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Archive 1Archive 2

Importance ratings are out of whack

This project appears to have applied many importance ratings inherited from other WikiProjects, with the result that many of the ratings are out of whack. I spent some time removing misplaced pages such as List of neighborhoods of the District of Columbia by ward from the "Top" category (apparently all articles rated as "Top" importance for Washington, DC, had been given "top" ratings for United States!). I also did a little work on the "High" category, but the whole importance-rating system is still tainted by the presence of over-rated articles about DC, as well as over-rated articles about winners of the Medal of Honor (sorry if I am offending the superpatriots among us, but I adamantly believe that the vast majority of individual soldiers who died in action are not of "high" importance for the United States wikiproject), etc. --Orlady (talk) 20:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Good job Orlady.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Your absolutely right great job. As far as the DC thing I apologize that was my fault. I orginally applied the DC importance when I converted them over before the template had the ability of independant importance for projects. With the ability to independantly set the importance of an article to a project (presumably the class would stay the same because a start article is a start article regardless) the problem should be fixed. Well other than fixing the classing as you pointed out. For the most part I also agree with your comments about the Medal of Honor recipients. Althought the MOH is a high honor it isn't automatically of high importance (especially for those way back when like the American Civil War). The exception for this IMO would be for those who are Dual recipients, are known for other things as well such as Teddy Roosevelt and Charles Lindburgh and a few others. --Kumioko (talk) 20:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
It appears to me that an automated process gave all articles about the Medal of Honor a high rating. Some of those medal recipients were young enlisted men whose articles are currently given higher ratings than the battles (or possibly the entire wars) in which they died. If these ratings were assigned automagically, perhaps a similar bot process could be implemented to change them? --Orlady (talk) 22:02, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Yeah that was probably me again. Sorry I did that when I made most of them under the assumption they were of greater importance to the national collective than they actually were since the Medal of Honor is the highest medal a servicemember in the US military can get. I am going through the list now and should have it done tomorrow. I currently have it down to a list of 115 Medal of Honor recipients with Top or High importance, most of which honestly are stubs. I have already downgreaded a couple to mid (such as Frank Furness) based on other notable stuff they did. --Kumioko (talk) 22:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, these sorts of things happen all the time. I generally think of the 'importance' ratings as guides rather than anything set in stone. The other issue is rating classes - the introduction of 'C' class some time ago was a good one where many 'B' class articles which have substantial proportions of unreferenced text but cover most bases go. Also I've seen some stubs which are more 'start'. So worth considering where you see those...Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I have already begun to cull some of the the Top and High class articles as well. I am working, oddly enough, on C class at the moment but I will pull in Stub and Start next. --Kumioko (talk) 21:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
You should find alot of B class that are more accurately C class (due to lack of inline referencing in parts). Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes I agree, unfortunately we may need to address this as well. :-( Hopefully some we can fix and keep them at B class but I fear that many will need to be demoted for now. --Kumioko (talk) 15:50, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

This topic highlights the need for separate state-level WikiProjects along with a WikiProject United States and the problems created when people use bots to tag articles indiscriminately with project banners. Perhaps the group should collaborate on what a criteria should be applied before anyone puts alot of effort into changing the importance ratings. Racepacket (talk) 15:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Criteria could be somewhat tricky to apply, are Elvis, Richard Nixon, Yellowstone National Park and Disneyland all top importance? high? etc. Much of it is going to be hard to write a recipe for...Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
We have state-level Wikiprojects that are independent of the US WikiProject -- except for the DC project, which seems to be a subproject of the US WikiProject (and is unique for being the nation's capital). IMO, the vast majority of the pages that are currently included in state-level projects should not also need to be tagged for the US project. --Orlady (talk) 15:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
One could come up with a one or two sentence description of each importance level and give 3 or 4 examples of articles that properly belong there. Editors would then use their best judgment based on that guidance. I agree with Orlady that WikiProject United States should not place its banner on state-level WikiProject articles. Rather the banner (as associated bot activities) should be reserved for national-level articles. Racepacket (talk) 15:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
First I agree with the your comment that coming up with a 1 or 2 sentence description for each importance level is a good idea. Ill try and look into that in the next day or so unless someone beats me too it. We also need to decide on a good place to put it so people can see it. I would also like to send out a news letter of sorts at some point in early Feb so I could add that as a reminder and some will hopefully see it there too.
This is not, however an opportunity for you to mix in your personal feelings about the projects scope. Your mixing apples with Steak (apples go better with chicken). Since the subject came up however I feel obligated to discuss it for a moment. The issue of the mixed importances was somewhat brought about by the fact that the banner template did not previously support a separate importance for the other related projects. That is now fixed and should not continue to be a problem once we get it sorted out. It was not done by a bot just to be clear it was done by me, using AWB. In regards to adding additional projects to the Banner template. Please remember, as I have mentioned before, that sharing {{United States}} and adding the articles (and to a lesser degree the projects too) to the scope and pervue of WPUS that WPUS does not automatically "own" the projects, in this case specifically District of Columbia. Along with reestablishing WPUS I am attempting to build in mechanisms and functions to facilitate the maintenance of articles within our scope including the use of several bots. We have the WPUS page as a foundtion with the portal and noticeboard as a way of getting information out and are working on collaborations such as the Topic of the month and others to build up the content. Because of this, we are well suited to oversee inactive projects and the articles in their scope if the projects go inactive. Even if this project goes inactive at some point in the future things will be in place that much of the day to day maintenance of things will continue in an automated or semiautomated fashion.
The other projects are however independant with their own members, scopes and missions. Partly based on the fact that such a huge portion of teh DC projects articles fit in the US national scope and partly based on the fact that they have limited members and thereby can offer less support to the articles in their scope they were brought under under the umbrella of WPUS on the template and on the main page. I would like to see some of the other inactive projects added as well. If the project is inactive and is offering no support to the articles in its scope then the articles in that scope are essentially orphans...orphans leed love too. Some projects however such as city projects, projects related to Universitys or sports teams within a state for example are more appropriate to go into a state project if that state project is active. This will allow the articles under these inactive projects to be covered by a project and not be unloved orphans, forgotten, alone and unmaintained.
In addition to the mission and scope of National topics, WPUS (along with the US portal, Noticeboard and topic of the month) is the ideal place for the individual State projects and other US topic related projects, to meet in a central location to discuss issues that pertain to the group (such as the 2010 Census that touches all of them), to collaborate on articles or topics that cross projects, to discuss policies and guidelines though could or do relate to more than one project (rather than 1 project deciding that everyone else needed to do it one way). As I have said before. I have asked the other projects to join and collaborate. Some do and thats great. Some don't and thats ok too. But there is not nor has there ever been a requirement or intention of WPUS to take over the other projects, to change their scope, mission or purpose. To steal their members or any of the other concerns that haev been raised since I restarted this project.
Additionally, using Maryland as an example just because I am there at the moment, still has the scope of Maryland articles but there is no reason why, if we wanted to do so, we could not also look at those same articles and add them to our scope if we wanted too.
Also I want to clarify that I am fully aware that most users are only going to edit the things they are interested in. Some users only edit articles related to roads, military history or whatever. Thats fine. Knowone is under any obligation to do more than they want. We are all volunteers so knowone should feel overwhelmed at the size or scope of whatever WPUS is or becomes. Do as much as you wish to do. We will never have every article to FA status, we will never have every article created and we will never lack in things to do. There is no reason to think that we are overwhelming people so the arguments that have been presented that make it seem like the project will become to big to manage or maintain is really nonsense. IF some articles don't get edited or accounted for so be it. But the benefits of having all or most articles under the scope of United States (and be able to take advantage of the bots and functions being established for WPUS) outways the worry of whether we are going to be able to edit every single article or catch every problem and hopefully these articles will be in more than one other active US related project who also working on it as well. IMO it doesn't hurt if we try. --Kumioko (talk) 16:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
I addressed the scope issue in response to comments from User:Orlady, with whom I agree. Let's leave that discussion for the thread above this one. The criteria should probably go on the main WikiProject page. It could be:

Assessment of national-level articles:

Importance Ratings

The existing table of importance for this project is located at [[1]]. Other than the examples, the language sticks to that provided in the general template. I played around with the template and rewrote it from the perspective of the relevance of the article to readers. I don't consider the following a final proposal, but it may be a starting point for future discussion.

WikiProject article importance scheme
Importance Criteria Example
 Top Subject is extremely important, even crucial, to the proper understanding of the United States. The coverage gives a broad perspective of important aspects of the United States including, but not limited to, its history, its customs, its people, its government, or its economy. United States, Federal government of the United States, Washington, D.C.
 High Subject is extremely notable, but primarily focuses on providing details that would not generally be emphasized in Top Importance articles. An understanding of the topic will be important to non-specialists who want more than just a broad overview of the United States. California, State governments of the United States, New York
 Mid Subject will be of interest to persons looking for a more specialized understanding of the topic. The subject does have national implications and warrants a less-detailed mention in Top or High Importance articles. The article may have higher notability at regional, state, or local levels and may have a higher importance to projects with a more focused scope. Lake Erie, Article Four of the United States Constitution, Federal Communications Commission
 Low Subject is covered at a level that will be of interest only to people who are deeply interested in the subject matter. It will often not merit significant comment in articles rated at the three higher importance levels. It may be of limited national and regional interest. 509th Tactical Fighter Squadron
 NA Subject importance is not applicable. Generally applies to non-article pages such as redirects, categories, templates, etc. Template:United States topics
 ??? Subject importance has not yet been assessed.

Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 20:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess we were working at the same time and edit conflicted. Please see my alternative in the section above. I would disagree with some of your examples. For example, I don't think that California, State governments of the United States, or New York are within the scope of this Wikiproject. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 20:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

That looks very clear to me. I don't think I have ever seen a project rewrite these and tailor them to be specific to the project but I don't see any reason why it woudl be prohibited either. Well done
Since we are on the topic I would like to get input on a related issue as well regarding the importance for non articles things. It has always been my experience that there is no need for importance on things like files, books and templates. I have recently seen some projects giving these assessments however stating that, for example, a featured picture should be given top importance based on the factors that make it a featured picture. Does anyone have any opinion of these? I have typically been marking them as NA. --Kumioko (talk) 20:24, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
I disagree that these are out of scope. Personal opinions of scope aside I could see where there could be some disagreement of scope if we were to use Disneyland, Houston or the State government of Nebraska but the individual state articles and the general article of State governments of the United States are certainly in the scope of National importance. Regarding states I would have a harder time with say Missouri but I could name several reasons very quickly why California and New York are of National importance.
I mostly agree with Raceacket's assessment suggestions though as examples however I would argue that the Library of Congress is not a low importance topic and should be at least mid to High (I don't think its top though). I am also not sure I agree with your choices here for High. I could agree withe Supreme Court being High (although it seems more in the top category to me) and I would argue that the Declaration of Independance should be top as would the Bill of Rights and Constitution. IMO a better example of a High might be a past president like Gerald Ford, the Liberty Bell or any state such as Virginia but I realize you believe the states to be out of scope. --Kumioko (talk) 20:44, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
I still believe the "central, sister, daughter, all the rest" analogy is easier to understand than the "degree of detail" approach to a scale. The scale I used was based on what we use at WP:RUN. Again, I could write a painfully detailed United States article, but it would still be of top importance. I would probably rate all of the US Presidents on the same importance level regardless of whether they are specifically mentioned (or not mentioned at all) in United States, because there are only 45 of them. I have trouble with the "The subject does have national implications" criteria put forth by North Shoreman, because it is too vague and confusing. I do agree that if an article is rated by both WPUS and another WikiProject, it can have higher importance to the more specific project. Racepacket (talk) 21:18, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Biography

43, Racepacket. And I note that Washington and Obama are top already, and I'm fine with them being there...so long as Abe is too (boldly goes there). Probably most of the rest of the presidents should be high; though I believe there is or was a WikiProject devoted to the Presidents of the United States (if it's inactive, we might want to consider absorbing it and rebadging it as a taskforce). I also think a few other prominent American national figures who weren't president but were vital to the development of the United States should also be tagged as High-importance. Since most biographies fall under several other WikiProjects, I think the best course of action would be not to tag all but the most important figures in the devolopment of America; nor to assess low importance to biographies (as the biographies we'd be assessing would mostly be High) Purplebackpack89 06:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Exceptions could always be made, but I think that most biographies will be covered already by a number of other WikiProjects. I personally would score most Presidents as mid importance. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 14:08, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
As far as scoring presidents I would agree that most are Top or High except or a few particularly non-otable ones could be mid. As far as the US presidents project. Yes we could look into making that a task force IF that project and its members of primary contributors want too. Its small and it woulde rather easy. But I would recommend doing it the same way we did DC which is, the project is still its own project but uses the WPUS banner and could share some of the resources of the project (like the various bots) if we do that at all. Since this is exactly the sort of thing that Racepacket and several others have voiced fears of (WikiProject US trying to take over the world) in their doom and gloom statements though I think that just tagging the articles and letting the projects rot would be the better solution. I would rather try and help these other projects personally by getting them going again but since racepacket would prefer that inactive and dormant projects be left to their own devices to deteriorate and rot over time and would likely continue to fill this discussion board with more useless and frivolous accusations, inuendo and comments I see little other choice. I had in fact been discussing with about 5 projects and their users about doing the same thing that DC did where we share resources like {{WikiProject United States}}, the member list, the bots, etc and would help collaborate on the Portal, Topic of the Month and other things but I will likely have to tell them that due to concerns by users that are not members oo contributors to either project about the scope and perceptions of this project we would not be able to do that. Although doing this would allow them to continue to spend less time doing project maintenance things and more time to buld content related to their projects but not have to worry as much about the day to day maintenance and things related to them because there would be more people to do the same work. Oh well so much for building a collaborating team of editors who actually work on articles instead of fight about who has the right to edit what article. What a shame. I apologize for my attitude bt I am growing frustrated by the constant whining of a couple of users who spend at least 30% of their entire time and edits in Wikpedia in discussions stirring up debate. Racepacket, here is a suggestion. I know you mean well and I still feel as though you think you are trying to do the right thing and I think you could be avaluable asset to the project in developing articles and maintaining a project that is active but lets try and be a part of the solution and not the problem. IN the amount of time I have spent in this I could have edited several thousand articles using AWB, worked on the portal to clean up some other things (such as filling in On this day details), reviewed articles up for Peer review, A, GA, FA, FL, comment, Deletion, etc. But because I am spending all my time just fighting with you about perceptions that arent true and you don't want to listen I donlt have the time and the Pedia is paying for that. --Kumioko (talk) 14:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Kumioko, Racepacket...STOP!!! It is degenerating the collaborative nature of this project that you use a third editor's comment to score points against one another. I am going to draw up my own proposal regarding biographies, put it in a new section, and hopefully you two can comment on its merits without degenerating into another slugfest Purplebackpack89 16:18, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
I guess the real question that this section should have answered is whether the proposed guidelines, along with the examples, provide adequate criteria for rating the importance of specific articles. Personally, I think using the criteria would put most presidents somewhere in the TOP to MID level. It would be impossible to argue, for example, that Lincoln, FDR, TR, Jackson, Jefferson,and Washington don't meet the criteria for TOP which says "Subject is extremely important, even crucial, to the proper understanding of the United States." Any president that we would expect a high school student to be able to place in a proper historical context probably belongs here. Some like Madison, Eisenhower, Grant, John and John Quincy Adams, and Taft may creep into TOP simply because of their other accomplishments.
Similarly there are going to be presidents that naturally fall into the MID category that states "Subject will be of interest to persons looking for a more specialized understanding of the topic." Folks like Arthur, Harrison, Cleveland, Filmore, and Pierce simply are not associated with the most significant events in American history.
There is also nothing that would prohibit the creation of a separate set of standards for biographies covered by this project. You could use this [2] as a model. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:48, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
I also agree both of those would be beneficial. --Kumioko (talk) 16:52, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
I do agree that its degenerated and I look forward to seeing your proposal but its not limited to biographies. I am also glad that other members of the project are taking an interest in the discussion. Racepacket believes that this project should not be concerned with any articles not in a national scope (including the state articles themselves) so I fear that no matter what we decide or come up with, if it does not meet with Racepackets approval. It will not be sufficient.--Kumioko (talk) 16:52, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Again, I suggest we use the standards from WP:RUN which I worked from above. They are easier to apply than whether the topic of an article deserves extensive discussion in the United States article. Realistically, if Warren G. Harding has already been rated as "high" importance by WikiProject Biography / Politics and Government, WikiProject Ohio, WikiProject United States presidential elections, and WikiProject U.S. Presidents why rate the article as more than low or mid importance here? There are four other WikiProjects devoting volunteer resources to tracking and improving that article. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 17:21, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

