Forum:Assessing the Improvement Drive

Because it appears it is not doing its job.

Trenches (United Offensive) is one of the supposed current Improvement Drive articles, yet it does not look much different than it did a year ago when it was nominated for "improvement."

I suppose you could dismiss this as some grand conspiracy against United Offensive articles, but the trend is consistent in other pages that have been seeking improvement for months. Theater Mode's article has undergone more stylistic changes than anything else, and hilariously makes mention of Modern Warfare 3, but only touches on it again in the trivia section.

GKNOVA6 is an Improvement Drive veteran, clocking in at 430 days of "improvement," yet the article was nominated due to messyness, and while numerous stylistic edits to the page were made, it still looks as messy as it did in December 2010.

Additionally, Poketape is the only admin actively sorting out this project page. There are really only three or four users who participate in the project, and probably only a few more that know of the Improvement Drive's existence.

With all that said, we need to evaluate the Improvement Drive to determine if this project is worth keeping. 13:53, February 26, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
Perhaps the program could be advertised better? The only time I see anything of the program is on the front page, which you have to physically search for, and even then its at the bottom. People have to go searching for it, which is never good if you want some kind of activity around it. TheDocRichtofen (  Talk  ) 15:08, February 26, 2012 (UTC)

Well, I've always thought the Stub and Clean up categories have done the same thing, maybe even more effectively. I've always found the Improvement Drive over-looked by many people, while people will go into category pages for Stub and Clean up and get what the can done. Now, I'm not condemning the Improvement Drive, but it has been growing obsolete and redundant. 19:16, February 26, 2012 (UTC)

I agree, while improvement drive may not be very effective, it isn't something we should give up on. I agree with what The Doc said we should just find better ways to get editors involved with it. 21:16, February 26, 2012 (UTC)

There is no way the ID can harm us by existing, even if only a few users currently tend to it. I firmly believe it should remain. Shotrocket6 02:20, February 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * The question is: is it doing its job? — there is no debate over whether it is causing us harm, as such instances are rare. 14:58, February 27, 2012 (UTC)

While it is true not many people know about/use the ID, I figure it lets people participate in another way and informs people that an article needs improvement. Some articles have been improved since I fixed the ID, so its net effect on the wiki has been positive. 03:06, February 27, 2012 (UTC)

It just needs more exposure. It's only seen on the main page so not many editors bother looking at it, but if it's put somewhere on the top bar, it might get more coverage (I don't know about others, but I usually use the links at the top for easy access). 05:36, February 27, 2012 (UTC)

What I see as a problem is that some people like to help in nominating to add/remove an article, but I don't think the page actually gets any more attention when it's in the Drive. The other problem is its unpopularity, as said by others. And per Doc, I think it just needs a little more advertisement.

On a side note, I could help with the pages when/if I get more interested on CoD again (I could search for the facts/info et cetera). 15:04, February 27, 2012 (UTC)

Why don't we implement a set-in-stone spot on the Community Messages box for articles in the ID? That would grab the attention of at least some more users. Shotrocket6 20:36, February 27, 2012 (UTC)

I usually go in there to try and edit articles, but whenever there is a vote for an ID, the same 4-5 people vote and have a say in it. 22:11, February 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * ^ Yeah, it's usually me, twc, The Sarge and MLG. (and a maybe 2 others) the community just isn't that involved in it. 01:28, February 28, 2012 (UTC)

Would users become more involved with the ID if we simply raised awareness of it? Shotrocket6 10:30, February 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * There's a higher chance. TheDocRichtofen  (  Talk  ) 13:09, February 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * Can we not simply just do that and see if the effeciency improves? Shotrocket6 20:24, February 29, 2012 (UTC)

Following what Shotrocket6 said, we should just come up with a new plan to get the community more involved in ID, and if that does not help then we could take farther action regarding the project. Sound good? 02:17, March 1, 2012 (UTC)

