Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikify/Drives/2012/March Mini

Word count
I just put my name down for this drive, and the first random article I got to wikify was Methylobacillus flagellatus, which is 1633 words long. That seems to beat Assassins Creed's score by a long way, but since I'm new to Wikipedia and this is my first drive, I thought I should make sure I'm not doing something wrong. So just to clarify, does the "largest" on the leaderboard refer to the word count of the whole article — the "prose size" as given by the page size tool? And if so, is that before or after my wikification? Also, could someone skim that methylobacillus article for me to make sure I've wikified it properly?

Thanks. DoctorKubla (talk) 19:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup, prose size as given by the tool before you started wikifying - exactly. I've gone ahead and updated you. And Methylobacillus flagellatus was done very well...good job. :)  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  21:52, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. DoctorKubla (talk) 22:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * And thank you for your work :)  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  22:37, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Monthly listings missing?
I can't find the listings by month (which used to be on the upper right side of the page), and I'd like to work on the oldest months first. All the best,  Miniapolis  ( talk ) 02:34, 9 March 2012 (UTC)


 * - blanked wikification progress with this edit, but i have restored the template. Cheers,  benzband  ( talk ) 16:01, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks!  Miniapolis  ( talk ) 18:54, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Not looking good
24.7% at the moment. It looks like AWB users are tagging articles faster than even User:jobberone can wikify them. As long as bots are placing tags that only humans can remove, it doesn't look like we have a hope in hell of pushing back the tide. I know Wikipedia has no deadline, but it's a little disheartening. DoctorKubla (talk) 09:35, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * We are aware about this, in fact the whole point of this "mini" drive was to finish what was started during the February drive. [FAILED] Some time in February the number of articles tagged with wikify shot right up, and the drive concluded with a very small percentage, despite having wikified hundreds of articles. And this number is still increasing. In short: → it's gonna be a long hard drag, but we'll make it. (from MOTD)   benzband  ( talk ) 15:59, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The drive has now concluded with 25.3% completion. Enough to dishearten anyone, certainly… :P benzband  ( talk ) 13:52, 24 March 2012 (UTC)


 * And I'm coming across a lot of stubs pointlessly tagged with wikify. What am I supposed to do with, for instance, Epitizide? DoctorKubla (talk) 11:06, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * As for this kind of thing, i would advise removing the tag, along with any improvements you can make (however minor :-) to the article. And for the bother of doing so you might as well log it. Cheers ~ benzband  ( talk ) 15:59, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow, it's...sad that this was tagged, but we can only blame the AWB algorithm for that.  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  21:49, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It is very disheartening, as DoctorKubla put it, especially when the bots are tagging articles which are about as wikified as they can be, for their size. I've watched this happen for months now; sometimes we have a stroke of luck and get the backlog down to around 19,000 articles - I think one time we even made it about halfway from there to 18,000. Then, without fail, thousands of articles are tagged in a single month, and within a wink it becomes as if no one did anything during the drive. It's been on my mind to say this, but I thought it best if the subject were brought up first: Suppose the bots are programmed to avoid tagging articles for wikification, just until we can get the backlog down to around 10,000 or so, and then we release them into that field again? That might at least get us past the first road block. Like my singing? Ha-la-la-la-la-la-LA-LAAA!!! (talk) 02:57, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I think just stopping AWB from tagging stubs altogether might be a big help. I'm not well-versed in programming, but I'm sure it would be the work of a moment to add another caveat to the algorithm, and it would save us all a lot of work. This has been brought up recently and brushed off by the developers, but maybe making some more noise on their talk pages would help. DoctorKubla (talk) 09:23, 24 March 2012 (UTC)


 * @WWil: The problem is that it isn't the bots; I think it's AWB more than anything, and I don't think the main AWB developer (User:Magioladitis) sees this as much of a problem. In a similar situation, there was semi-consensus here a few months ago that AWB was improperly removing wikify templates just because the article had at least three links (which clearly doesn't make an article wikified alone). IMO, an algorithm cannot ever tell if an article is properly wikified and remove the tag, just like it cannot tell if a stub should get a tag. Anyway, that pretty much went nowhere. There's tons of discussion about that here (look for further links in the third comment, by me).
 * @DrKubla: First, there's been a request on the books about exactly that for months now per this. And I don't know that their talk pages would do anything....but the Village pumps might. I will leave them a note pointing out that request....we'll see if anything happens.  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  12:31, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * As one further note...I don't think that AWB adds wikify to articles incorrectly in general. Usually, it gets that right. However, stubs are a little different and obviously I don't believe that it should remove wikify at all.  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  12:40, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * My first visit here. I'm in the dog house for spending so much time at this BTW.  I'm discouraged we didn't make a big dent but everyone should take a bow for helping.  I do have a question.  My wife is a Chinese National.  She speaks English fairly well but is always learning.  Many Chinese study English and Wikipedia is used a good deal by many esp younger persons.  I've been discouraged from Wikifying too many words but I don't see how that hurts Wikipedia.  And for non-English speaking people they need all the help they can get trying to understand what's being written and how to correlate it and put it in context.  Where is the proper place to discuss the style of Wikifying and addressing this topic?  What do you people think?Jobberone (talk) 21:17, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there Jobberone, welcome to Project Wikify and thanks for the work you did! I believe you are talking about the links in the article, correct? First of all, the relevant policy is WP:OVERLINK, so that would be the page you want to change. If there aren't enough people to discuss it there, you would probably try someplace like the village pump for proposals. Now, the general reason though that I think you will find people explain this is that we have a separate Simple English Wikipedia (found here) where the writing is at a lower reading level. Unfortunately, I very seriously doubt this wikipedia will stand for overlinking or linking simple words, so its probably best not to do that.  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  23:59, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Here's an example of me going through an article you wikified and removing some links. Just think that as a general rule, any word, term or phrase that doesn't help to explain the actual article really shouldn't be linked. For example, How will the article on weeks help to explain the Cork Gunpowder Explosion? The two aren't related at all, honestly.  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  00:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I certainly wish to conform. I have to explain what seems very simple words all day long so I'm very biased.  I still don't see the problem.  If you're getting distracted don't click on the links esp to those you already understand.  But I'll conform.Jobberone (talk) 01:19, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * More instructions can be found here : How do I wikify? Hope this helps, benzband  ( talk ) 09:19, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I can understand how you could feel that way, but those are just the rules and there's no need to oppose them directly when there are other options available, as I see it.  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  19:39, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I made it very clear I would conform. I am in no way opposing it.Jobberone (talk) 01:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Alright, thanks. :)  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  21:43, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks all.Jobberone (talk) 19:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC)