User:N8wilson/Content timeliness

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This is a work area for sifting through templates for maintaining content timeliness.

Reflections 3 Sept 2022[edit]

While the easiest content maintenance issues may get remedied entirely un-noticed thanks to WP:BOLD edits by seasoned contributors, others may evolve in the general direction of a resolution aided by the contributions of a variety of editors over a period of time. This second group of issues tends to be those that are larger, more complex, applicable to more niche topics, and sometimes just more vague. This group isn't exclusively these issues though. It's feasible within WP —and even designed so that— simple easy issues may be quickly addressed when one editor adds a tag, a second editor improves it, a third provides a resource, and a fourth implements a change to resolve the issue in the article.

WP has a wide array of templates (see partial listing below) which are intended to help editors find unresolved issues and inch them forward where feasible. However, choosing the most appropriate template and using it effectively both play a major role in the ability of that tool to help improve an outstanding issue with an article. In the most unfortunate cases of good faith, a real issue may get tagged with a somewhat related maintenance tag that lacks specificity creating a situation where subsequent editors neither feel confident removing it nor equipped to address the maintenance issue for years or even decades for less visited articles.

The working theory that started this endeavor (if I correctly recall) is that secondary tools that interact with maintenance templates - primarily maintenance tracking categories - may be underutilized in helping contributors locate pages where they are both interested and able to assist. To that end, I expect that some level of analysis of WP maintenance as it currently operates may reveal insights that could be exploited to develop improved recommendations to editors, smoother workflows, and thoughtful technical resources to improve overall maintenance activities. I guess it was a help WP help you kind of thing.

How to improve the effectiveness of content maintenance with specificity[edit]

Factors impacting the need to fix an issue[edit]

What's the severity?
Ranges from "minimal impact of content quality" to "inaccurate content and/or WP policy violation".
Can be notated with reference to policies, guidelines, and supplemental editing recommendations.
What's the exposure?
Ranges from "unpublished draft" to "main page, lots of viewers, repeated across multiple articles"
This may take care of itself. More exposed articles will likely be seen by more editors capable of applying a fix.

Factors impacting the ability to fix an issue[edit]

What's the issue?
Ranges from "I don't know but it feels like something's wrong here" (sometimes just "please update") to "this specific claim has this specific problem".
Impacts time required to fix
Where's it located?
Ranges from "somewhere in this article or group of articles" to "this specific claim"
WP:Bold edits are more helpful than edit requests which are more helpful than inline tags which are more helpful than section tags which are more helpful than annotated article tags which are more helpful than unannotated article tags.
What's the fix?
Ranges from "I have no idea" to "here's some resources that might help" to "here's the solution"
Always helpful when associated templates provide guidance and examples for fixing the issues they highlight.

Other factors of issue management[edit]

How long has this issue been unaddressed?
Ranges from "seconds" to "decades"
Perhaps clues in maintainers as to the difficulty of addressing the issue, the exposure and relative importance of fixing that issue, or both. Issues remaining unaddressed for longer periods of time are may be more difficult to address for reasons from ambiguity over what the issue is to lack of solutions and everything in between. They may also be seen by much fewer editors capable of fixing them and probably by extension, much fewer visitors encountering the un-remedied content.
How controversial is this issue?
Ranges from "widely differing views over whether it even constitutes an issue that needs fixing" to "broad consensus on the need to fix and proposed solution"
Impacts the speed of resolution. Perhaps leads to higher quality fix when more controversial.

Brief collection of time-related maintenance templates[edit]

Template family Render as Usage guidance (summarized and paraphrased)
Content concern [key 1]
Date-dependent
 Tracking category
Dated
{{Anachronism}} Mbox (art/sec) contains statements that do not suit the time period I - Articles with anachronisms Y
{{Anachronism inline}} Inline tag statement does not suit the time period I - Articles with anachronisms Y
{{As of}}, {{As of now}}, {{As of this month}} Prose (invisible) statement may become outdated S - Articles containing potentially dated statements Y
{{Clarify timeframe}} Inline tag uncertainty about the timeframe of statement U - Wikipedia articles in need of updating Y
Mbox (art/sec) advisory to editors [for] extraordinary occasions [when] many editors [...] edit an article on the same day I - Current events
(which is not a Maintenance category) 		Y
{{Current event inline}} Inline tag (none) S - Wikipedia articles in need of updating Y
{{Election results missing}} Mbox (art/sec) (none) M - - -
{{Expand}}, {{Expand article}} Mbox (article) deprecated M - deprecated -
{{Expand section}} Mbox (section) article section needs more information M - Articles to be expanded Y
Mbox (article) missing obvious entries M - Incomplete lists Y
{{Match in progress}} Mbox (article) identify scores/information about matches/games currently in progress I - - -
{{Missing information}} Mbox (article) certain necessary information is absent from the article M - Articles to be expanded Y
{{Obsolete source}} Inline tag source surpassed by newer edition, followup, rebuttal, retraction, or other advance in knowledge I - Articles lacking reliable references Y
{{Outdated as of}} (wraps {{Update}}) Mbox (art/sec) show {{Update}} only after a known future date has arrived * Y Wikipedia articles in need of updating Y
{{Present-day}} Prose (invisible) [mark] Wikipedia articles which reference present-day facts subject to change I - - -
Mbox (article) many editors (perhaps dozens or more) are editing the article on the same day I - Recent deaths -
{{Recentism}} Mbox (art/sec) raise awareness of undue emphasis on recent events O - Articles slanted towards recent events Y
{{Recently revised}} Mbox (art/sec) underwent major revision/rewrite and may need further review O - Recently revised Y
{{Show by date}}, {{Show by}} Prose (invisible) change the text a statement after a future date elapses I Y - -
{{Time-context}} Mbox (art/sec) subject may not be current but does not specify the time period U - Wikipedia articles needing context and Wikipedia introduction cleanup Y
{{Update}}, {{Update section}} Mbox (art/sec) contains old or out-of-date information * - Wikipedia articles in need of updating Y
{{Update|inaccurate=y}}, {{Update section|inaccurate=y}} Mbox (art/sec) contains factually inaccurate information I - Articles with obsolete information Y
{{Update after}} (wraps {{Update inline span}}) Inline tag apply {{Update inline span}} after a future date elapses * Y Wikipedia articles in need of updating after target date; Wikipedia articles scheduled for update tagging prior to it Y
{{Update inline}} Inline tag a statement is in need of an update * - Wikipedia articles in need of updating Y
{{Update inline|?=y}} Inline tag a statement ismay be in need of an update S - Articles containing potentially dated statements Y
{{Update inline span}} Inline tag a selection is or might be in need of an update * - Wikipedia articles in need of updating Y
{{When}} Inline tag a lack of precision in the specified time period interferes with reader understanding U - Vague or ambiguous time Y
{{Which calendar}} Inline tag the clarification that is needed is the calendar in which a particular date is expressed U - Articles containing ambiguous dates Y
{{Year needed}} Inline tag the year an event occurred is missing U - Articles needing the year an event occurred Y
  1. ^ Primary/Intended use for content that is:
    (I)naccurate - disagrees with WP:RSs
    (U)nclear/vague - confusing or potentially misleading
    (S)tale - has not been recently reviewed; potentially outdated
    (M)issing Information - WP:RSs have useful coverage not yet included
    (O)ther - special purpose; see notes
    * - usage varies, intended effect may be imprecise or vague


Other potential refs: Wikipedia:Current event templates

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