Wikipedia talk:Collaboration of the week/Archive 6

Proposals

The first proposal would be to limit the number of votes each voter can cast to 3 as I have realized that people (including me) often vote not for what they will write about but what they find important. This would force us to be more selective. I also suggest that people can only vote for the articles that were nominated after they registered - in order to fight sockpuppets. Any comments? Objections? --Eleassar777 20:28, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If no-one objects, then I'll change policy soon, perhaps already tomorrow. --Eleassar777 07:54, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• I don't like the vote limit rule. I don't really come to the COTW much anymore, so I suppose the value of my opinion on this matter has depreciated some, but: Why bother? A vote is inherently placed in order to give credence to something the voter deems notable. Limiting the number of votes seems kinda...conterproductive.
• I'm okay with the second idea, though. -Litefantastic 12:33, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Each time a candidate article gets chosen for COTW, it should be considered notable according to the greater number of votes it gets in comparison to other candidates. When users vote for a majority of articles at the same time, it is harder to achieve this difference and because of that, voting is also not so reliable. On the other side, but by the same reasoning, if someone votes only for a smaller number of candidates, the votes he/she casts have greater influence.

Therefore the changes I propose are not only good for the community but also for individual voters. --Eleassar777 13:30, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• After two weeks without any persistent objections, I have changed the voting rules yesterday. --Eleassar777 07:21, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Voting

I think we should remove both these restrictions. Currently I see no attempt to sock puppet votes (as there is little incentive to), and the restriction on votes is silly. Burgundavia 02:44, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

• Maybe it would be good if someone was so dedicated to an article that they would make a sockpuppet to get it through. Then maybe someone would contribute to it! :) --Dmcdevit 02:53, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

May I ask where the two of you were before the restrictions were implemented?? It's silly to change them every day. You have to present real arguments.

In essence, I just do not want to see e.g. "Burundi" (everyone voted - including new users, but almost nobody contributed) the winner of the COTW instead of "History of technology" (I'm sure that many people would contribute if it had been chosen, as they did for the History of science, but it was not). The voting system appears to be flawed. --Eleassar777 12:37, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
P.S.: what's the point of votes Fenice gave today? Will he (she) contribute to all of the articles he voted for? What's the point of voting if you do not cntribute? --Eleassar777

• Hi, I did not see the rule. Anyway, now that I think of it there's a lot to be said against it. I don't think people should vote only for the articles they can or plan or want to contribute to. The winner of the vote should be the article that needs improvement most because it is important and because it is likely to be looked up a lot.
  

Anyway, if you install such a rule, you would have to clarify the time frame. If this rule stays at it is it means everyone can vote three times in their lives - the project would be dead soon.--Fenice 13:12, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Also, if this rule wasn't discussed anywhere else but only on this page I cannot help but notice that it has only one proponent (Eleassar777) and three people against it (litefantastic, Burgundavia and Fenice). Shouldn't rule-changes on such an important project be polled on a larger scale?--Fenice 13:25, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I think I know what you mean.

1)The rule is in fact badly formulated. However, I'm sure you know what I wanted to express: to limit the number of votes each user has in given moment on the project page to three. I'm changing it right now.

2) I believe that voting for only three nominated articles on the list means that your votes are effective. If you vote for each article, it is as voting for none of them.

Another point is that one of the voting rules says: "A vote will be taken to include a pledge that the voter will contribute to the article if it is selected." Therefore, some effort should be made to realize this.

Usually people are not knowledgeable in everything. This means that they can contribute only to a limited number of candidates and should be allowed to give only a limited number of votes.

Another solution would be to remove the sentence mentioned above from the list of the rules of voting. This probably wouldn't be a good idea as if people don't contribute only a week passes by without any work done.

I am not the only one who thinks that people should contribute. From the last archive, it is evident that also User:Mikkalai and User:Bremen agree with that.

