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Choose the TAFI article for Week 41 of 2014

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

Hello @AFI ping list and others (anyone can participate!):

The following articles have been randomly chosen from the holding area:

Please indicate, before 23:59 UTC Saturday, your top three preferences in order: your top pick first, then your second choice, and then your third. These will be allocated 3, 2, and 1 points respectively, and the most popular article (with the most points) will be added to the scheduled for week 41 of 2014. Articles that receive at least one vote will be returned to the holding area, while articles with no votes will be archived. On behalf of the TAFI project, --NickPenguin(contribs) 03:27, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Results:

Article Points Notes
Critic 7 Will be retuned to holding area
Adventure 7
Recipe 4
Performance 4
Steak 13 Will be scheduled
Monarchies in Africa 12 Will be retuned to holding area
Espresso machine 8
Spelling bee 9
New German Cinema 6
Arab cuisine 11
Thanks to everyone for participating - Evad37 [talk] 02:14, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Shortcuts in tabbed header?

Should we include shortcuts in the tabbed header at the top of each project page? I.e., should the current version be changed to this version? The advantage is that the shorcuts are visible from whichever TAFI page you are own, which would be useful for experienced editors, but as Northamerica1000 pointed out on my talk page, they may "clutter the tabs to the point that people may skip over them due to being rather complex to read." What do other project members think? And is there an alternative presentation that would be better? - Evad37 [talk] 03:29, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

  • As per my comment on Evad37's talk page (also denoted above), I prefer the streamlined format of the tabs, without the shortcuts. I prefer the shortcuts to be located atop the individual pages, rather than in the tabs. NorthAmerica1000 03:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I do find the version with the short cuts difficult to read. Personally I rarely make use of shortcuts. --NickPenguin(contribs) 04:05, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I would also vote against shortcuts, they clutter the tabs for little gain. C679 11:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Best and Fairest from week 37 - Consumer electronics

This week's collaboration certainly had an important lesson in it for me. Melody Lavander began translating some timeline content from the deWiki article, and I "helped" with a poor quality machine translation. The lesson learned is that I should never compromise on standards for the sake of speed, because it never helps in the long run.

That said, there was still many significant improvements from when the article started out. It basically started with 2 images, a lede, a trends and an environmental impact section. By the time we had finished (excluding the timeline section, which is under discussion), we had an expanded products/trends section, improved environmental impact section, and new sections on history, trade shows, manufacturing/software retailing, country industries and service/repair. Many of the sections would need continued attention to develop, as well as the lede, which is essentially non-existent.

Overall participation was still strong, even considering that many people are going back to school in the first week of September. Many thanks to @Finnusertop:, @Northamerica1000:, @Melody Lavender:, @Cloudz679:, @Horai 551:, @Ceosad: and @David Condrey:, as well as @EuroCarGT:, @Valiant Patriot:, @Michael Glass:, @71.126.5.182:, @Evad37:, @Worker55:, @CSJJ104:, @184.191.181.73: and @Bgwhite:. --NickPenguin(contribs) 01:09, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Articles not appearing in holding area

Anyone else noticing recently nominated articles (e.g. WordPress and Team sport are not appearing in the holding area? --CSJJ104 (talk) 15:41, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

It would appear they are just disappearing into the darkness. Theos bot is not moving anything into the holding area, and from the bots contributions it appears to not have been doing so for quite some time. --NickPenguin(contribs) 00:01, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
It's been like that since December last year when we switched to the new holding area. Multiple requests for Theo to rewrite the code have gone unanswered, and a recent request for a new bot maintainer was unsuccessful. - Evad37 [talk] 00:16, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I have disabled that function of Theo's bot for the time being, having to check up on it is worse than not having it. There was about 15 since September that I added to the holding area, but I only went back until Aug 30 and found some in the holding area. It is really too bad that we can't find another bot operator. --NickPenguin(contribs) 00:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I have been doing it manually, so it should only be ones in the last week of so that might need checking. It actually wasn't too bad - the bot would correctly pick the successful articles, and I would copy over their titles from the diff. Now that the bot is disabled, we'll have to archive unsuccessful nominations manually also (that part of the bot task was actually working) - Evad37 [talk] 00:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
The on/off function can be controlled here. If you would prefer to have it on, then revert my edit and change the text back to on. I just dislike having a half functioning bot with no active maintainer to engage with, it really is too bad no one accepted to the challenge. --NickPenguin(contribs) 01:12, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Solar activity DYK

Yes, I agree, that was definitely some of our best work. --NickPenguin(contribs) 06:36, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Choose the TAFI article for Week 42 of 2014

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

Hello @AFI ping list and others (anyone can participate!):

