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Archives

Outriggr' script

To keep your counter of articles assessed accurate make sure you don't click the grade you want to give an article more than once, since the script counts how many times you've clicked one of the grade links

Well, I accidentally clicked on the actual count figure for Outriggr' script and the count zeroed and that was that. Took me by surprise. If you want to know your actual count, stay away from the figure as well.--Natsubee 08:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

And don't mix it up with other project's assessment. My best bet is to keep a note of # of biography assessment you made on your talk page, then reset the counter to zero before you close your web browser. This way everytime you start an assessment you start with "1", and when you are done, all you need is get the total # that you did on that day and add up the one on your talk page. OhanaUnited 06:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
That's pretty much what I do. Whenever I finish up for the day (i always stop at an increment of 50 just in case) I reset it to 0, this way I remember where I left off. It's helping out quite a bit so far. I also assess things in clumps of 10 or so so that I know how many I've assessed, though the script hasn't been causing me too many problems.--Wizardman 17:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Use of "needs-infobox" parameter

As we are assessing articles, I'd like to request discernment / restraint regarding the use of the "needs-infobox" parameter. As per the header at WP Biography/Infoboxes, for some types of biographical articles, there are groups of editors that would strongly prefer not to have infoboxes on the articles. My opinion is that the Biography project, within activities at the meta-project level, such as this article assessment drive, for the sake of good PR, should avoid unnecessarily stirring up ill feelings. Hence, with the assessment, let's just stick to setting the following parameters: living, class, (priority=<blank>), and assigning a work-group, where one is relevant. I'd suggest leaving the needs-photo parameter, and especially the needs-infobox parameter, as something to be addressed at a future time, if necessary, by the appropriate projects or work-groups. Respectfully, Lini 12:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Assessing new Articles

Along with chipping away at the vast amount of Unassessed articles we are faced with, if anyone else wants to be diligent and help tag new biographical articles as they come (before they just get slapped with the WPBiography template with no assessment) - let me know. Perhaps we can make a minor sub-task for that with this Assessment Drive. --Ozgod 12:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I just count them in my running total. I've come across several of them already. It's the number of assessed articles that counts after all, isn't it? Errabee 23:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Yep, the table hopefully shows that we're counting all assessed articles. It's important to get the unassessed ones done, but new ones should be tagged as well. --Psychless 16:34, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Redirect problems

Someone who knows more about redirect problems and who hasn't recently had a concussion (like myself), should take a look at Talk:Chon Duhwan. It may be that my brain is still addled, but something seems a little off to me here. Thanks. Awadewit | talk 18:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I've come across these as well. I think what happened is that an article was moved to a new location, but not its talk page. We should remove the biography template on the old talk page and add it to the new one, if it doesn't already exist. I did so on Talk:Chon Duhwan. Mahanga 22:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

New Workgroups

I do not know how many others feel this way, but in all the assessing I have done, I am beginning to see we definitely need more. Activists, religious figures, historical figures, etc.. I keep running into a lot of biographies from various Asian Dynasties and it is tough call to put them appropriate workgroups. --Ozgod 04:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. Personally, the addition of a religion workgroup and a literature workgroup would help out a lot. I'm skipping putting many in work groups since I flat out don't know where to put them.--Wizardman 17:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Doesn't literature fall under "arts"? Awadewit | talk 13:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I have a related question: what is the workgroup for daimyos? Politics and Government? Cattus 14:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I would say definitely P&G. Awadewit | talk 23:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If anything, I think we need a business-oriented workgroup for people who founded corporations, etc. Also, where do inventors go? Are they "science and academia" because they are technology? Awadewit | talk 23:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I normally put Inventors in Science and Academia (if that helps any). --Ozgod 01:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
That is what I have been doing, but it seemed wrong. Awadewit | talk 18:30, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Are there any new workgroups in the pipeline? I think a crime one would be useful too. RHB - Talk 23:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

For crime there is WP:CRIMINAL, but I do not see much activity out of it. I think a workgroup for Criminal Biographies could be suitable - would have to inquire with that group. --Ozgod 00:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Awards

Hello, I'm the newest award committee member. After some discussion with Psychless, we agree to change and add some awards. Nothing is final at the moment, but be assured that you'll be getting awards and barnstars easier than the current posted version. Come back to this section once in awhile for the latest updates. OhanaUnited 06:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I was noticing that. In the spring assessment drive, you got a barnstar for 500, which is significantly easier than 1000. Just a thought, let's be consistant.

Cam 18:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Might as well keep it at 1000. I mean, people are getting to that already.--Wizardman 01:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I completely agree. I know I don't own the drive but please don't change the awards without significant discussion. I personally think 1000 is better since you had one month to get 500, this time you have three months to get 1000 articles assessed, which some people have done in three days... Also, I think literature and religion work groups sound useful. --Psychless 03:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I also stand strong on 1000 asessments to get a barnstar. I have discussed the details with Psychless and this is what we talked about. I might want to impose a flexible special awards system. If there are many people at the end (say August) then it wouldn't be quite fair because some start later than others; and those who start early have more competition. What I am thinking is that if the # of participants exceed a certain amount, then I will change # of Silver and Bronze WikiAward being handed out. Right now, there are 1 gold, silver, and bronze to be handed out. If the # goes too high, I might change it to 1,2,3 respectively. And if the # of participants get way out of hand, I'll change it to 1,3,5 respectively to keep those hardworkers happy.
My proposal: 200 edits - WikiThanks, 500 edits - WikiCookie, 1000 edits - Original Barnstar, 2000 edits - Tireless Contributor Barnstar, 3000 edits - The Working Man's Barnstar, 4000 edits - The Barnstar of Diligence, 5000 edits - The Biography Barnstar. These are all blueprint. If the top reviewer doesn't even reach 3000 then it's not reasonable to have no person awarded with Working Man, Diligence, and Biography barnstar. Then I will lower the #'s.OhanaUnited 06:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I like this last proposition. I think it will motivate the people from the drive to assess as many articles as they can. ZOUAVMAN LE ZOUAVE 06:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
The spring assessment lasted just over a month. We now have 3 months time to assess articles, thus the amounts necessary should be higher as well. Errabee 12:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Whoever reaches 10,000+ assessed gets a free snow cone. --Ozgod 13:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with OhanaUnited's ideas. I don't think we need to worry about the number of participants getting out of hand ;). More help is always good. The point of the drive, after all, is to get articles assessed not win awards.

