Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Archive 32

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Proposal to rename the "Wikipedia:WikiProject" pseudo-namespace

A proposal has been made to rename the "Wikipedia:WikiProject" pseudo-namespace to an actual namespace (e.g. "WikiProject:"); comments there would be appreciated.

This is definitely something we need to keep an eye on; if it moves forward, it will require a significant number of changes to our infrastructure—primarily having to do with fixing links in templates—to get everything working properly again. Kirill [talk] [prof] 22:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I don't usually keep an eye on WP:VPR. If they can cleverly automate the changeover, it strikes me as an excellent idea from a usability standpoint. - Dank (push to talk) 22:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
FYI, this proposal has now moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject namespace. It's currently enjoying a reasonable level of support, although most people seem to be glossing over the actual implementation issues for the moment; in any case, we still need to keep an eye on how it's progressing so that we don't get blindsided by the eventual result. Kirill [talk] [prof] 09:56, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Recruitment working group

As the founder (and only member) of the recruitment working group hasn't edited for almost two months, and the WG doesn't seem to have gone anywhere, I'm wondering if we should:

(a) Fold it into the STT and leave discussion of recruitment on the list of topics for further discussion;
(b) Try to make an active effort to revive it; or
(c) Leave it gathering dust.

Thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:57, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, none of our recruitment proposals over the years have really gone anywhere and it would be good to see a proper initiative. So, I suppose I'd prefer something involving both (a) and (b) ;)  Roger Davies talk 04:15, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
A maybe b NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs 05:33, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Any other thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps (a) for now with a view to taking up (b) in the near future? EyeSerenetalk 08:08, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've merged the WG into the STT and left an item about recruitment on the list of things to be discussed; once we get to that, we can figure out what we need to do in terms of organizing recruitment efforts. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:32, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Sandy's FAC plea, reviews

I don't know whether anyone else noticed WT:MILHIST#FAC plea and wondered whether there was anything we could do to encourage our users to help review other articles at FAC in what will hopefully be a quid pro quo situation.

Looking at MHR, the peer reviews and ACRs need a few more reviewers, would diverting them to FAC be shooting ourselves in the foot. I know it is effectively a perennial proposal but is there any way of encouraging more reviews across the project? Perhaps and editorial in the newsletter? Woody (talk) 09:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Giving out reviewers barnstars every three month or so is a very effective way of keeping interest on the boil. Although it's been talked about, we don't actually seem to have done this for over a year now. Publishing league tables of top reviewers at the same time also introduces an element of friendly competition. This is pretty basic stuff but it is effective.  Roger Davies talk 10:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
No reaction at all to this?  Roger Davies talk 05:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm finally getting my arse in gear with regards to getting these out, at the moment I am attempting to determine when it was exactly that we last handed out the reviewer awards and where the logs of the ACR and PR fields are so I can begin the process of going through them. I expect the process to be time consuming but since I have nothing to do at the moment I hope to have this done in a week or two (taking into account the time it will take find everything and figure out who won such as it were). TomStar81 (Talk) 06:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Good man!
It seems the last lot went out in June 2009. MBK has a page logging candidates somewhere and someone (I forget who now, I'm afraid) did some of the preliminary work for Jul-Sep 2009 and Oct-Dec 2009. So for the last six months of last year, it may just mean collating results that are tucked away on user pages somewhere.  Roger Davies talk 06:12, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, that does simplify matters somewhat. Given the extraordinarily long period of time between the last awarding and this awarding I think everyone should receive a barnstar to help encourage more reviews, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:18, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
We could instead split it to one for Jul-Dec 2009 and another Jan-Jul 2010. Thereafter quarterly. How does that sound?
I've got a word script that I can use to generate the ACR lists (though the Peer reviews need to be done manually). I knock this out over the weekend, I expect.  Roger Davies talk 06:50, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Roger, User:MBK004/Sandbox/MILHIST, I believe this is the location you were looking for. -MBK004 03:21, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

A few points for discussion

I think a few points need to be raised concerning of few aspects of the project at the moment, so I am opening a discussion suggestion on the matters so we can work through the issues. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:51, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

For starters, our newsletter format has caused some confusion for Cbrown1023. I promised I'd open a Q&A section so he could ask any questions or get clarification for what we wanted to avoid a repeat of the past delivery errors. The problem at the moment seems to be that he is/was unsure what the change we implemented meant for his end of the process, which result in his delivering the one liner format when we wanted the full format for all members. I take responsibility for this incident since in hindsight he should have been informed from the start of our plans to change to the new format so he would have been in a position to track the development and ask questions of us regarding the delivery status on his end. I'm moving to fix this oversight now by inviting him over to ask the questions needed for clarification so we can move the August newsletter out without delay.

Secondly, I think we need to revisit the matter OMT involved ACR closures; while I can appreciate that oversight does need to be preserved the fact remains that these are all to often left on the ACR's for closure section because those who close have already reviewed. Releasing closure oversight to OMT members at the coordinator level would help clear the backlog of ship articles we have. Alternatively, we could file OMT ACR's through WP:SHIPS and let their project handle the closures. I have not checked the specifics, but in theory this would allow access to outside editors to evaluate the article's ACR worthiness and would allow us to move the articles out of the section faster.

Lastly, the September coordinator elections will be starting soon. I wish to raise two points in regards to this. Point 1: As of the time stamp noted at the end of my signature we are reported to have over 1,100 members, but I can not convince myself that they are all active; I suspect that the membership list has yet to be updated to reflect a more current and more accurate number of members. Assuming the actual active members comprise about 1/2 of that list then we have 600 members (I'm being generous with that figure). We have 14 coordinators currently attached to the project, when counting the one lead and two emeritus coordinators our total jumps to 17. I believe that we no longer need such a large number of coordinators to over see the project; therefore I would propose that we reduce the regular coordinator tranche by 50% to leave us with 7 coordinators, one lead, and two emeritus for a total of 10 coordinators for the next tranche. I believe that such a layout would benefit the project in the long run. Point 2: I would propose that we open the signup period for our September election on the 7th, with the elections themselves beginning on the 14th and ending on the 28th. This would copy the one week signup and two week voting period we used in March, which seemed to work pretty well last time around. I plan on asking Cbrown to run a special notice to all members informing them of the opening of the signup period and the opening of the formal election period.

Closing could be contentious in theory but so far hasn't been; we might as well allow OMT coords to close and see what happens. - Dank (push to talk) 11:56, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that there's anything to be gained by reducing the coordinator staff so sharply. Coordinators are not all equally active; a larger tranche gives us considerably more ability to absorb vacations, irregular activity, and even the occasional totally inactive coordinator. Cutting the tranche in half would be fine if everyone elected were highly active, but that's not usually the case; and, with only nine regular coordinators, having a couple go on vacation is likely to substantially impact the available manpower pool. We're certainly not in a position where we need less manpower, incidentally—there are definitely things on our list (e.g. the Academy cleanup) that we're already having to push to the back burner.
(Keep in mind, also, that counting Roger and myself as coordinators for the purposes of determining staffing levels is probably not the best idea; while we try to help out where we can, we both have significant and time-consuming responsibilities outside the project, and don't necessarily have the time to carry out the coordinators' "regular" tasks.)
On a slightly broader point, I think having a larger tranche is more generally beneficial in that it reduces the tendency for all the spots to go to our multi-term regulars, allowing some fresh blood into the coordinator pool. This, in turn, reduces the risk that editor burn-out will severely impact us.
As far as your other ideas, everything looks fine. I don't see any real problem with allowing "involved" OMT closures in practice, any more so than I would with having coordinators close articles belonging to task forces of which they're a part. As long as the coordinator didn't actually write the article himself, I don't think there's any significant conflict of interest; we're all working collaboratively here anyways, in some sense. Kirill [talk] [prof] 15:44, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
My thoughts are already well-known on the OMT closures, but the idea of having SHIPS host the reviews will not work either. The reason being that ships does not have an active review process except for our reviews which are cross-posted and the fact that I am the one who usually closes ships reviews when they are non-MILHIST. The same issue would remain. If the consensus is that "involved" OMT closures per Kirill's COI restrictions are permissible, then I will start to close them myself instead of listing them above on this page for closure. I agree completely with Kirill on the size of the coordinator corps and would strongly oppose any reduction in our numbers. The proposed timetable for the election is fine with me. On to the newsletter, I would like to have another option available to the delivery options. Along with the current options of non-delivery and now our front page, I would like to see the old one-liner still available for those who would prefer that. -MBK004 19:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Given that the next tranche of coordinators will be elected for a full year, it seems desirable to maintain at least the current number as it's safe to assume that at least 3 or 4 will withdraw or become inactive due to other commitments over the year based on the historical attrition rate. I've never seen any concerns about there being too many coordinators. Nick-D (talk) 01:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Well ... I wouldn't say there have never been concerns; in the last election, we had roughly the same number of candidates as seats to fill. That makes quality control tough; for instance, I got in :) - Dank (push to talk) 02:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
I suggested a reduction based on a reoccurring point that since wikipedia's growth is slowing we no longer need as many people to man the ranking departments such as it were. As it is we do frequently make do with fewer coordinators than elected for a variety of different reasons, so I figured suggesting a drop in the number retained could be worth it if for no other reason than to help ensure quality control. We do have the option of co-opting, though I prefer not to use it unless its absolutely necessary. To be fair to Kirill's point, I do agree that the emeritus members should not be looked upon as part of the total number of coordinators; however, both have maintained an interest in the project and do help out when they can, so its not like we do without by including them. In either case, based on what I am seeing here, it would be advisable to retain the 14 + lead approach for the next tranche. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, keep in mind that growth slowing down is not the same thing as an actual decline in size; even if it's a slower process, Wikipedia is very much still expanding. :-) Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:38, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that a reduction in coordinators is necessary. While I appreciate that some coordinators could become inactive, there is simply no need for 14 of us. I think it could create or is reinforcing an image of needless bureaucracy and a Milhist 'elite' at the top of the pyramid to the rest of Wikipedia and potential members. While I think the Academy and some of these other ideas are great ideas, we need the members to come and help as well. Adding coordinators isn't the answer; it's attracting new members and interesting old ones into/in these initiatives.

I'd rather that OMT articles are not closed by OMT members, but the status quo isn't working very well at the moment; articles are sitting for days or week in want of a 'neutral' coord. As a result, I'm tentatively supportive of this proposal, but if one or two non-OMT coords step up and volunteer to close the OMT noms, I think we should see if these issues go away. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:10, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm unconvinced that there's a real problem with the impression the coordinator system creates. We've been worried about seeming too bureaucratic since the system was first created; but, in all that time, I can't recall any serious complaints on the subject.
Your point about attracting non-coordinators is a good one, but doing so consistently may not be practical. There's a very limited portion of the overall membership that has any real interest in administrative matters, and an even smaller portion that is willing to devote any significant time to them. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:38, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
To add my two cents worth, I am supportive of OMT co-ords closing OMT A class reviews so long as they haven't been involved in the review or writing process (except maybe a few minor tweaks). I think that the role of a co-ord is to be a "trusted member" and by having a blanket rule that they can't close, then aren't we really saying that this trust doesn't exist? From my interaction with all the co-ords on the project, I feel they can and should be trusted to do the right thing. If a situation about whether to pass or fail an ACR is uncertain, I'm sure a second opinion could be sought. Regarding the number of co-ords, I feel it would be best to maintain the status quo, particularly as we are looking at adopting a year long term. If at the end of that year it was found that there wasn't enough work for all those co-ords, then a reduction might be warranted, however, at the moment I think we are actually struggling to maintain certain parts of the project even with the numbers we currently have. For instance there are large numbers of articles with incomplete checklists, task forces not allocated, B class reviews that sit for a awhile, ACRs with minimal participation, GANs waiting for review, notability guidelines to write, etc. Yes, much of this is and can be done by editors who aren't co-ords, but from experience I believe that finding such editors is difficult. That's just my opinion and I'm happy to be challenged on any of it. Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 22:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
A simple solution to the issue of OMT coords closing OMT ACRs would be to first post a proposal to allow this at WT:MILHIST and ask if there are any objections. If no-one objects (as I imagine would be the case) then there's no problem. Nick-D (talk) 10:50, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Taking Tom's discussion points in order:

  • I think the newsletter should probably still go out in two formats (one-line link and complete front page); this was largely why I broached the issue here. I'm uncomfortable with our unilaterally overriding the signup options that our members have chosen. Alternatively, if we do decide everyone gets the full front page we should think about deprecating the signup options lists as redundant (keeping just the opt-out/in list).
  • My two-week break aside, I wasn't under the impression that articles lingering on for closure was a particular problem. Personally I tend to close ACRs when I notice that MBK has posted them above rather than monitor the review page myself; these are generally OMT articles. I rarely have time to review but as an uninvolved coord I'm happy to take on OMT closures as a regular function if that would alleviate some of the concerns.
  • I think there are significant advantages to having a good-sized pool of coordinators and potentially signficant disadvantages if we don't. In addition to those mentioned by Kirill:
    • Co-option to make up the numbers later bypasses the election process (speaking as a former co-opted coord myself, I didn't really regard myself as a legitimate coordinator until I'd stood for election);
    • Granting those limited number of editors who put themselves forward to get involved in project admin the title of "coordinator" is a small but nonetheless meaningful token of the project's appreciation. I believe we'd be expecting too much of editors to hope they'll take up the slack if we find ourselves short of coords when they haven't volunteered for it and don't have the recognition of a fancy title to go with it :)

EyeSerenetalk 14:17, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Just want to be clear that despite my vote above, I'm completely happy with EyeSerene's closes; I just think we need more people available to close OMT A-class reviews. OTOH, for all we know, the coming coord elections will fix this. - Dank (push to talk) 14:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I hadn't read your post any other way :) I just wonder is this more a temporary effect of the northern hemisphere summer holiday season than a serious recurring issue, and if we could address whatever issue there is by perhaps being more methodical about checking MBK's updates to "ACRs for closure"? For the record, I have no problem with OMT members closing OMT A-Class reviews, but I can understand why there may be an appearance of COI in doing so. EyeSerenetalk 14:43, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Last night I sat and typed out a fairly longish comment for this, which was lost about 2 minutes from posting when my %$&*` laptop crashed. I gave up and went back to packing after that and as I'm still deep in that tonight, this version may be a bit shorter! Taking Tom's points in order:

  • I agree that we should still offer the newsletter in two formats. An alternative would be to just offer the link (if this makes delivery easier) but I don't think we should force everyone to accept the full version. I suspect that the signup to the newsletter may decrease if we do.
  • I have zero issues with OMT members closing ACRs (as long as they had zero input to that ACR). For what its worth, I would have closed all of the ACRs that MBK did last week (if it wasn't for my psychic boss), which gives me a smidgen of an idea. If it made the checks and processes easier, could we accept a non involved co-ordinator agreeing that ACRs can be closed, and then any other co-ordinator (including OMT but perhaps still excluding editors involved in the ACR) can actually close it. The closing process is essentially a formality and procedural action, so if a non involved editor agrees to the actual judgement of closure, that absolves the co-ord actually doing it of any responsibility for the decision.
  • I don't see any major problems with the numbers of co-ordinators at the moment, and I'd humbly suggest that the time when we're entering a new period of 1 year terms is perhaps not the best time to experiment with fewer numbers. Additionally it seems a bit hard to reconcile the need for more co-ordinators to be able to deal with OMT ACRs with the idea of reducing the numbers. I'd also agree with EyeSerene that giving the position and responsibilities a title (instead of just encouraging regular milhist members to carry out more procedural work) is a better way to go - its essentially an equivalent to the ideas above for getting more people to participate in reviews (except this time the reward is five stars and a position title instead of barnstars).

On a similar vein, I'm afraid I'm going to be away for opening of co-ord signup on September 7th. After a fairly hectic summer my ever suffering better half and I have managed to snatch a week off for the obligatory British camping trip to Cornwall. I should be back by the 11th though. As things stand I think it would be wrong of me to stand again; my life has been insane over the last 6 months and I just haven't been able to spend as much time on wiki as I'd have liked (I think I've contributed 1 whole new article...). That said, if there is a shortage on the signup I'll be happy to fill the breach and try to help where I can (if a less active co-ordinator is considered better than no co-ordinator at all!).

I'm also away from tomorrow until 1st September for a rather different holiday, cycling from Eindhoven to Arnhem along Hells Highway, and then to Amsterdam. I've always wanted to do it and having found a willing victim (sorry, friend) to accompany me I'll be under canvas for the next few days. I had hoped to start at JOEs bridge on the Belgian border, but there's no easy way to get there so I'll miss a little of the route off. Still, as we'll be doing 150 miles plus (easily) I figured I could get some money for Help for Heroes so if anyone wants to sponsor me....

Right, gotta try and get more waterproofs into the panniers. Ranger Steve (talk) 21:17, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Academy reorganization (Phase I)

I've started a discussion at the training division of the strategy think tank about cleaning up the organization of the Academy; input there would be appreciated. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:16, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Radical Idea

I've actually been thinking about this point for a while and I was considering the idea that we may evolve the project - radically - by mothballing all our task forces and developing new sub area's based on special projects and working group schemes. Special Project areas seem to be working at the same pace of task forces, with the narrower focus they tend to attract and retain more people. The working groups can be used for lesser interest work sections which would in theory help revitalize the whole project by creating more narrowly focused areas for participation that may help us gain and retain more editors. There are a few areas in which I think we will need to have task forces if for nothing else than as a preemptive maneuver to keep World War I and World War II task forces to keep them from going out as independent projects. Its a radical Idea, and I was actually going to propose this after the elections, but since you raised the point now I think it may be of interest, all the more so if the Wikipedia:Wikiproject format bites the dust. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I've moved this discussion to the strategy think tank (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Strategy think tank#Is the task force model still useful?) in order to collect the multiple simultaneous threads about this in one place; please drop by the STT talk page with any further ideas regarding the task force system. Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I've recently completed integrating support for OMT tagging into the project banner, and the implementation appears to be working correctly. I'm now wondering whether it might be a good idea to turn on similar tagging functionality for the other special projects? (OMT has a fairly complex feature set due to its use of five phases; the other projects could be done as straight listings for now.)

Thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm all for that. In fact I would even go so far as to say it should be a mandatory thing for new special projects, but I would wait for input on the latter point before calling it project policy such as it were. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
No objection here. EyeSerenetalk 07:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Category-based member tracking

Since we're proposing radical ideas and such: how about getting rid of the hand-maintained membership list and just having a member category instead? I'm fairly certain nobody uses it anyways, so there's little value in having to maintain it. Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Question: Would such a category be able to determine who is active and who isn't? One of my gripes is that when looking at the current membership list it isn't always immediately obvious who among the active contributors is still with us, but I am not sure if that would carry over for a category based concept. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Not directly, but given that we haven't really maintained the active/inactive distinction, I don't think it would be much of a loss. (Plus, this would segue neatly into getting rid of TF membership lists, per our discussion above.) Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
How would we populate the category? EyeSerenetalk 08:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Initially, we could probably have a bot go through the current list and add the category to members' userpages. After that, it would be a combination of manual additions and auto-generated categories from userboxes. Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Would it be possible for the bot to pull the last contrib date from the member history at the same time? It could winnow the list as well then by removing inactive members. Maybe one bot run per month would be sufficient to keep the membership page current. (PS, I support removing TF membership lists too but I'm not sure where that discussion has gone!) EyeSerenetalk 11:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Actually, I'm wondering whether we couldn't kill two birds with one stone here by not automatically placing the category on members' pages, but rather leaving them a message about the new system, and inviting them to add the category if they were still around and interested in the project. This would effectively reduce the pool down to our "active" members without having to rely on searching through contribution histories.
In addition, we should probably change the text regarding membership on the main project page to something akin to what WP:ANIME has (i.e. that everyone who contributes is a part of the project, and that formal membership is just a way of showing affiliation). Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
That should work, although we might find we have just 20 members left! I suppose it would also mean not adding the cat to our project userboxes (are they subst'd; I can't remember?) I guess the only real disadvantage of that approach is our membership list will eventually go out of date again and we'll be back looking for a way to update it.
I like the text change suggestion; anything that counters any impression that we're cliquey or exclusive is good :) EyeSerenetalk 09:27, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I've updated the main page text; comments would be welcome. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:58, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks good. I've made a couple of tweaks - feel free to rv if it's not appropriate :) EyeSerenetalk 10:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Looks good; I've just made a couple of further tweaks to soften the tone a bit. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
As a point of reference, incidentally, I think we have upward of 500 editors using one of our userboxes; given the level of penetration there, I think we probably would want to have the userboxes auto-generate a membership category, since people aren't going to want to add both a userbox and a separate category to their page, and we're likely to miss out on a large number of people who will assume that having the userbox is sufficient to show their affiliation. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:36, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I think including the cat in our userboxes is a good idea, but wouldn't it then make any attempt to update the member list by removing inactive members (by whatever method) inaccurate? If we ask members to manually add the cat or use a ubx, existing inactive ubx users will be counted as active. If we did decide to run a bot plus have cats in the ubxs, presumably delisted inactive members who have a ubx will just be automatically added back when the databases update. However, if we decide we can live with this (or there's another solution short of manually removing ubxs from inactive member pages) I don't have any objections. EyeSerenetalk 14:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't know if there's really anything we can do without editing members' user pages (which I'm loath to start doing). In practical terms, though, only about a third of our members have a userbox displayed, so we'll be removing many inactive editors regardless. Plus, the notification might prompt some people to remove the userbox if they're no longer active in the project.
In the long term, I'm not sure what our approach should be; but, with a decreased emphasis on membership for purposes other than newsletter/announcement distribution, I'm not convinced that the problem of keeping the category current is something we need to tackle in the near future. Kirill [talk] [prof] 22:46, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I'd not be happy removing userboxes from user pages without specific permission to do so. If keeping our membership list absolutely current isn't an issue though (or at least, isn't easily achievable without an unacceptable overhead), I can live with it being slightly inaccurate. After all, it doesn't seem to have caused us any problems in the past :) EyeSerenetalk 10:08, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I think we can probably wait on this for a few weeks and then propose it to the project after the election? I think it'd be best not to move forward with this until the election is over, as rearranging the member list is going to make any election-related messages difficult to coordinate. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree, one thing at a time :) EyeSerenetalk 09:24, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Upcoming coordinator elections

Since I saw no objections tot he suggested time table I'm going to adopt it for the September coordinator elections. We will keep the coordinator numbers as they are now (14 and lead) on grounds that the year long term is new and that the extra coords can help fill in for those on vacation or otherwise unavailable. Two points we need to look at now:

  • Do we have anything going up for ratification in the September coordinator vote?
  • Do we know anyone that would make a coordinator for the project?

In the case of the former, if we do, then we can add the needed section and let the matter solve itself, in the case of the latter I would like us to extend a hand (in a recrument sense - hint, hint) to those whom we think would do well as coords and see if we can not coax them into running. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:09, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we need any referenda this time around, since we're not making any real changes to the coordinator system. Other than that, everything looks fine; and if anyone knows someone who'd make a good coordinator, please do encourage them to run. Kirill [talk] [prof] 17:53, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Well that simplifies some of this then. As far as coordinators go, I would suggest re-asking Auntieruth55 (talk · contribs) since she was popular last time around, and I would consider inviting bahamut0013 (talk · contribs) and Brad101 (talk · contribs) to run. Are there any others we could ask that have some qualification for working at this level and would be at least open to the idea of running? TomStar81 (Talk) 03:36, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps User:Diannaa, User:Hawkeye7, User:Djmaschek or User:Shimgray? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:37, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with everything Dianna has done, but judging from her performance at WP:GOCE, she'd be fantastic. She's now helping out with our GANs, too. - Dank (push to talk) 12:31, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Dana boomer looks v. promising too.  Roger Davies talk 12:45, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I don't know how I forgot about her. Agreed. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

(od) It might be a very good idea to cast the net wider, to attract people who are less, um, battleship-oriented. Doing the ACR reviews the other morning, I was struck by how much of our content is battleship/WWII-related, and this probably needs broadening. With Eurocopter's relative recent inactivity, the areas where he was active (aviation, I suppose, and WWI) seem to have gone quiet. This is a pity. So, for balance, we probably need some WWI people, aviation, ACW, plus a classicist or two.  Roger Davies talk 06:49, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to note: Ruth is not a member of OMT or SHIPS for that matter, her niche is more geared toward European warfare from about the 1500s to about the 1700s. Having said that, I concede a point in your favor, but we had to start somewhere, right? :) TomStar81 (Talk) 09:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Lol @ Roger. That's a great idea. :-) I strongly agree that we should encourage Ruth to run, and I think Dana could be a huge benefit as well. Diannaa is a frequent copyeditor of milhist subjects, but not a writer -- she may be able to bring interesting perspectives and ideas to the table. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I've had nothing but good experiences with Diannaa; I think she'd be a big asset to the team. Same for Dana, and while I'm less familiar with the other names they all look like excellent suggestions. EyeSerenetalk 11:29, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Agree with all the above ringing endorsements, and will add one for fellow Australian MilHist Mafia member Hawkeye -- highly knowledgeable, diligent, and fair-minded. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd recommend User:Nev1 and possibly User:Chaosdruid given the mature attitude he displayed in the recent drama. Ranger Steve (talk) 12:25, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

(od) There are some very good people indeed on the potential candidates list which, for ease of reference, I've broken out and alpha-sorted:

Any else?  Roger Davies talk 12:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Headings on main page

Based on some comments at the NYC WikiConference today, I've tried my hand at making the section headings on the main project page a bit friendlier for visitors. Comments would be welcome!