The following articles have been randomly chosen from the holding area:

Please indicate, before 23:59 UTC Saturday, your top three preferences in order: your top pick first, then your second choice, and then your third. These will be allocated 3, 2, and 1 points respectively, and the most popular article (with the most points) will be added to the scheduled for week 42 of 2014. Articles that receive at least one vote will be returned to the holding area, while articles with no votes will be archived. On behalf of the TAFI project, - Evad37 [talk] 02:23, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Results:

Result was Central America, thanks everyone. --NickPenguin(contribs) 06:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Animatronics DYK

Wow, two back to back, I wonder if the small (tafi) link behind the DYK on the main page will gain many views for the project. --NickPenguin(contribs) 14:58, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Aces back to back. NorthAmerica1000 15:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
The stats show we got about ten times the number of page views compared to the previous couple of days - Evad37 [talk] 03:30, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Quality Article Improvement

A WikiProject I happened upon; didn't know about this one before: WikiProject Quality Article Improvement. Added a link to the Related projects section on TAFI's main page. NorthAmerica1000 16:19, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I have made an introductory post on that project talk page. --NickPenguin(contribs) 16:31, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Nice. I've also added a link to TAFI on that project's page in its Related WikiProjects section. NorthAmerica1000 16:35, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Template issues

Hey! Is it my browser or is the templates still linking to previous week article: Ancient Roman architecture? ///EuroCarGT 21:01, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Not your browser, we extended that into a 2-week collaboration per the discussion above - Evad37 [talk] 23:26, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh thanks Evad! So Pizza will be a part of the EP and we will continue on Ancient Roman architecture for this week. ///EuroCarGT 23:57, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

MAJOR PROBLEM GUYS!!

Resolved
Ancient Roman architecture was added on for another week, as the selection for week 39, 2014, per the discussion herein.  – NorthAmerica1000 17:02, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

(from Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#Pizza wikipedia page--Coin945 (talk) 12:57, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Hey everyone,

I'm working on editing the Pizza page as part of a Cornell University course. My team and I have listed our suggested changes on the talk page but would appreciate as much experienced-wikipedian support as we can get. I welcome all tips and advice.

Thank you! Abs296 (talk) 9:25 am, Today (UTC+8)

In other words (at least I'm assuming), their assignment involves them improving that particular page, and yeah...--Coin945 (talk) 12:59, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Should we leave them to it and try out having a two-week long collaboration for Ancient Roman architecture? It's probably not a good idea to steal their thunder by making the edits that they are looking to make for their project, which seems to involve improving C-class articles to/towards B-class. - Evad37 [talk] 13:32, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I say skip to the next one, and possibly return to Pizza next week if it is still in dire need of improvement. Otherwise just go to the next one in the queue. Whatever we decide, we should do it now. Worst case scenario, we decide to revert all the edits we've already made so those uni guys' assignment-marker will know it was all their own work. Anything better than that is awesome and should be done asap.--Coin945 (talk) 13:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Pinging @Northamerica1000:, who seems to be online, for another opinion - Evad37 [talk] 13:46, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Repeating a week would be less work than moving everything up a week, from the technical side of things, and extended collaborations was an idea mentioned before up at #Logistics_of_this_project. And I don't think we should reverse our current edits, but just try not to steamroll over them by making substantial improvements over a whole week, probably using their ideas, or similar ones. - Evad37 [talk] 13:54, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Undecided. We may be able to work concurrently upon the article; from the article's revision history, comparing names to those on the pizza talk page in the Cornell section, it doesn't appear that anyone from the Cornell project has worked on the article yet. After our collaboration, it's possible that more work may be necessary. Of course, if consensus is otherwise, that's fine too. Of note is that I certainly don't want work I've performed on the article reverted, to then wait and see what occurs.NorthAmerica1000 14:09, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
It's funny they would begin a collaboration the same time as we did. In general, this might be an important lesson in collaborative editing, in that "anyone can edit, and often do". However, this is likely a 3 month class, and therefore, a 3 month collaboration. I think we should instead focus our efforts on providing resources for this collaboration (sources, ideas), rather than doing the heavy lifting ourselves. I think we should leave it as it is, stay active on the article talk page to offer advice and help, and spend another week on Ancient Roman architecture for the time being. This experience would probably be good to raise awareness of the project, as well as the wiki's reputation as a community. --NickPenguin(contribs) 15:58, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
That's a great idea. Best case scenario, we show them how awesome TAFI can be, and some of them get inspired to join the project after their uni class is done. If we're happy to keep at Ancient Roman Architecture, awesome. I just figured since we have sooo manyyy articlesss in the holding area, it would be nice to give another one a shot.--Coin945 (talk) 16:12, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I have left a note on the pizza talk page to get some more details about the course and their intended timeline. Sorry @Northamerica1000:, I know you were really looking forward to this article, but this may give us that longer kind of collaboration that can really bring this article's quality up. --NickPenguin(contribs) 16:22, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
If NorthAmerica1-000 is passionate about the article, then I say charge ahead with it, uni assignment be damned haha. But yeah, might as well check out the specifics in case.--Coin945 (talk) 16:25, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for leaving the message at Talk:Pizza. If it's decided to nix it for now, it's all good, but we should reschedule it after the Cornell work is finished. NorthAmerica1000 16:27, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I've left talkback messages on the talk pages of Cornell participants to notify them about the new TAFI section on the Pizza talk page. NorthAmerica1000 16:32, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Good idea, I have a feeling they won't be like us, keeping an active eye on the pages throughout the day. --NickPenguin(contribs) 16:38, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Hi, I'm coming via the Pizza talk page. I left a note to one of the persons in the Cornell group about Pizza in the United States, which is averaging less than 200 page views per day, probably because readers don't know it exists. I hope you could give some attention to that too. Thanks. --Margin1522 (talk) 23:32, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

