Wikipedia talk:Wikiatholon

Exclude GA reviews
I think we should include only peer reviews, and exclude GA reviews so as to not risk tainting the GA process with competitors trying to earn points. RO (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Pinging and. RO (talk) 16:19, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * (I've never partaken in this competition) While I was one of the people who did push for PRs to be included in the WikiCup, I do think you do still need GARs to get points because of the huge backlog in GA and if you take away the points, it is less incentive to do GARs when there is nothing to get for it. With these competitions, you have to think about how it helps the wider wiki community and I'm sure they would value the Wikiatholon participants getting involved in reviewing the backlog of GANs.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 07:04, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There is the issue of participants pushing stuff through GA for points, and I don't like the idea of corrupting one process for the sake of competition. Also, we already have the GA cup, so it's kind of redundant. I'm definitely open to more discussion on this, and if I'm wrong I'll happily agree with others. RO (talk)  15:37, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Allow editors to choose 5 cats out of 6 or 7?
Adam pointed out that some people will not be able to make FPs. So maybe we should have 6 cats, and each competitor chooses which five they will complete each round, with the caveat that FA and GA cannot be substituted. RO (talk) 16:46, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * How long is a round?
 * Would we better off not requiring an FA? FAs are probably the most difficult and slow sort of content. I'd personally say that, by the end of the competition, one FA must have been promoted, but not more than that.
 * Will there be a winner, or is it more of a tiered system for how much they completed?
 * DYK has a long lead time. Would we be better off skipping it?

Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:51, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Off the top of my head: If we want it to be a year-long event, I'd say have three rounds and a finals all 10 weeks long (January 1 to September 30). A shorter version could be three rounds and a final all 6 weeks long. You make a good point about FAs. Maybe an FA is only required by round three, so that all finalists will all have completed one FA. I assumed we'd have a winner, but I'm open to discussion on that. We could also have tiers based on experience; e.g., Top tier: Veterans (3 years of service or more), Middle tier: Experienced (1 to 3 years), and Bottom tier: Beginner (less than one year). DYK is too long, I agree, but if we have 10 week rounds that should still be doable for most. What do you think about having 6 or 7 choices, so that those without a good camera can choose something like featured list or featured topic instead of FP? I like the idea of having substitutes, but it's hard to balance relative difficulties. RO (talk)  18:40, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What about featured lists and good/featured topics? JAG  UAR   18:15, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. Lets include those for sure! RO (talk)  18:15, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think we should have all the same cats as the Wikicup, but only three are required (see main page). Then editors can choose whichever other two they want. RO (talk)  18:35, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * For good/featured topics, are we definitely allowing points for the whole of the topic or for every article within the topic, similar to the Wikicup? JAG  UAR   15:46, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably should be per article, hey? RO (talk)  15:52, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. How many points, one point per GT and two per FT? JAG  UAR   16:48, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. Perfect! I'll add that now. RO (talk)  17:10, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd be inclined to say the GT/FT thing, while suitable for something like the Wikicup, might be more problematic here. It highly favours editors who already have a number of GAs/FAs coming into the competition. I mean, if we're expecting one FA, then how would you get the minimum, what, two? FAs necessary for a FT? I'd leave them out. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:24, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * After all, the whole point of this competition is variety of content, whereas FT/GT is inherently a quantity of content issue. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:25, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Those are good points. Maybe topics should be excluded. What do you say about this, ? RO (talk)  21:29, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, after looking it over again I think bringing in topics would put a major flaw in the system and could be better off leaving them out. I feel dense for ignoring the paramount "quality over quantity" guideline. JAG  UAR   21:39, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't think of that either, Jaguar, but that's why we have Adam to help us! RO (talk)  22:02, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

In the News
In the News updates once every few days, and only has a few items on it. At the moment, it last had a new entry - a single new entry - two days ago. It's not practical for this competition to include it. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:29, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Should all cats be editor choice
Adam said we shouldn't require an FA for every round, but maybe just one during the event. I think one per round would be okay, since they will be 10 weeks long, but if we don't want to require FAs, should we make all the cats editor choice? Participants could chose at least five of the ten cats. RO (talk) 19:06, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Advancing
I think all competitors who complete five categories in each round should advance to the next round, so there is no need for a points-based eliminations. Then the finals will be decided by total points. RO (talk) 18:29, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the rules, as written, may well be impossible to achieve. Take Round 3. You have five categories, and supposedly "Competitors cannot earn more than the set amount of points in any given category."

