Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/Collaboration

Start time

 * (header added 24 April 2006 to assist in page formatting)

When should we start the first one, in May ? Brian | (Talk) 08:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I am happy with first one starting from today. Peter Ellis seems to have enough support. - SimonLyall 05:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Started, Lets see how it goes. Brian | (Talk) 07:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Size of vote needed
I think the number of votes needed should probably be increased. Currently, only two votes are needed, and one article has already beaten that even though the next collaboration won't start for quite sometime. I was wondering what happens for it to be changed? Is there any set process? --Midnighttonight 08:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we should keep the low number for the time being. Any topic which doesn't reach the number of votes required for the number of weeks since it has been nominated will be dropped from further consideration. It doesn't matter if we have some articles which reach quite high numbers of votes over several weeks - eventually they will either have the highest vote and be picked as the collaboration, or they will fall below the threshold. The method sets a balance between the articles which everyone thinks is an obvious candidate, and those which draw support over a longer period as people take time to think about what contribution they can make to the article.-gadfium 09:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I assume that the next topic will be selected not on Sunday 30th April as currently stated, but on Sunday 7th May, two week after the last selection.-gadfium 09:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Eligible articles
The top of the NZCOF page says that nominations should be for "a specific topic which either has no article or a basic stub page that is directly related to New Zealand". Two of my nominations so far have flouted this guideline, with no one objecting. Weta isn't a stub, and Years in New Zealand is a series of articles. Should we expand the criteria, or just continue to take them with a grain of salt in the usual relaxed kiwi style?-gadfium 02:12, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Continued with the relaxed nature. Maybe add "other suggestions, within reason, may be considered" --Midnighttonight 03:06, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed, lets keep the criteria as is, but, who cares if we don't follow it to the letter :) Brian | (Talk) 04:27, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I would like to also see, if possible, people voting so that it is not topic dominated- i.e. we don't have politics after politics after politics after politics and so on. While this isn't a directive, it is a friendly suggestion that there are a lot of NZ areas which need better articles, not just .  --Midnighttonight 05:51, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
 * agree, i didnt read the rules, just jumped in, thanks for pointing all that out. we could re-write the rules over time as we find out what people want i reckon, so i do think its good to start a bit with 'relaxed kiwi style' and watch what happens. Doont want to put anyone off just yet, theres not enough of us as it is i feel. at 1 a fortnight thats only 24 a year and its probably not going to be enough, but thats irrelevant if theres only enough collaborators to do say 12 articles a year. We probably need to do hundreds, so it might take time to build the core support of enough people to do stuff. Also, if articles such as the Weta get built up enough ahead of the successful voting schedule here, then maybe they can be pushed down the list someway, although I dont really know how the system can cope with that. I probably wont support political articles so maybe it will balance out somewhat.moza 09:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Peter Ellis
Can I request that the regulars at NZCOTF keep this article on their watchlist, even though we're about to change to a different topic, as this will remain a controversial topic and will attract both vandalism (such as this edit) and POV editors.

I think we've done an outstanding job on this article, which is probably a lot more taxing than the average collaboration will be in the future due to the huge amount of detail relating to the case and the strong opinions it generates. I'm pleased to see that we seem to be drawing in new editors to Wikipedia as a result of the collaboration; some of them will stick around and contribute to a wider range of articles in the future, I hope.

Normally, I think the procedure should be that a collaboration should be put on peer review when it finishes its run, with a view to becoming a featured article. I have no objection to this article being moved forward in this fashion, but I suspect that most of us have had our fill of this subject for the time being, so I won't nominate it myself.-gadfium 09:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I've set it up. For ease of people checking it, it is included below. --Midnighttonight 02:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

userbox
Placing the following on your user page will produce the box below

.  A good way of advertising the collab! --Midnighttonight 09:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Tie
It looks like we may have a three-way tie coming up! Someone should vote to break the deadlock! --Midnighttonight 08:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The situation is handled by the tie breakers clause. I've already voted for two of them, and while I have no objection to the third becoming NZCOTF I don't have much to say on the subject.-gadfium 09:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Where are we voting for this? --Midnighttonight 08:02, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I've set up a section in the page to do the tie breaking vote. --Midnighttonight 08:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Edit Confict, just beat me to it :) Brian | (Talk) 08:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Does the vote for RU in NZ tie breaker get carried over to the current nom? Cvene64 13:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * No, it does not, you'll need to revote Brian | (Talk) 19:41, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Template on Article or Talk page?
Oleg Alexandrov has raised the issue on Wikipedia talk:Collaborations of whether the template for the current winner of a collaboration should go on the article or the talk page. You might be interested in taking part. Pruneau 00:29, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion
Could we use a hash (#), instead of a star (*) on the voting? That would make counting a lot easier? Cheers. --Midnighttonight 01:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * That makes a lot of sense. I'll convert the existing entries.-gadfium 02:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

