Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Archive 37

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So, about that election

Well, based on previous September election times, we're about 2^1/2 to 3 weeks away from the election, so I thought we might want to plan for it now rather than the night before! What needs to be done to set up the election page, and what preparations do we need to take care of, aside from many notifications (in the Bugle, on the main talk page, etc.)? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:50, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, I don't think we ever discussed any of the election-related material here. Should we try to implement some of the suggestions? The easiest (and most obvious) is splitting the "Comments and questions for..." into two sections, but there are others there as well. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:58, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, who do the rest of us think will be good candidates for the position? Since we usually leave personal notes of encouragement for those who we think could be coordinators now would be a good time to start naming names, such as it were. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:27, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Well it appears that at least two people are going to throw their hats in, and if HJ doesn't I think we'd all lynch him (or something similarly evil!). User:GraemeLeggett, User:Kumioko (if he'd allow himself to be diverted a bit from the US Project), and User:Grandiose are the names that stand out a bit to me. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Physical coercion? Charming! ;) I might not be around for the last week or so of September, and possibly not until early October, but I should definitely be around for the first couple of weeks of the election. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:43, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Are we going to follow the general pattern of the last few elections? I was thinking:

• Open up candidacies on 1 September
• Open up voting on 14 September
• Close voting on 28 September

I think we should use the standard page construction (election page, Status page, Tally table). There was a suggestion in the comments section of the last election that we should split "Comments and questions" section into two sections: "Questions for XXX" "Comments about XXX." Is everyone amenable to this? Woody (talk) 21:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Standard page construction sounds fine, Woody. I recall the suggestion to split questions and comments -- I'm thinking that in practice it may come to the same thing as comments might well elicit to-and-fro discussions the same way as questions, however I have no problem trying it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed with that Ian. I think we'll be able to/we should move extended or unrelated commentary to the talk page. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• Much as I hate to be the one to point it out, it's now 2 September in UTC, and those link are still red. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Now you know why we need a few extra coords... ;-) I've just finished up for the day so will get on it... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Okay, set up those pages. For neatness' sake I've employed the following dates:
      • Open up candidacies on 3 September
      • Open up voting on 15 September
      • Close voting on 28 September
    • This means 12 days for noms, which I think should be plenty, and the full two weeks for voting. Obviously anyone could nominate from this point on but I'm thinking perhaps we delay the general announcement on the project talk page till shortly before midnight tonight UTC -- not too fussed personally though... I've used exactly the same format as last year for now, as I didn't see strong support above for splitting questions and comments, but still open to suggestions. Anyone who wants to check I haven't made any mistakes, feel free... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Announced election and nom phase on News & Open Tasks, that's probably it from me for a while today... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
        • Are we going to get a bot to go round members talkpages announcing that nominations are open? We have tended to do it in the past. Or could we put it as part of this month's newsletter if we get it out quickly enough? Woody (talk) 14:56, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
          • Agree at least one of those should happen. I could assist with getting the The Bugle out but there seems to be a fair amount to complete so maybe the bot is better... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
            • I know we had full bot notifications when voting opened; did we also do them for the nomination phase? At a minimum, we ought to post an announcement to WT:MILHIST; a lot of our members watch that rather than the announcement template.

              I've also turned on the main announcement banner, which should appear on all tab-format pages within the project. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 16:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

              • I thought I recalled having them for the nominations but I must be wrong, I can't see them in my talkpage history or archives, only the voting opened one that you recall. For the moment I think the WT:MILHIST should suffice for now. I think how much we push the nominations will depend on how many nominations we get. Woody (talk) 17:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
                • A new discussion thread at WT:MILHIST announcing the election would probably be a good idea. Nick-D (talk) 07:23, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick note to say I won't be re-standing - I simply don't have the time to edit Wikipedia nowadays. While I'm happy to help as much as possible, it would be more sensible if someone who has the time to do all the co-ord tasks took the spot. I'm always more than happy to help out where I can and will keep this page on my watchlist in case I have two pence to add to anything. Cheers everyone for a good 18 months though! Ranger Steve ^Talk 19:22, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Cheers mate. Okay if I ask some questions about Arnhem when I get around to that one? - Dank (push to talk) 02:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