This puts the minimum FT size at around 16 articles. If you get every single one. And you do realise that the line between GT and FT is really fluid, right? Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:31, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, all that needs to be changed can and will be changed. All I meant by "Competitors cannot earn more than the set amount of points in any given category" is that a person cannot earn 2,400 points on featured pictures if they haven't yet earned any points in the other categories. I realize this is not set up great right now. I need some help with the logistics, and I'm probably not describing my ideas all that well. Specific suggestions would be helpful. RO (talk)  21:27, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Another possibility
Another approach might be to require any five categories for each round, but to make the finals you would of had to complete all ten at some point. In other words, choose any five for the first three rounds, but only those who completed all ten during the competition can make the finals. RO (talk) 21:24, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Point scale, and suggested rule
I've made some tweaks. An article has multiple ways to score points - theoretically, DYK, GA, and FA are all available for a single article - so it's hard to get a good point level for them; I think the rarity of FAs justifies GAs being a bit higher, though. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:51, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Portals
WP:FPOC is somewhat moribund. I think that might be a blocker.

Suggested rules
First of all, let's consider the options. ITN, FPO, GT, and FT all have issues - ITN updates VERY rarely, and it's unlikely a competitor would manage to be the first to update the article. So it's impractical. WP:FPOC is moribund. GT and FT are celebrations of quantity, not variety. So let's leave those out.

FA, GA, and DYK all deal with the same content. FA is a slow process, so let's concentrate on GA.

I think we can get around the issues where some people can't do FPs by offering a very low-point alternative option where you simply have to find and upload a free-licensed image, and get it through featured picture. This, at least, encourages appropriate research into how to find images for Wikipedia, which is inherently useful for people to know. We might need to require more than one image for this alternative option.

So, here's my suggestions for basic rules. DYK and FA can be added atop them:


 * Each competitor competes to complete the most triads, each triad consisting of one GA, one FL, and one FP (or alternative).
 * Points are only awarded for complete triads. Partial triads may be carried to the next round. For example, if you have ten GAs, two FLs, and four FPs, you will only be awarded points for the two complete triads, but can save the remaining eight GAs and two FPs for when you get more featured lists.
 * If the competitor is unable to create a featured picture, finding two pieces of high-quality, well-documented content, uploading them (to Commons, if possivle), putting them in articles, and getting them to featured picture status may substitute. [We may want to reduce the value of the triad accordingly]
 * For each GA used in a triad, you must review two other good article candidates.
 * For each FL used in a triad, you must review one other featured list candidate.
 * FPs are somewhat unusual, insofar as a simple voting system is used, which we don't want to overwhelm with new voters. To get competitors up to speed with things, no reviews are required until the second round of the competition.
 * If, for some reason, no other candidates of the specified type are available for review, or you don't feel able to review the ones available, you may instead review any other content type. Don't abuse this rule.

I think that's a good "base" ruleset; anything else can be built atop this.

Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:51, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay. These are great suggestions. Just to be sure I'm following, you suggest we use only five cats: FA, GA, FP, FL, and DYK. I can get behind that, but I'm not sure about requiring FLs for each round. I like the idea that editors choose which cats to attain points in, but must choose any three (triad), so they can't get 50 points from 2 FAs, because they can only claim one FA towards the 50 point goal. I think we should require all finalists to have completed all five cats though, so participants must do at least one of each to make the finals. I think we are on the same page here, but I want to be sure. RO (talk)  16:01, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * FAs and GAs are different quality levels of the same content. DYK is also either an article or rarely list. Allowing someone to participate with a triad that only contained articles defeats the point. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:31, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * But not if the GA and the FA are for different articles, which is what I assumed we'd use. A GA for round 1 can be an FA in round 2, but you can't claim a GA and an FA during the same round for the same article. Does that make sense? How many categories are you thinking about, and how does one advance through the rounds? RO <sup style="color:blue;">(talk)  22:00, 2 October 2015 (UTC)