(I'm going to be posting some other ideas I've gathered at the conference this evening, incidentally.) Kirill [talk] [prof] 19:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I've made a number of further changes to the main project page along these same lines, focusing primarily on rearranging the text to provide a more natural flow for a user visiting us for the first time. As usual, comments would be very appreciated! Kirill [talk] [prof] 05:31, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Great ideas, all. I strongly approve of anything that makes our pages more welcoming and accessible!  Roger Davies talk 05:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Completely agreed with Roger here. I've tried this out of the main coord page too,[1] feel free to tweak. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Ideas from WikiConference NYC 2010

I've jotted down some ideas from WikiConference NYC 2010 at the strategy think tank; feedback there would be very appreciated. Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:18, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

ACR and PR review tallies

As discussed above, here are the ACR and PR tallies for the periods Jul-Dec 2090 and Jan-Jun 2010. I'm on holiday so I'm not around to dish out any awards, but I suggest award periods to correspond with the tally periods.

Username ACR
Jul-Dec 2009		 PR
Jul-Dec 2009		 Total
Jul-Dec 2009		 ACR
Jan-Jun 2010		 PR
Jan-Jun 2010		 Total
Jan-Jun 2010
User:Abraham, B.S. 21 17 31 16 1 17
User:Alexandru.demian 0 0 0 2 0 2
User:Alexikoua 0 1 1 0 0 0
User:Amore Mio 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Anotherclown 3 2 5 22 3 25
User:Auntieruth55 3 2 5 25 7 32
User:AustralianRupert 39 14 53 58 27 85
User:Benea 0 0 0 0 1 1
User:Blackeagle 0 0 0 0 1 1
User:Brad101 7 3 10 8 0 8
User:Bradjamesbrown 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Brambleclawx 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Brianboulton 0 0 0 0 1 1
User:Buckshot06 3 3 6 3 1 4
User:Buggie111 0 0 0 0 3 3
User:Burningview 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Carcharoth 0 0 0 1 1 2
User:Catalan 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Ceranthor 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:ChoraPete 0 0 0 0 1 1
User:Cla68 2 1 3 1 0 1
User:Climie.ca 1 1 2 2 0 2
User:Cplakidas 0 1 1 0 1 1
User:Cromdog 0 0 0 3 0 3
User:Cuprum17 0 2 2 0 0 0
User:Dana boomer 8 0 8 10 2 12
User:Dank 0 0 0 14 1 15
User:Dapi89 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:David Fuchs 0 2 2 0 0 0
User:David Underdown 2 1 3 3 0 3
User:Dhatfield 3 1 4 3 0 3
User:Doncram 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Ed! 2 1 3 0 0 0
User:EdJohnston 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Ejosse1 0 1 1 0 0 0
User:EnigmaMcmxc 0 1 1 1 0 1
User:Eurocopter 3 0 3 0 0 0
User:EyeSerene 3 0 3 2 1 3
User:Farawayman 3 1 4 0 0 0
User:Fifelfoo 3 4 7 0 0 0
User:Finetooth 0 2 2 0 0 0
User:Fnlayson 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Fvasconcellos 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Gaia Octavia Agrippa 0 1 1 0 0 0
User:Georgejdorner 0 0 0 3 0 3
User:GraemeLeggett 1 2 3 3 3 6
User:GregJackP 1 0 1 1 0 1
User:GregorB 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Hartfelt 0 1 1 0 0 0
User:Hawkeye7 1 1 2 1 0 1
User:Hchc2009 0 2 2 2 3 5
User:Hlj 0 0 0 0 2 2
User:Ian Rose 17 10 27 19 8 27
User:Jackyd101 1 3 4 1 0 1
User:Jayen466 1 2 3 1 0 1
User:Jim Sweeney 0 2 2 5 2 7
User:Jim101 0 0 0 2 0 2
User:Jinnai 0 7 7 0 0 0
User:Joe N 53 0 53 23 0 23
User:Jrcrin001 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Juliancolton 1 0 1 0 1 1
User:Justin A Kuntz 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Kevin Myers 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Kirill Lokshin 0 4 4 0 0 0
User:Kirk 0 2 2 0 0 0
User:Kumioko 0 1 1 6 0 6
User:Kyriakos 0 0 0 0 1 1
User:Labattblueboy 0 1 1 0 0 0
User:Laurinavicius 0 3 3 0 0 0
User:LeadSongDog 0 1 1 0 0 0
User:llywrch 0 1 1 0 1 1
User:Magicpiano 0 0 0 2 2 4
User:Marine79 0 0 0 0 2 2
User:MBK004 4 2 6 10 3 13
User:McComb 0 1 1 0 0 0
User:MisterBee1966 4 2 6 7 1 8
User:Mm40 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Monstrelet 0 0 0 0 1 1
User:Montanabw 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Necessary Evil 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Newm30 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Nick-D 18 12 30 19 20 39
User:Nimbus227 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:NJR ZA 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Parsecboy 8 0 8 11 1 12
User:Patar knight 0 3 3 0 1 1
User:Patton123 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:pber26 0 1 1 0 0 0
User:Per Honor et Gloria 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Piotrus 0 2 2 0 0 0
User:Pkkphysicist 0 2 2 0 0 0
User:R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 3 1 4 0 0 0
User:Ranger Steve 1 1 2 2 2 4
User:Redmarkviolinist 4 1 5 0 0 0
User:Redtigerxyz 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Rin tin tin 1996 0 0 0 1 1 2
User:RM Gillespie 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:Ryan4314 2 1 3 0 0 0
User:saberwyn 1 0 1 4 2 6
User:Shell Kinney 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Shimgray 0 1 1 0 0 0
User:SidewinderX 2 0 2 0 0 0
User:Simon Harley 2 2 4 1 1 2
User:Skinny87 4 5 9 1 0 1
User:Steven1969 0 0 0 1 0 1
User:Sturmvogel 66 9 2 11 24 1 25
User:Sumanch 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:The Bushranger 0 0 0 12 0 12
User:The ed17 14 0 14 15 2 17
User:The Land 0 1 1 1 0 1
User:TomStar81 30 0 30 85 1 86
User:Tony1 6 0 6 0 0 0
User:Wandalstouring 5 0 5 2 2 4
User:Wiki-Ed 0 0 0 0 1 1
User:Woody 3 2 5 0 1 1
User:XavierGreen 0 0 0 0 1 1
User:Yannismarou 1 0 1 0 0 0
User:YellowMonkey 25 18 43 21 6 27

Comments (review awards)

The periods are based on the closing date of ACRs and the archiving dates of PRs. It quite easy now to work out tallies quarterly, so the next period would be Jul-Sep 2010 (awarded in time to be fanfared in the appropriate Bugle).

Obviously, you'll have to work out which awards to give whom, and someone will have to physically award them. The awards data will have to go into the next Bugle. The purpose after all is to encourage past reviewers to review again and to incentivise those that have never done it.

Incidentally, a point lost in the data. MBK and Eurocopter have done a great deal of the ACR clerking and closing: they deserve recognition for this. While we're on the subject, the B-class reviews are done by a surprisingly small number of people. They probably also deserve recognition if someone can trawl through the page history to pick uyp the regulars.  Roger Davies talk 09:34, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks Roger, Tom and I had talked about totalling these periods but you've gone and done it, well done! As far as awards go, in the past we seem to have awarded WikiChevrons to those completing 10 or more reviews, the Content Review Medal to those with 3-9, two stripes for 2 reviews, and one stripe for 1 review. To complicate matters, however, if someone already had a one-stripe review award then 1 review in the period under consideration earned them two stripes. I'm happy to take part in dishing out the awards but, first, are there any comments on continuing the above procedure? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
What do we award the editors with the highest number of reviews in any given area? Its been so long since the highest award for reviewing was given out that I honestly do not remember. Also, if the automated scripts can help us generate the list thats awesome and I would love to see them put to work to that effect, but if not could we come up with a way to streamline this process? Maybe, for example, turn the reviewing and the awarding of reviews into a subset of the contest department to make it easier for reviewers to claim awards (and make it easier for us to track the awards)? TomStar81 (Talk) 21:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
  • WikiChevrons is traditional for the top scorers. I've set out some award proposals below, based on what we've done in the past.
    Doing the tallies isn't actually that much work, if it's kept on top of. The ACRs are a bit fiddly, but I usually paste the html into Word and edit it down. (I have a word script for this somewhere that cleans them up a lot first but it ain't on my laptop - I'm travelling so I don't have access to my main machine - so I did it manually: it took four hours or so to do a year's worth.) In contrast, the PRs are really really easy: you just get the reviewers from the TOC on the achived PR page, paste it into Word, then edit it to produce a list of editors. This took around half an hour for the year. Tabulating the results probably took another hour. Roger Davies talk 07:09, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Review awards - a concrete proposal

Based on the data above, and our traditional awards for work in this area, the awards line up would probably be as follows:

Award period Jul-Dec 2009

WikiChevrons
 Done AustralianRupert (53), Joe N (53), Abraham, B.S. (31), Nick-D (30), TomStar81 (30), Ian Rose (27), Ed (14), Sturmvogel 66 (11), Brad101 (10).
Content Review Medal
 Done Skinny87 (9), Dana boomer (8), Parsecboy (8), Fifelfoo (7), Jinnai (7), Buckshot06 (6), MBK004 (6), MisterBee1966 (6), Tony (6), Anotherclown (5), Auntieruth55 (5), Redmarkviolinist (5), Wandalstouring (5), Woody (5), Dhatfield (4), Farawayman (4), Jackyd101 (4), Kirill Lokshin (4), R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (4), Simon Harley (4).
1-stripe
 Done Cla68 (3), David Underdown (3), Ed! (3), Eurocopter (3), EyeSerene (3), GraemeLeggett (3), JN466 (3), Laurinavicius (3), Patar knight (3), Ryan4314 (3), Cam (2), Cuprum17 (2), David Fuchs (2), Finetooth (2), Hawkeye7 (2), Hchc2009 (2), Jim Sweeney (2), Kirk (2), Piotrus (2), PKKloeppel (2), Ranger Steve (2), SidewinderX (2), Alexikoua (1), Burningview (1), Ceranthor (1), Cplakidas (1), Doncram (1), Ejosse1 (1), EnigmaMcmxc (1), Fvasconcellos (1), Gaia Octavia Agrippa (1), GregJackP (1), Hartfelt (1), Jrcrin001 (1), Juliancolton (1), Justin A Kuntz (1), Kumioko (1), Labattblueboy (1), LeadSongDog (1), llywrch (1), McComb (1), Mm40 (1), Necessary Evil (1), NJR ZA (1), Patton123 (1), pber26 (1), Redtigerxyz (1), RM Gillespie (1), saberwyn (1), Shimgray (1), Sumanch (1), The Land (1), Yannismarou (1)

Award period Jan-Jun 2010

WikiChevrons
 Done TomStar81 (86), AustralianRupert (85), Nick-D (39), Auntieruth55 (32), Ian Rose (27), Sturmvogel 66 (25), Anotherclown (25), Joe N (23), Abraham, B.S. (17), Ed (17), Dank (15), MBK004 (13), Dana boomer (12), Parsecboy (12), The Bushranger (12).
Content Review Medal
 Done Brad101 (8), MisterBee1966 (8), Jim Sweeney (7), GraemeLeggett (6), Kumioko (6), saberwyn (6), Hchc2009 (5), Buckshot06 (4), Wandalstouring (4), Ranger Steve (4), Magicpiano (4).
2-stripe
 Done David Underdown (3), EyeSerene (3), Cam (2), Cla68 (1), EnigmaMcmxc (1), Cplakidas (1), GregJackP (1), Hawkeye7 (1), JN466 (1), Juliancolton (1), llywrch (1) Patar knight (1), The Land (1).
1-stripe
 Done Dhatfield (3), Buggie111 (3), Cromdog (3), Georgejdorner (3), Simon Harley (2), Alexandru Demian (2), Carcharoth (2), Hal Jespersen (2), Jim101 (2), Marine79 (2), Rin tin tin 1996 (2), Skinny87 (1), Woody (1), Jackyd101 (1), Amore Mio (1), Benea (1), Blackeagle (1), Bradjamesbrown (1), Brambleclawx (1), Brianboulton (1), JonCatalán (1), ChoraPete (1), Dapi89 (1), EdJohnston (1), Fnlayson (1), GregorB (1), Kevin Myers (1), Kyriakos (1), Monstrelet (1), Montanabw (1), Newm30 (1), Nimbus227 (1), Per Honor et Gloria (1), Shell Kinney (1), Steven1969 (1), Wiki-Ed (1), XavierGreen (1).
Special mentions (WikiProject barnstar)
 Done Eurocopter and MBK004

I've got templates for all these at User:Roger Davies/Award templates#Content review.