See proposal below: Also, a person may not be as important to this project as he is to other project. I was unaware that U.S. Presidents had ratings; I was under the impression they did not as the project has only 49 articles Purplebackpack89 19:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Adopting a general proposal

I am generally in favor of Tom's proposal, but I would like to see more specifics in certain areas. You're on the right track, just flush it out a little more Purplebackpack89 19:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

There are two proposals before us for non-biography articles (call them "A" and "B"). One proposal is based on that used by WikiProject Running and states its criteria in terms of whether this topic would be viewed as a "daughter" etc of the main United States topic. The other focuses on whether it was referenced in the United States article and how it impacts the readers understanding. To see the difference, compare how each describes the "Mid" level:

Alternative A Daughter article or broad/basic definition, important for comprehensive coverage of the top issues, but not an integral definition. For example, bio of national political figures are of at least mid importance. Speaker of the House, U.S. Department of Energy
Alternative B Subject will be of interest to persons looking for a more specialized understanding of the topic. The subject does have national implications and warrants a less-detailed mention in Top or High Importance articles. The article may have higher notability at regional, state, or local levels and may have a higher importance to projects with a more focused scope. Lake Erie, Article Four of the United States Constitution, Federal Communications Commission

I believe that A is an easier set of criteria to understand and apply, but this is a subjective judgment, and I welcome other views. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 13:13, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket misstates the Alternative B proposal. Contrary to his claim, "whether it was referenced in the United States article" is not a criteria and I fail to see how a good faith reading of my proposal could have drawn such a conclusion.
The plan does create a hierarchy similar to the core-daughter concept. However unlike a very limited scope project like Running, this wikiproject will have numerous TOP priority articles that will cover many different aspects of the United States. The TOP priority description proposed is:
Subject is extremely important, even crucial, to the proper understanding of the United States. The coverage gives a broad perspective of important aspects of the United States including, but not limited to, its history, its customs, its people, its government, or its economy.
Under this criteria, United States would obviously be rated TOP priority, but so would many other articles that are CRUCIAL to understanding the United States and its history. For example, the article United States Constitution is CRUCIAL to a basic understanding of the United States and is rated as TOP. United States Bill of Rights, currently TOP rated, would arguably fall into the HIGH priority criteria which states:
Subject is extremely notable, but primarily focuses on providing details that would not generally be emphasized in Top Importance articles. An understanding of the topic will be important to non-specialists who want more than just a broad overview of the United States.
Individual amendments as well as articles on specific aspects of the Constitution (i.e. Article Four of the United States Constitution, would fall into the MID category. And to repeat, it is totally unrelated to whether it is referenced in the article United States.
In response to Purple (may I call you Purple?), I believe the best way to flesh my proposal out would be to work on the examples that will be included with the table, starting with the TOP priority and following through the HIGH and MID categories. Remember, the guide's purpose is to allow people tagging the articles on behalf of the project to make consistent ratings. More later. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Any misstatement of Alternative B was unintended, and based on a subjective impression. I agree that there will be a number of TOP priority articles. I want criteria that are easy to understand and apply. I think that this is a matter of wordsmithing. To me, "An understanding of the topic will be important to non-specialists who want more than just a broad overview of the United States." is easy to misunderstand and difficult to apply. That is what I mean by it focuses on the reader. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 17:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree that neither being referenced in a particular article nor being rated a certain way elsewhere should not have a bearing on the ratings. I think it's quite possible that we could have "mother" articles at any level, depending on the importance of the topic (Mid importance should include both daughter articles of high and top articles, as well as mother articles that are of lesser importance). I agree that we should identify what should be our top priorities are through community consensus, and probably limit it to around 100-150 articles (as a general rule of thumb, I believe at least 1% of all articles on a given subject should be Top-priority; there are certainly more than 10,000 America-related articles, though not all of them necessarily should be tagged here). Also, in a purely procedural move, we should reopen the assessment talk page (currently a redirect to here), so that we can discuss assessment-related issues without hindering discussion on other topics with long discussions dealing only with assessment Purplebackpack89 22:48, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
