Wikipedia talk:Peer review/Archive 1

Miscellaneous

I have just created Wikipedia:Requests for comments as a forum for announcing any matters that need commentary by other people. I've made such requests pretty frequently, and thought it might be helpful to have a page like this. Comments? -- Wapcaplet 13:12 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

How is this different from Wikipedia:Village pump? Way more people watch that page. I admit I RFC too, but I think the solution is to clean the pump more often. -- Merphant 05:12 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

... except that, with the ridiculous imposition on the length of the Pump due to dilapedated browsers, as the number of people working on the Wikipedia grows, so do the number of comments and so on that require attention; stratifying different sorts of comments into different sections seems much more sensible, extendable, and flexable, IMHO.

James F. 07:08 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've started a study on the realtime version of the Village Pump. see it here Quinobi 20:15, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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I propose a simple solution: First, move this page to wikipedia:peer review. It's a cool name, and it'll annoy our critics who claim that Wikipedia doesn't have peer review.

wikipedia:peer review is for saying "Hey, I wrote this cool entry (or set of entries) on X - what do you folks think?" - great for newbies and folks like that. wikipedia:village pump is for everything else. Martin 12:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sounds good to me -- especially the 'annoying our doubters' part :-).

James F. 13:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Done and done. Though, I am not sure why this talk page didn't get moved along with it... I swear I checked the "move talk page too" box. Good to see someone besides me finally using this page! :-) -- Wapcaplet 18:14, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Fixed. I should add something to wikipedia:move. Martin 19:34, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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I agree completely with Wapcaplet suggestion. It's a very nice way of reducing Village Pump size and foccusing atention on this special kind of request. In fact, this page appeared just in time! I already posted a proposal for wiki peer demoliting. I also like the idea of the peer review page. Muriel Gottrop 13:47, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Requesting feedback on an article

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump/March 2003 archive 3 on Thursday, September 15th, 02003.

Is there an "official" way of requesting feedback on an article (Nickel and Dimed)? Should I appeal to individual users, at the risk of annoying them, or is feedback subtly given through edits? Should I leave a message on the talk page and hope for a response or should I just leave a comment at the village pump :)? If feedback is rarely given (I would venture due to the ever-changing nature of articles), would someone mind making an exception and looking over the entry? I'm asking for two reasons, development in my writing (I'm a senior in high school) and for future reference as I would like to add similar entries on other books in my collection (after a quick reread of course :)). Thanks. -- Notheruser 03:16 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)

There's no official way as far as I know. If you're aware of a specific problem with the article you can use Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, but that's not really appropriate in this case. My advice would be to ask your English teacher to review the article for you. Teachers are usually overjoyed when their students do extra work, and if you frame the question right, you'll probably get a lengthy response. Print out a hard copy. I guess your other option is one of the ones you suggested -- risk annoyance and suck up to a random contributor on their talk page. -- Tim Starling 05:08 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I think I'll try a teacher rather than risk annoying a user. I don't want to step on anybody's toes (not in my first month here, maybe later :) ) -- Notheruser 06:31 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

General feed back for any article from {{two16}}:

if you understand NPOV you won't go too far

Guidelines

Proposed Guideline

1. If you are listing a newly created page, leave a comment on the user talk page of the contributor so that he can participate in the discussion or atleast see that the page is being discussed.

Hemanshu 09:24, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Length of the Article for which this is the Talk page

This page is likely to get very long. I suggest a list format for this page and the actual discussion to take place at the Talk page of the article. So 2 links here... to the article and to its talk page.

Hemanshu 09:26, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Your proposal is actually part of the policy of this page, but many people (including me) have not been following it, either through ignorance or negligence. -Smack 22:10, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yep, there's a good reason I made up those original policies :-) Anyway, I've moved some of the lengthier stuff to the appropriate discussion areas; this page seems to be popular enough now that it will need periodic cleaning and archiving, just like the Village Pump. -- Wapcaplet 23:07, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Good point. I've added it to the list of maintenance tasks. Angela. 13:11, Jan 11, 2004 (UTC)

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Lurid Message Box

The green message surrounded by the red dotted border is rather lurid and detracts from the page, IMO. Any objects if the message is demoted to a mere bold - a la the top of VfD? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:01, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Getting attention on the msg is more important that esthetics. Consider changing it if and when people demonstrate awareness of how to use the page. --Jerzy 08:09, 2004 Feb 6 (UTC)

I couldn't stand the green any longer. Let's see how people use the page, which doesn't grow particularly quickly anyway. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 19:55, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Reciprocal Reviews?