New Tools

Came across a site with some tools I hadn't seen before. Not sure if these are new or just new to me but... http://vs.aka-online.de/wikipedia.html David Condrey (talk) 22:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Looks cool. You can add it to our tools section if you think it's of use. The interwiki search seemed handy and perhaps the edit statistics too. I find both Peer reviewer and X!'s tools invaluable and use them in tandem; the first looks for mainly MoS problems and the latter spots bad wikimarkup and grammar/spelling errors. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 01:54, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Choose the TAFI article for Week 43 of 2014

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

Hello @Buster7, Northamerica1000, NickPenguin, and Esoxid:, @Kvng, Whiteghost.ink, Ypnypn, and Madalibi:, @Moswento, Kvng, Coin945, and Mark Miller:, @WaitingForConnection, Evad37, Buffbills7701, and Newyorkadam:, @Turn685, Victor falk, GiantSnowman, and Melody Lavender: @EMachine03, Simplysavvy, EuroCarGT, and CSJJ104: @Cloudz679, Iselilja, Khamar, and Finnusertop: @Tomásdearg92, CSJJ104, Davey2010, and Stuartyeates: @Gongshow, Jim Carter - Public, Sophie means wisdom, SL93, and MrWooHoo: @The boss 1998, Weikrx, and NickGibson3900: and others (anyone can participate!):

The following articles have been randomly chosen from the holding area:

Please indicate, before 23:59 UTC Saturday, your top three preferences in order: your top pick first, then your second choice, and then your third. These will be allocated 3, 2, and 1 points respectively, and the most popular article (with the most points) will be added to the scheduled for week 42 of 2014.

Also, beginning with this week, articles that receive less than 4 points will be archived. However, this will be done on a trial basis for 4 weeks, after which project participants will examine the collection of articles archived in this manner, discuss, and if necessary reevaluate this archiving procedure. On behalf of the TAFI project, --NickPenguin(contribs) 06:53, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

My last ping was on week 42 and it's worked perfect from when I joined till then, Thanks, –Davey2010 • (talk) 15:20, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
I wonder if we've hit an upper limit for the number of pings that you can send in one post? - Evad37 [talk] 03:10, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I have replaced the ping list with the old ping method, to see if it works. If we have hit the upper threshold, we can remove editors that haven't voted in quite a while. --NickPenguin(contribs) 04:55, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I think Echo can get confused if a previous comment is modified – so I'll try pinging everyone in this new comment, using the ping list template:

Ping @AFI ping list - Evad37 [talk] 06:54, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

(The ping directly above worked for me this time around, the first one atop didn't provide a notification at that time). NorthAmerica1000 06:57, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
(I've worked out the problem: this section was created without a signature [1] so the pings didn't get sent - Evad37 [talk] 07:03, 22 September 2014 (UTC))
(Completely forgot to say - The ping worked!, Thanks Evad37 :) –Davey2010 • (talk) 16:23, 22 September 2014 (UTC))
@EuroCarGT:… I notice you always vote for four articles, but only the first three are awarded points. Thought I would save you the trouble next week :) C679 13:13, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
@Cloudz679: :P, I know it's three, but their all good picks! Don't worry, I'll do 3 next time! ///EuroCarGT 20:29, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Results:

Result was Ice hotel, thanks everyone. --NickPenguin(contribs) 06:58, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Collaboration at Renewable resource (former TAFI article)

I just wanted to let editors know that there is an impromptu collaboration going on over at Renewable resource (a former TAFI article) with @Serten: and myself. We are working together to broaden the coverage of the article, and we are looking for content about examples on renewable resources, as well as their impact on industry/economy, etc. --NickPenguin(contribs) 15:42, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Nominations being archived?