I also agree with OhanaUnited, those are good levels for different awards. Of course, you may need to re-think things depending on what levels people reach by the end of the drive. Although awards shouldnt be our main focus, some sort of award scheme will encourage people to assess more articles than they normally would, and will probably net WP:BIO some extra members because of this drive - • The Giant Puffin • 15:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

One final discussion, do you guys want both award and barnstar? Or just barnstar? (Using my example again) If you made 2000 assessments, do you want to receive:

  • WikiThanks, WikiCookie, Original Barnstar, and Tireless Contributor Barnstar (and flooded your userpage with awards and barnstars)
  • 1 award and 1 barnstar? That is, WikiCookie and Tireless Contributor Barnstar
  • 1 award and many barnstars? WikiCookie, Original Barnstar, and Tireless Contributor Barnstar
  • Only the barnstar/award that you reached and nothing else? Tireless Contributor Barnstar

I would like to hear your ideas.

Note: The Golden, Silver, and Bronze WikiAward are handed out separately and are not part of this discussion. OhanaUnited 05:24, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

How come there is no WikiMilk to go with the WikiCookie? ludahai 魯大海 14:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I would prefer a single award rather than an assortment. Awadewit | talk 02:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

At the end of the drive have a place for people to sign if they do not want all awards. If they didn't sign this, and they really don't want all of the awards, they can just delete the ones they don't want, or they could create an awards sub page. --Psychless 01:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Would this take into account assesments made between award thresholds, say 2,600? --BrokenSphere 01:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

There are people who are likely to reach 5,000 articles in a week or two. What awards do you get if you get over 5,000. Bernstein2291 16:43, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, we'll have to find some more awards I guess. Maybe an award for 7,500 and 10,000? --Psychless 18:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Na, it probably won't reach there. OhanaUnited 06:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Really? Ludahai's on pace for 10k easily I think. And I might just try and get 10k for the drive just to prove you wrong :) Wizardman 11:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
But we ran out of relevant awards & barnstars, unless you have some suggestions. OhanaUnited 16:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
What about adding the Special Barnstar to the mix? However, keep the threshold for the Bio Barnstar at 5K, as it doesn't make sense if only one person over that number of assessments made receives it. Also, how about adding the Zen Garden Award at least on top of the prize for the most assessments? --BrokenSphere 01:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Anti-awards?

Can we have anti-awards for people who generate the most number of complaints? :-) Actually, unless Category:20th century deaths has been added to WP:WPBio recently, then you might not get many complaints. Good luck with the assessing, but please can I ask that people don't take the race too seriously? It is better to read and assess ten articles accurately (and learn something), rather than rush through 100 articles. Carcharoth 16:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, Carcharoth, with your last point. I keep having to stop and read the article I'm about to assess, do a little clean-up, leave a template behind, click on another link, end up reading about the history of the Ming dynasty, forget what it was I was doing, etc, etc... :) María (habla conmigo) 16:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but this idea is against WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. I have caught someone giving out wrong assessment ratings but I didn't go ranting about this. I left a message on his talk page and ask him to be more careful next time. I think you can follow this as well to resolve this problem. OhanaUnited 17:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I apologize if I missed something, but who's ranting? I see Carcharoth's comment as a friendly reminder to take one's time in assessing articles, something I highly agree with. Maybe we should all AGF, yeah? María (habla conmigo) 17:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
You read it wrong. Seems like I have to repeat this phrase that I told my buddies plenty times. "MSN (or anything in text) is the worse way of communication because you can't see the expression of the person who wrote it." On another note, I would encourage people to tag new articles that are not tagged. A good way to spot them is go to your local artist, politican, singer, or musician's page and start Wikilink-surfing. I just hope that everyone's still having good health and not take this kind of assessment as a full time job where you have to skip lunch to do 10 extra article assessments. OhanaUnited 17:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I didn't read anything wrong, I just didn't taste the flavoring you added to the stew. Perhaps sarcasm (is that correct?) would be easier to detect if it were alluded to, what with the textual innuendo so hard to catch and all. What am I, a mind reader? ;) (Note winky-smiley for playful comment.) María (habla conmigo) 18:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
May I remind everyone to remember WP:AAGF - • The Giant Puffin • 19:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Huh? It was joke with a serious point to it. Sheesh. Maria took my comments in exactly the spirit they were meant, for which I'm grateful. Carcharoth 22:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

First Week

Congrats everyone! 12k+ articles assessed in the first week. At this rate we could easily wipe out the entire backlog of Unassessed articles by the end of August. --Ozgod 11:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The non-bio parameter

I have tried my hand at assessing a few articles, avoiding the stubby ones in favour of the start/B class ones, and I came across Duke of Somerset, which comes across as a cross between a list of bios of different Dukes of Somerset at various times, and an overview of the history of this title. I've left it as a bio article, as it contains lots of biographical information, but was wondering what advice people would give about this sort of thing? There are also various "family" articles floating around as well, such as Fry family (chocolate). These shouldn't use the non-bio parameter, should they? But should some sort of label be used to distinguish these from ordinary bios about a single person? Carcharoth 12:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I also removed the WP-Bio tag from the talk page of Forrest Gump. The article is about the film, not the character, it is a fictitious character, and if film people want to work on it, they have the film WP tag, and don't need the film bio-work-group tag. Carcharoth 12:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Hang on. Does that count for the total. No, don't answer that, as I don't care about the totals! :-) Carcharoth 13:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I've run across a few movies and non-biography related articles in the filmmakers and actors section, as well. From what I gather, they were added by a bot to incorporate the film-bio workgroup, and it made a few mistakes because of the articles' eponymous titles like Forrest Gump and Annie Hall. No biggie, I've just been removing them. Silly bots. María (habla conmigo) 13:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Just removed one from Lighting technician... Do you think Duke of Somerset is a list or a bio? I don't like the list class, because lists themselves should be assessed in the same way as articles. Carcharoth 13:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh, man, I'm not sure. Technically the article is about a title and not an individual person, so I'd be tempted to remove it, but I can see how others could argue otherwise. María (habla conmigo) 13:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
How about The Yes Men (about an activist organisation, rather than a person). I was going to remove the WP-Bio tag, but then realised that that would leave it with no WikiProject. Though that wouldn't be a disaster, I would prefer to replace it with something else. How are articles about music groups handled? Carcharoth 13:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Is there some sort of organisations wikiproject that deals with that sort of thing? Its definately not a biography, but I cant think of a wikiproject that it would fit in to - • The Giant Puffin • 18:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I dumped it on the {{Film}} and {{WikiProject Sociology}} projects... There, it is out of our hands! :-) Carcharoth 13:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Removing the template? Uh oh