A quick note just to elaborate a little on my position over at the reelection page. I'd would like to stand again, but given my noticeable absence to the last few months and the lack of A-class work I've done here for the latter half of the tranche I'm thinking it may be better for me stand down and let others rise up to fill my slot. From the looks of it right now I'm the longest serving coordinator, which says something about how much I like the project, but if I'm not around to do the work then the point of being a coordinator becomes moot. I'll be happy to lend support from the position of a retired coordinator, or that of a Coordinator Emeritus if the project decides to put me up for that position, but after much thought I've decide that unless we come up short in this election I'm going to finally pass the torch rather than stand again :) TomStar81 (Talk) 03:23, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

On your list is it Dank? Please do - I still have a stack of books about the battle and... I was there just last week on another military themed cycling tour, so I managed to pick up another two books! I do keep meaning to update the article a bit, but I can barely clear my sandboxes at the moment. If you're wanting to bring it up to scratch I can certainly find time to pitch in on that. Tom, I'd happily vote for you again but I understand your reasons (being much the same as mine). I am a little concerned we might come up short though, and this tranche has proved the value in having a lot of co-ords. Ranger Steve ^Talk 06:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Review disparities

I've noticed that a few people have a lot more articles listed at GAN, ACR and FAC than they've reviewed and I'm thinking about making some sort of announcement. Something like" it has come to our attention that some editors are submitting more articles for review at GAN, ACR and FAC than they've reviewed. Please try to review one article for every one that you submit. This will help to reduce the queues and the time taken to review everyone's articles. You don't need to be a subject matter expert to review an article. You can read it for prose quality, adherence to the WP:MOS, check for copyvio or close paraphrasing, or even see if it makes sense to a non-specialist. The editor might be using a lot of jargon that a general reader might not know and needs to have explained or linked." What do y'all think?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:45, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't hurt -- actually considering that ACRs and FACs need at least three supports to pass (as opposed to GAN, where you generally have a one-to-one relationship between submissions and reviewers), one really should review at least three ACRs/FACs for every one submitted. Of course people like Rupert and Dank, who concentrate on revewing rather than article writing, help take up the slack, but it's a bit unfair to always expect so much of them, excellent though they are at what they do. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:36, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to an announcement/reminder either. I saw this and immediately went to review two FACs, as I'm fully aware I am very guilty of doing exactly that. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:53, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The key is that it's not hard to find something useful to do at ACR and FAC; concentrate on what you know best and on what you enjoy doing. Don't worry that you'll start some kind of fight or someone else will start one with you ... as you can tell from WT:MIL#FAC survey, people are generally helpful, and if things are getting unpleasant, there's help available. - Dank (push to talk) 10:41, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, sorry to come late to the discussion, but one suggestion that I have is to place a formal limit on the number of articles an editor can nominate for ACR at any one time. I would propose that this be set at 2 or 3 (whatever everyone feels is resonable, I'm leaning towards 2) and that editors would then have to wait until those were formally closed (either as successful or unsuccessful) before nominating another article. Are there any thoughts on this, either in agreement or disagreement? (Caveat, I will be away for a month after tomorrow, so apologies if I don't respond). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:43, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind a limit of 2 or 3. I nom'd 3 at once not long ago (and then another shortly after) because they were all closely related Chiefs of the Air Staff with similar styles, references, etc, that I'd worked on more-or-less simultaneously, so I figured it might be easier if reviewers saw them more-or-less simultaneously. However that's an unusual case for me and if we did have an across-the-board arbitrary limit I wouldn't complain. Not sure how MisterBee feels with his lists of Iron Cross recipients, but I think he's away anyway so this might be a nice surprise for him (evil grin)... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:04, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that there's any need for a limit; I just want the submitters to review as much as they're submitting at each level. I don't know if we need to go to some variant of the DYK system where your submission isn't processed until you've reviewed somebody else's, but that might work. So maybe an addition to the submission procedures where a nominator must link to a review that he's done? What do y'all think?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:34, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