Text updated just now to reflect the current award-fest.  Roger Davies talk 11:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

If everyone is cool with this, can these be awarded in time for the month's end?  Roger Davies talk 06:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm down with that. If its alright with everyone I'd like to hand these out; I should be able to get to it Monday or Tuesday, depending on how the funeral goes. Would that be ok? TomStar81 (Talk) 09:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Apologies, Tom, I missed this message before I started (I set up the talk pages in Linky earlier). I've just done the Chevrons for both periods but will leave you the rest for you to do.  Roger Davies talk 10:57, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Sure you want to do all these yourself, Tom? Be happy to say do the 1-stripers if you want to handle the higher ones... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:37, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
In retrospect, it's probably better shared as it is a big fiddly job.  Roger Davies talk 11:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for organising this Roger, you've done an awesome job :) Unfortunately I'm mega-busy at work at the moment since taking on the Health & Safety Officer role (in addition to my other hats!), but with Tom's permission I'll try to take a section or two in the next few days. EyeSerenetalk 11:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

All awards for Jun-Dec 2009 have now been handed out, with the exception of those going to Pber26 (talk · contribs) and McComb (talk · contribs), both of whom apparently do not edit from said accounts as they are reported to be unregistered. Not sure exactly how that happened, but if we do solve the mystery note that we have unhanded out awards for both of these editors. Ian Rose has volunteered to hand out the 2010 awards, he reports those should be out by weeks end. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:25, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I think the Jan-Jun 2010 and special awards are all done, tks Rog again for tallying and Tom for handing out the Jul-Dec 2009 gongs. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:42, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Seems the best place for this THANKs for the awards. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:06, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Major copyright violations

We've had serious cases of copyright violations before, but I think that this may be the worst. I recently indef blocked De Administrando Imperio (talk · contribs) (the former User:TheFEARgod until their account was renamed in July 2009) for copying and pasting next from news stories into articles on recent battles and terrorist attacks despite being warned against doing so. The good people at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations have looked into this, and have established that this has been a problem since 2005 when the editor first registered. The really bad news is that a) the editor has been very prolific and there are a lot of articles to check, b) many of the articles (and particularly those on recent warfare) contain blatant copyvios added by the editor and c) many of these articles have been directly linked from Wikipedia's main page as 'in the news' items. Why this hasn't come to light before eludes me, and Wikipedia is probably very lucky to have not been sued by cranky news companies given the prominence many of the copyvios attained. The issues at present are:

  • A lot (about 650) of articles need to be checked and are listed at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/De Administrando Imperio. The articles about recent events and warfare are by far the most problematic, and those on other topics are generally (but by no means always) OK. Any assistance with this would be much appreciated - if every coordinator checked 10-20 articles on recent warfare it would put a huge dent in the job (helpfully the editor actually referenced most of their copyvios and has bad grammar in the text they wrote themselves, so the problems are easy to spot).
  • I've spotted and warned/blocked other editors for this behavior in the recent past and it's bound to happen again (though hopefully not on this scale). It might be worth coordinators keeping an eye on the in the news items and the new military history articles list as well as keeping an eye out for suspicious text in articles on ongoing conflicts. Nick-D (talk) 11:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Serendipitously, Moonriddengirl is providing our August Bugle editorial on this very issue. Perhaps in concert with the newsletter (when it goes out) we should organise a little drive on WT:MILHIST; we could promise awards to editors based on the number of articles they check or something similar. EyeSerenetalk 16:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
That might be a good idea - it's a pretty miserable job. I've been going through more, and the number and obviousness of the copyvios is horrifying. It's of great concern to me that there's a relatively small group of editors working on articles about recent battles - did they really not notice that this was going on? Nick-D (talk) 03:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi, Nick, would you mind maybe laying down some quick instructions about the process you use for checking these? I'm trying to help but am finding it difficult to conceptualise my thinking. For instance, I'm looking at Cambodian–Thai border stand-off, and I think that it is okay, but the user's contributions are buried quite deeply underneath a lot of other edits. The way I checked was to scroll through the history section and look at the diffs relating to the user's contribution. I then try to see if it closely resembles the citation next to it. Is this how you do it? And am I right in declaring that this article is okay from copyright issues? Apologies if these sound like silly questions. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
This is the first time I've been involved in a big copyright clean-up, so I can't be definitive, but the process you describe is what I'm doing. I'm checking if the diffs were copyvios by either checking them against the news article they're cited to or assessing whether they read like a news story (particularly when the link's since gone dead). If that's the case I mark the set of diffs in the CCI with a Green tickY and then check to see if the text is still in the article. If not I mark it with an Red XN and move on. Where the text is, or probably is, a copyvio and still in the article I remove it (this has involved editing the article down to a stub or deleting it per CSD G12 (blatant copyvio with no good version to revert to) in a worrying number of cases). Given the frequency of the copyvios in this editor's contributions (something like 40%-60% of what they've ever added has been taken from news stories or internet sites) we can use the provision at WP:CP that allows all their contributions to be presumed to be copyvios unless there's a good reason to believe otherwise, so not everything needs to be checked against source news stories, particularly if it's written like a news article. I hope that helps! Nick-D (talk) 23:16, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
That's basically the way it works - first we look to see if we can tell if it was (at least presumably) a copyright violation when it was addded to the article. If it wasn't then it's clear and you mark it {{n}} and call it done. If it was a problem, then you see if any of their text is still in the current version of the article. If it's all gone then you should mark it {{y}} with a note that it's already been cleaned and call it done (marking it {{n}} works too, but its nice to know just how much of their material is confirmed copyvio so we know how aggressively to remove the part that can't be determined one way or another). If it's still there, or if it's been reworded some and you can't be sure if it's still a problem, then some action needs to be taken. You can either just remove/rewrite it yourself or if you're not comfortable with that use {{subst:copyvio}} to blank the page and follow the instructions to list it at the daily WP:CP page and those of us who regularly handle copyright issues will look at it in further detail. In either case mark it with a {{y}} on the CCI page and just say what action(s) you took so that it's all traceable should we need to revisit it for whatever reason. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Open task listing

I've taken a stab at reformatting the main open task page (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Open tasks) to be more reader-friendly; {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} is great for experienced members, but it's a bit too dense for general use. A couple of questions:

  1. Is the new format for the page an improvement over the old one?
  2. What other elements can we add? I'm thinking of pulling in some lists from the task force sub-templates, particularly for articles that need to be created; does anyone have other ideas?
  3. Can we simplify the template format a bit? I'm thinking we should get rid of the "announcement" band at the top—it's rarely used, and seems mostly to contain the newsletter posting (which everyone receives on their talk page anyways)—and simply rely on normal cross-posting for the occasional major discussion; that would let us reduce the size by about a third.

Any other comments would, of course, also be welcome. Kirill [talk] [prof] 22:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I've also taken a stab at adding automated backlog indicators to the article improvement categories. The levels are pretty arbitrary at the moment—for the main categories, the threshold is at 10,000 articles, which is about 10% of our total base—but it's probably better than nothing. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I think that works well - we can always argue about what constitutes a backlog, but the overall concept looks great :) How would you suggest pulling in the Articles for creation lists? They are pretty lengthy as I recall - would collapsible tables or something be workable? EyeSerenetalk 10:02, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
If we need to, we can certainly make them collapsible. I'm going to play around with the transclusion first, though, since I'm not really sure how much space the list will really take. Kirill [talk] [prof] 15:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I've pulled together all the task force requested article lists into a vast sea of red links. I'm not entirely sure whether the resulting effect is the right one; on the one hand, having the entire list there may be encouraging to editors who are just looking for article ideas, but, on the other hand, it is a very long list, and may seem daunting as well. Should we leave the entire thing in place, or perhaps split it into a few shorter sub-lists (e.g. articles, more articles, even more articles, etc.) with collapsible blocks?
(Incidentally, I'm thinking that using mode passthroughs on the task forces' open task templates could be useful in other areas; we could just as easily collect any of the other task categories into a single list.)
On a tangential note, any thoughts on whether we can take out the "announcement" portion of {{WPMILHIST Announcements}}, as I suggested above? Kirill [talk] [prof] 16:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The new set up looks good in my opinion. Regarding the list, I wonder if it could be grouped by broad topics, e.g. biographies, battles, units, etc. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:15, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

That wouldn't be possible using the transclusion method, since the task force lists aren't split out that way. The only way we could do that would be to actually have two lists—task force and project-wide—and manually maintain each, which would introduce a significant level of overhead. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Ok. I agree, that would be too great a task. Currently I've been going through the separate lists and trying to clean them up, moving created articles from "requested" to "expansion needed" (if required). I think I've looked at most of them, but I have probably missed a couple. AustralianRupert (talk) 08:47, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Looks good to me; the links will turn blue as people create articles, so trying to keep the list entirely red may be overkill to some degree. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thinking some more on the announcements, I wonder if it would make sense to move them from being within {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} to a box directly at the top of WT:MILHIST? That would cause any announcements to show up on the watchlists of people watching the main project page (which I suspect is a rather larger group than those watching the open task template).

The alternative, I suppose, would be to either leave the announcements where they are (which wouldn't necessarily hurt, though I think it's a bit of wasted space), or to remove them entirely and rely on talk page postings instead.

On a somewhat related note, I think we ought to start "delivering" the Bugle to the main project talk page as well, for the benefit of people who drop by there but aren't getting a copy delivered to them.

Thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Just checked, incidentally, and there are about 700 people watching the main project page versus about 200 people watching the announcement template; that would seem to suggest that having announcements appear on the former (either in a specific box or just as regular talk page announcements) would give us more exposure than having them on the latter and hoping that talk page visitors will bother to look at the template. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
I can see the benefits of delivering the Bugle to the main page, although I think it would probably be best if it were in the shortened form. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree that posting the front page of the Bugle to WT:MILHIST is a good idea. EyeSerenetalk 09:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
I guess nobody has any thoughts on the location of the announcements? ;-) Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

It probably makes sense to put them where the most people will see them, so on the main project page. Sorry, I'm just having trouble conceptualising the change in my mind, but I'm sure it would be fine. AustralianRupert (talk) 11:57, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough. Let me see if I can put together a mock-up of what they would look like on the main page; hopefully it will be easier for people to evaluate the idea with that available. Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I've taken a stab at putting an open news/announcement box at the top of WT:MILHIST; it's edited directly through that page, so any changes will show up on everyone's watchlists. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I like it. Looks like a good idea. AustralianRupert (talk) 21:19, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I like it as well. Definitely more eye-catching. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 13:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone else have an opinion on the new place for announcements? If there are no objections, I'll be removing the version in the summary template sometime in the next day or so? Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Looks great to me. EyeSerenetalk 13:52, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've made the needed changes. Kirill [talk] [prof] 14:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

September coordinator elections

I've set up the coordinator election page, its at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/September 2010. I think I got everything correctly formatted this time around, but a second set of eyes on the page would be appreciated to check for the little things. As it currently stands we will not be holding any referendums in this election; additionally, after the signup phase officially starts, we will be soliciting the following editors to stand for coordinators in the X Tranche:

Is there anyone else that we should consider, or anything else we need to add/subtract from the election page(s)? TomStar81 (Talk) 22:51, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Generally looks okay to me but I couldn't spot anywhere it said that the term is for one year; granted it didn't say it was for the old period of 6 months but probably worth mentioning on the election page the expected tenure for successful candidates. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Good catch. I've just added this in the opening sentence of "Overview".  Roger Davies talk 04:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
The signup phase in live, I'll start leaving the messages for the above mentioned editors and see if they will consider standing. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Alright, everyone's been notified; now we play the waiting game. Hopefully, one or two of the suggested members will take us up on the offer. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
We should also leave a message on the main talk page and turn on the project banner. I'm assuming we're not going to notify the entire membership list until actual voting opens? Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:03, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
I had planned on taking a wait and see approach to the notification of the membership; if we have a healthy number of candidates I plan to run only one message announcing the opening of voting, but we end up short I was planning on asking Cbrown to run a message announcing the signup phase and another announcing the voting phase. As to the messages, I added one on the project announcement banner but not to the mainpage, and I am not certain whereto go to turn on the banner. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd certainly suggest using the main talk page rather than the announcement template, as it has significantly more people watching it (~700 versus ~200). The banner is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Toolbox/Banner; I think you should just be able to pull an old version out of the history, as it's pretty much used only for coordinator elections. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

You might also want to cross-check the times; the announcements have the sign-up end at 2359 on the 14th, while the main page says voting starts at 0001 on the 14th. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:36, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Oops, good catch. I've fixed the announcements so that the signup phase ends 13 september and the election phase starts 14 septemeber, and thanks for pointing that out so we didn't have people asking about it later.
Also, I have no idea why I always forget about the big banner, you would think that would be the one thing I'd remember the most since its literally gracing darn near every page we have :) In any case, its up now, and thanks for that reminder as well. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Seeing as we have about a day and a half left in the signup period, should we ping on the likely candidates and/or the coordinators that haven't stated whether they're running again? It would be good to have a couple of additional candidates, at least; at the moment, we have more open spots than candidates. Kirill [talk] [prof] 14:19, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes. I was really hoping to hear from Diannaa but she's on a wikibreak til tomorrow. - Dank (push to talk) 15:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Would you guys like me to run again? I know I haven't been active this last term, and I can't guarantee much better this term, which is why I haven't put myself up yet. If, however, other people think that it would do more for the project to have me as a not very active coordinator than to possibly have an empty spot, I gladly will although with the caveat that I probably won't be able to do much more than check my watchlist, occasionally participate in discussions, and, once I finish college applications later in the fall, do some article reviewing, although not as much as I have in the past. – Joe N 15:28, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I won't vote since I'm running, but I'd have no problem voting for a candidate who said they would be tied up for a couple of months, since the term is a year. - Dank (push to talk) 15:43, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Same as Joe N for me if anyone has any thoughts. I notice we're a bit short with the noms closing tomorrow. Ranger Steve (talk) 15:53, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Can you say a little more? What are the pros and cons? - Dank (push to talk) 18:48, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Lol, well the con is you have to put up with me for a year. More seriously though, I agree with Joe that if you think a less active co-ord is of more benefit than no co-ord at all, I'll happily stand again. I think my main assistance is not to be found in the administrative tasks, but in reviews and balanced neutral advice - I think Jim Sweeney's question about content disputes is the one more relevant to what I'll be able to do. I do think (with some caveats) that co-ords should be seen as a fairly balanced opinion giver, which is what I think I'd be able to provide. I've been particularly busy of late but I do value this aspect of my volunteering life and I'm fairly committed to helping milhist (and wider wiki) running well. Ranger Steve (talk) 19:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Since I'm not voting, I also can't give an opinion one way or the other on your candidacy. But if I were voting and a candidate implied that they weren't going to do much more than they would do if they weren't a coord, that would be a disqualifier for me. Elections of any kind on Wikipedia are infrequent and hard, and my position is that there's an implied contract: we the voters will give you status that helps you achieve the things you think are important; now go do them. - Dank (push to talk) 20:03, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Erm,... I don't think I said that, in fact I at least implied the opposite. I would remain a point of contact for the project and do as much as I can, but I can' commit much more time than I do already and wouldn't be doing a huge amount of admin tasks. And I do do more now (regarding milhist tasks specifically) than I would were I not a co-ord. Sorry but I'm having trouble matching your comment with your reply to Joe when we're saying pretty much the same thing. Ranger Steve (talk) 20:27, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh, by the way, you can vote even if you're standing - even the person hoping to be Prime Minister gets to vote in the UK! Ranger Steve (talk) 20:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Right, I find myself in a position here that I'm almost never in ... normally I either say what I mean, or don't say anything. Here I have to hedge, because it would be coy to say, "I'm not voting, but here's my response ...", and I also can't say anything because I'm running. Nevertheless, you and Joe are asking a very valid question ... you don't think you'll be as active as some other candidates, should you run anyway since there are slots? I tried to answer based on what I've seen in elections all over Wikipedia, but perhaps I'm too close to this to try to answer that question. - Dank (push to talk) 20:46, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll stick my nose out and say something then. ;-) Ranger and Joe, you are both excellent people and coordinators. Speaking for myself, I'm willing to chance limited activity for the benefits you can provide to the coordinating core. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Second Ed's thoughts -- none of us can guarantee to be fully active all the time but that's why we have a reasonably large pool of coordinators... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't answer "why me and not Joe" ... apologies, I didn't mean to encourage Joe or discourage you. I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't have answered :) - Dank (push to talk) 00:39, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the support everyone, and Tom. I appreciate it a lot, and have gone ahead and put myself up. I hope that I am not a disappointment. – Joe N 00:53, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I regard milhist coordination in much the same way as I do adminship - that is to say, not everyone has to be active all the time, but even infrequent contributions are still a net benefit to the project (and many coord tasks, particularly things like voting on awards, take very little time). I see no reason why Joe and Steve shouldn't run. EyeSerenetalk 07:57, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all for your comments. I've added myself to the list, which now appears to give editors a healthy choice of 19 noms to choose from. BTW on review I meant Nick-D's question about content disputes in my comment above - not Jim Sweeney's. Oops! Ranger Steve (talk) 20:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. After all that ... I'm going to offer a few votes, see my note at my intro on the elections page. The best laid plans ... - Dank (push to talk) 03:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Are we having Cbrown1023 deliver a message to the membership now that voting has opened? Or is the plan to hold off on that unless participation remains low? Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to wait until Friday evening before making that call; if participation looks good then I will forgo the notice, but if by Friday most candidates have yet to hit the 20 vote mark I'll ask Cbrown to send out a notice. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:27, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Pending Changes and Milhist

Despite calls for another look it seems fairly certain at this point that pending changes is going to end up a fact of Wikipedia life. I am greatly disturbed by this move since I feel it violates the core values of wikipedia, but for he moment I am interested on feedback concerning our project's position on PC: I know this is policy level material, but I am interested in hearing back from all of you if there would be an interest in holding a project wide discussion to determine if and when the protection should be used for articles within our scope. If it turns out that most are against the PC option I would be open to considering an option to limit its application with regard to articles within our scope, particularly since efforts to make use of it on a few of our articles backfired. Thoughts? TomStar81 (Talk) 07:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that it's something where individual projects can opt in or out, and admins are expected to follow the Wikipedia-wide guidelines governing when it should (and shouldn't) be used. Nick-D (talk) 07:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I don't think we can go our own way in respect of site-wide policy :) However, I share Tom's concern. I've only tried applying the new protection level to one article so far, and since my article work is in non-controversial areas that don't really suffer disputes (with one recent glaring exception!), I haven't seen PC in action and didn't really feel qualified to comment on the trial. I understand the main difficulty is with high-traffic articles leading to a queue of changes waiting to be approved, potentially causing editors to miss important watchlist updates when the changes are approved all at once? EyeSerenetalk 08:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I found that it didn't work for the World War II article due to the very high volume of changes which were being rejected obscuring other changes which were being made to the article by autoconfirmed editors. However, it's worked well in other high-profile articles I've got on my watchlist such as World War I and Australia. Nick-D (talk) 08:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC) Edit; actually, it didn't work for Australia either and I also turned PC off in that article. Nick-D (talk) 08:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Nothing we can do about it Tom, it is what it is and we have to make best use of it, whatever happens. Woody (talk) 10:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm sure that, as Nick has done, other admins here are perfectly willing to change protection levels on articles to something more suitable than PC on a case-by-case basis if problems do arise. I guess only time and more extensive usage data will tell if PC is a good thing for Wikipedia or not. EyeSerenetalk 11:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
User:DGG, User:Risker and User:Becksguy gave a good talk on the Pending Changes trial at the NYC Wikiconference, but I just checked, and it doesn't appear that we have audio or a transcript from much of the conference except for the lightning talks and the keynotes. They all seem to have a pretty good handle on it, to me. - Dank (push to talk) 13:38, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not arguing that there is nothing we can do about it, I know this is site wide and out of our hands. What I am saying is that if its going to be on a site wide basis then we need to determine where it will and will not work for us. For example, the major war articles like WWII, WWI, Vietnam War, etc, would be poor choices to use PC on simply because of the sheer volume of anon edits - its going to create more problems than its worth. On the other hand, applying this to bio pages or pages that see vandalism due to content (like pages relating to the IDF and such that would see drive by edits from pro-Palestine editors) could be beneficial. Since the MoS only holds guideline status it would be non-binding, but include pending changes related guidelines could help us in the long run by highlighting pages where the protection should and should not be used and why, which in turn would help cut down on the amount of leg work admins in our project end up doing with regards to PC-related issues. That is, broadly, what I am shooting for here. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The trouble is Milhist articles are not just policed by milhist admins. Frankly it doesn't matter what guidelines we come up with as these could conflict with the central guidelines making them irrelevant. Take an article such as WWI, say someone lists it on RFPP, an admin comes along and puts PC on it, a milhist admin pops along and says actually, MILHIST guidelines say don't. Mil admin unprotects, disagreement ensues. What I am saying is that we cannot create any guidelines for this, the community as a whole needs to come to a consensus as to which articles will work with pending changes. Any guideline we create now will be shaped by community consensus in the future, hopefully something will begin to form out of the straw poll. Woody (talk) 20:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
I see. In that case I do sincerely hope they actually discuss the PC poll and such because at the moment it looks like they are simply going to continue the PC implementation without discussing any of the problems with it. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, keep in mind that there's only about 1600 articles using PC at the moment; we're still very much in the testing phase. Obviously, there's going to be a need for clearer guidelines on when PC should and shouldn't be used; but I think we need to gather more data about how it actually impacts different kinds of articles before we can come up with something generally useful. Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Kirill expressed my thoughts quite well. We're in beta testing at that. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs 02:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
It's also worth noting that individual admins have the usual discretion over when to use PC. No-one minded when I replaced it with semi-protection in the World War II or Australia articles, for instance. Nick-D (talk) 09:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
My understanding from the talk is that PC doesn't work well on high-traffic articles, and is intended mostly for BLP material. - Dank (push to talk) 12:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
That seems to be a common understanding from the recent trial. Jimbo sums it up quite nicely (as the discussion after that statement sums up the discontent). We are just going to have to wait and see for the moment. Woody (talk) 00:02, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Salvatore Giunta

I've nominated Salvatore Giunta (Medal of Honor) for a spot on the In The News section of the main page; just so you all know ahead of time. If the candidate does show we may need to keep an eye on the page make sure it stays clean. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:10, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Watchlisted. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:29, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Certainly an excellent candidate for In the News. I have also watchlisted the article now. Anotherclown (talk) 03:33, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Watchlisted. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs 05:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Great news. I've watch listed it as well just for the sake of having more eyes on the page though I bet that any bad faith edit will be reverted by one of you guys before I could get there!--White Shadows Your guess is as good as mine 16:31, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Automatic tracking of GA reviews

We all know that our section of the GAN page is heavily backlogged <waves hand in acknowledgement of own culpability in number of noms> and I think that we'd all like to figure out ways to reduce it. Some people have mentioned incentives like content review medals, but that seems to have foundered at the GA level because of the difficulty in tracking the reviews. (Perhaps difficulty isn't quite the right word, but it would be a PITA to do manually) Is it possible to get a bot or something to go through and tally up the closed reviews, positive and negative, during a given month and produce a list of users who made the reviews? Then we could pass out the appropriate medals, etc. To recognize our reviewers I think a special MilHist GA review medal should be designed and awarded in 3 grades. 3rd class for 1-2 reviews, 2nd class for 3-5 reviews and 1st class for 6+. This will distinguish our GA reviewers from our regular reviewers who participate in PRs and ACRs. And since it's not restricted to MilHist members, maybe we can get some people from other projects to help review our stuff and get a little extra publicity. Thoughts?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