Just pointing out guys, we need to keep an eye out for people who are removing the biography templates and our assessments. I rechecked by contributions and found a guy who's blanked a couple due to no comments after the article being assessed. I notified User:Opus33, one who I found blanking. I assumed good faith and told him about our drive, so we'll see about that. If you know of anyone else post them here so we can keep an eye out on them.--Wizardman 15:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

You can keep track of that at the end of each two day period by reviewing Misplaced Pages:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Biography articles by quality log. Look down the list and see if articles have been removed because they have been deleted, or if they have been removed because the tag has been removed, or if the assessment has been changed. Though having said that, I can't work out why there are so many "removed" on that log, when as far as I can see, they haven't been removed! Carcharoth 16:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Having said that, I agree with Opus33 that if someone requests comments, we should supply them. Hopefully a bit more helpful than at Talk:Joseph Haydn/Comments, but still, it only takes a few seconds more to say what needs doing to reach the next level of assessment, about the same time as it takes to read the article. Surely an AWB script can come up with standard reccommendations that can be adapted on the fly by those doing assessments that way? Carcharoth 16:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Keep in mind that not everyone is able to use AWB because of its 500 mainspace article requirement. You could be the winner of this assessment drive race and still not able to use it. The admin in charge doesn't give a crap if you assessed 10,000 articles, answer 1000 questions at help desk, or partcipated in numerous MfD, AfD, RfA; he will just turn you down for approval to use it because you're not a "trusted member". And I was turned down as one of those "not-trusted member". OhanaUnited 18:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • On the subject of that log, we need to make sure to check that every so often, I reverted about 10-15 talk pages of vandal blanking.--Wizardman 17:33, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

He seems to be the gatekeeper on that article, he deleted the template back in March as well, and did it again at least twice after that - • The Giant Puffin • 18:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Just my thoughts: I think it's at the very least bad form to remove a template that was placed by a project, regardless of whether it's been assessed or not. Providing comments is optional and highly recommended but, not required and not a reason to remove the template. If there is disagreement on whether an article is within the scope of a particular project, discuss it on the article's or project's talk page. The same with the assessment. --Kimon 19:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Every time WP1.0 bot updates the biography logs, I check for articles that were removed, and for articles that were upgraded to FA, A or GA class. It takes quite some time, but I think it's worth it. Errabee 17:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the template on four or five pages. One was clearly a case of inappropriate use of bio (meaning it wasn't a bio article). The others were all for redirect pages. ludahai 魯大海 14:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Opus33 has now resorted to just blanking our comments from his talk page, as shown in his talk page history - • The Giant Puffin • 17:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

At this point, can we through "Assume Good Faith" out the door? Will anyone press for action against him? ludahai 魯大海 02:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

List Class dilemma

If you assess an article as List, it will still be in the unassessed category. I think altering the template to accept List class would be more trouble than it's worth. The servers don't need that kind of strain. I think we should just assess list articles as normal articles. It would get B if the list was complete, or very close and it had references. Post your comments on this idea, and if consensus agrees with me then the page should have a notice about this. --Psychless 17:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Nothing we can do about. The bot doesn't accept List, Template, Disambig (Dab), Category (Cat) or N/A. I have asked this question to an admin somewhile ago, and he says he's not sure about this. He directs me to look at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Religion/Assessment#Frequently_asked_questions. What puzzles me is that there are articles tagged as list-class in this religion project, yet the bot doesn't recognize it as unassessed-class. However, going to the bot's page, it doesn't show any recently tagged lists treated as list-class, but instead assessed as stub class. There has to be a way to make the bot ignore list and non-article class. I just asked Warlordjohncarter because he tagged a list-class article recently and now I'm waiting for his answer. OhanaUnited 18:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
It would certainly be preferable if the bot did accept list-class articles. Many of the articles on here are lists, and yet they are still officially seen as unassessed, even if the list-class is applied. If we could get the bot to recognise list-class articles, I think it should be done. It would help to clear the categories a bit more - • The Giant Puffin • 18:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Warlordjohncarter answered me. He said he don't know. OhanaUnited 12:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm fairly positive it's the template not the bot. I'm looking over the template to see how it could be altered right now. --Psychless 20:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, lists can be and are featured. Other projects I've seen have simply give featured lists FA-class, and I strongly believe that the best thing is to classify things as lists another way (using the template), and to assess lists like any other article (stub, start, B, GA, A, FA). Carcharoth 08:12, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Where is the list?

Where is the list of articles that need assessment? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:Unassessed biography articles contains all articles tagged with the WP:BIO template that have not yet received an assessment. Carom 02:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment Committee?

I have a sugesstion - due to recent removals of the WPBIO tag on some article pages, is that after the Summer Assesstment Drive is over, we sweep through all the Stub/Start article, providing comments as to why they are only of that class and improvements they can use. The Winter Comment Drive :-P :) --Ozgod 05:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the old "do it in two separate stages or do it all at once" dilemma! I still think a boilerplate comment could be added to all stubs and starts. There are several standard reasons that crop up again and again - lack of pictures, lead section needs expanding, some sections are short and stubby, material is not organised into sections, lacks references, and so on. It should be possible to have those (and others) as options to check when assessing, and dump a bullet-pointed list into the comments section. Even better would be if that included categories, so you could then go to a category of articles lacking in one particular way, and work on improving that. Some such categories already exists, such as the ones for "needs a picture", but more could be done on this. Would be quite a lot of work to set up though. Carcharoth 09:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I have no skill at scripting, but if this could configured into Outriggr's Assessment Script (possibly via checkboxes and a comment entry bar), so when we do the assessment it automatically does the assessment and leaves the comments we placed in the bar on the comment page for the Article. --Ozgod 11:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Something automated would certainly make it easier and faster. Stub articles all need basic improvements like expansion, sources, etc. Most start articles need more sources and basic expansion. Although there would be a few exceptions, automated comments would apply to the bulk of start and stub articles, so somehow building that into the template would be very usefel. As for B articles, maybe a link to GA criteria would be appropriate? - • The Giant Puffin • 12:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. I would also say link to FA as well as GA. Some of the better B-class articles have editors who look down on GA and see it as an insult to suggest they go there, and are aiming directly for FA. As for A-class articles, how many formal processes are in place for that? As far as I know, not that many, but if people are aware of relevant ones, then link to those as well. Carcharoth 13:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Thats true. Linking to GA and FA for B-class articles would be preferable. We could also link to FA criteria for GA- and A-class articles, as that is the next step to take in most cases - • The Giant Puffin • 18:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