reawakening old topics
What are the rules surrounding reviving a previous topic that failed in nomination? Should there be a period in which an article cannot be renominated? I would suggest either four or six weeks. --Midnighttonight 09:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 * A month sounds sensible, but I wouldn't oppose six weeks.-gadfium 19:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. maybe add for at least a month Brian | (Talk) 19:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Rubgy
I was away last night, ran out of time to promote Rubgy, thanks for doing that Brian | (Talk) 00:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * no prob. But it should probably be checked in case I stuffed something up somewhere (probability: 99%). --Midnighttonight 02:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

update
This should have been updated by now, I'm unsure of what to do regarding whether to promote all of "year in New Zealand" or just the 1980s. --Midnighttonight 07:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think there was enough of a call for separation by decade (plus vote) to just make it the 1980s articles this time. IMO, it would be worth keeping all the decades that were voted for on the nomination page but delist the others for now (they can always be nominated again later). I know I'm biased, having nominated another highly-voted (non "years in") article, but it might be worth alternating the decade groups with other articles (i.e., a decade of articles this fortnight, a non-"years" article next fortnight, then another decade, and so on) for now until we get a considerable amount of these years out of the way (alternatively, we could simply have the years articles as an ongoing project separate from the CotF). In any case there's nothing to stop us doing a little work on the other years anyway, whether CotF or not. Grutness...wha?  08:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * id like to see that too tho i see its all been archived already.  BL Lacertae -  kiss the lizard  08:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * If anyone wants to renom another decade, go ahead!. I was just trying to clear off the nom page for now. If you want the other decades back up be bold :) Brian | (Talk) 08:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Might wait a few weeks :) But they do all deserve to be done sometime soon. Grutness...wha?  08:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

New Zealand
I know what the rules say, but given that there are a number of countries with FA status, could we, at some stage, have the colla work at the New Zealand article and get it to FA status. To do so I think we would peer review it before hand to see what was wrong, and then edit it up to scratch. It would be nice to see it on the main page at some point in time. I am not suggesting we do it now, as there are some very deserving articles currently put forward, more something to think about in the future. --Midnighttonight 05:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

tie
Looks like we are going to have a tie, anyone care to vote before it closes at 8pm? Brian | (Talk) 06:46, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

More people
Methinks this needs more people. Maybe someone should use a bot and leave a message for everyone in Category:Wikipedians in New Zealand?? Will return shortly - MidnightTonight (yes, I'm logged out at the moment)

WikiProject Biography
Let us know if you happen to pick an article on a person and we'll alert our members! plange 05:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

candidates called
All candidates are overdue for removal due to not enough votes to stay there. Looks like an opportunity for anyone to nominate their most important articles, for collab. Brian | (Talk) 19:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Reviving the collaboration
The collaboration has languished for several months now. Why? At first I thought it was because those of us who are students were busy with end of semester / school year assignments and exams, but it hasn't picked up again since.

One of the problems I can see is that people may vote for a topic because they agree it should be improved, but they have no particular expertise themselves in that topic. I'm guilty of this myself; I nominated New Zealand literature, but since it became the COTF I've looked at a few sources, sighed, and decided to do something else instead. I'd like to see this article become a good one, but I don't have the inclination to do it myself. In retrospect, I shouldn't have put it forward.

What can we do to revitalise the NZCOTF? Here are my ideas:
 * 1) When a new topic is selected, drop a message on the talk page of the people who voted for it, requesting that they improve it. The Collaboration of the Week used to do this about 2004, with a message (using Template:COTWvoter) such as:
 * Your vote for has helped bring about the article's selection as this week's Collaboration of the week. Please join in trying to make the article a feature.
 * There's a discussion about use of this template at Wikipedia_talk:Collaboration_of_the_week/Archive_4. I think it was discontinued, but I haven't been able to find a discussion on why.
 * 1) I think we should relax the pruning rules. Some good candidates were pruned because even better candidates were voted up. Lets make it one vote per two weeks, or drop the pruning entirely for a while (which has happened by default anyway)
 * 2) Look for joint collaborations. Make a space in the collaboration template for "other collaborations or wikiprojects which may be interested in this article". E.g. for New Zealand literature, we should have notified WikiProject Books that we were working on it. For List of New Zealand feature films, we should notify WikiProject Films.