I had an idea to encourage more people to particpate, and have quicker turnover. What if we ask that people give one or two peer reviews to others before listing a page of their own for review? Nothing that needs to be enforced heavily or create more bureaucracy, just a different application of w:WikiLove.

You'd just add another bullet point to your request for review, mentioning the articles you had commented on, to help motivate others to return the favor.

Thoughts? Catherine 19:44, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

That could work, provided people remember ones that they've given feedback on in the past. It may be best if it's strictly voluntary and informal. Perhaps just a simple suggestion towards the top of the page to "please consider giving some feedback on existing requests before posting a request of your own." I think I'll do that right now, in fact... -- Wapcaplet 20:06, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Cleanup?

Is there a policy regarding cleaning up the Peer Review page? The removal sections says posts can be removed "after they've been here a while." How long is "a while"? The page is getting lengthy and there's stuff dating to September. --zandperl 18:46, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Good point, though I know some of this stuff is still here because the desired feedback has not been received yet. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to check with the person who posted something before removing it from this page. An archive is probably not necessary, since past requests aren't likely to be of much interest. -- Wapcaplet 00:24, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've left messages for the posters of several of the oldest (pre-December) requests on their talk pages, asking them to come by and remove old requests if they have enough feedback. I think I'll make some alterations to the "Using this page" section for future cleanup, since the process of cleaning this page is going to be somewhat different than it is for others. -- Wapcaplet 23:29, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

vs. Pages needing attention

What's the difference between this and Wikipedia:Pages needing attention? --zandperl 14:23, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My impression was that Pages needing attention is a place to list articles you find that need help whilst Peer review is for your own articles when you want feedback. Angela. 20:49, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, look like it's been cleared up a bit in the two pages' headers. I'll see if I can't make it even more obvious.  :) --zandperl 23:30, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Refactor by topic ?

The list of requests for peer review is rather long, and visitors may not take the time to read the full list to find an article they can contribute to. A classification of those requests (using sub-heading) would greatly help. Why not use the list of topics on the wikipedia main page as the classification principle ? (I'm not directly interested to update the page myself, but I guess anybody could; an "Other" category would capture all the requests that are not classified yet). Pcarbonn 20:48, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would go futher and suggest sub-pages for different disciplines, that way users would be more likely to add Peer review to their watchlists, for example, I'd watch "WP:Peer reviews/Biology", and "Peer review/United Kingdom", but not the whole peet review page.. --Steinsky 00:15, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Time limit to detect dead requests ?

I have reviewed the Removing requests from this list policy, and I find it too weak: it fails when the requestor has left the wikipedia community (which I hope does not happen often...). As a result, the list of requests starts with what seems like dead requests, not an engaging thing for potential reviewers (like me) (on top of that, the list is very long, see topic above).

So, we would need a way to detect dead requests. I think that only a time limit would do it. It could work like this:

• any entry without a time stamp would be moved to the "dead request" area, with the time stamp of today
• anybody could move an entry older than the stated time limit to the "dead request" section
• the requestor would have to repost his entry to extend the time limit (he can do so before it is moved out, of course)

The advantage is that a reviewer would have some kind of assurance that the requestor is still listening...

Do you agree that there are some dead requests ? How should they be handled ? Do you agree that there should be a time limit ? What should it be ? One month ? Do you see a problem if I change the description of the peer review process accordingly ? Pcarbonn 21:00, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Inconsistency

I've been scolded for not properly formatting my entry on this page, and I have a problem with that because:

• The current entries are formatted in different ways
• Virtually none of them conform to what it says at the top of the page:
  • It says to add a topic like this: "== [[Topic]] ===". When I did this (though without the extra equals sign), my entry got converted to a different format ("== Topic ==" then "[[Item:Topic]] - [[Talk:Topic]]"
  • There is no mention of the practice of using the terms "Item:", "Discussion on:", "Description:", but these are (inconsistently) applied.

etc.

— Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 20:35, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Make more like FAC

One of the big problems with this page is that it looks dead. I suggest putting new entries at top and have the discussion here instead of the article's talk page (the talk will be archived there, though). I'll do this myself in a few days if nobody objects. If there are objections, then we will have to form a consensus on what to do. --00:29, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I support this idea. It would also be good to mention that it's the responsibility of the person who lists the page to transfer any discussion to the Talk: page upon delisting. — Matt 00:38, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would support that, the FAC process is much more engaging and interesting. Peer review the way it is now never seems to gather much attention for each article. - Taxman 12:19, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

Definitely support! Every time I use peer review, *nothing* happens. This page is nearly worthless, and next to that, it's not even as well known or publicised as other pages. Johnleemk | Talk 12:01, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Besides the author's suggestions, I think there should be a {{pr}} template for putting on talk pages, which might expand to something like:

This article is currently being peer reviewed, a step to reaching featured status. If you have any pertinent comments, they may be of more use on the peer review page.