My opinion on it is this. If the article is a stub or start it should be fairly obvious how to improve it. If it isn't obvious then it probably isn't a stub or start article. To give suggestions on how to improve a B class article is essentially giving it a peer review. Also, if someone is trying to improve an article to GA or FA from B a link to the criteria isn't useful at all. I really don't see any point in giving every article comments. If someone wants to improve an article they will seek comments. But if we must give articles comments, then The Winter Comment Drive will be the best option, in my opinion. And if we do than Outriggr, or anyone with good scripting skills for that matter, needs to design us a script so we can use a bullet point format. Unless doing it by hand sounds like fun, there's only 300,000 articles or so that need comments... --Psychless 19:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Although that would be endless hours of fun for all of us, I think a scripting option would be best. And comments are useful in stub/start articles, as some people may want to improve the article but don't know specifically is required. Either way, it makes things easier for future improvement - • The Giant Puffin • 20:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I have a different winter idea which might work. We either have the aforementioned comment drive (stub and start only, or maybe even stub only), or we have some sort of destubbifying drive, trying and get many articles up to start class. Either one we go would be hard though.--Wizardman 22:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
A comment drive on stub-class articles is not really effective, I think. There is still so much to expand upon with stubs, that I wouldn't even know where to start. To a lesser degree this is also the case for Start-class articles. Where comments are really helpful, is with B-class articles. These contain the majority of the material needed, but need help in presentation, where gaps in material are, etc. Errabee 23:23, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
In retrospect a drive would be silly - but an updated script with a comment bar would be extremely helpful. --Ozgod 02:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree, but I think it would be difficult to implement. Errabee 08:12, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree that comments for the most part for stub and start class articles are pointless. The weaknesses and needs are usually pretty obvious. After this rating drive is over, I will endeavor to upgrade any Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan, or Vietnamese related article to start status, though this will take a lot of time. ludahai 魯大海 15:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

List class again

I see that we are now assessing lists as normal, and not using List-class. Is there any alternative way to tag lists as lists? Also, would articles about titles, and the history of titles, count as non-bios? See my edit here for an example. The Peerage workgroup category has a lot of these lists as well. I'll find some more examples. Carcharoth 18:44, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Talk:Pre-1876 Life Peerages is a classic example of a list.
  • Duke of Somerset is a bit more complicated. It is a mish-mash of a history of the title (the first bit of the article), various biographies of people who held the titles, and then various lists at the end. I've rated it start, but left it within the scope of WP-BIO (ie. not put non-bio=yes), as it does still contain biographical material.

I suppose my question is whether a list containing nothing more than birth and death dates is still a WP-BIO article. My thoughts are now changing to think that it is still a biographical article, but we do need some way to label them as lists. Carcharoth 18:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Since we are assessing List articles as normal, are there any guidelines on how to assess them? I am a bit confused as to what would make a list a stub- or a start-class article for example. --Belovedfreak 12:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Not to name names...

We do need to keep going through our logs. Some people think this:

"Removing ratings - you shouldn't rate unless you leave comments"

"These banners serve no useful purpose, please don't post them."

Look out for people like this and try to make them see reason. We cannot peer review 100,000 articles. --Psychless 15:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC) 21:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

He even removed it from an article where I had added comments. I will discuss on his talk page. Carcharoth 00:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I especially like his comments here as to why . --Ozgod 02:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Letter Focus?

I propose that we focus our efforts on one letter at a time. Let's say we start with, say: B. Under the header ==Leter Focus== we would put:

We are currently focusing on the letter: B
Sign up for a subsection of the letter:

  • Ba-Bd - User1
  • Be-Bg - User 2


I think this will help since we will more easily be able to see progress. We will have to sign up for a subsection though, so two editors aren't working on the same section. Post your thoughts on this... --Psychless 03:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Or we could sign up for sections of 200 articles? --Psychless 03:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I am focusing on letter combinations common for Chinese names so I can also tag them with WikiProject Taiwan and WikiProject China tags. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ludahai (talk • contribs) 00:30, 17 June 2007.

Drive Userbox

This user was a participant in the Biography Wikiproject's Summer 2007 Assessment Drive.

{{User:Thereen/Userboxes/WPBSummer2007AD}}


I was wondering if we wanted to have a userbox for the drive. This would be the current version. When the drive is over it can be edited to a past tense version. When there is another drive it could be edited to say "This user is invited to join the Biography Project's Autumn Assessment Drive" or the like for a period of a week before being switched back to the past tense version. What do you think? -Thereen 07:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I just put it on my userpage. Like I needed another userbox... ") ludahai 魯大海 15:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Thats a good userbox, I'll add it to my userpage - • The Giant Puffin • 17:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Good userbox, I'll add it to my page. I hope we won't need another assessment drive though. --Psychless 23:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

A VERY Important Notice

When Editors and Assessors collide.