3) User:Dmcdevit says: "Maybe it would be good if someone was so dedicated to an article that they would make a sockpuppet to get it through.". My comment would be that perhaps the criterium of 5 votes per week for the article is too high.

4) I agree that rules should be discussed elsewhere. Where do you think it would be the most appropriate place to do so? I'm only sorry that this discussion didn't happen already before. --Eleassar777 15:21, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

• User Mikkalai says on the last archive page that voters should state whether they want to contribute or just think that the topic is interesting. I cannot find explicit support for this policy by Bremen.

All in all I believe you are moving in the wrong direction. Limiting the votes will just make people more disinterested in the Cotw. And the pledge to contribute - nobody reads that or sticks to it anyway.

It is very unlikely that the people who come here and vote are the ones who are likely to make the best contributions.

(On the other hand, I think that there are people who are in fact able to write a good article on almost everything, because they know how to research and are knowledgeable).

If you think that there are not enough edits, and that seemed to be the original problem of the discussion, other mesures would be more efficient: you have a marketing problem: the people who could and would want to make the best contributions probably don't even know about cotw.

Other mesures could be:

leave notes on user-pages of people who are likely to contribute and invite them to make edits. These people could be:

• the supporters
• people who have worked on the article before
• people who have worked on similar articles
• There are probably lists of wikipedians according to their area of interest/knowledge
• leave notes on related project pages

etc.--Fenice 16:12, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

This is an excellent advice. You can revert the change of the rule about the number of votes if you wish. However, as some people do read the rules, the sentence about the pledge to contribute should also be removed if it is not followed or is followed only by a small minority. The question of who should have the privilege to vote, however, still has to be resolved. --Eleassar777 17:31, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Aid the AID

• Please, help the Article Improvement Drive. I don't think it has long to live with such meager support, and as the members of the COTW you guys should all know that we're the next step after you. -Litefantastic 17:10, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree. It doesn't get nearly half as much attention as COTW. --King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:38, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

At 1800

The Ancient Rome won but now airport is ahead, which should be selected as the next COTW winner? Falphin 02:23, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

It was my flip from one to the other that created this situation. Both articles are good candidates, but since we just finished a Roman colaboration I felt it would be better to go with airport this week. - SimonP 02:34, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

I got myself into something I thought I knew how to do but apparently didn't, you can view the voters of the Airport COTW on my talk page. Sorry Falphin 03:04, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Voting Ties

I created a template that could be placed on the COTW page in the event of voting ties, if anyone is interested in using it. It would better notify people that there has been a tie, and they could vote for one of the potential candidates.

{{ExtendCOTW}}

Voting for this week's Collaboration of the week has been extended 24 hours until Monday 30 May, 2005

It could be at the top of the page, or before the first candidate. Phoenix2 04:15, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Obviously it would have to be subst:'d in. Talrias (t | e | c) 09:06, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Proposal

Could we have two COTW's a week. All the current topics are good choices but many won't make it because of how many else are listed. So for the summer could we have two COTWs every week, I believe enough people are participating to do this. Falphin 16:10, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree - article improvement drive has two articles a week, for example. Talrias (t | e | c) 16:26, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Another reason would be how well Roaring Twenties has done that it is getting fewer significant edits everyday because almost all the topics are covered. I imagine this will continue over the summer as long as their good topics.Falphin 18:00, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I proposed this a while back. See discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:Collaboration_of_the_week/Archive_5#Proposal_for_two_COTWs_per_week —thames 21:20, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

We should have a vote on this proposal since everyone agreed with your proposal. Falphin 22:28, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Vote for Second COTW per week

The COTW has too many topics that aren't going to make it. So I'm putting forth a vote on adding a second COTW per week. It was previously proposed by Thames and as far as I can tell no one disagreed. [1] If interest dies out on the COTW page we can always return to one COTW per week.