Sounds good, but I'm a little unsure about "a step to reaching FA status". Certainly, it's wise to consider Peer Review before nominating an article on WP:FAC. However, I think Peer Review should be more than just a "class of article", like Featured Articles are. It should also be more than just a staging area / rite of passage for Featured Articles: maybe someone would want comments on the best way to structure a "List of" article; maybe someone wants feedback on an illustration, maybe someone wants peer review on an entire class of articles etc. — Matt 15:58, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Besides that, the comments ought to be seamlessly merged with the article's talk page once the peer review period is over, for purposes of preservation (though this may be feature creep, but I think of peer review as a page merely for people to hold a more public/well-known discussion of an article, which would have been just as valid if it was on the article's talk). Johnleemk | Talk 12:32, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. Good move. Oh, and if we're going to make it more like FAC, sorting the articles in descending rather than ascending order would be much better, IMHO. Ambi 12:38, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This looks excellent, and is the kind of change that would make me far more interested in participating in peer review, both as a requester and a reviewer. :-) Jwrosenzweig 16:22, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sounds great. I would participate. No need for {{pr}} tag. It must be clear how articles leave this page and where they go. Most articles will not go on to FAC, and it wouldn't be good if this page filled up with articles that aren't getting anywhere. Gdr 22:15, 2004 Aug 5 (UTC)

Here an idea for another way to implement the same thing. This page (Wikipedia:Peer review) could be organized like Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, with each discussion occurring on its own subpage and being included via the template system. For example, the first time the article Foo gets peer reviewed the discussion would go into Talk:Foo/Review1; the second time in Talk:Foo/Review2 and so on. This would make archiving the review at the end of the process trivial and it would reduce edit conflicts too. Gdr 22:15, 2004 Aug 5 (UTC)

I support this idea. Johnleemk | Talk 05:55, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I support this idea too. Pcarbonn 21:44, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Seeing as there have been no objections, I have implemented a system similar to FAC's. Johnleemk | Talk 09:02, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This strikes me as a bad idea. Peer review and featured article candidacy have different objectives, and so they should be organized differently. WP:FAC is a forum for voting on the requirements for articles. Peer review is a process expected to take a fair amount of time, with little public discussion needed. It's more sensible to keep discussions on article talk pages; not only are individual pages easier to watch, but there's also no reason to move the discussion later. --Eequor 22:26, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Additionally, you've broken the "post a new request" link: new sections are automatically added at the bottom of pages, rather than the top. --Eequor 22:29, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One of the goals of peer review is to create featured articles. FAC and PR are mostly the same, except you can throw any article at PR. Besides, discussion here makes people feel more like joining in. Comments can help advertise an otherwise unassuming article. Btw, I think somebody's fixed the new section link problem. Thanks anyway. Johnleemk | Talk 06:54, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To tell you from the German experience: our discussion in the Peer-Review is on the review page, we have a not in the article that it is being reviewed and articles get delisted from the review-section about two weeks after the discussion has died down. and IMHO it works brilliantly. It is not only for featured articles but I would guess by now about 70-80% of the new featured articles have gone through the review first. -- Zeitgeist 00:19, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To follow up on this, I noticed part of the reason peer review doesn't get as much attention as FAC is that there is no standard notice placed on the article talk pages requesting editors go see the peer review discussion. What would it take to create something like {{pr}} that expands similarly to {{fac}} ? - Taxman 20:29, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)

Edit template:peerreview to create something to insert with {{peerreview}} - David Gerard 23:00, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How's that for a start? - Taxman 23:35, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)

Policy for delisting?

