User talk:Brightstar Shiner/Featured Article Cleanup

From Homestar Runner Wiki

When I'm done cleaning up all of the articles on this list, should we decide whether to record them or not? Or should I add more to the list and do them before we decide? If this ends up being just for the good of the wiki, I'm all for it, but I feel a tad overwhelmed by this list already. Should there be all emails, toons, characters, and subtitles on there too? Should we make a giant Spring Cleaning project and clean up every article on the wiki? As for the latter, that'd make for some serious edit conflicts if not properly organized. All I'm saying is, how far should we go with this? -Brightstar Shiner 23:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

My unprofessional recommendations: recording, should it happen, can happen in parallel from the cleanup duties. That is, the issue of recording should be settled here independently of whether or not we continue cleaning up other articles. That said, yes I think it's a good idea to clean up articles, but I personally haven't helped simply because I don't have a sense precisely for the grammatical changes (other than eliminating 2nd person) that you are making. I just haven't studied your edits in detail. I'm lazy. :) Anyway, I'm sure other people will slowly join the bandwagon, but for now, if you are feeling overwhelmed, take a break from doing the edits and come back to them when you are feeling refreshed! That's my two pence. --Stux 15:50, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I might just do that. Proofreading articles every day until who-knows-when gets a little pressing after a while. I notice grammatical errors everywhere (just this morning I noticed an improper use of neither/nor in a church bulletin) and can't help myself from correcting every single one, making my edits take longer and more of an effort than others who would just skim and fix anything they saw along the way. Since I'm going to Florida on Tuesday (Spring Break!) and not coming back until Friday, that's probably when I'll take my break. That and the fact that my laptop's too heavy to carry around the airport. ;-) -Brightstar Shiner 16:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC) P.S. I now have a special resentment towards this article because of how agonizingly long it took me to clean it up. Its mother was a hamster and its father smelt of elderberries (ever watch Monty Python?).

Yes, I've seen that movie. LOLOLLOL! Well, I only stay caught up with FAs, since I can't see any kind of order or theme in the other list. It may help organize the project if we organize the list, but we should remember that the whole reason the project started is so that more Spoken Articles could be made. Making FAs into SAs was a suggestion that eventually (now) became the main focus. But though it's an ongoing project, I think I can work faster than just one article per week. If we organize the other lists and perhaps make this project more well-known, it may not be such a pain anymore. — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 13:19, 18 March 2007

Umm... I've been working on it almost every day, Sam. Not 20 a day, but more like 3. Still, the SA project is on shaky ground at the moment and doesn't look like it's going to come into full effect as it stands right now. The main issue is the amount of MBs it would take up, potentially putting great strain on the server. How does Wikipedia have SAs without that happening? If we found out, we may be able to duplicate their methods. Lately I've been politely trying to get more people participating in this project so that I don't have to keep the ball rolling all by my lonesome. I'm not complaining, but I think the SA project will be able to go much farther if the interest level is raised a couple dozen notches. It seems that whenever a new email comes out, any potential helpers get dragged away. How could we generate more enthusiasm for this without making it seem like we're begging? -Brightstar Shiner 17:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia has more server space. I mean, it's Wikipedia. Tons of people visit each day. They need it. Unlike us, where much less people visit. Bluebry 17:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to say. There already isn't much interest in SAs, and without that project, ours is done for. We support SAs, so I guess the best we can do is gather other major users who also think they are worth having. But the server space concerns for SAs and lack of enthusiasm in both that and our cleanup project are weighing everything down. I hate to say this, but it would take a miracle for these projects to survive. — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 14:01, 18 March 2007

{reply for Bluebry after edit conflict} Yes, but why do they do it? What's their reason? Why do they spend time making the SAs when people could just use screen readers instead? I'm not being a smart alec here, just pondering. My current standpoint is this: Wikipedia can because they're so much bigger than us and can support the amount of MBs SAs require. We don't necessarily have to record, but we can use this as an excuse to do a big Spring Cleaning of our FAs. Once that's done, we'll look over the situation carefully and decide whether we should record or not. If so, we'll work out a way to record without presenting many problems, such as using a seperate server. If not, the wiki will still be a lot better from the amount of work the users will have put into correcting grammar and spelling in our main articles. Either way, if we can generate enough interest in the SA project, the wiki will be a better place because of our efforts. -Brightstar Shiner 18:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Brightstar: I think we should cleanup our articles. I mean, I cleared up a section (And by that I mean sentence) of Strong Bad after seeing the link here. Plus, they probably have more users who are able to record new versions of their pages. Plus, pretty much all of the edits there are vandalism anyway. ;-) Anyway, for a smaller community, it'd be easier to just have a screen reader, or whatever it's called. Plus, if it CAN read pretty much anything, a la a new version of a page, it can, well, read the new version of a page and any new pages. Bluebry 18:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

