Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Abandoned Articles/Archives/2006/12

Help

If anyone knows more about wiki code (or wahtever it's called) than me (which isn't much), could they maybe make this page look better? Ninety^wazup?

What do you want fixed? Sr13 01:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. It's fixed  :) Ninety^wazup? 19:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Policy for Release of Articles

When an articles has effectively been "saved" by this project, then should it be removed from the project, or kept for some other reasons? Ninety^wazup? 22:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

it is likely an article adopted, such as i did with human voice would have all tags removed by that person as part of the labour of love. Good idea for a project by the way.--I'll bring the food 19:09, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Categorizing

I noticed that when I put the WikiProject Paranormal userbox on my page, it automatically categorized me as a member of that project. How can we get that to happen with this project's userbox? Ninety^wazup? 22:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

On the page for the template, insert <includeonly>[[Category:WikiProject Abandoned Articles participants]]</includeonly>, or whatever category you want to call it, at the bottom of the page and create the category. –The Great Llama^moo? 23:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

How long?

The main page says that the length of time before an article can be considered "abandoned" is as yet undecided. Should we just figure that out now, right here? Ninety^wazup? 23:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• I say we look for articles that haven't been edited and/or visited in more than 3 months, and, once found, we vote here to decide if it should be accepted. Ninety^wazup? 23:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
• I believe that for an article to be considered "abandoned", it should have not been edited for over six months and must be in stub status. Voting may take a while, once this new project is "brought out in the field." I have provided a link below about reeeaaally old and unedited articles in the section "A message to all members". Sr13 05:47, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Sr13's post above on this issue. Some articles without stub status may also need it as part of the process.--I'll bring the food 19:11, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

What process? Ninety^wazup? 15:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

How to Check How Long

How do you check when the last time an article was visited was? Ninety^wazup? 00:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's a way. The closest thing to that would be checking the "history" tab, but that only shows the last edit. –The Great Llama^moo? 00:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Given the volume of visits, I doubt very much that the Wikimedia Foundation is going to provide a data dump of their logs of readers - in fact, I'd be rather astonished if they KEEP any such logs past a week or so. Edits - yes, those are kept more or less indefinitely, but visits (reads) - nah, don't think can be done. (And I think we're talking petabytes of data in any case - who is going to run such a query?)

More constructively, why not start with a long elapsed time for last edit - say, since June 1, 2006. If such a list is only 100 articles (I'd bet a small amount of money it's actually in the thousands, if not ten thousands), then pull a list of articles with no edits since a later date, say, since July 15, 2006. But if the first list comes back with thousands of articles, then that's a great starting place. John Broughton | Talk 16:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I just got an idea! Even though there isn't a log of visits to articles, we could maybe put something on the talk page for adopted articles (like in the talk page template) that requests for users that visit the page to sign there name, allowing us to get some information about visitation to the page. Ninety^wazup? 20:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Another thing I thought of has to do with those "counters" that people sometimes put on there websites to count the number of visits that they get. Maybe we could put a hidden version of these on Wikipedia pages, and make a special page that lists the articles with the least number of visits. Ninety^wazup? 18:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

A message to all members

This is a great place to revive abandoned articles: link. Hope this helps. Sr13 01:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The link is to a list of the 1000 articles with oldest "last edit". The listed articles have last edits that go from from November 2004 (#1) to April 2005 (#1000).

The list was last generated on 2 December. If the project wants to use this list, as is, rather than getting a data dump to post to a project page and edit actively, some suggestions:

• Create a table that divides the list into (say) groups of 10 (in that case, a table with 100 rows), with a column for a user to "claim" a group of 10 and another column to report completion of the review of the group of 10. That way, editors don't duplicate the review work.
• When reviewing an article, an editor should make a change to it, no matter how small, whether the article is fine as is or not, so that it is not in the next data dump (early January?).
• Only articles that need further work should get the "abandoned article" template added to the talk page.
• When a new data dump occurs, the table will need to be redone (simpliest is just to delete the names of editors and reported completion dates, and start fresh with the new list, even if an editor has done part of a block of articles.) John Broughton | Talk 16:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Great suggestions! Don't you think that the table should be done right after the next monthly data dump? Sr13 05:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the table may normally be built every two or three days, but has not been in the past month: [1]. If it is more frequently refreshed, this approach will probably not work unless the article names are copied to the table as well, I think. In any case, I think we should try starting when the table is rebuilt. John Broughton | Talk 21:51, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Article Suggestion

How about Brevard County School District? Would it count as "abandoned?" Ninety^wazup? 20:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we should consider picking abandoned articles until we...

• accurately define an "abandoned article" (done)
• find a process in which it is easier to pick out "abandoned articles" (may be done at Special:Ancientpages, per suggestion above)
• achieve enough members and concensus with the two goals above. (done)

Once these three goals are reached, the project has a rolling start. That's just what I think. Sr13 02:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Now that consensus has been reached, it seems like the newly elected rules make this article not count as "abandoned." Ninety^wazup? 18:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Directory

Besides the WikiProject Directory are there any other places to find lists of WikiProjects? Also, are any of these lists automatically generated, or will we have to manually list this project on them all to advertise this and get more members. Ninety^wazup? 20:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're even THINKING about advertising this project by posting on the talk pages of other projects, you need to read WP:SPAM first. John Broughton | Talk 01:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The best things to do are to consult the WikiProject Guide, place the project on the list of new projects on the Community Portal, and maybe contact a few other projects which seem to have the majority of articles which seem to be abandoned. You could also always place the banners of the appropriate project, if there is one, on the article to draw attention to it from that project. Personally, I think that might be the best way to go, possibly with an additional proposal to some of the larger projects, Military history, Biography, Australia, etc., to maybe create in them a task force or work group for abandoned articles. I think at least some of them might go for it. Also, if there are a number of articles which fall within the range of an existing field which does not yet have a separate WikiProject, proposing a project for that field would probably work as well. I know that that's why I've proposed so many regional projects on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals page myself. Certainly, if you find that there are significantly areas of wikipedia which have no project guiding them, that is probably the best way to go. Badbilltucker 23:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Tool for finding articles - Special:abandonedarticles

I would greatly appreciate a special page that displays the articles that haven't been seen in the longest amount of time. Special:ancientpages displays the oldest articles by creation date, but many of those are in very good shape. The tool I propose, Special:abandonedarticles, would allow us to find articles that nobody has read in a long time. This could also be a tool to prevent unseen vandalism that has slipped through the cracks, like that of Seigenthaler's. I'm guessing pages that haven't been accessed in a long time are not very well categorized or linked to either, so that could be fixed as well. I want esoteric pages to be good quality, even if they aren't looked up very often. How would we go about creating this tool? -Kslays 21:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Such a tool requires that the wiki software record, for each article, the date last read. So the first question is whether in fact this is the case. If such a field exists and is used, then this special page seems feasible. Otherwise, I don't think this is possible - it would require that the Wikimedia Foundation have retained web logs of reader visits for months (terabytes of data), and that someone provide machine time for crunching the data.

To answer the first question, you might start here or here, looking for the metadata that specifies what fields are in fact available. John Broughton | Talk 01:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Based on this very recent discussion, either (a) such a field doesn't exist, or (b) most of the technical discussion was uninformed. John Broughton | Talk 20:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Consensus

I firmly believe we should decide two things in this section: the length of time that the article has not been edited and whether the article should be restricted to stubs or not. Sr13 22:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

LENGTH OF TIME

Oldest 1000 articles

• Umm - with all due respect, if we don't have a way of getting anything but the oldest 1000 articles (see above), then why are we discussing anything about length of time since last edit? If we have no choice but to use the most recent 1000, then we have no choice. And, in any case, why wouldn't we want to start with the oldest?

• I've changed my mind...again...per above. Sr13 (T|C) 08:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Month

Two months

• Ninety agrees with this standpoint (3 months).