Now that this is being run more like FAC, should we have a policy that a listing should be removed here when it is listed on FAC? It could then be moved back here if it fails FAC. I see it has been done already for some, but wanted some consensus before continuing that practice. - Taxman 21:42, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

Well, after no objection, I did that. Anything recently becoming a featured article, I've delisted from peer review. - Taxman 23:26, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

Well its a one man coversation here, but here goes. I think to make Peer review more valuable, someone needs to be willing to implement suggestions made by reviewers. The person making the listing should at least help with that. I think a good policy change would be that if there are comments that are not responded to by the lister after a reasonable time such as a week, then the listing should be removed. That will help make a much more vibrant process. Again, if no consensus objections, I will add the policy change to the PR-instructions template and monitor the page for removals. In the beginning at least, I will leave a comment on the lister's talk page to let them know there are old, un answered comments on the Peer review page. As noted in the above conversation, I have already created a template to add to the talk page of each article being peer reviewed, to help draw in editors to the process. - Taxman 14:45, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Template

Originally at the village pump

Why are the instructions in a template? They're only used on one page, which is not protected.--Eloquence*

This used to be to expedite the process of adding new requests, as the page was not sectioned at the time. A similar approach was taken to FAC (but I don't know why, since they did and do have sections). Although it's no longer needed, if it ain't broken, why fix it? Johnleemk | Talk 10:20, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, given that the sections in the template break the section counter and therefore section editing, I'd say it's broken and should be fixed.--Eloquence*

Poorly designed

The Add a new request link is quite useless. As the section it links to contains all the following sections, nearly the entire article must be edited to add a request. Currently the article is 79k. Not only does this make editing tedious over slow connections, but it's also in violation of the 32k guideline. The previous layout was much more usable. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 12:11, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Additionally, since that section and its [edit] link are immediately below Add a new request anyway, the extra link is extremely silly. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 12:25, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Delisting again

(See Taxman's "Policy for delisting" above, from August 2004—not a very lively page, this!) The instructions near the top of the page invite me to remove requests more than a month old, but not specifically to remove the other kinds of requests that uselessly swell the list: current FA:s, current FAC:s, and articles where the requester hasn't responded to comments. For those, the instructions are more enigmatically that they “will be removed”, or that the requester is invited to remove them. Since quite a few listings apparently fall through the meshes of this system—at a glance, Corporation tax, MTR, Web traffic, Common Unix Printing System and Aquarium are all on FAC right now —perhaps the instructions ought more forcefully to invite everybody to remove any listing that's outlived its usefulness? I'm far from sure right now if it would be proper for me to go in and {{sofixit}} myself, and remove the FAC listings that I see; on the other hand, having the list this long and partly dead is surely bad for interest and morale.
Speaking of morale, it's bad for dynamics and discouraging for reviewers if there's no feedback to comments, compare right now Vermont, Eric W. Weisstein, Richard Blumenthal, French phonology and orthography, Municipality of Strathfield, History of the Strathfield area, Etty Hillesum, Autism, Korean Buddhism, and The Passion of the Christ (Hello, Ta Bu Shi Da Yu, several of those listings are yours), which in many cases also have not even been edited since receiving comments. Perhaps the instructions need to contain a more direct and upbeat exhortation to the requesters to please remember to watchlist the page when they've posted a request—something more concrete than the present claim that the listing will be removed if you haven't responded within a week. OK, even though I worry about instruction creep and having the top-of-the-page stuff grow so long that nobody'll read it, I've boldly added a short sentence about watchlisting in the “How to make a request” section. Dear reader, just take it out if you don't approve. I'd appreciate some response to my other points—Taxman, are you still there, or did you get tired of the one-man conversation ?--Bishonen | Talk 13:31, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ya, three of the current ones are mine. I have, however, since edited Municipality of Strathfield to try to resolve an objection. I'm not sure if it's FAC worthy yet, however. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:26, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I concur fully with all of your points. One thing I experienced myself is the fact that too much entries scarcely get comments. In the past, I've had this with Gbe languages (was listed two weeks without getting one comment) and Force Dynamics (got a thorough copyedit session by User:MIT Trekkie, but no further comments). I've been trying to remedy this by reviewing other articles myself. If everyone did this, it should work, right? — mark ✎ 15:03, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and another thing: is it a good idea to encourage removal of listings that clearly don't meet the purpose of peer review (like some of RickK's recent questions about advertising or copyvio's)? I think it is. — mark ✎ 15:23, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think it is, but for current FAC's at least there is (so far) no consensus to remove, but I would be for that too. Then lest them relist if it fails FAC. The duplication of comments are often ignored, wasting everyone's efforts. - Taxman 17:26, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