Are the nominations at Nominated articles archived anywhere, or do they just disappear? The Successful Nominations archive doesn't appear to being used at this time. NorthAmerica1000 16:24, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

They are organized by month on Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Archives/Unsuccessful Nominations. --NickPenguin(contribs) 16:37, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Upon previewing various links at the Unsuccessful Nominations archive, it appears that only unsuccessful entries are being archived there though (e.g. those with less than three supports), unless I'm missing something. Where do the discussions for successful nominations go after their titles are listed in the holding area? NorthAmerica1000 16:40, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I misunderstood. Those discussions disappear into the aether. The number of discussions beyond basic votes have actually been very small, and usually confined to articles that were unsuccessful. --NickPenguin(contribs) 16:47, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps we should manually add nominations after they're listed in the holding area. For starters, I have taken the liberty to create:
I'm aware that the operator of Theo's little bot hasn't been around, so we won't be able to get it to do this for us. NorthAmerica1000 17:41, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I've added the Successful nominations main page to the archive box (see right). NorthAmerica1000 17:45, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough. I my mind it's just duplicated between the holding area, archived successful noms, and the page of accomplishments, all successful noms would be captured on those pages. It would be fine maintained by a bot, otherwise it is just extra effort with no significant gain. --NickPenguin(contribs) 17:54, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
It's standard procedure on Wikipedia for content that involves discussion to be archived, rather than removed. It sure would be cool to find a bot with an operator that's around to help out with these matters. Nothing against the present bot or operator, just saying. NorthAmerica1000 17:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Good point. Maybe in a week or so I will try to make another effort to find a new bot operator. --NickPenguin(contribs) 18:03, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

If we don't mind having successful and unsuccessful in the same archive, we could make use of ClueBot III to provide on-demand archiving, after specified templates (such as Approved and no Not approved) are added to a section - Evad37 [talk] 23:49, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

That would work: such could be titled "Nominations archive", which would also keep everything in one place. NorthAmerica1000 04:14, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
That would be a good solution. --NickPenguin(contribs) 05:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 Done, though a bot to add successful noms to the holding area and mark the noms with {{Approved}} or {{Unapproved}} would still be good to have - Evad37 [talk] 06:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
User:Evad37: I can update the archive box, but I need the link to where everything in nominations will be archived to at this time. NorthAmerica1000 06:47, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
They're going to end up on /<year>/<month> subpages of Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Nominated articles/Archives, so we could make that page into an index, with links to the existing Successful and Unsuccessful archives - Evad37 [talk] 06:56, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Evad37: Check out Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Nominated articles/Archives which I created as a link index to archived nomination discussions, and the revised {{TAFI archive box}} to the right. NorthAmerica1000 07:52, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
👍 Like: Looks good - Evad37 [talk] 08:50, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Evad37, thanks very much for all of your work in setting up auto archiving. Much appreciated. NorthAmerica1000 09:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The nominations page currently says "Unsuccessful nominations can be archived after 10 days of no discussion." Is that the rule we're actually using at the moment? - Evad37 [talk] 10:55, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Evad37: In the past, I recall that this number of days was increased because some nominations were being archived before users had a chance to see them. Some users only check-in or edit Wikipedia once in a while. I would recommend 21 days for archiving after no discussion has occurred. NorthAmerica1000 11:12, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
10 was just an arbitrary first number, in reality it is probably closer to what Northamerica says. --NickPenguin(contribs) 15:07, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
That's what I thought, but I wanted to double check. I've changed the number in the instructions, and set ClueBot III to automatically archive noms with no activity after 21.5 days – so we don't have to use {{Unapproved}} all the time, only for obvious cases that don't need to stay open for a full 21 days after the last comment. The timeframe can easily be changed, as it is specified in the template that sets up the archiving (rather than within bot coding as was the case with Theo's bot). - Evad37 [talk] 16:22, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

What do you guys think about adding something along these lines to the nominations page edit notice:

Note that polling is not a substitute for discussion: Oppose !votes should include a brief reason for opposing; Support !votes may include a reason for supporting, or are otherwise interpreted as agreeing with the nominator.