In principle, this shouldn't be difficult; in practice, I don't know if we'll be able to find a bot operator willing to do it. Assuming that nobody objects to the idea of doing this—personally, I can't see anything wrong with it, but maybe I'm missing something—we should probably ask at the bot requests page and see if anyone bites.
(Perhaps this could also be used to track everyone who contributes to our FACs and other featured-level reviews? Given Sandy's recent concerns that FAC was becoming overloaded by our nominations, it might be nice to add some extra motivation there too.)
If we can't find a bot for this, I suppose the alternative would be to manually note the reviewer whenever a GA is promoted. It's probably doable—here aren't that many of them—and if we're going to list them in the showcase, we'll need to keep track of promotions manually regardless. Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:37, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I tackled a related question here. - Dank (push to talk) 22:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I think this relates to wider issues as mentioned by Sandy above. GA and FA are the only real opportunities for our articles to be assessed by editors from outside our project, and for that reason I'm not entirely happy with us contributing to our own GA and FA reviews. If recognising reviewers in this way helps to encourage non-milhist members to get involved, I'm all for it. EyeSerenetalk 08:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Tell me more. FA-wise, the best thing to happen lately is that great copyeditors like John, WereSpielChequers and Finetooth have been reading two of the current ones carefully (and will probably support), and I'm still trying to get a sense of what will keep the long-time, respected reviewers coming, but I've got some ideas. GA-wise ... so you're thinking it will actually hurt if I copyedit lead sections? I'll hold off until I understand more. - Dank (push to talk) 13:06, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't really thinking about copyediting during reviews, more about who's actually doing the reviewing. To clarify: milhist members often review milhist articles at GA and FA. There's nothing wrong with this per se (it's not forbidden or anything and in fact, with the general shortage of reviewers, it's probably unavoidable), but if the only reviews a milhist-related article has received throughout its wiki-career have come from members of the milhist project then I think that's slightly concerning. Start-, Stub-, B- and A-Class assessments are in house anyway, but ideally I'd like to know that outside eyes have been on an article at least once on its path to FA. To take one example, it took a non-milhist member to ask the question "what war is this?" for one WWII "Battle of..." article I was involved with - a detail so self-apparent to those in the know that neither I nor any other subject-specialist reviewer had noticed its omission. I have no doubt that milhist members can review articles within our scope at any level with complete integrity - for me it's more about attracting a diversity of views. EyeSerenetalk 13:55, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
This makes a lot of sense. It must be taken into account that milhist members will probably know certain things others won't, and so the articles may become a bit technical in nature. However, the idea of the above proposal makes a lot of sense. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs 15:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Wholly with Eyeserene here. I occasionally notice grumblings coming out of FAC/FAR about reviews that are far too insular or rubber-stamped without giving it a check for layman's terms. I don't think we want to be seen as rubber-stamping GA reviews or parachuting in reviews for our own articles, but I say this with little recent experience of the GA process. I am not casting aspersions on the intentions of any reviewer but trying to say that complacency can often creep in. Regards, Woody (talk) 22:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow

I think this may the single largest return group we have ever had: with the exception of MisterBee1966 everyone who served in the IX tranche is standing again for the X tranche. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:32, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

New assessment scheme idea

If anyone out there has a moment I would like to hear back from you on the Signpost Story located at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-13/Public Policy Initiative. In the long run, given our perpetual struggle to find reviewers, could the implementation of such a system work for us in the long run, or would we be better off sticking to our current system using the 1.0 assessment chart? TomStar81 (Talk) 03:05, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

As an "ambassador", I'm supposed to be cheerleading for that, but it's too early yet, I'm not sold. I'll have to see what people actually do with it. - Dank (push to talk) 03:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh my no, I'm not saying that we switch over immediately, I'm more interested in getting some early feedback about whether this may in the long term be something that would help us. For now, I'm taking the "wait and see" approach, but maybe in a year or two it will be worth revisiting and seeing if this is something we should move on. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
It's a clever approach from an assessment standpoint; essentially, it takes the idea of the B-Class criteria and makes them more fine-grained, which is probably a good thing.
The problem I see with it is that we're using the B-Class checklist to generate not only the assessment itself, but also the "attention needed" categories for articles failing particular criteria. I'm not sure how feasible that would be with a more nuanced system ("articles requiring attention to citations", "articles requiring a lot of attention to citations", "articles requiring a little attention to citations"?). I had a brief discussion about that with Sage at the NYC conference, but he hasn't come up with a good solution either. Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't know if this would be overly blunt, but we could just make a category that, say, articles with assessment below three stars, or whatever we decided would be an acceptable level, would go in. If we can find a solution to that problem, I would be in support of implementing that idea, so users can actually see how an article is. As it is, I've tried to explain the assessment scheme to non-Wikipedians with minimal success, so something simpler and easier for them to actually see may be more effective at building public confidence in our accuracy and reliability. – Joe N 20:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
How many people are honestly ever going to take the time to assess any of our articles? Most, if not the vast majority, people simply don't care. As for the attention needed category generation issue, that would have to be reworked to have some sort of trigger like <*** or something similar.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Multi-level collapse in project navigation template

Since {{WPMILHIST Navigation}} has been growing in size again recently, I've taken a stab at implementing a multi-level collapse feature in the template. The common "visitor-facing" portions (guidelines, departments, special projects, and showcase) are in a collapsible block one level deep (i.e. the pages are visible with a single [show] click). The more specialized links (member affairs, resources, and task forces) are in collapsible blocks two levels deep (i.e. the first [show] click expands to a set of sub-categories, and a second [show] click displays actual pages). I'd appreciate any comments on how well this approach works and whether it's a good idea to use it. Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I like it. Good work! -MBK004 05:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, well done. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:58, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
On a minor point, I've added a (non-collapsing) header bar above the common sections, so as to make the transition from gray to blue headers less jarring. If anyone can think of better text than "Core work areas" to put there, though, that'd be great! :-) Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:44, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

ACR for British BC list

I seemed to have messed up something on my nomination of List of battlecruisers of the Royal Navy so that's not being transcluded onto the ACR page. Can some gnomish-type person kindly fix this for me?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:18, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

It looks like you accidentally overwrote the "don't edit anything above this line" stuff that's preloaded by the Milhist template. I fixed it, so it should be good to go. Parsecboy (talk) 20:24, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I couldn't figure out where I'd gone wrong.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but...

I just found out that I am going to be out town for the rest of the week; there's been an unexpected death in my extended family, and my dad is taking me and my brother back east for the funeral. I will not have an internet connection for the duration of the trip. I do hope to be back early next week, though the exact day of my return depends on how jet lagged I am feeling. Sorry for any inconvenience. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:28, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that, Tom -- take care and don't worry about things here for a few days. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:57, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
No problem, but sorry to hear that. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs 03:22, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
My condolecances. Buggie111 (talk) 03:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry for you, Tom. Thoughts and prayers are with you. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, all. In my final message before rolling out in the morning, I am entrusting the current coordinator tranche with one last important task: if by the end of this Monday (as determined by UTC time) our election pages seems a little low on participation I would like someone to email Cbrown1023 and ask him to send out short message to the project members listed as active. The message should be short and should consist of a simple note that the elections are open and will end on the 28th, and that all members in good standing are welcome to vote. Otherwise, barring any unforeseen events, I hope to be back on here soon. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:27, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Will do, Tom. I too am sorry to hear your news.  Roger Davies talk 08:25, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Sorry to hear your news. No need for you to be sorry though, perfectly understandable reason for a break. Ranger Steve (talk) 22:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Weird problem

Buistr's vote is not registering on the election page. Any ideas why anyone?  Roger Davies talk 01:11, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

No. That's about as standard a vote as possible. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs 02:50, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
It must have been a caching problem.  Roger Davies talk 06:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Dank#Version 0.8

Martin Walker is asking me to do copyediting for V0.8 like I did for V0.7; this time around, I'm going to have to limit it to MILHIST. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 13:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a good idea. I've added the relevant stats to the ANZSP task force (I think I got the filtering right), in an effort to drum up some interest on the articles being considered. Is this a good way to go? AustralianRupert (talk) 21:19, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
I haven't kept up, they might be able to help at WP:V0.8. I'm expecting a bot will come around at some point to the MILHIST talk page and tell us that some articles have been selected, then I'll have a look. - Dank (push to talk) 13:54, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I know I'm not a coordinator, but I think I might be able to help out here. To see the provisional selections for V0.8 for MILHIST, you can go to this site. Or, if the link doesn't work - go to the assessment page. In the table showing the total number of assessments for each class, click on the number for all articles (it's like 105,000 or something close to that). This will take you to the "Release Version Tools" website. In the second box from the top in the right hand column, you can search by release version - just enter 0.8 provisional selection (it's the only option in the drop down box) and click "generate list" in the main search box. Hope this helps, Dana boomer (talk) 11:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
That's great. Thanks very much for this. AustralianRupert (talk) 13:20, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Should we push for the articles in the release to be B-class or better like we did last time around? According to the list I see the articles beginning with no.1589 (.22 long rifle) and down to the end are largely start class or perhaps stub class, if we were of the mind to rearrange articles I think now would be the time to do so. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Nearly 4,000 Milhist articles have been selected; 2,300 are start class and 23 are stubs. It's been stated that the team want selections finalised by 11 October, so realistically pushing a couple of thousand articles to B-class in three weeks is not going to happen. If you want a drive to get some of those improved, you're going to need to be selective. Nev1 (talk) 17:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Last time round, we ran a mini-drive and it was a complete nightmare trying to get stuff improved in time, even being very selective about what we took on.  Roger Davies talk 18:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm in agreement with Nev1 and Roger, essentially; it's not really feasible to get everything up to a decent level of quality, and a panicked rush to push a few extra articles over that bar is probably not worth the effort. As a more long-term goal, we should probably lump these together with the articles on our "Popular pages" list as priorities for improvement; but I'm not sure how best to approach that in general.
(Incidentally, this aspect of the selection strategy has been one of the main points of disagreement between myself and Martin Walker over the years; I've always argued for selecting primarily based on quality, while he's argued for selecting primarily based on importance.) Kirill [talk] [prof] 19:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I would think having them all start or higher would be a good enough goal. Buggie111 (talk) 21:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Certainly the 23 target is an easily achievable goal (next to the other figure) which is at least worth trying to improve. I'm not sure its a good enough goal, but its certainly a do-able one (and might help inform the way in which to tackle the others). Ranger Steve (talk) 21:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I looked at half-a-dozen of these and they were mostly legitimate start-class articles that had never been promoted.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
That certainly seems doable fairly quickly then. On Kirill's point, I assume importance is judged based on other project templates as we don't use it? EyeSerenetalk 07:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

The importance rating is one of the criteria, but the selection process also uses several other "importance" measurements, such as page views, incoming links, and so forth. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:38, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

So it's more "popularity" than "importance" really. Thanks for clarifying :) EyeSerenetalk 07:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

# of FACs change over time

Take a look at the percentage change in the categories of FAs, Warfare has increased 84% over two years, 145 articles, the highest of any category. Not bad! Woody (talk) 15:56, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Some of the reviewers have actually not been thrilled to see so many MILHIST FACs (especially from SHIPS) and have been mentioning this in various places. My take is that we've made very solid progress over the last six months, and I responded at WT:FAC#FA category changes over two years. The easiest problem to fix is offering trades ... say, copyediting for copyediting or various straightforward image or reference checks, especially on articles that are at or headed to A-class (which at SHIPS, usually means they're headed to FAC, these days). It's no extra work if you're checking the formatting on references, or checking for compliance with WP:WORDS and WP:LAYOUT, on someone else's article while they check yours, and if we had more non-MILHIST people looking at our articles, that would (over time) largely solve the FAC problem that some are perceiving. - Dank (push to talk) 17:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, I have seen the comments in different places over the last year. I think the main issue is when an article only gets reviews from the milhist project or ships project. This leads to the perception of "back-slapping" or supporting in groups. Your suggestions above would help to combat this. Indeed, we have been trying for a number of years to get reciprocal reviews, that was why we have the tie-up with the video-games project though that seems to have died out somewhat. The other issue is that reviewers frankly get bored when they are reading 2 ships articles a day at FAC though the issue of saturation is something we can't really avoid. Woody (talk) 17:09, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Can we add the reciprocal reviews to the reviewer table and milhist template we maintain? That would the VG project get feedback, I think. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, that would direct editors from here to VG; it wouldn't do anything to encourage VG editors to participate in our reviews unless the VG project were to do something similar.
If we are going to go down this path, incidentally, the better way of doing it would be to get the VG project to maintain a list of their peer reviews in a format identical to ours; then, we could use partial transclusion to simply grab each other's review lists, without having to manually maintain anything outside each project. Kirill [talk] [prof] 17:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
If they are agreeable to this then how hard would it be set up such a system? TomStar81 (Talk) 17:45, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Not particularly difficult. They already have an open task template of a sort (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/to do). The best way to make the two systems compatible would be to convert it to a shell-based one (like {{WPMILHIST Announcements}}) so that each slot could be transcluded individually; then, we could simply include each project's peer review list in the other's open task listing. Kirill [talk] [prof] 17:49, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Review notices