I fully support your aims of revitalizing WP:PR, but we need to figure out how to do it and reduce the voluminous instructions the page now has. Yes I did just get tired of talking to myself. I think we should remove the policy part to a separate page that we point to only if people question what happened, and leave only the most important instructions. Overall, the best thing for PR would be to have both more comments and more responses from listers. One way to do that is to remove listings that have had no response to comments by the lister. I have simply not enforced that policy because I had not gotten much seconding from anyone on it. Another way is to remove innapropriate listings as Mark has mentioned. The only tough part there is you need to have a policy that can back you up that people have agreed on. That is instruction creep which is bad, but maybe that is why we should have policy on a separate page such as WP:PR/Policy. Finally short instructions that do make it clear to the lister it is their responsibility to help implement suggestions. I haven't even been consistently adding the template to listed articles talk pages to let other editors know it is on PR. That needs to be done too. Agree/disagree/thoughts? - Taxman 17:26, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean that you're in charge of Peer review, to the extent of feeling responsible for adding the template...? The listers are supposed to add it, aren't they? A separate policy page plus very simple instructions on PR itself seems like a brilliant idea to me. But what I don't understand is how we're ever going to get any number of people to "agree on" any Peer review policy at all, considering the look and the date stamps on this Talk page: how're you even going to tell people that a policy is up for discussion? The policy section of the Village Pump...? (Frankly, though, do people read that?) Lack of interest in this (or any) page is a bit of a circular problem, I guess. People go to WP:FAC and take part in the process because they're interested in the process--they don't do it just when they want to nominate something of their own, which seems to be the case, and kind of a self-perpetuating problem, on PR. At least, I'm afraid that's exactly what I did myself: I've been reviewing some entries recently because I've got one of my own up now (fruitlessly, Shakespeare's reputation). I think you're doing a very useful thing, Taxman, in mentioning PR a lot on WP:FAC and trying to get people to to use PR as a stepping-stone to FAC; I wish I could think of some other ideas for enlivening PR. It could/should be a very important and helpful process.--Bishonen | Talk 22:11, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've not been deemed in charge, but my general philosophy is that if I know how to do something the way it should be done and no one else does it, I should. Of course the listers are supposed to, but currently few do I think. Shorter, clearer instructions would help a lot. Don't worry about waiting for lots of people to weigh in on this, we are talking about really non controversial changes--basically enforcing policy that is already there for the most part and clarifying for the rest. I wont have a chance to split the policy stuff off until perhaps sometime tonight if I am lucky, but have a go at it if you have a chance. Having the instructions be the shortest they can possibly be, but get the aims of PR accross and the mechanics would be good. - Taxman 23:30, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

I've been toying with ideas to freshen up PR myself, as I am disappointed both by the level of feedback on PR as compared to FAC (substantive edits should not be made while on FAC, in my opinion — that's what PR is for), and my inability to parse PR effectively to give feedback on articles eventually headed to FAC, which I'd like to do (Bishonen, Shakespeare's rep is on my list!!!). One idea I came up with is to categorize PR — by status, not by topic. For example, we could have a "Future FAC" category, with subheadings corresponding to how much work needs to be done: e.g. "Someday I'd like this to be on FAC", "This article is halfway to FAC", and "Just stopping in for a final checkup before FAC". Other categories could include requests for PR following an edit war or POV edit; single-author articles in search of broader input; articles needing detective work on fact checking, possible copyvios, or advertising; etc. Alternatively, we could keep the FAC categories only, and be more forceful about directing other PR requests to more appropriate lists including Needs Attention, Needs Cleanup, etc. My hunch is that if PR were really the final filter before FAC it would get a lot more attention than it does now, serving as a catch-all for people looking for help. Bantman 23:02, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

I think we should take the steps Bishonen and I have outlined above first then come back to the bit more extensive changes you have outlined if we can get more support for them. Lets see how delisting innapropriate and 'ingnored by the poster' listings, and clearer instructions work first? Are you ok with that in the short term? I would like to make a smaller set of changes first because I believe they will work very well. Thanks - Taxman 23:30, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I support this plan (is this turning into a vote?). Let's give the first set of changes some time; I know my ideas are more radical, so lets shelve them for a month or so and see if more changes are still needed then. Bantman 00:14, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

I support this plan too. — mark ✎ 00:19, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is a unanimous vote from all contributors to this talk page over the last 100 days.  :) Bantman 00:35, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that WP:PR is not as effective as it could be. Perhaps we need to split peer review into at least two parts:

1. a mandatory period of pre-FAC review ("purgatory"?) - I think this is what they do on the German wikipedia, where <stereotype>the rules seem to be much stricter and the process seems to be organised much more efficiently</stereotype> - for example, there is a "article review of the day" on the main page (a bit like a daily WP:COTW), and FAC failures can be sent back for further review, and
2. a request for more input for not-yet-near-FAC articles (although query whether this is any different to adding template:expansion?).

