Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:51, 20 June 2008

{{subst:mfd top|Speedy close per snow. As Wisdom noted below, deleting this appears too extreme for a good faith project in userspace. If certain actions by particular members or objectionable, bring it up with them and suggest changes be made on talk pages. And if that doesn't work, locate an admin, or follow the dispute resolution process. You could also inform a few of the members on how to properly bring articles to GA and FA status. I realize there is current dialogue going on, but you can forward that to the relevant talk pages, even this one. With that said, happy editing from — _Maggot 07:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Sharkface217/Awards Center

Prior MFDs;

Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Sharkface217/Award Center

Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Sharkface217/Award Center 2

Evidence is mounting that while the Award Center was assembled in good faith, it is the source of too much potential for process abuse and is currently to the detriment of Misplaced Pages. Seeking awards, editors rapidly engage different process areas to gain awards and, too often, their focus is on the award and not on paying due attention and diligence to the work they are doing. Recently, Misplaced Pages:Good article nominations has been a focus of attention, where award-seeking editors rapidly review and pass articles, many of them severely deficient. Compounding the problems are editors who either ask other editors to nominate articles with the intention of passing them, or nominate articles and ask friends to pass them. The Award Center is contributing to the growing culture of award- and recognition-seeking and should be deleted.

I wish to emphasize that I believe the editors maintaining and using the Award Center are doing so in good faith, but that the Award Center's effects and influence are a net negative on the project. Editors have twice tried to delete this page. The most recent time, some seemed to agree to delete the "offending" (in the words of another editor) bits and carry on. The page's host, Sharkface217, resisted the changes asking to only "suspend" the challenges people had problems with while discussion was had. It is exceedingly difficult to determine whether and to what extent that discussion occurred, with conversations scattered all over User talk space like here and here, which apparently got deleted instead of being archived properly. Today, problem challenges like "Add an Infobox to 25 Articles" (which fails to inform participants that many articles are operating under a consensus not to have an infobox) are still there and they are the only things attracting work on the page.

I shall outline some examples of recent events directly influenced by this page.

Good articles and Featured articles

I first noticed the Award Center when I observed an editor attempting to promote the article Chocolate to Featured article status. He first posted it to Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates (FAC), despite it being way under par even for consideration. It was not promoted, and soon afterward passed at GA without any problems identified or fixes requested. I delisted it for obvious problems after several editors agreed it was far from even GA status. The original nominator then began a long series of edits to Chocolate trying to get it to FA status. Many of these edits were disputed or reverted for misuse of sources. The same editor got The Muppets' Wizard of Oz passed at GA, with editors expressing concern that he had forged sources and falsified article fixes; he later left a terse message on the article's Talk page when he couldn't get it passed at FAC.

I observed the same editor passing questionable articles to GA status, causing an outcry from another editor after he observed that some kind of GA "contest" was involved. I also observed the editor giving himself barnstars for various GA-related tasks. It was this bizarre interaction that finally led me to the Award Center where I saw items such as: "Have 5 articles Pass their GA Nomination", "Have 2 articles Pass their FA Nomination", and "Review 10 articles at WP:GAN". After I pointed out some of these issues to the Chocolate editor and expressed my concerns, he eventually placed an "I hate Laser brain" userbox (now deleted) on his user page.

Adopting users

A lot of the awards offered at the Award Center are for potentially terrific tasks. The problem is, the tasks that attract activity are those that focus on the highest volume of low-attention, low-substance editing like welcoming users, adopting users, "brighten up someone's day", and so on. Even tasks that seem useful on the surface, like adopting users, are pursued only to the lowest threshold of what will glean the corresponding award. I cite for example the archived Adopt five users task. A user completed this task, marking his achievement with the phrase "Done! Now where's my award?". To earn his award, he adopted a blocked sockpuppet (who thankfully had time to get a barnstar for finding "RyRy's secret page" before being blocked) and Supeyman (talk · contribs), who engaged in user page creation, incorrectly placing article talk templates in article space, finding secret pages, and collecting awards before finally retiring.

Article deletion process

Another troubling area the Award Center affects is the article deletion process. At the AFD, etc. award entry, editors are encouraged to substantively participate in 25 entries at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion. A user that embarked on this challenge declared it complete after leaving comments at various XfD venues citing non-criteria such as having barely any content and being a reasonable article. Apparently the The Transhumanist (talk · contribs) is causing some unreasonable delay in providing the important award, as evidenced by the user's mounting irritation here at not being properly recognized.