Support:

1. Falphin 22:35, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
2. The Anachronism 02:03, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
3. —thames 05:16, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
4. ZeWrestler 06:24, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
5. Talrias (t | e | c) 11:54, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
6. Phoenix2 15:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
7. ℬastique▼^talk 23:08, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
8. mikka (t) 23:40, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
9. Joolz 08:52, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
10. Jacoplane 23:52, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
11. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:39, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
12. violet/riga (t) 17:44, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
13. Howabout1 Talk to me! 18:49, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. SimonP 02:20, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC) One week has worked well so far. While the rapid growth often occurs in the first few days, the subsequent period is often one of important polishing and refinement. I feel that if we want to do more articles per week the best option is to create more national and topical COTWs.

   I'm currently managing the United Kingdom CotW, and there is hardly any activity there at all - there's the odd person dropping by to suggest new articles every month. While this might not be representative I don't think necessarily creating more will be a good solution. Talrias (t | e | c) 11:54, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

2. NatusRoma 05:20, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC) (pending a well-developed structure for the trial period)

Comments:

• A sensible idea. If wikipedia is to truly become the cornucopia of knowledge and wisdom that its framers intend, COTW's will only help that goal, and keeping their numbers per week at a fixed level will ensure that many ideas receive serious attention.--The Anachronism 02:03, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• I am yet to decide, but more than one will perhaps give a better choice to edit.--Bhadani 04:48, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• If it turns out that it waters down our combined efforts too much, we can always go back to one a week, no harm done. —thames 05:16, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• We could try it and see what it would be like. the collaboration drive does 2 articals per week, so we could as well. Personally, I like this alot, because i know there will be some articals coming up, that i'm not interested in, and because of that, it'll give me more options of what i can edit. --ZeWrestler 06:24, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• I have previously opposed this idea, on the basis that it will dilute what attention the COTW gets (some change hardly at all during their week of fame). But why don't we try it for a trial period of say a month and see how it goes? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:18, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• With the current COTW format, some things that recieve relatively enough support and could have improved are forgotten because it takes articles too long to get to the top. Phoenix2 15:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• The articles chosen don't always interest everyone, this has twice the chance at choosing an article people are interested in contributing to. -- Joolz 08:52, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• It seems like I'm in the minority on this one. My opposition is probably just due to my inate resistance to change. I don't object to a trial run, but I would like to see some real data gathered over the period. - SimonP 14:44, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • Then we should have a trial run. That way we have a complete consensus. Falphin 01:55, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Next week we could run a trial of two COTW's, and change the appropriate templates, as well as the community portal page. The COTWnow template could be changed to read, "this is a current collaboration of the week..., or something similar. We also need to specify on what the voting format would be. Phoenix2 02:54, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• I don't think that adding more articles is the solution. Two articles per week has not met the Article Improvement Drive with continual droves of interested editors (see above), and I don't think that it will help COTW. NatusRoma 05:20, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Would you oppose the trial period? Falphin 13:19, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would not, provided that there is a good method of ensuring that we don't have two overlapping articles in the same week. At present, the votes seem to point to doing High Middle Ages and Ancient Egypt next week, and Navy and Ancient Greece the week after, so the interests of the voters may be enough to take care of this. However, had this trial period begun a few weeks ago, we might have wound up with both Ancient Rome and Culture of Ancient Rome at the same time, which would have seriously diluted our efforts, duplication of content notwithstanding. In the same way, working on Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece together would present the same problem of drawing people with similar interests to two separate efforts, yet greatly reduce the benefit of easy content duplication present in my (only barely) hypothetical Ancient Rome example.