-- ALoan (Talk) 19:32, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Transcluding has been done

In order to keep track of peer review better, and in order to maintain the page more easily, I have converted the page to a transclude mechanism, similar to WP:FAC. Please use this mechanism for peer review! - Ta bu shi da yu 08:30, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Cool, I think it's a big improvement. I have a few questions though. What should be done to remove a listing? If you only remove the line from Peer Review page, the subpage still exists. That's not always OK I think — I can imagine an article brought up a second time, in that case its subpage is already taken. Oh well, then it can be reused of course (I don't know how they do that on WP:FAC). But what if I just want to remove a clearly wrong listing (like someone's IP, listed to ask the peer reviewers to check his contributions)? The subpage is of no use in that case as I don't see the need for archiving that sort of listings. Regarding archiving entries: is that done by simply moving the line {{Wikipedia:Peer review/Name of article}} to the archive page? — mark ✎ 09:15, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The easiest way of archiving entries is to move that one line to the archive page (do we have one?). To relist an entry, I'd suggest doing a page move to a subpage that hangs off the Wikipedia:Peer review/Name of article/Peer review n and change the links that point to it. Then replace the redirect and put in your request for peer review, with a link to the old page. With useless pages, ask for it to be removed on WP:AN and an admin will delete it if need be. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:23, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Further: I've transcluded 2 of the archive pages. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:32, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Relisting? Is there a policy on this?

I've just relisted one of my pet-pages, which I hope will get some more responces now than when I did it the first time. However, it left me wondering if there is any policies vs. relisting of pages? WegianWarrior 10:10, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There is no policy against it. Just out of respect for other editors time please make sure you have substantially improved the article since the last time you listed it, as you have clearly done in this case. - Taxman 19:43, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

"OldPeerReview" labels ...

are popping up on "discussion" pages, including those of articles which have risen to "featured article" status. Sometimes this label has been put ABOVE the "featured" label. This seems to invite unnecessary scrutiny by not necessarily qualified critics of articles which (in the case of two which I worked lots on) have just gone successfully through the gauntlet of FAC. I understand that "peer review" may help a foundering article, but what purpose does this "after-the-fact" labelling of quality articles serve? Sfahey 02:00, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Uh, it shows that perhaps you don't understand the purpose of peer review? Or the template? Peer review is there for any article, featured or no, as all articles can be changed at any time. The purpose of the oldpeerreview tag is to allow others to see what comments have been made about the article on peer review. I can't see where a problem is. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:17, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It serves to show that previous peer review does not always leave an article in a poor state.--Silverback 07:35, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I can see some reasons to add a label like this, but I think it is too obtrusive. Three lines of text at the top of the page, the icon, italic type, a line below it. Why not just add it as a section to the Talk, like I did on Talk:French_phonology_and_orthography? Of course, then it would be archived after some time, but I think it becomes less relevant anyway as time goes by, just like any discussion that takes place on the Talk of an article.

Besides, I think the notice is only worth something when Peer Review has been good for the article (I mean, when people actually took the time to comment on an article). Gbe languages, for example, has the "oldpeerreview" notice, but it received no comments when it was on Peer Review. That's not helping anyone, it's only confusing. I say: first solve that problem, then think about adding labels like this. — mark ✎ 08:32, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Either the original submitter withdrew it, or it was on peer review longer than a month, or it has been submitted to featured article candidates." – this should not be appearing on featured articles! Perhaps a reword or a second template is in order. violet/riga (t) 09:22, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd say that it is not relevant at all why the article is no longer on Peer Review. All one would want to say is that it has been on Peer Review and that its listing there resulted in the following comments: 'insert comments here'. — mark ✎ 10:08, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Talk:List of women poets has one and it has a red link. I can't believe that this list was even on Peer review. I created the list and am certain I never listed it. I have to ask, what benefit is an article supposed to get from having this tag added to its talk page? Filiocht 12:31, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah? Did you bother to check the archives? See Wikipedia:Peer_review/Archive_1#List_of_women_poets. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:38, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sheesh. Sorry for making the template. Someone could have alerted me to this talk. Do what you want with it, I don't really give a damn. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:36, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