If we do it, then we need to link to good and bad examples of each kind of review: checking for typos, checking sources, etc. We also need to make sure that we have volunteers who are willing to review each person's first few reviews to make sure they're up to snuff; a bad review is worse than no review. The idea is frequently suggested and vehemently rejected at WT:FAC (including right now btw) and WT:GAN; what might possibly make it work at A-class is that anyone uncomfortable with the reviewing requirement can skip A-class. - Dank (push to talk) 17:05, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, but I'm not advocating that yet. The real problem is only with a couple of people.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

This thread is continued at WT:MIL#Review disparities. - Dank (push to talk) 17:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

While I'm away

Hi everyone, I will be away now until 29 September. If you wouldn't mind, could a couple of co-ords please watchlist my talkpage and respond if anyone asks some general project-related questions? Regarding the election, I've mentioned this to Ed earlier, but I will post here for wider dissemination: I won't be contesting the election this time. I wish all those that put their hat into the ring all the best, though, and when I get back I'll be more than happy to provide advice if any new co-ord has a question. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Ed and I replied at User_talk:AustralianRupert#Your note on WT:MHCOORD. Safe journeys, and see you in a month, you'll be missed. - Dank (push to talk) 15:54, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Contest

I've verified about half of the contest entries. If somebody else could finish them up and pass out the appropriate awards, I'd be grateful.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I'll take care of the rest (assuming mine have been validated), tally and hand out awards, etc. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:39, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Beat you to it. Someone else will need to hand out the gongs though, as I believe I'll be in second place this month. Parsecboy (talk) 12:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Nothing better to do, eh? Well I won't complain about someone else taking the trouble -- gongs are on their way... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Something like that. Guess I was on at the right moment :) Parsecboy (talk) 14:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

A-class and FAC reviewing

I think we could be getting a better response from potential reviewers than we're getting. Feel free to respond below my points, start subsections, go off on a tangent, whatever. - Dank (push to talk)

• We need to, and probably can, attract more people (maybe from outside Milhist) who are interested in learning how to copyedit professionally; it's a bankable, real-world skill. If anyone has a clue how we can do a better job of recruiting, tell me please. I've got some ideas, but when I'm operating by myself, it starts to feel like nagging.
• I think we could be getting our articles through A-class and FAC faster by pushing harder, although there are risks. (For instance, asking people to hurry up isn't going to help. And if someone from WikiProject WP:PINGPONG starts asserting in every FAC about ping-pong that all their articles are ready for promotion, that's not going to get them anywhere.) In the FAC for HMS Hood and the FAC for Northrop YF-23, I've offered "status reports" at the end of my section saying what I think has and hasn't been done. I'm thinking of this as the first step; the second step would be to post a link on this page to any A-class or FAC article where at least one coordinator has offered a status report, asking for help finishing up. We don't have enough people to get the job done who are going through all the reviews seeing what needs doing ... but if we market it as a horse race ... "We're almost there, we just need people to verify a few things", and keep pointing people to the list of what's urgent, we should be able to get some help.
• My guess is that anything that works well at A-class will work well at FAC and vice-versa ... except that we should ask first if we want to do something new at FAC, because there are other people involved.
• Anyone can help with the things that slow down FAC, and these things are all largely applicable to A-class, too:
  • Image reviews: often, the first image review for an article at FAC is done by someone who's not an image expert, they're just looking at the images and licenses to identify potential problems. We have a number of image experts at Milhist, but they don't have time to look at every image in every review.
  • Source reviews: Ealdgyth and Brianboulton have done a lot of these over the years, but I really recommend pulling up 20 random FACs and seeing what Nikkimaria is doing these days; she's covering almost all of ours. What she doesn't have time to do is to go back and make sure everyone fixed every hyphen ... but this is very easy to check, and this would be the ideal kind of thing to ask for help with by linking from this page.
  • Copyediting: More people have been doing copyediting at A-class and FAC lately, which is great, but we still need people to go back and see what happened in response to copyediting suggestions: sometimes there's a question, sometimes people don't like the suggestions, and sometimes nominators didn't understand the request. It would really help if we could find people who would be interested in skimming the second half of an article for the kinds of problems I've already found in the first half. - Dank (push to talk) 21:38, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Spotchecks: This is FAC jargon for checking the sources (usually just the online sources, although some of us have a lot of books ... *cough Sturm*), to check for accuracy and close paraphrasing. You can learn how to do it in 5 minutes, and generally, after a nominator has been at FAC a few times, people stop asking for spotchecks for that nominator.
• With all of these jobs, new reviewers are welcome of course, but it doesn't actually start to save anyone's time until the reviewers get experience with what they're doing. It's hard to find current FAC reviewers who are interested in being responsible for other people's work, so experienced Milhist reviewers will have to play some kind of role in encouraging new reviewers. - Dank (push to talk) 20:48, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