I have a few ideas for avoiding such a problem, but I'd like to hear yours. Perhaps it would be beneficial to create a policy that only one of the two articles chosen could come from the same category. I don't know what such a categorization scheme could be, but it would not be difficult to come up with a scheme that avoids either of the types of competitive pairs that I just mentioned. Another possible solution might be to limit voting to ensure that people will not promise their efforts to two similar articles and then be forced to focus on one or to divide their efforts between the two. Please let me know if you have any criticism or suggestions. NatusRoma 00:49, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would oppose limiting votes. However we could make the categorization system. Example; History, Military(Navy,Airforce etc), Recent Culture(to avoid overlap with history), Geographical, and Domestic. Thats of course just one possibility. Falphin 01:04, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Of course this might still be too broad as it wouldn't allow Ancient Egypt and the High Middle Ages to be in the same week.Falphin 01:10, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A Second possibility is make a policy that two related articles can't be posted within a 4 day period increasing the likelyhood of them not ending up together.Falphin 01:10, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I suppose that it would be too much hassle to either have one or two COTW's, based on what they would be for that week. There would only be one if, as stated above, the topics were similar. Phoenix2 23:09, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Two COTWs

Are we going to do two or one? The vote ended 10-2 with one user in opposition stating a trial period was fine and the other would support if two non-similar topics were picked each week. Falphin 18:34, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I guess that that decision has been made; let's start the trial period with two categorically unrelated articles on June 19. NatusRoma 00:34, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've created a new page, Wikipedia:Collaborations of the week, so this can happen. Talrias (t | e | c) 20:53, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

New COTWs

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in having a Biography Collaboration of the Week. Lately I have noticed that wikipedia lacks good articles on well known theologians and philosopher and I imagine elsewhere to. Thoughts? Falphin 01:46, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• we can try it. definetly couldn't hurt. if anything comes up that i'm interested in, i'll vote for it. --ZeWrestler 02:02, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• That was something I was just thinking of, guess I was beaten to it! the wub (talk) 12:40, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• support. Not sure I'd contribute much but I'd like to see it happen.--Fenice 13:04, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I suggest we wait until at least 8 support votes. Falphin 16:48, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Biography COTW vote

Support two weeks per COTW:

1. Falphin 16:48, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
2. ZeWrestler 21:02, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Support three weeks per COTW:

Comments:

• I believe we can manage two weeks for the COTW but in case others disagree I'm adding a three week. Falphin 16:48, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• In light that so many other COTWs are being created I plan to go ahead and start this one as a two week period. I will do it tonight when I get back. Falphin 22:29, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

COTW on Frontpage

I wonder why COTW is not on the frontpage. (The corresponding is put on the frontpage in Wikibooks.) This way it will attract more attention and thus more expansion. I would suggest to put it under the current Featured Articles, Selected Anniversaries, In the news, DYK, to indicate that it is not a featured thing of Wikipedia, but clearly needing more attention.

This is something that should probably be discussed on Talk:Main Page, but I think it one reason for not having it there might be because the COTW is typically very short to begin with and there isn't much worth reading. Another reason might be that no one has suggested it! (please remember to sign your messages on talk pages) Talrias (t | e | c) 17:26, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I considered raising this point myself at one point, but after having seen the tiresomely repetitive vandalism that tends to occur to articles featured on the main page, I think having at least one link to go through eliminates most of the risk, and allows those really committed to the COTW's improvement to carefully plan a path of improvement without having to constantly revert vandalism. --Mark Lewis 18:57, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think we wanted to keep the Main Page as a starting point for Wikipedia readers and users. The corrisponding page for editors is the Community Portal, which is disturbing for those who both read and edit Wikipedia. I think we pull in enough people into editing articles anyway, and the large audience the Main Page has probably works best for what it already does -- correcting small fact/language errors in already very well done articles. — Sverdrup 19:20, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Could we put the Article Improvement Drive on there too? -Litefantastic 23:43, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Redirect to multiple collaborations?

Given that the Collaborations page is pretty much the same thing as Collaboration (singular), can the latter be redirected to the former now? I don't see how it's terribly useful to keep the front page around, since the votes there have been copied to the new version. It actually seems rather confusing. -- Beland 04:36, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree. There's no trial period any more. --Dmcdevit·t 04:40, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

I've done it. This page should of course be kept. :) Talrias (t | e | c) 10:28, 13 July 2005 (UTC)