It is probably a bit disheartening for nominators if their articles are opposed without even a reason given. - Evad37 [talk] 05:22, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree, some brief explanation of oppose votes would be for the best. They might be frivilious in nature, and the article can pass into the holding area anyways. --NickPenguin(contribs) 14:27, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
 Done - Evad37 [talk] 03:26, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Logistics of this project

I've done the maths, and as we've got 319 articles and one per week, atm it would take 6 years to run through them all (319 articles / 52 weeks per year = 6). This is simply ridiculous. The inflow and outflow should be relatively equal. The nominations page is still being flooded with nominations (yes, by me too), so I think it should be decided how this is going to work. --Coin945 (talk) 02:10, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

On the other hand, the holding area has been at around 300 or so articles for most of the year. Don't forget that articles are archived if they received no support during the weekly vote, and we can on occasion go through and prune out articles that have been improved (or merged or redirected) without our involvement. If we want to reduce the excess volume, we should probably be archiving the bottom two or three (or more?) articles from each week's vote, instead of just articles with zero votes. - Evad37 [talk] 02:58, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
What if we archived anything with less than 4 points? More than 4 means that at least two people voted for it. In general though, I have been thinking about the kinds of articles we have been improving, and I am looking at WP:AFC and wondering if there is some connection there. I am also noticing that for articles like solar activity, where it's basically just a bunch of content copying, once they're done they're done. The research type topics (stir fry, Java man) seem to generate more even distributed participation between high volume and casual participants. --NickPenguin(contribs) 11:13, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
We can experiment with a quicker turnover of articles, or having multiple ones running at a time. It might be plausible if we brand them as the "Art article of the week" and the "Sport article of the week" and the "Everyday life article of the week" to keep the naming scheme of the nominations page. Rather than an overwhelming amount of articles to edit, there is simply 1 edit for 1 topic. Maybe 3 per week or something. I dunno...--Coin945 (talk) 17:49, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
I like that idea, and as a what I guess is perfect example of a casual editor I will most likely only work on things related to anthropology, psychology or medicine - where I believe my contributions have most value. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 18:46, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
What is the latest TAFI article (if any) you've felt particularly compelled to contribute to?--Coin945 (talk) 18:51, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
I suggest that a rolling monthly schedule be developed that allows a new one at the start and the previous three to keep going. That is, if we want a new article each week, so be it, but the previous week's one goes into second place, the second into third and the fourth drops off. This would mean that the new article appears as usual but people who are working on a previous one have a bit more time before the template is removed and the stats prepared. I suggest this because I can't keep up with the weekly rotation. When I get started on one - and being TAFI, they often need time-consuming research - it is disheartening to have them disappear so quickly. This is not a suggesgtion to speed up getting through the articles; it is more a suggestion to try to meet the needs of fast collaboration on newly selected articles at the same time as give a bit more time for research to those who want to keep refining one for a while before it goes. Doing this wouldn't change the selection process or the announcement of the new one; it would just mean leaving the template on four articles at a time, a new one and the previous three. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 18:50, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Whiteghost, as someone who is deeply in awe of your contributions to not only this project but Wikipedia at large, I think your comments hold great value and though it is the opposite thing to what I am proposing, a very valid proposal in its own right. After all, getting through articles quicker naturally means less effort put into each, right? You are correct: a system of coping with the quick turnover of articles must be set up first before we can even think about making the burden greater. The main page might change all this in a dramatic and swift way though...--Coin945 (talk) 18:57, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
I really like Whiteghost's proposal about having the rolling schedule, I think it can address some of the issues about appealing to the largest editor base. It also alleviates some of the reservations I have about splitting focus between several articles, because the emphasis is placed on one, but the total period lasts for four weeks. And really it would require just a bit of emphasis on the templates and in our project pages.
I am still hesitant about splitting classes of articles, because there number of articles in each class will always be disproportionate (more of type X than Y in holding area), and it may be difficult to continuously have enough in each class. However, I would be interested in exploring this idea further, and see how we might implement it. Would the idea be something like organizing articles into a series of classes, and then voting on groups from these classes? That might get the variety that may be missing. --NickPenguin(contribs) 02:05, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your vote of confidence in me Coin945 and sorry if I seemed a bit off-topic with my suggestion. I realised that it wasn't quite what you were talking about but took the opportunity to suggest something that is about motivation (and self-interestedly, fits with my own). Personally, I find it fun to see what article has been nominated and would prefer to work on that surprise article than vote. Hence, I don't want a splitting of article suggestions into classes. Would like to say that I admire all the amazing behind-the-scenes work done on Wikipedia projects and processes and the standard that has been achieved here is a great example. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 03:18, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if it might be better to keep the current TAFI model, which we are aiming to get onto the main page, as "Today's Articles For Improvement" – ie with a quick turnaround time – and to have a twin project "Articles For Improvement" which then continues the collaboration for another few (or more) weeks. We've had a really good run of improvements over the past couple of months, getting articles to or close to B-Class, and I wouldn't want to mess up a formula that seems to be working. But the sort of improvements that Whiteghost.ink talks about, that need time-consuming research and effort, are probably exactly the sort of improvements that would be necessary to get an article to a good enough state to be nominated for GA (or eventually FA). The split into TAFI and AFI would mirror TFA/FA, TFL/FL, and TFP/FP, where the Today-project supports the section on the main page (only we would be in reverse, as a TAFI would become an AFI whereas an FA becomes a TFA). (There is an existing page at Wikipedia:Articles for Improvement, but that project is marked as historical and hasn't had any activity in over a year, so it should be possible to usurp the name). Could this work better? - Evad37 [talk] 10:21, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