• If you're looking to train copy-editors, the obvious place to start would be WP:GOCE - they're the place people are sent for copy-editing, but many many articles at FAC fall on prose despite having had a copy-edit from them (HJ recently set up a subsection for FAC-bound articles, which looks promising).
• As regards image reviews, something quick-and-easy that often gets overlooked by the "hard-core" image experts are the captions (including prose and sourcing thereof).
• Sourcing-wise, particularly on articles that haven't gone through A-class, check for things that a non-subject-expert would overlook: over-reliance on a source, use of outdated or discredited sources - this is an area where WikiProjects can take real ownership, because a general source reviewer can often be unaware of such issues.
• In general, there are a number of guides on how to complete specialized reviews at FAC: Elcobbola on free and non-free image reviewing; Ealdgyth's formal and informal sourcing guides; and Tony1's and my tips on spotchecking. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• • • Beautiful, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 01:33, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
      • One more thing: any chance we could get more editors reviewing or working on articles at FAR? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
        • I'll go have a look. - Dank (push to talk) 02:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Withdrawn ACR

Guys, re. Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/List of Spanish Cross in Gold with Swords and Diamonds recipients, listed for closure above, can anyone confirm for me that we treat withdrawn noms precisely the same way we do those with no consensus, i.e. updating article history with "not approved", archiving under failed noms, etc? As opposed to just removing from the list like they were never there? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:54, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

If reviewers have already invested significant time and a nomination is withdrawn, I'm in favor of treating it as "no consensus". - Dank (push to talk) 00:42, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

(As nominator.) Certainly, wouldn't want to detract from the comments being made. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 08:41, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for cmts guys, done. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:35, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Award page archives

I've just been through and archived the old award noms, which led on to tidying up the two ACM archive pages—one was in alphabetical order by awardee and the other was in date order. I've merged the two to the first archive page (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Awards/ACR/Archive_1) which has left the second archive page (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Awards/ACR/Archive_2) empty. So... should we:

• delete the second page?; or
• split the first across two (or more) pages because it's now rather long and unwieldy - say A-H; I-Z?

EyeSerene^talk 16:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Splitting the page might be worthwhile at this point; it's getting rather long, and given the way we archive nominations there, it's important that it remain (relatively) easily editable. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 22:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Merging the two pages was quite slow and cumbersome towards the end :) Splitting based on page size, archive 1 is now A-H; archive 2, I-Z. EyeSerene^talk 07:52, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Another question: is there any way to disable the NOEDITSECTION that's being picked up from the talkarchive template? I suspect not as the template isn't subst'ed, but edit section links would also greatly help with editability. In which case, can we perhaps use a different archive template, a custom one or none at all? EyeSerene^talk 08:05, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we could simply forego using {{talkarchive}} entirely, and only have {{WPMILHIST Archive}} on the page? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 11:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems sensible - I don't really see the need for two templates, and the talkarchive one doesn't really reflect the function of those pages. I'll do that now. EyeSerene^talk 11:42, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Done EyeSerene^talk 11:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Election pt 2: standing coords

Cam, Dana and Shimgray are our remaining uncommitted standing coords. I've pinged Dana and Shimgray on their talk pages but Cam hasn't edited since the end of August. Should we regard him as not standing this time? I don't recall if he mentioned anything during the summer. EyeSerene^talk 13:18, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I've updated the table for myself. Apologies for the lateness - I've been busy and completely forgot about the election, despite the numerous posts in various places :) Due to said busy-ness, I won't be standing this year, but good luck to everyone who does! Dana boomer (talk) 13:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