I just wanted to mention that the reason I redirected all the talk pages here was to centralize discussions until the project had sufficient organization to watch multiple places at once. Now that the project is starting to be active again your suggestion is a good idea IMO. --Kumioko (talk) 23:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
I think that we are very close to consensus. We have agreed on two separate criteria, one for biographies and the other for non-biographies. We have agreed to have a target number of articles for the top and high categories to give editors a sense of intended exclusivity. We are struggling on the best way to phrase the description of each category - but all want something that is understandable and easy to apply. We are close to reaching agreement on example articles. Racepacket (talk) 23:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Although I agree that there are articles in the various importances that do not belong and should be moved (some promoted and some demoted) personally I think setting some arbitrary number as the maximum for a given importance is not the way to go about it. Do we start by selecting the first group that will be the first top 200? What happens if we begin to exceed that say 200 magic number? Do we start voting on which one to bump off? Also Racepacket I think you are confusing the current discussion with your goals of limiting the project. I do not see where anyone has agreed that WPUS will restrict themselves to only national level topics. Only that those of most interest to the project will be voted of higher importance than say those of only limited relationship (such as Baltimore, Maryland for example). It also seems to me somewhat strange that you would say "we" have agreed when you have opposed every suggestion other than your own. --Kumioko (talk) 02:07, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It makes no sense, as Racepacket has done, to take a single sentence from the criteria and label it as "easy to misunderstand and difficult to apply." In fact, anybody applying the criteria has two sentences with each criteria -- the first is a general statement derived from the language of the template used throughout wikipedia. The second clarifies the first sentence by adding more detail. The rater will also have examples to show how the criteria are applied. Expanding the number of examples, which I have suggested, will further clarify the language. Finally, by using similar language for all the criteria, the rater will be able to compare the different levels to further assist in the decision making.

Racepacket's alternative is much less specific and is not particularly well written. The language for HIGH ("Core daughter article or significant related topic/person, hard to write the article comprehensively and NPOV without this article, enjoys widespread notability and consensus") is terrible. What do "NPOV" and "consensus" within the article (I guess that's what he means) have to do with the importance of the article? What does "hard to write the article comprehensively ... without this article" mean? The word "core" is undefined. My proposal uses clear language that defines core (w/o using the word) when it says, "Subject is extremely important, even crucial, to the proper understanding of the United States. The coverage gives a broad perspective of important aspects of the United States including, but not limited to, its history, its customs, its people, its government, or its economy."

I suggest that we work off my proposal. If there are unclear areas, we can resolve them with either additional language, better examples, or even explanatory notes. I believe rather than using concepts such as "daughter articles", that we in the examples show the relation between main and daughter articles. I will redo the table I created to demonstrate this.

I don't have a problem with specifying a numerical limit on TOP rated articles. However I think we should get to that number by first looking at the currently rated 54 and modify them based on our final criteria. After that, we should let nature take its course and reevaluate the entire list when it reaches whatever the upper limit is. Of course, any editor at any time is free to ue the list to address individual article ratings at any time.With 20 biographies being part of this mix, 200 seems like a reasonable number for the present. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 04:04, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Your explanation I agree is better and clearer. I do wonder though if articles with very high hit counts for more than a couple months would rate as Top or High regardless of whether they meet these criteria. It seems that if a top article has 50, 000 hits and something like Kim Kardashian gets 2, 000, 000 every month then we may want to focus some effort on these very high number articles as well. If we address the high number articles as well I believe it will thus have a positive effect on the project and on WP as a whole in the long run IMO. Perhaps the top 25 are top, the next 25 are High, etc. (More eyes, means more interest and potentially more interest in editing). Here is a link to the Popular pages for the project. --Kumioko (talk) 04:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

If the WikiProject Running formulation does not please the group, take a look at the concise criteria of WikiProject England:

Label Criteria Examples
Top Articles with international recognition. London
High Articles with national recognition. Sunderland
Mid Articles with regional recognition (e.g. Suburbs). Crumpsall
Low Articles with local recognition. A500 road

Instead of trying to predict what type of reader would be interested in the article, it focuses on how widely known is the topic. Racepacket (talk) 09:45, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Instead of trying to shoehorn the scope or article criteria adopted by other projects on this one why don't we just let this project adopt what they think fits them. I personally like the one that was rewritten for the general criteria and the one that defines the biographies and think is much clearer and a big improvement. IF we can just combine the 2 I think it would be ideal. --Kumioko (talk) 14:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
We are trying to find the best model to serve as a starting point. WikiProject Running and WikiProject England took different approaches, but they both have the advantage of being brief and easy to understand. Alternative B is based on another WikiProject but adding the type of reader who would be expected to need the particular article. I am not sure that is a helpful addition. Until just now, everyone had agreed that we would have separate scales for biographies and non-biographies. However, User:Kumioko is proposing to just have one scale for both, and I would be interested in hearing his reasoning, particularly when we are going to have a separate numeric quota for top and high articles as biographies or non-biographies. Racepacket (talk) 15:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
Well first I don't like the idea of having a max quota. If we have 200 then fine if we have 50 then fine but I believe to manage a "quota" or maximum number of articles allowed in the various importances is going to be very maintenance heavy and is going to invoke long and angry debates about why, for example, one president (such as George Bush or Teddy Roosevelt) is favored over another important one such as (George Washinton, Abe Lincoln or Barack Obama). I think that if we start setting "target" numbers its also going to potentially cause someone to feel compelled to fill that number of the most important X (how every many articles is decided to be the max is X) and then we will have to try and bump one off if a new more important article is created, added or agreed upon. Also we only have one system of classifying articles so in order to devise a separate "quota" for Bios and another for non bios means that we will somehow need to create a way to tell the difference. That means that we will need to "manually" somehow identify them (such as creating a parameter in {{WikiProject United States}} for bio's (which admittedly might be helpful anyway and wouldn't be all that hard). Theh bottom line in this is that its going to require a sugnificant manual requirement to maintain and I feel will detract us from the real goal of improving articles. Additionally, as far as I know, few if any other projects have these types of requirments so I don't think that we need to bring this upon ourselves either unless we have the editor support to keep it updated which at this point I don't feel we do. --Kumioko (talk) 15:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it should be quite easy to understand the various levels of interest that each importance category is geared to. I would guess that most of us went through the U.S. educational system and know those topics we were exposed to in the general survey course that we took through high school. A lot of us had further exposure at the college level and recognize the greater depth that we were exposed to. Most of us now out of school are here because our academic interests continued after school and we are looking for even greater depths in our reading.

I am a little perplexed that while we haven't yet reached agreement on the criteria, a great deal of energy has been spent today discussing which category to put specific articles in. It seems to be putting the cart before the horse. Can I assume that since four people have involved themselves in this discussion and three support my proposal, that this is the one we will be using? Racepacket seems to think we were looking for "short and sweet" criteria when in fact the existing language meets that criteria. The whole reason this subject was reopened is because our "short and sweet" version was judged to be inadequate. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 23:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

1) To restate, I do not find helpful the addition of an element based on predicting what type of reader would find the article interesting. For example, the phrase "of interest to persons looking for a more specialized understanding of the topic" should be deleted. 2) In response to Kumioko, a purpose of the "importance" scale is to set priorities for the WikiProject. By setting a maximum target number of articles, we serve to align the WikiProject's priorities with actual articles. For that reason, I believe setting a maximum target number is a very valuable part of the criteria. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 15:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
I have to admit that I personally think that having a max number is going to be too maintenance intensive and more trouble than its worth but it really isn't that important so its not something I am going to argue against other than to say that I think its unnecessary. --Kumioko (talk) 15:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia is all about the readers -- it's not just something to keep the editors off the streets. At WP:DETAIL is another example of where Wikipedia guidelines suggest making the type of judgment I am suggesting. You should already be aware of this since it also describes the concept of daughter articles. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 15:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Sorry let me clarify. I like the wording you came up with and I like that we are clarifying what the importances are to articles relating to WPUS (and maybe combining verbiage specific to biographies as well) but I don't think a pyramid numbering scheme is needed that limits how many top or high articles we have. --Kumioko (talk) 15:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
My response was only directed to Racepacket's reply -- sorry if I confused you. I have a vision in mind on how to structure the entire table of priorities, but I really haven't had the time to do it. It would involve adding a separate sentence to each level on the main table, using similar language to that prepared by Purple and then create footnotes off the table that would appear immediately under the table and give more detailed info in case anyone wants it.
For example, after the description of the TOP criteria, we could add a note that says, "Our initial target is to limit the number of articles in this category to 200 [or whatever number] with 20 of them consisting of biographies. When the article approaches these maximum numbers it may be appropriate for the Project to review all of the articles rated in this category for a consistent application of the criteria. Individuals should still change or discuss changing any individual articles that they think are improperly rated. " After some of the examples, we could include a note explaining how the criteria was applied to rating that particular article. For example, Article Four of the United States Constitution is listed in my example at the MID level. The explanatory note would read something like, "This article provides greater depth on this subject that relates to TOP level article Constitution of the United States of America and the HIGH level article State governments of the United States." Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:15, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Thats sounds great I look forward to seeing it. --Kumioko (talk) 17:20, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Requests for assessment

