Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikify/Drives/2011/April

Pre-drive planning
Pre-drive planning is under way at this page. Guoguo12 --Talk--  20:53, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

One quick question
When I wikify, I find that something like 40-50% of tagged articles need very little, if any, actual wikification. Many of those are simply short stubs which have all the bluelinks they can handle and have no need for sectioning. Is there a minimum amount of work required for scoring purposes? I.E. does the article actually have to need wikification in order to "count", or does removing a wikify tag from a mistagged article still count for scoring purposes? I should note that, as a matter of practice, I always try to make some fix or expansion, no matter how minor, when I remove the Wikify tag, even if no actual wikification goes on. I just want to know if removing misplaced tags counts for scoring purposes, or if we only count situations where actual bluelinking and section organizing go on... -- Jayron  32  04:35, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It's true that there are a lot of articles that shouldn't be tagged with wikify at all; usually these were tagged by a bot using AWB algorithms. Please don't count these articles in your score if no wikifying occurs, but do remove the tag. However, basically if you add just a few more links where there ought to be links (i.e., not dates, common words, etc.), you can count it in your score. Guoguo12  --Talk--  13:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That clarifies my question.  -- Jayron  32  16:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Topical listing of pages needing wikification
I can find "random article" links but I can't find a topical listing. I would rather work on articles in categories/topic areas that I find interesting. It would make it easier, does anyone know how to get there from here? --Vampyrecat (talk) 01:11, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that information is availible. You can get a listing by age if you go to CAT:WIKIFY, so you can work on the oldest first... -- Jayron  32  02:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The instructions say how to use Catscan, which can make this list for you. Sumsum2010 · T · C  02:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for the help. --Vampyrecat (talk) 03:15, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

March Mini Awards
Hey I was just wondering if the awards were going to be given out for the March Mini that concluded a few days ago as it has been officially closed and the focus is now on the April Drive. Fallschirmjäger &#9993; 16:34, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought they had already been handed out! Off to deliver the awards, Sumsum2010 · T · C  16:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Cheers! Fallschirmjäger<b style="color:#701"></b></i> <b style="color:#3CB371">&#9993;</b></i> 17:38, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Username change: Wi2g --> Miniapolis
Sorry to be a pain, but I'd thought about changing my username to something a bit more anonymous and finally did it last night; still getting used to what gets changed automatically and what doesn't.--Miniapolis (talk) 14:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for telling us.  Nolelover  It's almost football season!  19:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I assume you're wondering if the username changes you log results, right? I've scratched out the old username and talk links, even though they're redirects, and rewritten your new username to the side with a link to this post. Okay with you, right? Guoguo12  --Talk--  19:21, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Think I'm getting a barnstar :-), so I wanted to make sure you didn't feel you had to track me down. I think my stuff gets redirected, but am not sure (and have no intention of changing my name again; the old name is my ham-radio callsign). Thanks for noting the change on my log!--Miniapolis (talk) 20:48, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Post-drive thoughts from Chzz
Usually, I don't go in for WikiProject drives - or many WikiProject things at all, really; I tend to do my own thing instead; I often make use of WikiProjects to enlist experts to some problematic article, or whatever, but I rarely actually join them. For example, I constantly act as a mentor to lots and lots of new users, but I never do the 'adoption' thing; instead, anyone can ask me anything they like on my user talk, and generally I answer them, and try to help.

But, I decided to have a go at this one.

I started very enthusiastically - I spent maybe 4-6 hours on the first day, and wikified about 20 articles. I tried to keep that up, but - just being honest here - I got a bit disillusioned. When I 'wikify' something, then I tend to get carried away. For example, if there are no references, I try to at least find a few...and that can lead me to maybe expand it a bit, and so forth. I actually was trying not to get too involved in such things, because I did want to help this drive make significant progress.

I became slightly jaded about it, because I saw others spending 5 minutes wikifying an article - whereas they were taking me, on average, half an hour minimum. (In fairness, there were other reasons I slowed down; I was also involved in many other complicated things on the wiki, and that took me away from it. I kept trying to dive back in, and managed to keep wikifying the odd few more.

I'm not sure merely counting the articles wikified is the best approach, but then again, I'm not sure how it could be better. Counting by article size (or "characters wikified"), or anything else, also has problems - chiefly, that it is complicated, probably unnecessary, and could easily be 'gamed'.

Perhaps just 'count of articles' is best. Keep it simple. The drive certainly benefits the wiki, and people like targets.

Possible hazard, of course, is people can get too hung up on racking up the numbers; the exact same concern affects WikiCup, and many other areas. But it does appear a "Net positive", so should we really care?

Another thought re. "Don't create extra work. Participants should not log any articles they themselves added a tag to during the drive" - I can sort-of understand the necessity for that, but at the same time...during this month, I've effectively wikified a lot more articles - ones I've dealt with via AFC, or during new-page patrol. I deliberately did not tag them wikify before fixing, nor count them in this drive. But in many ways, it's a shame I could not do that; it could make drive participants less inclined to work on AFC, NPP, or whatever, knowing they wouldn't "score points" for it.

I do think the actual target used (Goal: 18,000 articles) was far too ambitious, based on the numbers in previous drives. A 'goal' is a nice idea, but setting it too high can be a bit demoralizing (when, eg, after 20-odd days we'd only achieved 30% of the target).

The above are just thoughts crossing my mind, at the end of this drive - opinion, comments, nothing more - which I hoped might be helpful in considering future ones. Best,  Chzz  ► 04:41, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I wasn't sure how to reply to this comment, but I think I agree with most of your opinions. As for "Don't create extra work. Participants should not log any articles they themselves added a wikify tag to during the drive", the rule really is there to stop the most obvious way to game the system (tagging and wikifying). I'm not sure if there is any way to word this that isn't too complex. The goal, I agree, was set a bit too high. We're still trying to gauge where the compromise between the goal being too high and it being too low is. Hopefully we can improve on this in the next drive. Guoguo12  --Talk--  23:25, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure - and thanks for reading my comments. It didn't need a reply - it was just my thoughts, which I hoped might give one perspective, in future efforts. Keep up the good stuff :-)  Chzz  ► 11:27, 4 May 2011 (UTC)