So we're going with the second option? Either way is fine with me. Wikipedia can do what it wants; I like this wiki much better and we don't have to copy everything they do. In the meantime, let's organize this list, add more to it, make it have an HRWiki: heading instead of being my subpage, and get going! We'll have to organize the cleaning though, lest numerous edit conflicts arise. I suggest reserving an item on the list so that nobody else takes it. If not followed through in three days, the spot's open again. Good deal? -Brightstar Shiner 18:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

This will take a lot of planning. We'll have to make a new template that indicates an article on the list is reserved for cleanup. And if we aren's sticking to cleaning FAs anymore, I suggest "HRWiki:Article Cleanup" or something to that effect, and FAs will just be a section. And also, rather than one big General Articles list, we should divide it into several smaller lists for articles of or relating to Characters, Places, Toons, etc. We should also devise some kind of system for determining which articles need cleanup (more than others, at least), similar to Wikipedia's quality scale or something. But again, without enough volunteers, we'll end up working by ourselves. — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 15:05, 18 March 2007

No quality scales. We need to instead individually determine whether an article is good or not. If one person disagrees with someone for some reason, there's always talk pages. But, scales don't work well for articles. I mean, what "Strong Bad gets a 9.6" on the top of Strong Bad? Basically, I think we should leave the quality up to the minds of the editors. Bluebry 19:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Not what I had in mind, but you do have a point regardless. No quality scale then. Anyway, I'll get to making the new page and sorting the list out. While I'm at it, any other ideas? — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 15:15, 18 March 2007

{reseting the indents} We can plan this thing just fine if we take some time to work it out. I've never made a template before, so someone else might want to do that (or I can try my luck at it, but it might not be pretty). Just for now to keep from overwhelming ourselves, let's keep to the FAs. Once those are done, Emails, Toons, Characters, Places, etc. that haven't been done already will be added. After that, HRWiki and Help pages. These can all be added at once, but that would make the page really long. If it's in the project's best interest though, we can do that. Priortizing will be a big part of the organization process. I'll go over to Wikipedia and look at their quality scale just to see if we can use any of the info there. As for the publicity, we desperately need to work on that. Three users can't pull this off. We need something. -Brightstar Shiner 19:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

When you say "FAs", what do you mean? When I've been saying it, I was only referring to FAs from 2007 and future FAs. When you say it, do you mean all FAs from '05 forward? It only takes one user to manage the former, but if our project is truly to span into the past as well as the present and future, I think it goes without saying that we could be in over our heads. I would sooner begin cleanup of character, toon, and place pages than go that far, but that's just me... — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 15:28, 18 March 2007

I meant all FAs. Since they're all already on the page and I've completed about a third of them, we're not really "in over our heads". As for future FAs, many of them will be Characters, Toons, Places, everything you mentioned. We'll be cleaning them before they even reach that status! New articles we won't worry about right now, such as the email that's probably coming out tommorrow. A lot of people see those, and when they add fun facts, they correct most of the grammar mistakes along the way. On a different note, I've been trying to find that quality scale on Wikipedia and it's giving me nothing! Can you provide a link? Also, can we please figure out a way to get interest for this page? I've got a few ideas, such as putting a message on RC or informing some sysops, but I'm really not sure at the moment. -Brightstar Shiner 19:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've been working on Strong Bad. I dunno if what I do is good or not, but I try to divide all of the things in his Bio into theme-specific paragraphs. Now, I'll do some sort of template if needed. Now, I'll do anything needed; I normally have nothing to do anyway. Plus, sysops know. That, and we can't put ALL projects on Recent Changes, however, that is a good idea. Bluebry 19:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much! You did a great job on Strong Bad, from the looks of it. Just check that off the old list and we'll have one more done! Are you good at making templates, Bluebry? I was thinking a message of "This page is reserved for cleanup by Bluebry for the (whatever we're going to call it now) project," with a picture of... I'm not sure. Also, if sysops know (I know Dot Com does) and aren't doing anything as of yet, then maybe we should personally recruit users on their talk pages. Not the most ethical thing to do, but it's another idea. -Brightstar Shiner 19:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Brightstar: What I had in mind when I mentioned a quality scale is something similar to Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It's long, but it's what I was thinking about. — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 15:53, 18 March 2007

NO NO NO! No spam. Users must volunteer. So, yeah, I'll get started on that template. You know, unless I can find one that already exists that also works. Now, do we have to reserve them, or can we just put "This page needs cleanup according to (project name)"? Bluebry 20:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Two things: is the {{cleanup}} template what you guys are thinking of, or are you looking for something different? Second, I've done some thinking about good standards for our articles, and here are some of my suggestions (some stolen from Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Featured article criteria):