We need one person, or better yet two people to check up regularly on Opus33's contributions. Please alert an administrator immediately if he starts removing our template again, our is convincing other people to do the same. He apparently doesn't have a very thorough knowledge of how Misplaced Pages works, despite him having many months of experience here. Check our logs often to make sure other people aren't doing this as well. I'm not sure if he is really done removing our template. --Psychless 23:52, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Luckily, although disruptive, his edits to talk pages are few. Since I'm an admin, I'll take action if it gets to that point.--Wizardman 00:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
From what I can see, he does good work on writing the encyclopedia. If I may give advice that applies here, as well as in similar cases over the coming months during the assessment drive, don't push this just to prove a point. You will meet other editors (often those who write good content in specific areas, but don't venture much outside of that) who object to drive-by assessments with little feedback, so a bit of diplomacy from the assessors is probably the best way to avoid ruffled feathers from these writers. As for the current situation, I think it can be managed as it is at the moment. He seems to have got the message, and having lots of different people trying to push the point home won't really help. Part of experience on Misplaced Pages is being able to judge when to push a point and when to leave it. Just be nice when people complain, and try to de-escalate any situations, rather than saying "I will take action if I need to". Explain, and if someone doesn't understand, explain again. :-) Carcharoth 01:27, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I would like to apologize for not being as nice as I could have to him. However, what I don't like is that he still thinks we're doing something completely wrong, he's just going to ignore it. We can probably leave it in this situation, but next time it'd be better if we got the person to understand. Most of my anger at him was because he completely ignored my request to discuss the situation on my talk page. Hopefully the next situation will go better than this one. --Psychless 03:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I think he removed the discussion on purpose during archiving. Anyways, someone needs to run the main page's bot manually, it's not updating itself. OhanaUnited 04:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I restored what he tried to delete, so his third archive now includes our messages - • The Giant Puffin • 15:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Um, that is really not necessary. Trust me. People are allowed to selectively archive, and remove warnings, and there have been lengthy discussions about this. See Misplaced Pages:Removing warnings for some history. Apologies if you already know this. Carcharoth 01:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Anyways, I'll try to run the bot again, I've tried to run it three times but it stops before it gets all the way through. --Psychless 17:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Carcharoth, who showed true courtesy in putting comments on Joseph Haydn when I asked, and in redirecting me when I couldn't find them. The comments are useful, and I'm working on addressing them. As for you others, I will refrain from comment, other than to suggest you read Golding's Lord of the Flies. There's no need for a high-level alert, since I will not be deleting any more of your little boxes. Opus33 20:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Please be WP:CIVIL. I quite like Flies, though I fail to see your analogy. We aren't little warring teenage boys on an island, we're just assessing to better serve the WikiProject and therefore all biography articles on Misplaced Pages. María (habla conmigo) 20:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
<sigh> There are lots more where Opus33 came from. I've been following his edits to Joseph Haydn, and he is also improving the encyclopedia. Please, please, when there is a culture clash like this between writers and assessors (and I know some are both), just politely tip-toe around each other and don't make a spectacle out of it. Carcharoth 01:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I can't run the bot manually, it stopped in the middle as well. OhanaUnited 04:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I really want to laugh at Opus's reply on Wizardman's talk page. Let's see what he talked about:

Hello Wizardman, sorry if reverting the template seems rude; at least, that isn't my purpose in reverting. Rather, I'm doing a little bit of civil disobedience re. a project that I think is not a good idea, and is creating a certain amount of unhappiness among other editors. Thank you for responding courteously to my revert. Yours sincerely, Opus33 18:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think he's going to offend a lot of people if he thinks biography project is not a good idea. And when he said unhappiness among other editors, he meant himself. Does anyone else spot someone is unhappy other than him? If he's planning to go for RfA, I will be the first to oppose strongly. OhanaUnited 10:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this (a public forum) is a proper place to patronize/threaten/humiliate a fellow editor, OhanaUnited, despite this user's strange ideas and statements. Again, let's be WP:CIVIL. This thread had a purpose, and that was to warn of certain users reverting assessments. I propose we end this discussion. María (críticame) 12:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I was stating the truth, wasn't I? Misplaced Pages is open to people with different opinions, but not for people stepping over the line. If he disagrees with the assessment, he should come here and ask for reassessments instead of removing the template. I (and most of us) think this is rude. OhanaUnited 12:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it's rude, but that doesn't mean you need to return it with similar rudeness. If you disagree with the user's disagreement of the assessment, then at least bring it up with them personally. However, it would seem that they've moved on, and that comment you quoted above was made a week ago. Again, please let's keep this talk page for relevant issues pertaining to the project. María (críticame) 12:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, there are disadvantages to very large wikiprojects like this one, but this probably isn't the right time to go into detail on that. Carcharoth 22:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this "project" is going to offend a lot of people (the ones writing articles) if it continues with its hamfisted, zero-input, zero-addition, misbegotten, misapplied, and mismanaged effort to stamp every article on the site with a rating that has every bit as much meaning as it does deliberation, which has as much validity as it took time to produce, which is absolutely as helpful as it is individually considered. I am pleased as punch to never write above a "start class" biography. Scavengers are happiest when their targets are dead. Geogre 22:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
What is your suggestion for change, then Geogre? Was there something in particular that happened with an assessment rating that offended you personally? --Ozgod 23:32, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that people do a couple things. 1) Make sure you know something about the topic. Many of the articles tagged as start-class contain all the available information about that person; the start-class rating has clearly been put there in thirty seconds or less, based on the length of the article, or some other feature visible to someone who has never heard of the person being assessed. 2) Make sure you know something about the available sources, for the same reason. These things will take time, and will of course slow down the assessment drive. But as it is being run, at speed, by bots, by non-experts, indeed by people who in many cases know absolutely nothing about the topics being assessed, this drive is actively harming Misplaced Pages.
I think the drive should stop at once, but do not seriously expect you to heed my advice. Failing in that, I'd like to see people actually try to learn something about a topic before assessing its article. Thank you, Antandrus (talk) 23:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Geogre, we'd be happy to improve in an area, but hurling insults at us and calling our work useless doesn't help anyone. Antandrus, we aren't all professors, and you don't have to be one to assess an article's quality. If it has references and good coverage of the subject it is B class. Researching each article we assess to make sure we give it the correct rating would be optimal, but isn't realistic for a project of this magnitude. If an article, or a group of articles, has been assessed wrongly bring it up here, or at the assessor's talk page and the assessor or assessors will look over the article more thoroughly and reassess it if necessary. Some articles aren't going to be assessed properly, but we try to make sure as many as possible or assessed properly. Assessments should be viewed as a way of helping us find articles that need improvement. No, we will not be stopping the drive at once. I really don't consider the assessments to be actively harming Misplaced Pages. Irritating a few editors is not actively harming Misplaced Pages. Large wikiprojects such as these require organizational activities that do not directly improve Misplaced Pages. This is one of such activities. I welcome any reasonable suggestions Psychless 00:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I might add I have actually seen articles that were previously orphaned get development after being assessed. I also try, when I have the time, to tag the articles appropriately (for referencing, notability, expansion, etc.). I do not see the harm in assessments, really. I take the time peruse each article I am reviewing and give it an appropriate class. For future editors who wish to expand, they can see it falls into the Stub or Start category. They then can refer to the criteria for classes in the Biography project and see what the article is lacking, or requiring to get it to its next class assessments. I will be honest; I am aware some subjects are so obscure they may forever languish in the Stub/Start class, but the hope is they will be better developed by future editors (if not personally tagged by myself for future researching @ the library). --Ozgod 02:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Stub or Start doesn't mean the article sucks. It just means that there're still plenty of things that can be added to the article. OhanaUnited 06:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
There are cases though where an editor has clearly assessed an article purely on length, without noticing that there are sources, and without realising that that (a) all available sources have been used; and (b) all available information has been included. I suspect what is needed here is some way of having the original authors rate these articles as B-class, but tag the assessment as requiring confirmation by an independent expert in the subject area. We also need a way to say things like "no picture likely to be available", rather than "picture needed". Carcharoth 08:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

