is possible. The template can then be changed to recognise those parameters. What is needed at some point is another drive to identify all the lists and other "non-bio" articles. At the moment, we have Category:Non-biographical WikiProject Biography articles and Category:WikiProject Biography non-article pages, which are under-used. Non-bio is so little used, we could easily deprecate it and turn it into a "group/list/other" catchall parameter to filter out the 'complex' biographical articles that are not about a single person, but are a list, group, name, or other such article. Carcharoth 16:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

What next?
If we keep going at our current rate the backlog should be eliminated in two or three months. A decision needs to be made. We can extend the Summer Assessment Drive two more months, have another drive, or just let the drive end and hope that everyone will continue to assess article. I am personally in favor of letting this drive go on for another month so we can get the backlog down to around 30,000 articles. If we let it go for another month after that it would probably go below 10,000. Please discuss what we should do below, and welcome back plange :).  Psych  less   18:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Let's not extend it quite yet. I am rather tired and I have other things I want to work on, especially with the international baseball season right around the corner and I will work on 2007 Baseball World Cup and 2007 Asian Baseball Championships. We are also nearing the Republic of China legislative election, 2008, which I will be working hard on.  I also want to get back to working on Chinese historical biographical pages.  ludahai 魯大海 11:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I would prefer not to extent it either. There have been plenty of things that I want to do on Wikipedia that I have neglected in order to assess all these articles. Captain   panda  12:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll third the non-extension. I'd like to take a wikibreak for a while anyway, but I'd prefer to concentrate on getting some articles put on WP:DYK and WP:GA, as well as my admin duties that I've neglected of late. Plus with school restarting, some of us may have far less time for this. Wizardman  12:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd rather not extend it either. As with many people, I have neglected other Wikiprojects I am a member of to participate in this drive. Perhaps have an Autumn or a Winter drive in a few months. I must also return to college in a couple of weeks, and so I would have far less time to spend on the drive - • The Giant Puffin •  09:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * With the top four assessors all saying no, I think that should put an end to this discussion. ludahai 魯大海 14:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * As the (as of now) #5 assessor, I would also suggest closing off the drive on its original end date, even though I've stopped assessing (no regrets) and have gotten things done I couldn't have otherwise. Assessor fatigue is one issue, as the top 4 have mentioned.  Also, while overall the progress has been great, there were issues raised with this drive that should be addressed as was mentioned earlier and above to hopefully improve the assessment process and a future drive if warranted, otherwise they're likely to get raised again.   Broken Sphere Msg me 16:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

listas parameter with Asian names
I have been trying to put in listas information where needed as I have been assessing articles. However, I have noticed that many Asian names are being listed incorrectly. Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Burmese names are generally written with the family name first. I.E. Ouyang Xiu should be "listas=Ouyang, Xiu", not "listas=Xiu, Ouyang". I just corrected it. I have noticed the same problem with dozens of names. Japanese names are a bit more complicated. The Japanese also put the family name first, however, on Wikipedia, there seems to be no consistency. Many are put in the traditional order (especially those of a historical nature) while many others are written in the Western order. All I ask is for caution regarding Asian names. If you aren't sure about how to alphabetize it, please drop me a note. I will help. ludahai 魯大海 12:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, and more important than the listas parameter, is making sure that the article itself has a "DEFAULTSORT" value. Both DEFAULTSORT and listas should be the same. Carcharoth 20:14, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

-0- hour
Am I correct in presuming that this drive ends at 0000 UTC on September 1? I, for one, am about all assessd out. ludahai 魯大海 05:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe so, meaning this is now over. Wizardman  00:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Alright, where's the post-assessment drive party? Or are the assessors going to get some real sleep for a change?  ;)   Broken Sphere Msg me 00:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Sleep? The fall semester begins on Monday.  You should see my teaching schedule this semester.  ludahai 魯大海 13:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess the drive is now over, lets hope the post-drive analysis paints a positive picture - • The Giant Puffin •  19:49, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Alright, I'll put up a notice on the project page and then we will dish out the awards.  OhanaUnited    Talk page   17:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Question regarding post-drive
I am planning on continuing to assess articles after this drive is over; my plan is to keep a separate tally from the one currently on the project page. Would I be able to enfold the tally into this drive or the next one (I assume we are having one)? --FeanorStar7 13:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No, I'd rather we all start at zero when the next drive starts. I'm having some major problems with HughesNet and I can only stay logged on if I use the secure server, which is very slow and my assessment tools do not work. Regrettably, I will not be getting 5k articles assessed during this drive. Betacommand has had his bot do some auto assessing which should result in 15k less unassessed articles once the bot gets around to updating the statistics. Good job everyone,  Psych  less   00:17, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So if I read this right, I should stop assessing for the moment (which is fine); thanks for the update; glad to be of service--FeanorStar7 01:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't deny it FS, you know you got addicted to assessing.  Broken Sphere Msg me 02:12, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This is Psychless, still having problems. Anyhow, you misread my response somehow. PLEASE continue to assess if you would like. What I meant was any articles you assess from now until the start of the next drive will not be counted in your running total for the next drive. 66.82.9.110 23:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So no taking big leads to try and beat Ludahai next time. What about those pages you set up that had articles that were tagged as potential bios by a bot?  If those haven't been cleared out, a possible task is to go through and pull the non-bio articles out.   Broken Sphere Msg me 05:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Now that school is back in session, my assessing will be limited. However, during the winter vacation (late January and early February) I will come and assess more articles.  ludahai 魯大海 22:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, if someone could go through some of my untagged pages and take out the non-bios it would be nice. Make sure you put them on the non-bio pages though! That, among other things, is still on my to do list. I will be taking care of #1 and Wizardman has done #5. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Psychless (talk • contribs) 13:40, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

End of drive analysis?
I know people have said that we shouldn't compare this drive to the previous one, but one thing stands out. On the previous drive, as you can see here, a graph was produced to show how much of an impact we had made. I thought this was pretty interesting, as it showed the whole time line of biography articles on Wikipedia. Would a similar graph be possible for this drive? Its nothing major, but I think it would be interesting for the participants to show how much we helped in organising these articles - • The Giant Puffin •  09:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Here is an updated graph. Note that it shows that the graph is representing all assessed articles, not just biography articles. I probably should have made a second one, but the first took enough time as it is.

Regards,  Psych  less   02:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Have the awards been given? LordHarris 22:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. And you got WikiCookie. <b style="color:#0000FF;">OhanaUnited</b><b style="color:green;">Talk page</b> 01:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Er, where/when were they awarded? Espresso Addict 02:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I am still, unfortunately, in the process of handing out awards. All WikiCookies were handed out recently. I've been busy lately with other projects and spending 30 minutes handing out six awards (I have a 22k dial-up connection) isn't at the top of my list. The rest of the "awards committee" could finish it off if they would like to.  Psych  less   01:47, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * What's going on with what was discussed above in the Awards section ~ mid September...  Broken Sphere Msg me 02:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)