As an added incentive, we could add awards for notable ameliorators of the articles. 02:54, March 1, 2012 (UTC)
 * What's an ameliorator? 00:00, March 2, 2012 (UTC)
 * http://bit.ly/yIeDjf Shotrocket6 00:55, March 2, 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it was one of those words that spellcheck doesn't know about. 03:15, March 2, 2012 (UTC)
 * Getting back to TWC's point, I agree. We could have an "ID contributor of the month" award to be placed on the page, decided by a select admin or two. Shotrocket6 20:56, March 2, 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, care to make this into a vote? 22:43, March 2, 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't like the idea of an monthly award for ID, instead we should just hand out ID awards like we do Image Contribution awards. 22:51, March 2, 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The Image Contributions award is only handed out to users that have contributed a lot of high quality images; if we were to make a medal for the ID, two things would happen:
 * Nobody would be interested in the workload required to get the award
 * No other users would be aware of the awarding unless they saw it themselves, and so nobody would notice the ID
 * If we keep it to a monthly title, then that user can have their username on the ID page for a while (maybe on the main page too), and other users will be drawn to the project in an attempt to get their own username in the spot. Shotrocket6 02:28, March 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * This. TheDocRichtofen  (  Talk  ) 10:15, March 3, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I like the idea of awards for ID. What if somebody decided to go and majorly contribute to ID pages for a month just for the award, then never contributed to it again? It would really not be fair to the people that actually contribute to it regularly if somebody just came in and took it from them then left. 19:36, March 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * Why would we care if they do it for the sole purpose of receiving an award? That's more contribution than what they would have done anyways. 00:32, March 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * As I said, it would be pretty unfair to the people that already edit there regularly. While you would not mind it, a lot of others would be very angry if such a situation happened. 01:24, March 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * "People that edit there regularly", if that's the case 20% of us (me) agree on this. 02:28, March 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * Also a monthly award for something also seems like overkill for just one project. 22:32, March 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * How so? I don't see you coming up with any solutions. 00:32, March 4, 2012 (UTC)

We could make a bigger section for the Improvement Drive on the main page and include it on the CoDWiki News.  Dr Brew  Talk  03:09, March 1, 2012 (UTC)

The ID is a low point on this wiki. Nobody has tried to promote it despite me asking numerous times to advertise it on the news. We should really be promoting the ID and maybe even doing a pop-up attracting people to help in the ID. Another (albeit unrealistic) idea is to make it so that users have to view the ID to be able to access Chat. That would work if it wasn't a repellent and was easy to do. 11:30, March 3, 2012 (UTC)


 * what 17:54, March 3, 2012 (UTC)


 * ^ making users have to look at ID before joining chat is just absurd 18:13, March 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * "albeit unrealistic...repellent" see I thought it through. 18:30, March 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * It would turn ID into a byword for "skip". Plus it would have a damaging effect on chat. Its not happening. TheDocRichtofen  (  Talk  ) 19:03, March 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * Nobody would even want to make the java for that anyway. Shotrocket6 22:19, March 3, 2012 (UTC)
 * I still have no idea how that would work. You made a proposal that you yourself cannot enact, YellowLucario. You make a proposal that sounds like a whole lot of work when there are other alternatives to this. 00:32, March 4, 2012 (UTC)

I just want to bring something up that came to mind, maybe it's not such a bad thing the ID is small and unnoticed? Making pages that already need help more noticeable through the ID could end up like putting up a sign saying: ''' Vandals come here and ruin these pages further! ''' And yes, of course I'm aware we could use undo and rollback and whatever to fix it, but that doesn't solve the problem as a whole, it'd end up making our job of fixing the pages harder. To sum up, I want the ID to be more noticeable, but not noticeable enough that any vandal can come by and see a clear opportunity. 01:24, March 4, 2012 (UTC)

Let's just include the improvement drive in the Community News blogs and in the community messages. It will give it more exposure while not rubbing it in users faces. 01:31, March 4, 2012 (UTC)

Seeing Smil's point, I think that besides getting the ID template on the page, it should also be protected from anons, seeing as they don't need anymore harm done. 01:33, March 4, 2012 (UTC)

Needs to be promoted more, that's really all. Conqueror of all Zombies 01:45, March 4, 2012 (UTC)

A possible decision
I have come up with a few possible solutions, derived from the conversations above.


 * 1) Advertise the ID in the Community News blog every week.
 * 2) Advertise the ID in the Community News blog every week and award a medal to frequent editors involved with ID.
 * 3) Advertise the ID in the Community News blog every week and award a monthly medal to a user who has shown great contribution to the project that month.
 * 4) Other.

It has become apparent that doing nothing is not an option and ID needs help now. Hopefully we can come up with a solution from one of these ideas or something else.

01:44, March 4, 2012 (UTC)