BTW, using fairly old pictures from war zones to humorously illustrate Misplaced Pages conflict is probably fine, but using ones from recent conflicts, involving recent deaths, seems wrong to me. I'm removing the second picture. Carcharoth 08:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

There are indeed cases where articles are incorrectly assessed. Some are rated start class when they are in fact a b or stub class, and visa-versa. This does not mean, however, that this assessment drive is harmful to Misplaced Pages. As Psychless said, irritating a few editors does not mean it is harming Misplaced Pages. We are trying to better organise the huge numbers of biography articles on Misplaced Pages. If you can think of a much better way to do so, go ahead and suggest it. Otherwise, quite frankly, you will just have to put up with it. This sort of assessment drive greatly increases the chances of articles being improved in the future because rating articles tells us what state each article is in. It is true that many topics' articles will simply remain at stub or start class forever, and there's little we can do about that. Just because all of the information on the topic has been found, that does not automatically make it a B-class article or above, as many of these articles are poorly organised as well as short in length. We simply cannot become experts on every article we review and assess, it is not practical and is near-impossible. We do the best we can with what knowledge we have. A drive like this brings together many different people to help reduce the backlog, indeed over 50 people are currently helping. This brings a whole range of knowledge on different people and topics to the table. Perhaps those who criticise could bring their knowledge to the table to help us some more - • The Giant Puffin • 13:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

We have reached Misplaced Pages's limit. Not just our assessments, but also GA and FA process cannot guarantee that the article that is about to be promoted is being read and facts vertified by experts in that particular field. Unless there's a system during registration where we have to state what fields we are interested in and then assigned to be in that field's workgroup to be in charged of all assessments and promotion processes, this situation is unavoidable. OhanaUnited 16:36, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the best thing that could be done is to make more specific workgroups. Workgroups that cover over 40,000 articles each don't really help, at all. I'm starting to create a plan to implement a new set of workgroups. I will post this at the main project talk in a few days. Psychless 18:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

My 2 cents worth, as an editor and new-content writer: I have been very frustrated with the ratings as well. I have written hundreds of articles on Spanish colonial officials in America and the Philippines (viceroys and governors), mostly from scratch. A majority of these articles are from Spanish sources only, because there is little or nothing available on the subjects in English. I look at my contribution then as not just to Misplaced Pages, but to the English historical literature. But nearly all of my articles have been rated Stub or Start. I can't help feeling that this was done by people who have no idea what information is available in any language, and who very well might not even read the primary language. These are comprehensive articles, based on the available sources. I believe the current ratings are very inappropriate. It is much better not to rate articles at all than to rate them badly and inappropriately.

As to this project annoying a small number of editors. I would hazard the guess it is annoying a very large number of editors. They are just not well organized. And that is harmful to Misplaced Pages. --Rbraunwa 17:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The ultimate aim of the assessment drive is not to clear the backlog, but to encourage article growth and improvement and highlight the areas where work needs to be done to raise articles up to the level of GA and FA. Having looked at your extremely prolific contributions, many could be raised a class or several simply by using inline citations and occasionally copy-editing - i.e. ticking the boxes. Don't assume that given grades are a fair assessment of articles - they are extremely subjective, and with only three main grades to award, a narrow assessment. RHB - Talk 20:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Discussion on template change

Please look at my proposal and comment on it. --Psychless 17:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The template has been updated. See here for the bot discussion. --Psychless 00:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I like it. Thank you for your work on it. ludahai 魯大海 23:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, unfortunately we aren't finished yet. Trying to figure out how to transclude the comments into the show/hide section... --Psychless 02:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The template update is now finished, I think. Comment on the proposal to implement it here. For a more interesting version of the events that took place see here. --Psychless 04:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot

I tried to run the bot to update the total articles assessed, but it didn't work. Is there a problem with it? Awadewit | talk 03:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I also have this problem. The bot stopped after reaching 460. I think, but this is only guessing, that IE has a time limit on how long a page loads before disconnects. Since the bot limits how many times it gooes to the server per minute, if the assessment has too many items then it will exceed IE's limit and disconnects regardless if it's finished or not. OhanaUnited 05:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
That isn't it. Oleg said it's the server that cuts you off. Either way I guess we just have to wait... --Psychless 18:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
The only way to get the job done is to ask Oleg to speed up the bot so that it finishes prior to the server cuts the connection off. OhanaUnited 04:39, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Kudos to Everyone

We got the total number of unassessed articles below 100,000 - way to go everyone! --Ozgod 14:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

At the current rate, you should be able to get it done before the end of July, a whole month early!! Carcharoth 17:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
That would be amazing :). Keep up the good work everyone! --Psychless 18:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Seems like everyone's doing their part. Even the guy with under 50, every part counts. Remember if you find tagless bios, rate them too. I'm exhausted with my pace yet I'm only in 4th...--Wizardman 23:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I've done less than 20, I think... But if I get a bot to do 50,000, do I win? :-) There is a list of 1000 WPBiography-tagless articles floating around somewhere. I'll trade that in for, ooh, 10,000 points or so. :-) Carcharoth 00:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
In regards to tagless biographies. I've recently had this odd obsession with clicking random article and adding a relevant wikiproject template on it's talk page if it has none. It's unsettling how many times I've had to add the WPBiography template. Even more unsettling how many articles aren't part of a wikiproject. --Psychless 02:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Behold - our next project! Scouring for untagged biography articles and tagging newly created ones. All of us will have OCD when this over (if ever). --Ozgod 02:26, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I have really enjoyed this so far. I am reading about a lot of interesting people I have never heard of before. I am also helping other Wikiprojects (like WikiProject Taiwan and CHina both of which I also work on) by tagging relevant articles with their templates as well. Thank you guys for giving me the impetus to kill three birds with one stone in this way. ludahai 魯大海 00:29, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Psychless, I do the same thing. I typically go to the main page and click on some of the biographical articles from the Did You Know, On This Day, and In the News sections and add the WPBIO template and assess them. I think the next project could be assigning WikiProject templates to articles that don't have one. For example, Wiki is not associated with any WikiProject! Mahanga 04:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there has been a lot of WPBiography tagging in the past (though still ongoing) using categories like Category:Living people and Category:Births by year and Category:Deaths by year. The real way to tackle this is to watch the source - get a bot to provide a weekly list of newly created articles, looking for typical birth/death date and category material (eg. living people), and use a check-list to add in all the things that people typically forget: birth/death date categories, living people category, talk page WPBiography tags, Persondata and so on - not forgetting that PRODing may be the best way to deal with a new article that probably won't survive AfD. One thing that is severely lacking though is sortkeys to help biographical lists and categories appear in the right order. There are several overlapping systems at the moment, and the data is spread around or non-existent. DEFAULTSORT, Persondata, listas (in WPBiography template), and (most commonly) in the pipe-sorting bit of one or more of the categories. See Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Polbot 3 and User:Polbot/ideas/defaultsort for details.