How about tweaking the instructions for people listing A-class and peer reviews at the review department so that they carry out project/task force notifications themselves? Nominators are already responsible for responding to comments, so a couple of extra edits in an effort to drum up interest is hardly much extra work and would be in their interest, and at the same time it's one less thing for co-ordinators MBK004 to do. Perhaps updating the open tasks template could be part of that. Nev1 (talk) 14:37, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Considering that we're not exactly overwhelmed with work at the moment, I don't see any reason to push more work onto the nominators just to lighten our load a bit. If anything, I'd prefer to have us doing more of the procedural work here; there's no reason why someone who wants their article reviewed should be forced to learn the details of our task management infrastructure just so the can ask for the review.
Plus, we'd need to check all the listings anyways, since people tend to forget non-essential steps in the procedure; so we wouldn't really gain much in terms of reducing our involvement. Kirill [talk] [prof] 17:50, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Going off what Kirill said, we're designated to do these tasks even though anyone can do them because "experience suggests that people tend to assume that someone else is doing whatever needs to be done, the most efficient route has proven to be to delegate formal responsibility for this administrative work to a specified group." Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Well if putting notifications up became part of the instructions, nominators wouldn't assume someone else was going to take care of it, would they? I thought it was an obvious way of reducing the amount of work co-ordinators do by spreading the load a little. Do co-ordinators have so little to do we must create work for them? Nev1 (talk) 18:00, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but why would we need or want to push this extra work onto the nominators? As you've said elsewhere, we should try to make it easier for "regular" editors to participate in these processes, even if it means some more work on our part; forcing nominators to involve themselves in the minutiae of review announcement cross-posting runs counter to that principle, in my opinion.
As far as coordinators having little work, maintaining the project's internal processes (of which the review department is one) is at the core of the coordinators' role; I think you would be hard pressed to find a coordinator who thinks we ought to foist it back onto the general project membership. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:36, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not talking about maintenance in general and I never suggested generally removing it from the co-ordinator's role, I'm referring to review notifications which could quite easily be done by nominators. Of course reviewing needs to be more accessible, but this minor change wouldn't make it any more difficult for a nominator (posting messages that an article is at review is pretty easy) and I think it's condescending to pretend as much. Frankly if nominators consider posting a couple of messages onerous then my hopes aren't high that they'll have the energy to see an article through a review. This seems like creating work for co-ordinators just for the sake of it; or are you perhaps worried that devolution of responsibility might take the lustre of the title? If this is what you want, I suppose that's fine and I won't push the matter. Nev1 (talk) 02:15, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Your insinuations about my motives are wrong, and I've done nothing to deserve them.
As far as creating work is concerned, posting such review notices has been part of the coordinators' regular responsibilities for four years, so any creation of work took place long ago. I am not all that adamantly opposed to having nominators post their own notices in principle; but neither do I see any particularly compelling reason to change a working system, given that the coordinators are not being significantly burdened by the posting of these notices, and that we would likely need to remain involved to catch and fix missing announcements in any case. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
Per Kirill. In principle I don't think it would be excessive to ask nominators to post their own notices, but for the fact that it's already an integrated part of the coord role and has been for years. Although as Nev1 suggests it might demonstrate nominator commitment to the process, I don't believe there's any pressing need to change a system that's working smoothly. EyeSerenetalk 07:49, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the above. The system as it is works fine, and is a much less difficult task than closing an A-Class review or archiving a peer review. I don't really see any advantage to changing it. – Joe N 00:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Elections

Its Wednesday rather than Monday, Tom is back and Brownbot has done the rounds with a notice about the election anyway, so this might be a little moot. But are we happy with the general level of input to the election? I am, but just thought I'd put it out there in case anyone thinks there's anything else we can do in the last 6 days. Ranger Steve (talk) 08:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Short of another Brownbot notice I'm not sure what more we could do to draw attention to the elections. However, like you I'm pretty happy with participation so far. It's too late this time around, but I think the suggestion about a comments section to encourage feedback on coord/editor performance would be worth looking at for next time around. EyeSerenetalk 08:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to see more participation myself; usually we get more people in on this thing since the high end users typically walk away with votes in the 40-59 range. I suppose its to be expected though, seeing as how things change over time. At this point, seeing as how I trail in the voting ring by a lot its seem an almost sure thing that I will not return as the lead, so it may be more prudent to ensure the top candidates are willing to take on the role should they receive the highest amount of approval. Its not entirely clear at this point if those ahead of me are up to it (though I am certain that most are, I mean ed and the others have been here for what seems like forever and probably have just as good a feel for the project and its needs as me), so some probing questions on this line of thinking may yield additional votes. Short of begging people to come out and vote what we may also want to consider is rethinking the minimum number of votes we hold to obtain a seat. I can not remember off the top of my head if that would help any, but it is something to consider. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:11, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure we need to ask in advance if someone will take the lead: they can say so of their own volition or say afterwards if it's an issue. More broadly, asking someone whether they're up to taking on the lead, may be perceived as having an element of well-poisoning as well as being a nightmare to answer. One can't simply say "yes" without looking a bit pushy; and saying "no" is shooting oneself in the foot :)  Roger Davies talk 09:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

(od) At nine days in, core voting is at very similar levels to the nine-day mark in the last two elections (March '10 and Sept '09). Traditionally, the voting tails right off after the first few days apart from a little spurt at the end. We've sent out two reminders on occasion in the past (and I'll happily organise another if there's consensus for it) but the second does tend to attract a lot of grumbles about spam (which the first doesn't) and may be counter-productive.  Roger Davies talk 09:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

On the lead coord role, I think it's enough that we offer first refusal to the candidate who attracts the most support and then work our way down the list if needed. In my view any candidate with a high level of trust from the project is by definition quite capable of judging their own suitability for the job. EyeSerenetalk 11:19, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. First refusal for the top vote winner, then work down, rather than pre-emptive discussion. Ranger Steve (talk) 19:43, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Article Alert Bot

Bahamut0013 has informed me that Article Alert Bot should be up and running again soon, and I agree with his assessment that it would make our lives easier if we made use of the bot. Does anyone have an opinion about its use or information about how hard it would be to set up the the project? TomStar81 (Talk) 08:13, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Based on the categories at the bottom of most of the task forces, I think most of them are already signed up for it, however, they seem to have the "no display" parameter set. I'm not quite sure how to fix this though. The list is here: [2]. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:08, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
The individual task force article alert pages can be found in this search: [3] AustralianRupert (talk) 09:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
The bot subscriptions for the task forces are centrally controlled through {{WPMILHIST Announcements/Task force}}; once the bot is up and running again, we just need to change the code there to display the results again, and everything will propagate to each task force automatically.
The core project also has a subscription, which is controlled through WP:MHOT; an identical change is necessary there as well. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:36, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Cheers, I was beginning to suspect something like that, but sadly my knowledge of some of these technical aspects of the project is lacking. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:48, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

GAN backlog drive

I'd like to thank Jim Sweeney for conducting his own personal GAN backlog elimination drive; as well everyone else who's been reviewing multiple articles. I'm wondering if we could conduct our own, slightly more formalized, drive next month? I'm willing to personally tally and award barnstars for all reviewers next month. We could use the scale that I proposed above or I could borrow the one used in the last WP:WPGA backlog elimination drive. I'd prefer to use our own barnstars, if someone less graphically challenged than myself could design some by the end of next month. I will admit that I have a personal interest in such a drive because I'm quite likely to refill the queue all by myself as I go into the final stretch of the WikiCup, but that doesn't mean that it's not a good idea regardless. And perhaps we should consider do such a drive every six months or so if the WP:WPGA isn't doing one themselves. It would probably be smart to coordinate the timing with the WikiCup's final round. Thoughts?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:01, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Heh, if I hadn't retired from WikiCup I know I'd have a particular interest in seeing the backlog eliminated too! Seriously though, why not? It's worth noting, for those who haven't GA reviewed lately (I recently did my first since returning from overseas), that the process is more automated now, requiring a little less time on the part of reviewers. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Seems like a good idea to me; the scope is small enough that we shouldn't need to pour too many resources into the running of it, and we definitely want to make some headway on the GAN backlog, particularly if we're thinking about increasing the attention we pay to GAs as a project. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:44, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Hope y'all like ship articles; I've got a bunch saved up. <evil grin>--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:48, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
I think it might be a nice thought if we were not to concentrate exclusively on milhist articles alone - perhaps we could undertake to review one non-milhist article for every two milhist or something? EyeSerenetalk 10:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Just to say thanks to Sturm for the above and is anyone going to do a Operation Majestic Aircraft/Soldier/Gun please!!! --Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:35, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
In response to EyeSerene I like to feel comfortable and have (if even only a little bit) some knowledge of the subject. To ask reviewers to look at other areas may be counter productive. I did look at this one Dirac delta function and quickly moved on. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
That's a fair point, though GA reviewing deliberately doesn't require much in the way of content expertise - that's for the article nominator/writer(s) to supply. It's been a while since I reviewed a GA nom, but I look more for overall readability and a reasonably understandable-in-layman's-terms lead; the rest of WP:WIAGA is basically technical criteria. EyeSerenetalk 11:02, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
I think that having people self-report their reviews like the last WP:WPGA backlog reduction contest is the easiest way to handle things. Does anyone have time to design some gongs like I mentioned above, before the end of October? Or should we just use our regular review gongs? The contest's gongs could also be used, although the levels to earn each award will have to be lower since I only expect a total of 80-100 articles available to be reviewed next month. I'll do up a draft announcement later today for y'all to critique.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Here's the draft submission page. Lemme know what you think. I suppose we could add a banner or somesuch, but I'm not sure what would be appropriate.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:56, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
The page looks good overall; I've done a brief copyedit and added some logistics stuff.
One thing obviously missing, though, is a link to the actual backlog, or a list of articles to be reviewed. ;-) Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:48, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Kirill. I've moved the page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Review/GAN backlog elimination/October 2010 and added another link to the relevant GAN section. We need a link from the Review Dept. page to the contest page, but I'll let somebody else decide how to lay that out.
Now how shall we announce it? I'd like to get something out before the contest starts since the Bugle usually takes a couple of days after the end of the month to hit people's talkpages. The obvious place is our main talkpage and I was thinking about adding Ships and Aviation as well. I'll even drop by WP:WPGA to let them know what's going on. Anybody want to write up a draft announcement or have any additional thoughts?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:04, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Would it perhaps make more sense to place this under the contest department rather than the review department? It would be easier to have a more prominent link in place—the review department's TOC is quite busy, so adding a new section is likely to pass unnoticed—and I think it makes more sense from a structural perspective to treat this as a special contest activity rather than as a regular review. Kirill [talk] [prof] 08:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

That is a better idea; I'll move it momentarily.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:24, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, here's my draft of the announcement: The [[WP:MILHIST|Military history WikiProject]] is announcing that it is holding a mini-Good Article Nomination backlog elimination drive. The drive covers only the articles in the [[WP:GAN#WAR|War and military section]] of the [[WP:GAN|WP:Good Article Nominations]] page and prizes will be awarded for the reviews made. The contest page is at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Contest/GAN backlog elimination/October 2010]] and contains all necessary information on procedures and awards. Any questions may be directed at myself or posted on the contest's talk page. For the coordinators, ~~~~ I'll post it once some comments are made. I know that I tend to be a bit terse and this may need some elaboration.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:34, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd suggest two versions of the announcement, one for internal use within the project and one for external use. The internal version should drop the full project name (and replace it with, e.g. "We would like to announce..."). The external version should drop the "For the coordinators" bit. Otherwise, I think the text looks fine, if (as you say) a bit terse. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:27, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