New format for the member directory

As part of our plan to deprecate the logistics department, I've been working on a new format for the member directory. A prototype is up for comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Strategy#New format for member directory, and any feedback would be appreciated. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 18:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Sad News, Everyone

It is with the utmost sense of sorrow that I report to the project that Bahamut0013 (talk · contribs) has passed away. A US Marine and a combat veteran, he was a proud member of the Military history Project, and of Operation Majestic Titan. I have taken the liberty of nominating him for OMT's Silver Titan's Cross, and would suggestion considering noting this news in the next bugle edition. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:39, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Very sad, indeed; he will be missed.

Is this the first time (that we know of) that a member of the project has passed away? Something in me says that we ought to do something to honor him, but I'm not quite sure what the right approach might be. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:12, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

That's very sad news. Bahamut was an excellent editor and a nice guy.

An article in the Bugle is definitely in order, and it may be worth also placing this in the Signpost. Nick-D (talk) 00:46, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Definitely. - Dank (push to talk) 00:49, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I already have an editorial here, which deals on WikiDeath and Life, but I might be able to tie the two in. Buggie111 (talk) 00:52, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Agree all above. I didn't know Bahamut that well but am very sorry to hear of this. Ian Rose (talk) 02:20, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

On the topic of the Bugle, I think I should write an intro paragraph explaining why there already is an op-ed on death, in the bugle, then talk about baha's death along with some of his major contribs. Nothing more than a paragraph. Then I think we should follow the 9/11 op-ed format and have the responses of several people listed there. Buggie111 (talk) 03:45, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Given that he was a significant contributor to the project and an admin, I think that a short dedicated article would be the best way to go. It might be worth asking Marine 69-71 (talk · contribs) (aka Tony the Marine) to contribute to this. Nick-D (talk) 08:00, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know Tom, I am truely sorry to hear this. Although I didn't know him either, I know many others like him. Lest We Forget. Anotherclown (talk) 04:32, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know him well either – I think we mainly interacted on reviews – but it is certainly a huge loss to the project and the world. I fully agree we should run something in the Bugle, and I'll follow this discussion on whether it is added to the current op-ed or is a separate article. Either is fine with me. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:53, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I have formally awarded Bahamut0013 the Titan's Cross in Silver per consensus on the OMT award page to do so. He becomes the first ever project member to receive the Silver variant of the Titan's Cross, and is the first person to receive a Titan's Cross in 15 months. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:08, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Very sorry to hear this news - Bahamut/Robert was a really decent guy and will be missed. EyeSerene^talk 07:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Election spam?

Were we planning to send out individual notices about the coordinator election to each member? Now might be a good time for us to do so, as we're about halfway through the voting period.

On a slightly more general note, is our current newsletter delivery bot—and I'm unfortunately not quite sure which one we're using at the moment—authorized for general messages as well? Or would we need to use another bot for something like the election notice? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 14:48, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Our bot is now EdwardsBot; Cbrown emailed me and asked if I could find another bot because of his RL commitments. I think it's okay for general notices. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 15:20, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Should we ask EdwardsBot to send out an election notice, then? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 14:49, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, run the bot roughly at the halfway point in the election, around 9 hours from now. - Dank (push to talk) 14:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Hell yeah, the more the merrier... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:14, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• A banner on the main project talk page is probably worthwhile, as well—it gets more traffic than the project page itself. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Ah, I'd forgotten that was removed when we tied the banner to the tab bar instead of the navigation box. I've re-added it directly to the talk page header. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 17:55, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Coordinator Emeritus

I do not expect anyone to act on what I am about to write until next year's election, nor for that matter do I believe that this is something that we need to do, but in the spirit of determining where the he stood on the matter I asked Parsecboy if he would accept the position of Coordinator Emeritus if nominated and he replied that he would. If in the twelve months you guys decide that the project would be furthered by appointing Parsecboy to the Emeritus position you now know he will accept, so if you can find a good justification for bumping him to the role go for it.