1. Well-written
2. Factually accurate
3. Comprehensive
4. Well-organized
5. Good lead section
6. Appropriate images
7. Appropriate length

Of these, I think that the two we do the least well are making our articles well-written and making them well-organized. That is, many of them are factually accurate, and even grammatically correct, but how many of them are "compelling, even brilliant"? I think that a lot of articles could stand to be put under a microscope, rearranged to flow better, and reworded so that once you stop reading, you can't put them down. That's a pretty high standard, but I think it's a great one to shoot for. Anyway, just some thoughts... Trey56 20:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I like it, and yes, that was the template I was thinking of. I think we need that criteria for all new featured articles. Now, we'd still discuss which article we want until we reach a consensus, as we already do now, right? Bluebry 20:06, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

{reply for Bluebry after edit conflict} <lowers head> Sorry, Bluebry. No spam it is. Anyway, I'd say we should reserve them. I'd just hate to be working for hours cleaning up a long article and then getting an edit conflict because someone else dropped by and changed a single "were" to "where". That would be extremely frustrating. As I said before, someone puts the template on the page, they clean it up within three days, remove the template, and check it off the list. The only problem I can see with this is flooding RC, which this project is bound to do anyway. -Brightstar Shiner 20:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah I see. And, it's okay to think about Spam. ;-) Now, I know it's stupid to say here, but, I think I've finished S to the B, Strong Bad. Can we mark it off or does someone wanna check it for me? Which brings me to another point: I think we need to check up on each other. You know, proofread before checking it off. Bluebry 20:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the existing template is ok, but I was thinking of something that related specifically to this project, not the talk page of the article in question. I was thinking more along the lines of a small "notice" template that could be posted on the checklist itself, so anyone working on the project would know what articles are already being cleaned. The only problem I can see with this method is the aforementioned Edit Conflict problem. — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 16:19, 18 March 2007

Okay, so after quickly reading this discussion (that has now ballooned to incredible proportions) I have a few things to say:

• Brightstar: Most important: Yes! I've seen Monty Python, but I wouldn't have guessed where it came from without a google search! I'm bad with names, movie quotes, etc. Though I did suspect that that was the movie in question.
• Brightstar: I can totally relate to pages that take a heck of a whole lotta time to proofread. It's part of the job sometimes and I take those jobs on slowly and with patience (so much so I haven't proofread any more spanish subtitles since!) I'll be back to it soon enough.
• When it comes to the SA project, you must keep in mind three factors: community support, benefit/impact, and feasibility.
  • On the first issue, support has been slow to build, and it should not be forced. Like Bluebry said, one has to let volunteers join, and that usually happens when they see a clear benefit and a project that's feasible.
  • I've been thinking a little of the benefit, and I wonder now why Wikipedia has that project. I believe that the benefit to visually impaired people might be marginal since they must first access these files through a web page, and there's already technology out there that allows the visually impaired to read articles. Beyond that, it's really nice to have spoken versions of a few articles (kind of like an audio book), but I don't see it as a crucial necessity for the wiki.
  • Lastly, I'd like to explain a little more on feasibility: the issue is not wether or not the wiki servers have enough Hard Drive space. Drive space is cheap! I wouldn't be surprised if HRWiki's hard drives can hold enough information to mirror the english Wiki in its entirety. However, the real issue is that of bandwidth: web pages and images are relatively small, each producing only a few Kilobytes of information per download. Multiply this by 1000, and you only use a few MB's of information per day. However, introduce a sound file that's 1MB in size, multiply that by several "views" per day and you can easily use 1GB or more of bandwidth per day. Most hosting servers now limit the amount of bandwidth that a server can send per day, charging more if more data is being served. So, in order to keep things manageable, only certain media is hosted by the server. (As a side note, I realized that we do mirror some old H*R stuff, and flash files are not that much smaller than sound files, so perhaps the impact might not be as great. But that's debatable.)
• Sounds to me like you want to start a massive {{cleanup}} project. Keep in mind that the wiki already has tons of editing resources available at your disposal, you just have to find them and learn how to use them. For example, we already have the {{inprogress}} and {{pageinprogress}} templates that are used to indicate other users that a section and a page are being currently edited, respectively. (We've made tons of other templates that you can use.) (Keep in mind, that these should only be up when actively editing the page in order to avoid edit conflicts. However, when done editing, the templates should be removed in order to make the page presentable and allow other users to keep making changes. If you plan on making changes over several days, my suggestion is to use html comments (<!-- -->) so you can keep track of where you are. Unless the page is in serious need of cleanup, the page itself shouldn't have a big notice indicating other users that you are fixing grammatical mistakes. (That last one's my personal opinion.)