(undent) Are we going to include articles that are within the MILHIST project but not listed in the War and military section? For example, Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is a MILHIST article, but is listed under World history, and Caernarfon Castle is also MILHIST, but is under Art and architecture. I'm sure there are others, I found these two with only a minute or two of effort. Dana boomer (talk) 20:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a fair question. As long as it falls under our purview I think it should be considered as eligible for the contest. I'll modify the contest's home page accordingly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:49, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Project review gongs

Just a reminder that the next batch of awards for ACR/PR participation are due to go out at the end of this month. It's only three months' worth, so it's not that hideous. Would one of the presumptive coordinators elect like to assemble the data or would everyone like Poor Ole Rodge™ to do it again?  Roger Davies talk 07:28, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed seeing this earlier. To be honest, I'm not at all sure of the process. I am wondering if instructions for this could/should be added to the co-ordinators page under the "How to" or "Tasks section". AustralianRupert (talk) 09:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
The review awards are based on individual contributions for the last quarter to Peer reviews, as well as to promoted and failed A-Class reviews. The links are here:
The TOC on the Peer review page shows the name of the articles, with sub-headings for each contributing editor, so producing a listing is easy.
For the A-Class reviews, we need to generate a list of individual contributors for each review. I usually select all reviews from the applicable period from the "promoted" and "failed" pages and cut and paste them from the screen straight into Word. This can then be edited down (quite quick actually) to a list of editors per A-Class review.
Finally, the results need to tabulated by editor. This all probably sounds worse than it is.
Yes, it makes sense to tidy this up and pop this into /Handbook at some stage.
 Roger Davies talk 04:04, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Cheers for that. Those instructions seem quite clear. I'm going to be extremely busy from 3 October for about six weeks or so, so I probably won't be able to help out this time. If I get a moment before that, I'll try to help out, though. Apologies for this, but my final semester of uni is proving to be pretty full on. AustralianRupert (talk) 08:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm up to my eyeballs in reading right now (~200 pages per day), but I will be more than willing to do the rounds for the December ones in return. Cam (Chat)(Prof) 21:23, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Some unexpected RL stuff has cropped up today so it's vanishingly unlikely that I'll be able to do this in time for this issue of The Bugle. Would one of the keen new coordinators like to do it? Otherwise, I can roll it over to the next issue of The Bugle ...  Roger Davies talk 21:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Roger. I'm trying to go through the peer review contributions but am unsure about something. Do we just look at the peer reviews that have been closed/archived or do we include ones that are still running, but were commented upon in the start of July to end of September period? AustralianRupert (talk) 06:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
Hi, Roger, I had a bit of time today, so I've gone through and compiled the list of contributions for peer reviews and ACRs between 1 July and 30 September 2010. I hope I haven't mucked anything up. The draft is in my sandbox here, would you mind taking a look? I still need clarification about the peer reviews that are considered "current" but include comments within this period (currently the table doesn't include those peer reviews, but they can be easily added in if required). Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:42, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to be extremely busy now for the next six to eight weeks, so won't have much time to help with this now. Sorry. I've done most of the work, someone just needs to check that it is good to go and then issue that awards. The information is contained in my sandbox here. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:35, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
Thank you very much. Sorry to be so unresponsive: I've been away over the weekend and only just catching up. For simplicity, we take the date of closing not the date of commenting.  Roger Davies talk 13:18, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Consolidating department talk pages

Given that our department talk pages are very low-traffic, and don't seem to have many people watching them, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to redirect them all to the main project talk page? They tend to be used for general questions anyways, so I don't think there would be any adverse impacts. Thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 16:01, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. - Dank (push to talk) 16:02, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
Ditto. Cam (Chat)(Prof) 13:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
I would suggest discussing this on the main milhist talk page rather than here. Although the department talk pages are fairly quiet, I would hope that just redirecting to the main page didn't actually discourage editors from posting at all, especially given the opening line of the warning that appears when you edit that page (Please use this page to start discussions that either affect the project as a whole or several task forces). Be worth getting the opinions of the talk page regulars as well I think. Perhaps some solutions would be to adapt that line, or put a note on each department talk page explaining that its better to use the main page (along with a link to it) rather than just a redirect. Ranger Steve (talk) 19:32, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it's time to scrap that part of the edit notice? I agree that should be discussed with the project as a whole, although only after we get consensus among us too. (for the record, I agree with redirecting them) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:35, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
So do I. I think it might be an idea to scrap that part of the notice as well, its a barrier to any talk page redirects for project/task force talk pages. Ranger Steve (talk) 22:58, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I think we can scrap it at this point; it's a remnant of an earlier approach, and is likely to become moot based on the task force reorganization discussions in any case. Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:23, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not averse to redirecting the current talk pages and scrapping that notice. Most of the task force talk seems to be notices re. relevent article reviews, which are duplicated on the main talk page anyway. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:27, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree that this ought to be discussed on the main talk page and that the relevant part fo the edit notice ought to be scrapped; our project continues to evolve after all so the messages we display should evolve as well :) TomStar81 (Talk) 00:50, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at changing the edit notice (Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history); please take a look and make any further edits as needed.

Assuming there are no objections to the idea, I'll post the redirection proposal on the main talk page in the next day or so, and we can see what people think. Kirill [talk] [prof] 05:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I've now posted the proposal at WT:MILHIST#Consolidating department talk pages; any comments there would be welcome. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

X Tranche

I've marked the election page as historical and handed out the star insignias, however there were two catches: 1) I do not award myself one, and more importantly 2) we had a tie for lead, so the 6-star insignia has yet to be awarded. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Nice work Tom, I had forgotten it ended today. Now the question is (in order) does Parsec or Aust not want the position, should we have co-lead coordinators, and/or how do we determine who gets the lead spot? A straight-up coordinator vote, picking one or the other, would be simplest, but I don't want to have to choose between you guys. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:24, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Damn, I should have popped in and had my kingmaker vote, lol YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 00:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Just toss a goddamn coin, it's not that important. Nev1 (talk) 00:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I seriously considered limiting my votes to influence the lead, but I didn't because I couldn't decide. If both of you want it, the logical step seems like a coordinator vote, as long as that wouldn't cause excessive acrimony. – Joe N 01:00, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

In bygone days, the coordinator closing the election would usually cast a tie-breaking vote if one was necessary; but, seeing as Tom had already voted, I don't suppose that's really an option.

A vote among the coordinators would be a possible way of resolving the tie; but, given the potential for later acrimony, it would be ideal if AustralianRupert and Parsecboy could come to some agreement between themselves without involving the entire tranche.

Alternately, we could always have co-lead coordinators; it would be a new approach, but not (in my opinion, anyways) a particularly controversial one, and may even be beneficial given the extended term length and the consequently increased chance that vacations/retirements/etc. could leave us temporarily without a lead. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:39, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I took it upon myself to perform the formality of awarding your stars as Coordinator, Tom, and will say here many thanks for your great efforts as Lead up till now. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:18, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Alternately, if we aren't up to co-leads we could have one be lead for the first six months, the other for the next six months. They can cage-fight to determine who goes first. Cam (Chat)(Prof) 02:22, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm perfectly fine with doing co-leads, or if AustralianRupert wants to do it alone, I'd defer to him. It's not a big deal to me. Parsecboy (talk) 03:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi, everyone. I'd prefer not to undertake the lead co-ord role this time around. If it is okay with Parsecboy, I'd like to step back and just do the normal co-ord duties. I'm sure Parsecboy would be a great lead co-ord, and I will work hard to support him in this role. My reasoning is as follows (1) Parsecboy has much more experience than me, (2) my uni work has just gotten insane and for the next six to eight weeks I will have to limit my time online. I will still be able to help with the normal co-ord duties, but won't have the time/energy to take the lead on some of the matters that we have before us and (3) I got some good news yesterday that Army is considering whether my injury has healed sufficiently, so the New Year could see a return to the Colours and a decrease in Wiki. As such, I think that, as long as Parsecboy is happy with this solution, then the problem of the tie can be solved this way. Apologies if this causes any dramas. I would also like to say here that I think Tom did a very good job as lead co-ord and thank him for all that he has done over the past year. I'm sure that the good ideas will continue and, who knows, maybe the spelling will improve ;-) Joking, of course, mate. Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 04:33, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Incidentally, something I've meant to bring up with you for ages. I assume that Rupert is squaddie slang for an officer in Oz (it certainly is in the UK). Is this right?  Roger Davies talk 07:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Strictly it should pronounced "Wupert" (or "Wodney", the difference being that Wodneys are those officers that 'wose up thwough the wanks') EyeSerenetalk 08:46, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
To respond to Roger's comment: we don't use the term "Rupert" in the Australian Army for officers strictly speaking, but when I was at Duntroon we had a British sergeant instructor on exchange who liked to use the term. I thought it funny at the time. I started out as a sapper, so maybe I should change my username to AustralianRodney (AustralianWodney)? ;-) AustralianRupert (talk) 10:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

(od) First, congratulations to everyone who has been (re)elected, especially those in the pole positions. Well done! Second, have we any thoughts about coopting Joe? He only fell one vote short (I meant to make this good late last night but fell asleep on the sofa instead)?  Roger Davies talk 06:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Congrats as well everyone, although I'm disappointed that we didn't get to see the lead role settled in the street at noon! I'd support co-opting Joe, which would (I think) get us up to 15. Ranger Steve (talk) 06:45, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Firstly, I liked Cam's idea of the two leading vote-getters each taking the role for 6 months but I think Rupert's statement above probably precludes that, so I await with interest Parsec's response to that. Secondly, thanks Rog for bringing up the idea of co-opting Joe given his experience and the fact that he was just one vote shy of the nominal 20 -- you and Steve echo my own thoughts. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:26, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Congrats to all coords both new and returning, and my thanks too to Tom for his sterling work leading the project for so long. I support Joe's cooption. EyeSerenetalk 08:46, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I hope it's supported, because Tom already gave him stars! ;-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 12:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. ;-) Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:27, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Good job, Tom. I also support Joe becoming a coord, but I'd rather we make it clear that it's because at least two extra people (Roger and myself) intended to vote for him. (I know this because I said "oh damn" when I saw the results of the vote and saw it was past the deadline.) - Dank (push to talk) 12:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I should have noted that when I left the initial message, but I included him since he was one vote shy of the minimum, and since its a year long term now I figured there would be no harm in adding someone of his caliber to the lineup. On a related note, thanks for the stars, and I have completed the insignia handout by awarding Australianrupert and Parsecboy the stars as per their preferred positions as noted here on the page. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:36, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Given the various comments above, I've updated the coordinator listing with what I think we're moving forward with at this point. Someone else (Parsecboy?) should probably post a formal announcement of the new tranche on the main project talk page.

Other than that, I think we can get right to work once everyone has settled in; there is the usual logistics of allocating task forces and such to work through, and we have a couple of items that we were discussing but decided to defer until after the election that we need to deal with as well. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I was rather surprised when I got on after the election closed and found stars on my talk page myself, but I'm glad that it seems like nobody's going to be upset over it. Thank you Tom and everyone else for your support, I hope I won't be a disappointment. – Joe N 13:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, I've posted a notice on the main talk page on the results of the election. Just to note, I too support Joe's coopting. I suppose it's time to divvy up task forces, eh? I've got to run for a bit, so if anyone else wants to get the ball rolling on that, that's fine. Otherwise, I'll get to it later this evening. Parsecboy (talk) 15:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

ACRs for closure (accidental involved close)

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Mississippi class battleship - OMT article at 28 days with 1 support and 2 opposes and more comments. Prolonging this review might not be in the best interests. Easy no-consensus closure for a new coord (I can clean-up your mistakes with this one). -MBK004 05:44, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
    • I have done this one. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:04, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Well, that's embarrassing. I have just realised that I made a comment on this article (but did not support or oppose). That makes me an "involved co-ord" and as such, I shouldn't have closed it. Please accept my apologies and you can be sure I'm administering an uppercut to myself presently. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:38, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
        • We'll be docking your salary....
To be honest, I can't see a problem. Its an open and shut no consensus I think. Ranger Steve Talk 09:42, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
We've impounded your car for three days as a warning... Cam (Chat)(Prof) 03:28, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
I was wondering why that car had a wheel clamp... Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:37, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
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