If I could chip in and make a few suggestions... :-)
2011/12/31 <wheredevelsdare(a)hotmail.com>
Ashwin,
Thanks for this note and the previous one, both well articulated. A few
points:
1. A lot of the edits on the dam article were IP edits, whereas Manmohan
Singh is a protected page - only autoconfirmed users can edit, hence IPs
are ruled out. Further, the dam was in the news, which gave it limelight
and made it a good COTM choice (though, as I said earlier, the limelight
often makes the article unstable which would mean a fail at GAR).
I think the COTM team should keep articles which fall in both categories
(one busy, and the other not so busy), this is so as to keep those editors
interested who would rather not spend time engaging with anonymous users
attempting to change content on pages which have been in the news recently.
2. As I mentioned earlier, several India GA/FAs have
been demoted. A few
like Mumbai have received attention and have been re-promoted. Most demoted
articles just havnt received thart sort of attention - primarily due to the
retirement of a bunch of editors who worked hard to get the pages to GA/FA
status, there arnt people enough for this.
That's true. Some of the former active contributors have now graduated
from their schools and universities and moved into real world jobs.
Getting them back would be difficult. The best possible thing to do at
the moment is to encourage senior secondary students and college students
to contribute. The best way to do it is to organize regular meet ups in
all major cities of India (which all of us know).
3. The COTM doesnt have too many regular active
editors, hence making a
GA from scratch is difficult, working on a demoted one may be a lot easier
Sometimes, a stub is a much better point for collaboration than a page
which is already comprehensive. This is because the satisfaction of
writing something from scratch is far more than what is achieved when you
are simply a WikiGnome. I know there'll be opposing views on this, but I'm
just sayin'...
4. Depending on the response, the COTM should be
extended - this may mean
articles which may not be upto the mark within a month get to a decent
level - people dont stop editing it abruptly.
Usually, editors who who have contributed significantly on a subject during
the COTM wouldn't stop until they are satisfied with the quality. So, I
think one month is fine.
5. This is probably going to be very controversial - I
suggest only people
actually taking part in COTM get to vote in the choice for the COTM every
month. Rationale being its those chaps that do the work, if they arnt
interested in the topic chosen, it will probably be a failure as they wont
be motivated enough to participate. Hence, its important that the active
editors get their choice of articles not what others want them to do.
Agreed.
6. Online outreach - there are Indian editors active
on en wiki that arnt
on this list or active offline and do not wish to mingle with Wikipedians
offline. I feel a major push is required to include these sort of editors
in COTM - as these are some really active editors who can make a big
difference to this initiative.
Yep! We should also use the India
noticeboard<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Noticeboard_for_India…
feature COTM efforts prominently.
7. A lot of previously very active editors are a part
of this list. Im not
asking you to come back and be an active part of this initiative - you are
probably busy with other stuff, however, it would be greatly appreciated if
you guys had a look at the COTM article say maybe on a weekly basis and
gave your input on it - either on the talk page or on this list. Playing an
active role will always be appreciated, however if you cant, we would love
to see you guys mentor next-gen editors participating in COTM :)
Thanks, Pranav.
Best,
anirudh
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:37:25 +0530
From: ashwin.baindur(a)gmail.com
To: wikimedia-in-en(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimedia-in-en] Next month's INCOTM - a proposal to include
former GA/FA as one of the choices
While restarting COTM last month, we had reduced our COTM targets from five
to two and we saw that of these one did well - the other flagged. Perhaps
it means that the number of people interested in COTM are not that many.
User:AroundTheGlobe had suggested last month that we consider developing
the low-hanging fruit ie former GA and FA articles and bringing them back
to quality each month. Personally I like this idea for many reasons:
* it gives a different activity for people to do than just improving an
article.
* brining an article to GA is like a quest or challenge for those who
prefer such.
* the articles have already reached very good quality and relatively little
work is required to improve them and restore them to former status.
* the WikiProject benefits much more tangibly.
* editors get to learn the GA process (lets begin with GA first) which they
can then use to improve their own articles.
So I propose that for January, we choose one normal article as normal COTM
and the other as Good Article Collaboration of the Month.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
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