Finally, I hope this information and advice is useful to everybody. I made a detailed reply because I wanted to be sure that no work was duplicated, but that very useful and beneficial work (namely this FA cleanup) kept going! Um, that's it for now. Yeah. --Stux 21:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Well played, Stux. I like the secret comment thing you talked about. I used one on the list itself and they're not that hard. Probably just put something to the effect of <!--Brightstar Shiner is cleaning up this article for the FA Cleanup project. Please do not interrupt her so as to avoid edit conflicts. Thank you for your patience.--> and that should do just fine. As for making it a massive cleanup project, let's please do. If bandwidth is an issue, the whole notion of SAs can be dropped and all focus can be turned to cleaning up the FAs for the good of the wiki. I don't want to resort to that yet, but it's an option. -Brightstar Shiner 01:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... After I was gone for four days, I kind of expected other people to have been working on the list. That way, I might feel as if I'm not the only one keeping this afloat, but... nothing happened. I can't do this alone, you know... -Brightstar Shiner 00:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey! Welcome back! How was your break? Hope it went well. This weekend went flying way too fast. Don't feel too disappointed because the project hasn't yet taken off. Everyone has their pace and motivation, and you are highly motivated (and availability too). Correct proofreading isn't easy, and to be honest, I've been trying to avoid it for that same reason! ;) But support will come in its own way. Patience young Padawan. --Stux 03:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

My break was fine. I was in Florida with my grandparents for four days, saw a circus museum, bought fudge, and went to a dinner theater! Pretty cool. Anyway, some people don't enjoy (or aren't good at) proofreading things. Brightstar Shiner does enjoy (in limited quantities) and is good at proofreading things. I'm sure I'm not the only one of the 8648 or so users here who are like this, and you're right; support will come its own way. In the meantime, there's some other things we can do to whip this into shape, such as creating the custom template (which we will need), organizing and adding to the list, and deciding when to consider an article sufficiently cleaned. For that, I think this could work: One user (say, me) wants to clean up an article on the list (say, The Cheat), so I would put up our custom template and go about cleaning it. When I'm done, another user in the project (say, you) would look it over, give me the ok, and I would check The Cheat off the list. Sound good? (By the way, don't go all Darth Sidious and try to turn me to the Vandal Side, alright? ^_~) -Brightstar Shiner 15:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

On a different note, I just finished the template we need. It's a little... umm... crappy, but this is but the first version and my first try at making a template, so don't chew me out too much. Here it is: Template:facleanup. I want to find a different image, but that one was the only one I had at the moment. -Brightstar Shiner 16:18, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I meant to tell you guys I copied the lists to HRWiki namespace. The new project page is HRWiki:Article cleanup. I'll be filling in the list of '06 FAs soon, so please don't edit it yet ;) — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 18:20, 24 March 2007

Yes! Thank you so much! I didn't know if non-sysops were allowed to do that, so I didn't myself. Apparently we can, so thank you again for doing that. I'll start linking to that page when refering to this project now. Also Sam, can you think of any other picture that I could put in the template? The current picture is the same one used in this. -Brightstar Shiner 22:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... The picture you used is just fine. The only thing I see wrong with the template is the blue background; a blue link on a blue template would make it pretty hard to read. Meanwhile, I'll see if I can do the entire '06 list in one sitting. I did the '05 and '07 lists already, but afterward my fingers were so twitchy I've been hesitating to finish. The page looks really awkward with only the middle list missing... Anyway, I can guarantee at least half the list will be done in a few minutes. — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 18:35, 24 March 2007

Okay. I'll keep the picture and change the background to light red or something. It's just that blue is my favorite color and I kinda wanted it that way. ;) Also, I understand the twitchy fingers because proofreading a ready long and messed up page (I'm looking at you, Floppy Disk Container) can take a toll on one's mental health as well. By the end of that session, I was yelling at the computer, "No second person! It's not encyclopaedic! We're not talking to you, we're talking to a general audience! And stop, overusing, commas! Augh!" So really, take as much time as you want. I'll wait. -Brightstar Shiner 22:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

{Resetting indents} Well, you won't be waiting long. I've converted FA Archive 2 into a checklist, so that leaves Archive 3 to whoever "wants" it. It looks like I'll be cleaning the House of the Brothers Strong right now, so I'll at least be doing something, but those lists are a pain in the — ^Sam_{Fisher (Come in, Lambert.)} 19:13, 24 March 2007

Yeah, I know. Well, I'm very thankful that you put in the effort to organize the list; many users (including me) might not have had that kind of patience. I like how it seems less overwhelming since the finished ones are more spread out and there are less blank spots. With steadfast determination and a lot of grunt work, this puppy'll get done in no time. -Brightstar Shiner 01:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

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