For whatever it is worth, I find the template usefull. It let me know if an article has been peer reviewed, and makes it easier to find the discussion on it if it has. At the same time, I can understand that some people don't want to see it on a featured article (allthought, to me, it means that more people has looked over it before it was listed on FAC).WegianWarrior 08:00, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We still have the problem of articles that didn't get comments during their PR request. Whatever template we use is useless in that case. I'd rather like to solve that problem first, but thinking about a template like this seems a good idea to me nonetheless. So my proposal would be:

1. Layout just as any other comment on the talk page, so starting with a level 2 heading like ==Peer review== (or whatever title seems more appropriate). Not at the top of the page, that's confusing. In fact, the easiest way to add it would be to use the 'Add comment' feature.
2. Something along the lines of This article's peer review request has been archived., providing a link to the old request (if that is needed at all — remember that it would be only confusing if an article comes on PR for a second time). Next to that, something along the lines of Below, you can find the original request along with the comments it resulted in:
3. Just insert the request and the comments it received in that section, by using {{subst:Wikipedia:Peer review/{{PAGENAME}}}}. The headings will nest nicely, so it will look good in the TOC. Of course, the linked subheading will look ugly. Nothing to do about that. The subst inserts the content of that page as wikitext, so as to prevent a possible new PR request from displaying as if it is old. Additionally, the rationale behind just 'substing' the comments like this is that only those are relevant about the article having gone through PR. Old PR request pages should not be revived; any discussion that could take place on a PR request after it has been archived should take place on the talk page of the article itself.
4. Maybe some line saying End of PR request would be good, I'm not sure about that.
5. Of course, all of this can be put into a template.

What do people think? — mark ✎ 15:20, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The old peer review labels can be a bit annoying, especially if someone wants to resubmit the article for peer review after some cleanup, as I did with the Salt Lake City, Utah article. I archived the Old peer review and put a link to it on the talk page, then the next day, the peer review label had been changed to old peer review. I changed it back, and then someone else reverted thatThere should be some consideration for resubmissions. [jon] [talk] 17:51, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't really see the need for "OldPeerReview" labels. What does it mean, other than that one user once asked for outside advice. Any comments from Peer Review can be pasted into the article's talk page, jguk 19:04, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Jguk, JonMoore, I think I adressed this two points in my proposal (see #2 and #3). Jguk, see also WegianWarrior's point above about the usefulness of the labels (if an article is on FAC, it can be relevant to know that it has been on Peer Review before). — mark ✎ 22:10, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Mark, I saw your points, I just disagree with them. All the best, jguk 22:21, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Delisting again again

P. S. to "Delisting again" discussion above: I've removed the policy statement "In order to make peer review a more dynamic and valuable process, if you list a request for peer review and do not respond after a reasonable period such as a week to comments made here by reviewers, then the listing will also be removed", since it's clearly not current policy. [1] [2]. That's it from me, I don't need the frustration. I'll just go respond to FAC listings like everybody else. Bishonen | Talk 09:03, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree the solution is to remove that bit of policy, but instead to make sure we have agreement to follow it. I believe everyone agrees PR needs some help, and that is one of the ways to make it more dynamic. I'm sorry I have not done much in implementing the points in the above discussions on this issue, but I have just been busy with real life. I will do what I can, but please don't remove that bit of policy without consensus to do it. - Taxman 14:46, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

My edit to Template:PR-instructions is just as easy to revert as my edits to Peer review were. Roll 'em all back, I have no objection. Bishonen | Talk 15:03, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe in reverts unless the edit is blatantly worse than without it such as vandalism. Since your view is open to debate and agreement by others I prefer to discuss first. That is basically what the revert policy says and if people actually followed that there would be a lot less discord on Wikipedia. In any case, with your assent I will replace the removed policy bits, and remove again the listings that have no response from the lister after at least a week, as the policy says. - Taxman 19:04, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Trimming the instructions and trimming the list

I suggest that peer review instructions at the top of the page should aim to be as concise as those for FAC (which only stay that way because Raul keeps ruthlessly trimming them). The huge "Ways to fix a page" infobox alone makes that impossible. We should get rid of it. I would also like to remove the "Featured article tools" box, as peer review doesn't urgently need links to for instance "Featured article removal candidates" or "Today's featured article". It does need links to for instance WP:FAC and to "Featured article criteria", but these are already in the "Path to a featured article" box, which I propose we keep.

I agree with Taxman above (under "Delisting again") that "Policy" would be better on a separate page, WP:PR/Policy, with a link to it. If it were, it could be fuller than now, without weighting down the top of the peer review page.