Six months

• I'll bring the food agrees with this standpoint.

---

No intact consensus, but John Broughton does have the strongest point. We can't tackle any more efficient way to pick out articles. I want to end the discussion quick, so it ends 2-0-1-1.

Year

RESTRICTION TO STUBS?

Yes

No

• I was originally thinking that the definition of "abandoned" should mean that the article has not been visited and/or edited in a long time, not that they are necessarily in bad condition, although these can be included. In other words, the way that many will be improved is not through our own work, but through the work of those who we find that would find interest in these abandoned articles (our work would be to locate users who might want to visit and/or edit these articles and effectively bring them "back to life"). Anyhow, aren't there articles that haven't been used (edited and/or visited) in a long time that are in great condition? Ninety^wazup? 19:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• As for stubs or not, what if we find a lengthy article (non-stub) that isn't sourced? More generally, perhaps we could start with a test/pilot/experiment, and then have a discussion of actual cases. Or take 10 or 20 examples from the oldest 1000 list, put them into a table, and discuss them? John Broughton | Talk 17:16, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• We want to edit articles that can be improved, not ones that aren't stubs. Sr13 03:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC) Channged my mind per above. Sr13 (T|C) 08:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'll bring the food agrees with this standpoint.

---

I believe there is enough consensus to say that the abandoned articles should not be restricted to stubs because of the co-founder's (Ninety) statement of "abandoned" and I am convinced enough to say that the rest of the community may follow suit. Sr13 (T|C) 08:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

---

Results were-

• oldest articles for length of time
• no restriction to stubs

If anyone wishes to contest this, please say so on this talk page. Discussion has ended. Sr13 (T|C) 07:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Something I found

Should these articles be of inclusion to this Wikiproject, or should it be of inclusion in another WikiProject? Sr13 (T|C) 08:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure what requested articles (that is, articles that don't exist, and would have to be written from scratch) have to do with abandoned articles (those that exist, but may have been abandoned because they really should be deleted or merged). John Broughton | Talk 16:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that some of the oldest pages are disambigs. This may slow the collaboration process. What should we do? Sr13 (T|C) 21:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see the problem. I suggest "touching" a disambiguation page in some way (trivial edit) to change the last date edited, and then checking it off the list and moving on to something else. I think it's good to have a few easy cases to handle; I suspect most old disambiguation pages are fine as is.

Alternatively, someone could volunteer as a disambiguation specialist, to do a google search or two to improve such pages. John Broughton | Talk 02:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

When you mentioned claiming sections earlier, were you referring to a system such as this? Sr13 (T|C) 06:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, I'm sure that many of those old disambig pages are high traffic, just nobody finds a need to change them, as there is usually not much info that can be updated for them. Ninety^wazup? 17:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Sr13 - exactly; split the task into chunks that one editor can "claim". I personally think smaller chunks are better - so for a list of 1000 articles, I suggest 100 "chunks" of 10 articles each. John Broughton | Talk 02:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

You might've noticed...I'm starting a dry run on this system, dealing with only 50 articles chomped into 5 pieces... Sr13 (T|C) 11:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe request a bot?

I think that you might be able to get someone to create a bot at Wikipedia:Bot requests to indicate at least the last time a given article was modified, if not read. That might be of some use to the members of this project. By the way, you are now listed on the Project Directory and on the Community Portal for the next week. I'd try to help myself, but my hands are kinda full right now. Badbilltucker 20:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea. Maybe we could create a sort of "watchlist" specifically for this project, so that we can easily check the stats on the project's articles without having to check them all individually. Ninety^wazup? 15:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:30, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused!

What does all this claiming open sections of articles mean? Is it like you are in charge of those articles and putting them back into widespread use? Ninety^wazup? 22:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

No- I took it directly from the oldest articles page from the Dec. 29 cache. It's just a dry run. Sr13 (T|C) 23:48, 31 December 2006 (UTC)