Summary

The Award Center has significant influence on the growing unhealthy culture of the pursuit of recognition and awards, directly and indirectly as noted above. Editors should be encouraged to pursue tasks out of motivation to improve the encyclopedia, not to obtain recognition. Barnstars and other recognition should be awarded randomly when editors notice a deserving act, not because someone "signed up" to receive one. Doing so puts their editing behavior on a negative course toward ulterior motives. Laser brain (talk) 05:20, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I'm not seeing the problem here. If these editors are acting blindly then they probably would still be doing so regardless if they were motivated by a barnstar or not. I haven't looked at all of the examples listed, but some of them don't seem problematic to me. -- Ned Scott 06:13, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

  With all due respect, you'd see the problem here if you spent time in the GA and FA areas. My examples directly illustrate how those areas and other are being affected. --Laser brain (talk) 06:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• Keep with change in process - I know this wont make me popular with the Wiki elite and this probably throws any future RfA out the window - LOL. I have studied recent events at GA review aswell as the terrible behaviour of "Limetolime" towards "Laserbrain". That said its simply not enough evidence to demand the closure of this place, a place made in good faith and that for the most part is a net positive. A much better idea would have been to deal with the disruptive editers accordingly. Certain challenges should be banned and edits who abuse the principle of this place should be barred from it. The owners need to set up a few controlling rules and guidelines. This all seems to be a knee jerk reaction to recent events, reflection is needed not all out war. "Laser brain" is hurt/annoyed as are all of us at GA. However this isn't the way to go about it. The award center needs a maker over not a nuking. — Realist (Come Speak To Me) 06:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

  Realist2, this is not a knee-jerk reaction. As I demonstrated, the last attempt to reform this page after a deletion attempt failed. The problems are real and current. --Laser brain (talk) 06:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

  Ill do it myself and ensure its improved then. Dozens of other editors shouldn't be made to suffer for the mistakes of a few and the elitist desires of others. Ive only visited this place once before but I dont mind trying to help these good people instead of closing the place down and setting fire to it. — Realist (Come Speak To Me) 06:58, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Keep, and close discussion. Since I nominated the Award Centre for deletion in May, it's undergone improvement, and many of the challenges that concerns were raised over have been removed. I also note this fact as I see the nominator has raised them in the deletion nomination, but the fact that they have been removed from the award centre has improved it, and I feel that the major concerns of the Award Centre have been addressed. However, as I was reminded in the previous deletion discussion, MFD is not the place for discussing changes to a page, or removing content you dislike, that's what the talk page is for, and I found that discussing it constructively with the creators was more productive. This challenge is concerning, but this isn't the forum for that sort of discussion. Steve Crossin (contact) 06:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

  To be clear: I don't want to change the page, I want to delete it. Some challenges may have been removed, but they were replaced with others that are equally harmful. I have demonstrated with several examples above how the page is currently being used and what "challenges" are attracting editors. Can you seriously look at what's going on and say the Awards Center is a net positive to the project? --Laser brain (talk) 07:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• (edit conflict- Again) Short answer? Yes, I believe it's a net positive. Long answer, well, I look at it this way. While I agree that barnstaritis isn't a good thing, and that doing something for nothing is a great thing, some users need that little encouragment, especially our newer users. The issue with articles being promoted to GA and FA status is concerning, but I feel that deletion isn't the answer, and that a talk page discussion would be more appropriate, which, as you noted with a link above, or at least linked to, did have results. I think that sort of approach would be more effective. Steve Crossin (contact) 07:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Counting ones barnstars really isn't the end of the world, I wish all this snobby elitism would end. Who cares if people count their edits or barnstars, I really dont understand why the old timers get so annoyed by it. — Realist (Come Speak To Me) 07:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• • I don't get annoyed by it at all, I just think there are more important things than the amount of barnstars that a user has. Steve Crossin (contact) 07:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - And close discussion without further insistence per these discussions and prior MFDs. Users operate at their own discretion and need not receive awards for dodgy work. Tweaking of the tasks is all that's needed. Deleting the page from userspace is extreme. Wisdom89 _{(T / )} 07:35, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.