A couple of points that come to mind. In relation to worries about keeping numbers for articles in the event of splitting them into subjects, cold this be helped by placing certain articles in multiple subjects? As an example, WordPress is currently listed under language and literature, but could also be counted under technology. Though this could then create an issue with an article being voted for twice at once.
Having a separate project for longer term collaborations could be useful, as long as interest can be generated in both projects. Possibly not a problem, but if members start working on longer term collaborations then there may be a corresponding drop in the activity of the weekly collaboration. Just things to consider. CSJJ104 (talk) 12:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

A question about productivity

This goes out to Evad37, NickPenguin, Northamerica100 and others: Do you find you are less productive on Wikipedia because of this project? I.e. you spend so much time collaborating on 1 article per week that you don't have enough time to significantly improve the multiple articles you would have done otherwise? I sometimes worry if the net gain of this project is actually negative...--Coin945 (talk) 14:16, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Am I less productive? I would think probably not. I doubt I would be making as many contributions to such a wide range of topics, and probably not to topics that are as "important" or "vital" or "encyclopaedic", if you know what I mean. My other work, in getting specific articles to GA, A-class, and then FA tends to be more long term, slower, and something I need a break from anyway, when it starts too seem like to much hard work. So if it wasn't TAFI, I would probably still spend time elsewhere, though I don't know exactly what (which does make it hard to compare productivity, I suppose). If I get really stuck into an article I know I can work less on TAFI or take a break altogether. - Evad37 [talk] 01:03, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
My general operating activities are usually procedural in nature, like dealing with merges (which was my last obsession). This is actually the only project that has kept my interest for more than 4 or 5 months. With this project, I am really hoping that we can automate some of the more manual time consuming aspects of the project. In general tho, it's only in the last 2 or 3 months that this project has started to gather some momentum, and it really feels like it is starting to gather a bit of a following and mature as a project. --NickPenguin(contribs) 01:11, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
:)--Coin945 (talk) 03:00, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposals

As a result of a few ideas that popped up in this discussion, I would like to put a couple of proposals out for focused discussion. Thay are certainly not all mutually exclusive, but some would be difficult to have work together. --NickPenguin(contribs) 01:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Rolling schedule

In this project modification, each Monday we would feature a single article. We would also concurrently work on the previous 3 weeks of articles. This would give us This Weeks FEatored Article for Improvement, as well as Active Collaborations (probably coordinated at Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Article collaboration) At the start of each new week, the oldest article would be dropped. This would give each article a boost at the beginning, but also allow it to develop over a longer period and allow for deeper research into the topic. --NickPenguin(contribs) 01:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Concurrent collaborations

In this project modification, each Monday we would feature several article, across a broad variety of topics. This would give a greater opportunity to get editors involved, because they are more likely to have an article they would be interested in improving. It would also help us go through the holding area more quickly, and it would mesh well with weekly voting system, we would just take the top X number of articles. We would have to come up with an ideal number of concurrent articles, 10 was too many before. --NickPenguin(contribs) 01:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

This would be good, but I have noticed that the majority of work on an article seems to be done in the first few days. Having multiple articles starting at the same time could be a problem if the same amount of work is split during these few days. Possibly having them start on, say, Monday and Thursday, would prevent this, and maybe even help the overall amount of work as the initial rush is potentially generated twice. CSJJ104 (talk) 12:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Dropping articles with low votes

Here we would be dropping articles with low numbers of votes in the weekly voting area. This would help keep quality high in the random 10 articles. Although there have actually been very few repeat appearances, in general if an article gets little support it is probably not an ideal improvement candidate. In this scenario, the number of articles we drop would be up for discussion, something like the bottom 3 or 5 (rounding down in a tie).--NickPenguin(contribs) 01:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