I don't know how many users have this on their watchlist but the project has a page for requesting third party assessments of articles here Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/Assessment/Requests. There are a couple articles needing assessment for anyone who may want to take a look. --Kumioko (talk) 19:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Purplebackpack’s Long-Winded Biography Proposal

My proposal is somewhat limited in scope, in that for the time being, I’m only focusing on 200 or so well-known American biographies (not because I think the scope of WPUS should be smaller, but so that we can have a more pinpointed focus and therefore get more Top and High articles to where they need to be). These American biographies should cover multiple facets of American life, but all the Presidents, as well as several other current political figures. For right now, I’m not designating any lows, only Top, High and Mid; we can do the Low if this works. The people I have picked haven’t necessarily been tagged yet; they are theoretical examples.

General criteria:

Article importance grading scheme
Label Criteria Examples
Any Has made a significant contribution, or gained notoriety, throughout the whole of the United States
Top Very well-known, and unquestionably influential. In essence, the U.S. wouldn’t be the way we know it. Limit to 20 biographies, who should have project consensus to be rated as such George Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr.
High Generally the most important people in a field or discipline (such as politics, art or sports), but did not completely alter the course of American history. Frank Lloyd Wright, Babe Ruth
Mid Lesser-known in their field or discipline. Warren G. Harding, Norman Rockwell

Here is the general criteria, now for a few specifics:

Presidents of the U.S.

We seem to agree that all 43 should be tagged here. I think the default rating for a President should be High (this jabs with the rating scheme on most other projects for past executives). If he didn’t serve a full term, drop him down to Mid (except for JFK, these are forgettable presidents). If he changed the course of American History, put him up to Top

Current politicians

The current president should be Top. I think that we should also assess a few other current politicians as well. If Obama is Top, I think it logically follows that Biden (the VP) should be High, and Roberts (the Chief Justice) and Boehner (the Speaker) should be at least Mid. Maybe tag the SecofState and the Fed Chair.

Other fields/disciplines

I think at least the top person or two (and probably more in certain fields) in each discipline should be High or Top. For politics, obviously the top people are Washington and Lincoln, and they’re Top. But there are other disciplines, such as Art/Architecture, Business, Literature, Music, Science/Tech, and Sports. And each of them should have at least one high biography, and probably a couple mid biographies.

Top-Importance articles

I said 20…and here are some of the ones I propose:

You can make suggestions to round out the list on your own. It’s likely that most of the Top-importance bios will probably also be Core bios at WP:BIO.

There’s my proposal. Comments? Specifics? Purplebackpack89 19:22, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Excellent list. Wondering about women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Amelia Earhart or Betsy Ross. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
They'd definetely be at least high...probably Anthony or Stanton should be a top Purplebackpack89 21:15, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Comments

One approach would be to start with somebody else's list. The Atlantic has a list at [3] and American Heritage has a response at [4].