So I think the next big project should be assigning the correct DEFAULTSORT sort keys to articles that don't have them. You could set up a script to default to "LAST NAME, NAMES", and humans checking the script would correct the cases where this was incorrect (eg. Prince John of the United Kingdom). Either that, or a big push to add Misplaced Pages:Persondata to more biographical articles. Carcharoth 16:48, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I just hope that when people start doing the alphabets, they should also tag related workgroups because many fall into their workgroup categories but haven't tagged yet. OhanaUnited 09:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • We're now under 90,000 assessed articles. In a nutshell, getting the backlog to 0 by the end of August is now very possible, we're on pace to hit 0 around August 25-26, assuming the top 4/5 people keep going at their pace.--Wizardman 22:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm tickled pink by all this, to be honest. After that I think we all really focus in on our respective workgroups now that we will have thousands of articles now correctly assigned to them. And of course, watching all new articles coming in hourly. --Ozgod 23:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Wizardman - My pace should pick up in July and August as those two months are relative down times for me in terms of work. I will be working on Chinese history articles, but I will keep up with assessing articles as well. ludahai 魯大海 10:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad that the assessment drive has been a success so far. If anyone would like to help with tagging articles that haven't been tagged, then articles in Category:Uncategorized people would be a great place to start. Add categories to the article as well though :). Please check this out too! --Psychless 16:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
This is light work for you Ludahai? Wow, 90% chance you're gonna win then. But yeah, i never thought of looking in that category, that should help. And since i'm takign part in Gnome Week i can double dip there.-Wizardman 23:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Anyone who has access to AWB please do a favour for me. Drop a note to the active assessment members and tell them when doing A-Z, continue to put those individuals into workgroups if applied. I just did 20 assessments and 19 of them can be put into workgroups. The only individual left out is because there's no workgroup for business people. OhanaUnited 09:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Religious figures also do not have a work group. --Psychless 18:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Kudos to everyone, again

Everyone's done a great job so far. We know have less than 80,000 articles left! Sadly of the 315,000 articles assessed so far only almost 11,000 are B-Class or above, which is about 3.5% of articles assessed. For more numbers check out the main assessment page, the tables there should be updated for June shortly. Keep up the good work everyone. Psychless 13:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to mention that in the course of assessing I've found hundreds of articles that weren't tagged with WP:Bio that I tagged and assessed along the way, so there's still a universe of untagged bio articles out there too; given the objective of this drive however, which is to assess unassessed articles, I wouldn't put worry too much about finding untagged articles. Yes I did find them, but it's really hit and miss. --BrokenSphere 18:08, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

There may be as many as 50-100,000 articles we haven't tagged yet. Some of these are "known", i.e. they're in a category my bot hasn't got to yet, others aren't known about (miscategorised, recently created, etc). My bot is currently doing Category:Uncategorised people which will add about another 1000 or so. --kingboyk 22:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
If we want to get it to 0, we all have to work a lot harder actually, the counts are starting to fall. I've done very few assessments of late, I guess I'm partly to blame about that. Wizardman 00:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Outrigger's script

Did anyone else's script change? Mine no longer "unwatches" the page automatically, so I have to click an extra time now. Awadewit | talk 08:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I noticed a change. :) I did update the script to respect the user's "watchlist status" for a page, which is conceptually an improvement. However, for users that have the preference "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" turned on, that setting is now going to be respected as well. In response to this, I'll create an option you can add to your monobook.js to turn off page watching. But you can't have it both ways—there is no way for the script to know whether you have the page watchlisted, or have that preference turned on. Wait, there probably is, but for now I'll create the override. –Outriggr § 10:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Place the following in Special:Mypage/monobook.js so that the page edited will not be added to your watchlist unless it was already on your watchlist (this will take care of all cases; in other words including the part I said I wouldn't do yet)...
assessmentOverrideWatchPref = true;

–Outriggr § 11:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! Awadewit | talk 05:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Fact check

Just to let you know, I just fact checked the progress table while not signed in. --Dial 01:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Not to be rude, but please read the instructions in bold before you change the table. We're counting the difference between assessed articles, not unassessed articles. --Psychless 18:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Please comment on these two things

We need support on a simple template change, see here.

I've also proposed a new wikiproject, see here. --Psychless 01:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

scripts

I thought I'd let other people know 2 monobook scripts I'm using. I'm not sure if this will be of any use to anyone but me, but just in case, here it is. The first script simply adds a 'Save' button in the header tabs (where the article, talk, history, buttons are). I don't like scrolling down after selecting a rating using outriggr's script and I don't always like to press Alt+Shift-S. image here 

//saving tab
addOnloadHook(addsaveaction);
function addsaveaction() {
if(document.title.indexOf('Editing ') == 0) addPortletLink('p-cactions','javascript:document.getElementById("wpSave").click();','save','Save');
}

The second script is de-talkify, another tab button. The Unassessed category links the articles to their respective talk page. Well, it's a hassle opening the links and then going from the talk page to the article page. What the script does is make the Unassessed Category listing point to the article page, rather than the talk page. In conjunction with Linky, it makes assessing articles much faster. image here 

 
// skip talk page on categories when assessing - time saver
function catSwapButton() {
  if(document.title.indexOf('Category:' == 0)) {
    addPortletLink('p-cactions','javascript:catSwap();','De-Talkify','ca-catswap','change category links from talk pages to article pages');
  }
}
addOnloadHook(catSwapButton);
function catSwap() {
  var cat = document.getElementById('mw-pages');
  cat.innerHTML = cat.innerHTML.replace(/Talk\:/g,'').replace(/talk\:/g,':');
}