My first thought with this was that an article which gets little support one week might make the selection another week with different fellow candidates competing with it. I do like the idea about setting a threshold for the points, e.g. 4, given above, as I would agree if only one person votes for something, it's unlikely to attract editors. CSJJ104 (talk) 16:54, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
If there are no objections, then I would like to start archiving articles with less than 4 votes. --NickPenguin(contribs) 04:55, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Support, but we should reassess this after several weeks - might be more effective to always drop the bottom article - Evad37 [talk] 01:46, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Comment - Something to keep in mind, though, is that participation rates can vary from week-to-week. Under this system, weeks with low vote counts could adversely affect articles that are actually fine candidates for improvement. NorthAmerica1000 02:04, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Rotation of 7 articles

On Monday, they are A, B, C, D, E, F, G
On Tuesday, they are B, C, D, E, F, G, H
On Wednesday, they are C, D, E, F, G, H, I

Etc. Each article is still TAFI for a week, but as the hype surrounding it fades, we can bring new articles into the forefront. And as there will be 1 new article per day, editors won't seem overwhelmed.--Coin945 (talk) 06:23, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

In this scenario, would the article be "featured" on the first or last day it appears? --NickPenguin(contribs) 12:59, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
In my head I pictured all 7 being featured, with the "current" one bigger and bolded at the top, and the one from 6 days ago being at the very bottom.--Coin945 (talk) 13:06, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
That feels similar to the previous incarnation on the main page, with 10 articles per week. It ultimately proved difficult to manage, and overall participation was less than expected. What about two articles a week, but the start times are Monday and Thursday, and each runs for 7 days? --NickPenguin(contribs) 22:45, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Attention hoard

Change the projects name to WikiProject Today and tell the Signpost that you haven't had an article a day for years and you have a backlog for a whole year of days... You are responsible for bumper sacks of Good content, your mission is catchy and purposeful, and you want the prestige of the name and the interest of new participants. I'm not trying to be funny. Your notifications do, on account of the apostrophe, look like WikiProject Today, as though the blue linkage is just missing a bit. It is a prestigious title and, if this project which de facto owns the title does not take it, it will go to another project some time and that will put you on the list where they are WP:TODAY and you are WPWPTODAYARTFORIMP. Sorry for berating, but I cannot believe interest enough cannot be generated for this project to the effect that you can have one a day as intended. You should have it hand in hand with GA and FP. And a backlog is sure to happen anyway, but you should have the one a day. It's not unreasonable. You could have a group of the day who commits to an article for a week... And if you think of something else that might generate attention, make a list and do it... Best of luck.. ~ R.T.G 13:19, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Or WikiProject:One Today - WikiProject:Today One - WikiProject:Article Today., ~ R.T.G 14:45, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

New bot request - actual requirements

I would like to put together a new bot request, but now what would the actual requirements be for the project? --NickPenguin(contribs) 05:48, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps something that adds the new project banner to the talk page at the start of the week, marking the relevent version link for a reviewer to check? Could also add the relevent version of the article at the end of the week, and move the banner into the Template:WikiProjectBannerShell if present at the end of the week, helping to avoid clutter on the talk page. --CSJJ104 (talk) 15:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I think we should be automating the Nominations → Holding Area → Vote process. Specifically:
  • Nominations page:
    • Tag nominations that have three net '''Support'''s with {{Approved}} ~~~~
    • Tag nominations that have three net '''Oppose'''s with {{Unapproved}} ~~~~
    • Tag nominations with no comments for 21 days with {{Unapproved}} ~~~~ (though the number of days should be customisable somewhere on-wiki)
    • Optionally, do the archiving (but that could be left for ClueBot III)
  • Holding area:
    • For Approved nominations, add # [[ARTICLE TITLE]] to the end of the list
  • Weekly talk page vote:
    • Randomly select 10 articles from the holding area
    • Remove {{anchor|Vote}} from last week's vote
    • Add {{closed|text= and }} around the previous week's section, if not already there
    • Start a new section for the new week's vote with
      • {{anchor|Vote}}
      • {{TAFI ping list}}
      • instructions (substituted from a template we make)
      • the 10 articles in a bullet list, i.e. * [[ARTICLE TITLE]]
      • a signature, so that the pings works
- Evad37 [talk] 03:01, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
I think the Accomplishments page would be good to automate. Filling in all the various details in the accomplishment template. Pinging @Theopolisme: here as well, whenever he has time again. --NickPenguin(contribs) 03:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Choose the TAFI article for Week 44 of 2014

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

Hello @AFI ping list and others (anyone can participate!):

The following articles have been randomly chosen from the holding area:

Please indicate, before 23:59 UTC Saturday, your top three preferences in order: your top pick first, then your second choice, and then your third. These will be allocated 3, 2, and 1 points respectively, and the most popular article (with the most points) will be added to the scheduled for week 44 of 2014.