Policy changes: I hope we may be approaching consensus for removing not merely Featured articles but also Featured article candidates from the list, compare Ta Bu Shi Da Yu's most recent emendation of the "Important notice". This notice is at the moment somewhat at odds with the stated "Policy", and I suggest we produce a fit by emending the policy.

I also suggest the policy should explicitly encourage users to perform these removals themselves, rather than stating a little mysteriously that stale listings "will be removed" (especially since latterly they haven't been). Compare my original uncertainty about what I was/wasn't allowed to do in the way of removing listings, expressed in my first post above! ("Delisting again") It's not good for morale to leave such areas of doubt. But please note that if we encourage everybody to do it, we also need to have cautions about checking whether a lister has really been ignoring comments, since there are other conceivable ways of responding to comments than by replying on peer review. (Instruction creep, but then that's why the policy needs to be on a separate page.)

Please help edit the instructions! There's not a lot of traffic on this talk page, so I'm not planning to wait for a huge amount of input to my suggestions. If there are no protests and nobody else does any editing, I will edit the instructions, as outlined, tomorrow--well, in 24+ hours. Please don't flip if you see those changes before you see these suggestions! I'll be quite happy to revert them all. Bishonen | Talk 08:55, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is not a protest :). Glad you're back at PR, I support your plans. — mark ✎ 09:32, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Go for it. What you said above is more or less inline with the previous consensus on the topic. Any disagreements can be handled by tweeking after the major changes have been done. That way we can get it done and not waste time, but still make most people happy. - Taxman 15:12, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

I also say go for it :-) I'm happy to have things clarified! Incidently, glad to see you back on Peer review again! - Ta bu shi da yu 03:54, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, guys, it's done. Tweak away. Bishonen | Talk 09:08, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good work :-) Ta bu shi da yu 09:25, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! It's a tiny deal, but what was the point of moving that bit of text from the template to the page? The disadvantage is that it makes the "Purge cache" link and the "shortcut" thing harder to find, and, well, kind of uglier. (Compare WP:FAC, I was following that exactly.) I don't exactly see the advantage. But that could be me, I'm kind of hazy about the point of having a template at all. Bishonen | Talk 11:59, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ta bu? I was asking you. Bishonen | Talk 00:16, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Bish, didn't see the question. I'm not fussed where it goes! I just want a lead section on the page, that's all. It doesn't matter technically where the purge link goes. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:33, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm thinking maybe you had a cache issue, because the lead was there all along. I'll try changing it back and be sure to purge the server cache when I get back from work, gotta go now. Bishonen | Talk 06:42, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Trimming the oldpeerreview tag

The oldpeerreview tag didn't fully cover the new policy, so I've edited it to read:

This article's peer review request has been archived. Either the original submitter withdrew it, or it was classed as an inactive request. Edit this article in any way you see fit to make it better, as the reviewers may still be watching. Bishonen | Talk 16:27, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

WTF?

As a long time maintainer of this page, it's taken me a while to track down who got rid of the peer review instructions template! But, it appears that it was 119. See [3]. I'm putting our instructions back. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:08, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is not your page and I am not a vandal. You have given no justification for maintaining 'your' version. Why? Simply saying "I'm putting our instructions back" as though you were gatekeeper and any change is bad is ridiculous. 119 08:36, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Your"? Why don't you read what I wrote? It's our. SEVERAL editors have been working out the instructions. If you want to know where the justification is for maintain this version, why don't you read the rest of the talk page? Rant out. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:17, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You are not a vandal, that's for sure. But Wikipedia is a collaborative project. Did you consider announcing your plans here first and talking them through with other editors? If you read the Talk page, you will find that it has cost quite some thought and energy to make the instructions into what they were before you pruned them. — mark ✎ 09:55, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yep. That's my point. You'll have to excuse my annoyance, but both Bishonen and myself have spent quite a bit of time on this page, and to have 119 come and just take away the peer review instructions like he did is quite a) insulting and b) rude. You'll notice this talk page had lots of discussion about the instructions. It took us a long time to get to where we were on this page. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:15, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Added: a little instruction creep

I've added this sentence to the "How to make a request" section in the template: The best way to get lots of reviews is to reply promptly and appreciatively on this page to the comments you do get. Apologies for the instruction creep, but all posters want lots of reviews, and this simple tip does work. Some have figured it out (User:Worldtraveller comes to mind) and nearly always get good response, others haven't, and are left sadly wondering why comment on their listing peters out so soon. All we need now is a tip for posters who never get that crucial first response. --Bishonen | talk 10:34, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)