Alternatively, if no one is very interested in the idea of a New Zealand collaboration any more, maybe we should scrap it.- gadfium 08:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Good ideas. I would like to get the cotf back up and running, look how good the first cotf has turned out (Peter Ellis). I wonder if we should drop a message on the talk page of some of the active kiwi editors, the ones who don't follow the NB and the project NS side of the wiki, and let them know about the cotf. Brian | (Talk) 09:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

inactive
Let's face it, this collaboration is inactive. If you want to revive it, please do so. --Midnighttonight ( rendezvous ) 21:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * OK! - Shudda   talk  00:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm going to try and get back in this again, the main prob why in the past, why I was not updating Fortnightly was because, not a lot of changes were happening to the current COTF Brian | (Talk) 01:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that does happen. I have changed the selection criteria quite a bit. This is mainly because two weeks for a collaboration can be too ambitious, having a fortnightly time frame probably won't work with only a few contributors. Hopefully if a nomination gets four supports then at least those four will contribute. Making it worthwhile having the collaboration. - Shudda   talk  02:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion for reinvigorating the project? Change the banner colour! It scares people away being that bright ;-) dramatic 07:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Lime? it was the first colour code I could think of :P yeah it needs a kiwi coulor to it, sort of like the NZ portal Brian | (Talk) 07:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm this project is as inactive as I am. perhaps a change to a monthly collaboration? Onco_p53 11:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Australia-New Zealand relations
Since this is the current Australian collaboration, and the NZCOTF hasn't changed for over a year, I've updated the topic to join the Australians. If there's lots of participation from New Zealanders, maybe this will serve to trigger a revival of our collaboration.- gadfium 19:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

November collaboration
I'm not going to be available on 1 November to select the topic. Anyone else is welcome to do so - just follow the instructions at New Zealand collaboration. If no one does, I'll do it a day or two later.- gadfium 19:18, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

FYI
I am currently researching most of the books written about the 1981 tour with a view to expanding and fully referencing the article (a previous collaboration). My target will be GA or A class. dramatic (talk) 01:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion
We all seem to be working flat-tack on election coverage right now, and the collaboration on State Housing hasn't gotten anywhere. Why don't we defer that article until December and reflect reality by declaring New Zealand general election 2008 and associated pages to be the November Collaboration? dramatic (talk) 09:08, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I've been almost inactive for the last three weeks due to other events. I'll update the featured article to the election tomorrow unless there are any objections. Also, I think perhaps I should change the pruning criteria to be four votes in two months, or all existing candidates will be pruned shortly.


 * I was thinking of nominating Fifth National Government of New Zealand for a future collaboration, but if we're making this month's collaboration the election then that's really covered by default, and I'll reconsider that nomination if there's no substantial article in a couple of months time.- gadfium 17:34, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * For those who don't know, the co-ordination of all the election updates is at WikiProject New Zealand/Election 2008 taskforce. --Helenalex (talk) 04:58, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I've changed the collaboration to the election.- gadfium 22:10, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Agriculture in New Zealand
I only happened across the collaboration for Agriculture in New Zealand on April first, and all the significant improvement to the article seems to have happened since then. There's a long way to go, so shall we retain the collaboration status for the rest of April? dramatic (talk) 00:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, at least while substantial edits are still being made.- gadfium 06:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Lack of participation
It seems no subject is getting the four votes I've deemed necessary for promotion. If I drop the requirement to three votes, then I fear not much collaboration will actually happen on the target article. It seems this process has not managed to gain the interest of sufficient editors.

In practice, collaboration (sometimes) happens as a result of appeals on the New Zealand Wikipedian's noticeboard. The New Zealand river stubs is a good example. Another is my request for help at Fairfield College, where several editors responded and one has continued to take an active role. There was less response to SimonLyall's request about 2degrees, where one editor not previously involved in the article has contributed.

Is there a future for this page? What if anything should be done to revitalise it?- gadfium 10:03, 15 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Might be worth advertising it again at the NZWP notice board, WPNZ, and maybe even WP Australia. Or even a general mailout to the user talk pages of everyone listed as a participant at WPNZ. That might generate a little bit of interest, at least. Grutness...wha?  01:41, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I've made the next article "None", since it seems this collaboration isn't working. Not a single edit was made to Gregg's (New Zealand) during the two months it was the collaboration subject. I think part of the problem is that articles take a few months to be promoted, and by that time most people are no longer interested in them, or the article has already been greatly improved since the nomination, as was the case with Gregg's.

Anyone else is welcome to take over the process if they believe they can restore interest in it. Grutness' suggestions above might help.- gadfium 20:19, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Since the collab was moribund, and Howard Morrison had been collab of the month for 18 consecutive months, I hope no-one will take offence at me taking unilateral action and changing the topic to 2011 Rugby World Cup, a topic of current interest. The info about the lead-up to the tournament could do with some work, for instance. Nurg (talk) 07:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)