Also, this is the second week of a 4 week trial, where articles that receive only 3 points or less will be archived. At the end of this trial, project participants will examine the collection of articles archived in this manner, discuss, and if necessary reevaluate this archiving procedure. On behalf of the TAFI project, --NickPenguin(contribs) 07:06, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Results:

Result was National park, thanks everyone. --NickPenguin(contribs) 06:19, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Week 38 & 39 recap - Ancient Roman architecture

This collaboration turned into an unexpected two week collaboration, because of an university course project related to the pizza article. The extra time did allow for some finishing touches on the article, especially on some sections that were still empty.

We started with a lede, some background context, two examples of Roman architectural features (dome and arch), some common building materials, common building types, and a section on lasting influence. By the end, we had a well developed background section for context, a long section on architectural features, expanded materials, a section on city design, and developed sections listing building types, infrastructures and decorative structures.

Thanks to all participants, @Northamerica1000:, @CSJJ104:, @Evad37:, @EuroCarGT:, @192.12.146.218:, @Dgcampbe:, @Afernand74:, @Qwertyus:, @Bgwhite:, @Cutest Penguin:, @Wallace McDonald:, and @Johnbod:. --NickPenguin(contribs) 23:28, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Further Collab help request

The peer review of Animatronics is starting to get some attention. Could use some assistance addressing review comments if anyone wants to help. I intend to nominate this article for FA after the peer review is over so if anyone does want to help, please keep in mind that the reviewers are going to be very picky, please do not add any content which could reduce the quality of the article. See Further collaboration. Review discussion is taking place on the review archive page which is also embedded in the further collaboration tab. David Condrey (talk) 04:51, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Week 40 recap - International airport

This weeks collaboration started with a moderately developed article. A lede, a section on operations, a half dozen images, and a list on naming conventions. By the end, we had an improved lede, and a bunch of new or improved sections, including history, design and constructions, operations and management (with various subsections), and a split from the naming conventions list into another list of notable international airports organized by date, passengers and other, as well as the addition of almost a dozen new images.

Thanks to all participants, including @Finnusertop:, @EuroCarGT:, @Wittylama:, @Whiteghost.ink:, @Melonkelon:, @Rsrikanth05:, @Northamerica1000:, @Afernand74:, @Evad37:, @AuthorAuthor:, @David Condrey:, @SovalValtos:, @Wtshymanski:, @Andrewgprout:, @K7L:. Cheers everyone. --NickPenguin(contribs) 23:41, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

There's only one major cleanup tag left on the article. I'm going to try to clean that up right now. Once completed, I think someone should set this article up for peer review. I can't because I already have a peer review active, if someone else wants to take the initiative.. David Condrey (talk) 04:56, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Galleries

What's up with galleries? I've noticed, we seem to add galleries to articles just about every week. As I understand Wikipedia:Galleries the use of galleries in articles is likely to reduce the quality of the article. I've been trying to follow up on past articles that we work on so as to get them ready for FA or GA's and am just not sure if the galleries are ok or if they should be broken up. David Condrey (talk) 05:24, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Choose the TAFI article for Week 46 of 2014

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

Hello @AFI ping list and others (anyone can participate!):

The following articles have been randomly chosen from the holding area:

Please indicate, before 23:59 UTC Saturday, your top three preferences in order: your top pick first, then your second choice, and then your third. These will be allocated 3, 2, and 1 points respectively, and the most popular article (with the most points) will be added to the scheduled for week 46 of 2014.

Also, this is the third week of a 4 week trial, where articles that receive only 3 points or less will be archived. At the end of this trial, project participants will examine the collection of articles archived in this manner, discuss, and if necessary reevaluate this archiving procedure. On behalf of the TAFI project, --NickPenguin(contribs) 06:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Results:

Result was Everyday life , thanks everyone. --NickPenguin(contribs) 06:11, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Further Collaboration tab formatting

I introduced some format improvements to the further collaboration tab, hope you guys like it. Just nested embedded sections within collapsable boxes and assigned colors based on whether or not it is closed or active. Using #FA97B1 (red) for closed, and #BAE3BD (green) for active. Also set a 10px padding. David Condrey (talk) 04:51, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, it's more distinguishable now. ///EuroCarGT 16:14, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

shortcut

Can the WP:TAFIM shortcut get moved and linked to the main project page rather than just the members page? It's always awkward trying to link to the project. The ' always screws me up :p David Condrey (talk) 10:09, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

... why not use WP:TAFI ? - Evad37 [talk] 00:19, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
I didnt know I could. I thought you'd get mad at me. :) David Condrey (talk) 07:54, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
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