At present there appear to be only four people with TOP ratings in the project -- King, Lincoln, Obama, and Robert E. Lee. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I know this is a matter of personal opinion, but I think that the biography curve is shifted way toward the "High" end. How about only 20 biographies at most should received the "High" rating, all US Presidents (other than any "High" rated ones) should receive the "Mid" ranking. Anyone else mentioned by name in the articles United States or History of the United States should be "Mid", and every other bio should be "Low." I am saying this because each of these biographies probably is already covered by four other WikiProjects and is not worth spending a lot of time and attention. Again, there is no scientific way to set the importance scale. It depends on how you see the scale being used. If one has no preconceived notions, one could say that there are 5 possible rankings, so stick 20% in each of the five buckets. If you see the WikiProject as focusing on broad nation-wide articles, then biographies would be hard to classify as "Top." It is not worth a big battle, and I can't prove that any approach is the correct one. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 21:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Martin Luther King is covered by 10 projects yet is only B Class. Arguably the two most famous Virginians, Robert E. Lee and George Washington are covered by 5 and 7 projects respectively and are only rated Class B and Class C. Abraham Lincoln is covered by 12 projects and only recently made it to Class GA. Franklin D. Roosevelt is covered by 12 projects and is rated B Class. It's not how many projects cover an article but what the projects do with their coverage. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 21:55, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. Tom, I believe GW is also a top priority, and should be if he isn't. I agree that Lee is definetely deserving of High or better, though I might give Jefferson #2 Virginian...though I'm not sure the importance of that in a national rather than state project. Also, FYI, the AmericanHeritage list is more attributable to John Steele Gordon rather than the magazine itself; JSG is generally skewed toward a business and economic interpretation of things. I'm fine with starting with the Atlantic Monthly's list, and then filling in the gaps with additional people (for example, Betsy Ross, Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman are absent from their list, but are widely enough-known). Race, you are correct in saying that this is skewed to the "Top" and "High" end, because any article that would be classified as "Low" might not be worth this projects' time anyway. I'm just starting with 20 Top, 100 High and 100 Mid...if we think it works out, we can add 500 more mid and 500 low. This is essentially a silly semantics argument, as you are just arguing that everything should be demoted one category. Also, the more I think about it, the more I realize that an article being tagged by multiple WikiProjects is a good thing. Gives you more editors, and a higher probability of getting an editor who is really passionate or knowledgeable. If any of you are interested, I'm starting to formulate the list of who should be Top, Mid and Low at User:Purplebackpack89/WPUSRatings...a list that can be discussed, edited, and perhaps projectspaced. Purplebackpack89 00:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Also, the more I think about it, the more I realize that an article being tagged by multiple WikiProjects is a good thing. Gives you more editors, and a higher probability of getting an editor who is really passionate or knowledgeable. Pretty much sums up what I was trying to do all along. --Kumioko (talk) 00:43, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
The real policy question here is how the biography distribution curve compares to the non-biography curve. If one believes that the primarly scope of the WikiProject is national-level, then the emphasis will be on topics like United States or History of the United States. The biography area is already heavily occupied, so it should be a curve that is shifted toward the "low" end compared with the non-biography curve. Racepacket (talk) 12:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Why? Having solid articles about 20 people who made the nation the way it it today seems to be to be as important to me as having articles on other topics of national scope. Purplebackpack89 15:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Is the importance scale a measure of how important is an article for a reader who wants to learn about the United States or what priority WPUS should give to this article in its overall efforts? I assume it is the later, and I would place a lower priority of biographies because so many other WikiProjects cover them. Racepacket (talk) 19:09, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Both actually. And just because they are covered by another project has no bearing on the article to this project. Barack Obama is Top importance on many projects (about 20 last I looked) and rightly so. --Kumioko (talk) 19:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
I could see President of the United States having a top importance, but the individual presidents being Mid with a few High. Racepacket (talk) 08:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
I think that the point of who is top, high and mid is a discussion that in itself will require more discussion and itself could be very subjective. I tend to disagree with what Racepacket says here that most pressident woiuld be mid however I think there are only a few that would rate as Top but I do agree that there are certainly some that did little while in office to rate significant attention until we have a chance to address the others of a higher importance. --Kumioko (talk) 14:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Medal of Honor Recipients

Hey, I noticed that several Medal of Honor recipient are listed as High importance. I think that the default position for a Medal of Honor recipient should be dropped from High to Mid, as the High importance tag puts them in league with some of the more , and many of them are not notable aside of what they did to earn their medal of honor. Using the "mother-daughter" theory, we should keep Medal of Honor as a High priority. I know these men did very important things for our country, but the standards seem to dictate this. Purplebackpack89 07:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

A reasonable call. Of course if a Medal of Honor winner becomes known for another attribute, such as being elected President, they get the higher importance. Racepacket (talk) 08:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
I was actually in the process of reducing most of these to low. There should only be about 80 left. --Kumioko (talk) 12:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Project scope affect assessment strategy

There is currently an RFC on the page WT:WPUS to clarify the scope of WikiProject United States and its relationship with state-level and subjec-specific wikiprojects. In many ways the criteria used to classify articles depends on the Project's scope and priorities of operation. I would encourage people here to participate in that discussion. I would also ask that the example articles used in the tables explaining the criteria reflect the emerging consensus to restrict the project to articles of national or regional signficance in order to avoid confusing editors when they make the decision to tag article with the project's banner. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 12:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

So how does the RFC relate to this subpage? Are you really going to carpetbomb this across Wikipedia just because you don't agree?--Kumioko (talk) 15:46, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
Also, I missed the part about an "emerging consensus" to restrict the project. I don't believe that is the case Purplebackpack89 16:32, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
The "emerging consensus" actually runs counter to Racepacket's position. We have adopted by consensus a mission statement with a broad scope and more limited focus. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
I think we all agree that our primary focus will be on the national and regionaly articles, in particular those that are high on the importance scale. I do not think that the majority of members feel we should restrict ourselves to only those articles as Racepacket is insisting. For one, many of these articles require advanced editor skills which many editors (including myself in some cases) do not possess and lie outside our members areas of interest (Medal of Honor recipients for example in my case). Some are going to be difficult to improve and get to the higher quality levels (such as United States for a variety of reasons). To adopt a policy restricting the entire project to that of only National or regional would also exclude a large chunk of our members as well as do a disservice to many articles that are currently not included or are not maintained by other projects for various reasons. I do believe, and have stated as such repeatedly in the past, that this project should play a role in the development of US related articles but maintain a non interferance policy with regards to the other active projects. --Kumioko (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
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