Let me know if it's helpful. :) Mahanga 02:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The de-talkify one is great. The "save" one doesn't do much for people editing with wikEd, though. Awadewit | talk 06:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much! These scripts look very useful. With Linky and Mahanga's scripts, nothing can stop us now! 20 –Psychless 18:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
They look wonderful - but I have a wretched time ever getting scripts to work right. Whenever I add a new one it messes up all the others I have and it's a matter of copying and pasting and trying to situate them in the right order so they do not cancel each other out, somehow. --Ozgod 19:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Ozgod, I was checking your monobook and I'm curious, why do you have multiple imports for the twinkle script? Anyway, I think I remember the script not appearing because twinkle was taking up all the space in the header and pushed de-talkify out of the way. I'm now using TWINKLE just for reverting, so there's no more twinkle tabs and de-talkify appears. So, check if you have a lot of tabs being used (by twinkle or other scripts). You can also try decreasing the font size in your browser (ctrl+mouse scroll wheel) and see if it appears. Note, increasing the font size a lot makes de-talkify disappear, for some odd reason. Let me know if you get it to work. Mahanga 21:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I have problems adding the code. I copy and paste the codes exactly and have problems. While I can add a tab for de-wikify, I can't get a tab for save. And I can't get the 2nd script working. I'm now reversing those codes added to my monobook. OhanaUnited 12:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Re:Mahanga - Oddly where I placed the Detalkify script in my monobook everything seems to be working fine now. I'm still very clueless as to how scripts and monobook work together. --Ozgod 12:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I think monobook has very stingy requirements on indentings. If you indent one code wrong, it screws up the whole thing. OhanaUnited 15:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

List of problem pages

The following pages are categoriezed as unassessed biography pages, but assessment is not possible and it is unknown how to remove the tag:

I fixed that one, the other one transcludes the talk pages of some of the article so it also transcludes the WPBiography template, we're just going to have to forget about that one I guess. --Psychless 18:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

In a similar vein there is Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Log/2005 January 13, with a couple of templates on, think the problem is similar - redirects from the VFD/AFD to the article so theres a transclusion of the talk page - doesnt this mean any future talk page edits are added the AFD/VFD log? RHB - Talk 23:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes it does, but it's "easily" fixed by moving the VFD debate into the redirect page. See below for instructions. --kingboyk 21:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The old VFD debates are a nuisance, aren't they?! I generally fix those by replacing the VFD redirects with the actual deletion debate, so that there's no transclusion any more. I'll do Misplaced Pages:Votes_for_deletion_archive_September_2004 as an example now, and then you folks will hopefully be able to take care of others you find :) Here's what I did:

  1. Opened the page, hit CTRL-F and searched for Biography. The first I found was for the article Tom Smith (filker).
  2. I clicked the link, then navigated to the talk page. Evidently the problem is a VFD discussion on a talk page being transcluded along with our template, as you already know. Stupid of whoever did the VFD that way, but there we go.
  3. I then clicked what links here to find out what redirect is being transcluded by the VFD page. Turns out it's Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/Tom Smith (filker).
  4. Move the VFD debate text into Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/Tom Smith (filker). Diffs: 1,
  5. Refresh Misplaced Pages:Votes_for_deletion_archive_September_2004 and repeat.

Hope that helps! --kingboyk 21:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I've done the January 13 2005 page, though my edits were a tad messier than yours. RHB - Talk 17:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Outriggr script, monobook

It seems various people's monobook pages (including mine) are turning up in the unassessed categories. I think it's a result of changes to Outriggr's script, but not sure how to fix it. --Belovedfreak 12:17, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone else had problems using the new version of Outriggr's script? Firefox has crashed several times, which never happened on the old version, RHB - Talk 15:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Not sure if it belongs in this section, but continuing from RHB's comment; I'm having errors with it as well. Firefox and IE appear to be semi-running it, i.e., I can see what an article's rating is, but the drop down box, class parameters, etc. aren't showing up. It was running fine this morning just before the massive lag/issues with the Wiki servers, so that may still be affecting it ATM, unless there was a change to the script right around that time. I restarted too, no effect. --BrokenSphere 16:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I made a change to my monobook.js that seems to have fixed it, added this: 
assessmentMyTemplateCode = ;

--BrokenSphere 16:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone assist with what the problem is with my monobook? Nav-popups have stopped working too. :/ Thanks, RHB - Talk 21:47, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Image

is the #2 most linked to image. See Special:Mostimages. A little more work and we'll be #1! Jreferee 21:40, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Categorization involving circa dates

What is the rule for assigning birth and death categories when you have a situation like the following: x person (b. c. 1091; d. c. 1155)?

Do you put it in 1090s births and 1150s deaths or 1091 births and 1155 deaths? My impulse has been to put them into the nearest year possible as I expect readers would expect that. Also do you link the dates themselves? I recently had an editor ask me about this. As I am assessing the articles, I like to make sure the appropriate birth and death categories are in place. Please advise --FeanorStar7 05:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I would link the dates and put them in the exact birth and death categories. Just my two cents. Psychless 00:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
It's a tough one, and it's been done inconsistently. For a long time I used the exact year, like The Psychless suggests; then I was doing the decade (e.g. 1150s deaths); now I'm back to using the specific year again, when the source gives one year (e.g. born c. 1555). Another problem occurs when you know someone's age at death (common with Renaissance composers) but that gives you two possible birth years. In that case I usually do the "1550s deaths" method. I don't think anyone has come up with a standard. Antandrus (talk) 04:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Thank you both for your input; I will continue to use the most specific date; much appreciated. --FeanorStar7 07:38, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I always use the decade in these circumstances. Using a specific year when the year is an estimate is simply incorrect, based on the knowledge we have. It implies a precision that isn't there (and in most cases never will be there). And different sources sometimes give different estimated years. Since yearly categories (like "1745 births") have direct links to the decades ("1740s births"), if you don't find what you're looking for on the first try it is actually easier to check the more general category than it is to check the one or two years on each side of the specific year. That will happen if you're working from a source that gives a different estimate for the year than we have in the article. And besides, these are precisely the circumstances for which the decade categories were created. Suppose you know the year is not known exactly; you're likely to go directly to the decade category. --Rbraunwa 14:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Yup. Use decade categories for circa. Also note, that where birth and death years are not known (and never likely to be known) there is Category:Year of birth unknown. If it just isn't there, and you are not sure if it is known or not, then we have Category:Year of birth missing and Category:Year of birth missing (living people) (looks like a new category there). What I've never been able to work out is what to do when you only know the years someone was "active" (floruit). I suspect there should be a subcategory of Category:Year of birth unknown, holding those where we do know when they were active. Hmm. Carcharoth 14:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)