On an similar but unrelated note, I would like to propose that any candidate for the position of Coordinator Emeritus be required to wait one election in which he or she holds no coordinator slot so as to evaluate how well the project does in the absence of the user in question. In some cases, I accept that the project will discover it can operate just fine without the candidate, but in others I suspect that the project will end up leaning on the candidate for help owing either to expertise or familiarity with a given set of problems. This happened with Kirill, when he retired as Lead Coordinator we ended up Co-Opting him during Roger Davies first term, then during the second election appointed Kirill to the position of Coordinator Emeritus. Roger Davies, on the other hand, was elected to the position of Emeritus in the same term he announced that he would not seek reelection. Since we recognize the position of Emeritus to be outside term cycles (and thus freed from reconfirmation in the election cycles) I feel this proposal would be beneficial in help us determine who we need in the role of Emeritus vs who we can simply co-opt as a coordinator if the need to do so arises. Additionally, by adopting this proposal we can standardize the Coordinator Emeritus criteria so as to avoid perceptions of favoritism in the selection of future (if any) Coordinator Emeriti. Thoughts? TomStar81 (Talk) 23:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Considering that the election of a coordinator emeritus has only happened twice in the nearly six years of the project's history, I'm not sure that there's any need to come up with any elaborate rules for it. If/when we next do so, I expect that it will be by general acclaim—at which point any rules to the contrary would likely be waived in any case—rather than on the basis of any merely procedural approach. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:34, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I mean this proposal to be more of a "standard operating procedure" than an "elaborate rule" since I would prefer we not get accused of having no policy, guideline, or even generally agreed upon criteria for appointment the position. More to the point, I see this as providing a check against a popularity vote to the position by making sure people have time to get over infatuation with the person considered for the position so they can accurately judge for themselves whether or not we really ought bestow upon a retired coordinator the title emeritus. In essence it's a recycling of the rules already used for the Chevron w/Oak Leaves award we issue: there its "be out of the position of coordinator before being eligible for the award", here its "be out of the coordinator's circle for a few months so we can have a before and after". We do not to codify it or anything, I just think this would be a smart thing to do in the long run. As always though if it turns out that consensus goes against the suggestion for whatever reason we can let the proposal die with no consequence. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I guess my point is that the appointment is sufficiently rare that each one is best viewed sui generis; a "standard operating procedure" wouldn't necessarily be useful if every case is fundamentally unique rather than being part of a regular process. If there's a real groundswell among the project to appoint someone, I don't think a procedural hurdle is going to stop it—it's more likely that the members will just decide to dispense with whatever rule is in the way; conversely, if there isn't widespread support for appointing someone, then they're not going to be appointed, procedures or no procedures.

Having said that, I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that allowing some time for sober reflection would be a good idea in the general case; but I'm not sure that there aren't also cases where it might be best to bypass such a waiting period. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 15:29, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks !

Thanks to all of you for the kindness of extending a second WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves to me-- it is most appreciated! I've had a rough few life-changing years, with a cross-country move and ongoing construction to get re-settled, there have been days, weeks, and months where keeping up with my Wikiwork felt overwhelming, and I haven't always been my usually patient self; your recognition means a lot to me and has helped me regain some of the joy I had in my work here before life got so crazy. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

You're very welcome! Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 15:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

That's very good to hear. Glad you're getting settled in! - Dank (push to talk) 15:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Newly Discovered Problem

Apparently, changes to the project (like the adoption of C-class) have been made that are meant to help the project, which is all well good; however, no one is apparently checking these changes against information stored in our Academy. As a result, we now have outdated info there, which isn't exactly going to help the new people making use of what limited material we have managed to add there. I would ask that a few good men join me over the coming weekend to read through everything we have and make sure that the outdated info is turned into updated info, and to prevent this from happening again I would suggest endowing our group with the responsibility of monitoring and updating academy material to reflect these project changes from here on out. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:49, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I think asking for a volunteer or two to commit to Academy development would be a good idea, but probably best left until the new tranche has been elected. It could be part of the post-election bunfight, though obviously the role would require more in the way of active commitment than overseeing the task forces. EyeSerene^talk 09:02, 23 September 2011 (UTC)