657:. There are not errors in the featured content area; they almost all come from the GA process. The problem isn't the templates (old or new); the problem is that anyone can pass a GA without reading instructions. At least there is less potential for error on GA with the old templates, but on the other hand, with the new method (articlehistory) at least we have a means of finding the errors. The GA errors show up at the time the article comes to FAC, which is why I end up having to fix them all. The only way I can think to stop these GA errors is to change the GA process. Instead of letting just anyone change talk pages, have a centralized page where GA passes and fails are lodged, and let experienced editors update the talk pages; that is, get some quality control/training over the process.
803:
suggestions, and none is phrased in the form of an "attack." Also, to respond to Sandy, the bots that work the GA's has been doing a much better job of catching the errors you note on recently promoted GA's. There are problems with the older GA's, and these are being slowly addressed through quality sweeps. I understand your concern with the problems there, but its simply a matter of too much to do and not enough hands to do it. I personally fix the problems you note whenever I come across them, but there are just not many people to fix the older GA's... --
406:, the workpage we used when converting FAs and FFAs to articlehistory. Just yesterday, I had to correct another faulty GA passing, using the old templates (not articlehistory), so those problems continue to be related to experience level/anyone can pass a GA rather than method (GA templates or articlehistory). Other issues with some of these templates still in use: there are still almost 1,000 article talk pages with the old
913:, the bot has no idea when that was added without going through edit history. It does look for edit summaries with "GA" or similar when the GA template has no oldid. (It could look through diffs but that seemed silly.) The oldid is optional in AH too, but the bot fills in missing ones when it processes the page if it can understand the date. (The #time function handles ISO dates but the bot doesn't have this feature yet.)
873:, missing dates, topics, links or oldids do not generate ArticleHistory errors either, although a missing date does generate an "invalid time" error. (This could be replaced with an "Unknown" date.) It would be great if these data were always filled in, but there are many things to do at WP, and adding links and oldids are not the best use of time in my view. Are any of these data essential for "prepping" GimmeBot?
841:? The first time I used AH, I didn't include the oldids because I didn't know them, and there's nothing to indicate they are required. Similarly, I suggest advertising Dr PDA's article history script on all these template documentation pages, as I was unaware of it the first time I used any of the templates and it makes finding the oldids much easier.
771:
has to look that data up before the FAC is closed; it is really time consuming, and it would be stupendous if someone at GA worked on it regularly. I didn't realize you had that category, so I withdraw my suggestion for better centralization, and change it to a request that someone process these errors so that they aren't all left to me :-))
469:, I also recoginze that it is cumbersome and uses esoteric language and is hard for the uninitiated to use. Heck, I have used it a hundred times, and STILL have to load up the instruction page for it each time. While it should be availible for people to use, there should not be a stand one way or the other as to whether it is
770:
I had a missing topic, oldid and date just yesterday (or was it the day before? - lost track now). Can someone at GA start cleaning out those errors regularly, so I don't have to be the first to hit them when I prep FACs for GimmeBot? There are several current FACs in there now, which means someone
365:
A clarification: the rate of broken articlehistory templates has markedly decreased (finally), and mostly came/comes from the GA process. Because anyone can pass or fail a GA, it pulls in many editors who may not be familiar with articlehistory, so they are the case most likely to need to fall back
350:
I'm definitely in favor of depcrating the old templates. But that simply raises a very important question that you have glossed over - how are users supposed to interact with
ArticleHistory? It is my impression from Sandy that people often create ArticleHistory templates that are broken. Deleting the
1118:
GAs have a review date! I've added a date parameter to the GA template today (and improved the documentation of the GA templates), but there are a lot of existing GAs to fix. Fortunately, almost all GAs have an oldid, so I imagine a bot could sweep through the GAs, fetching the review date using the
885:
Will need to hear from
Gimmetrow on that; my goal has been (considering the considerable time and effort GimmeBot saves everyone and the fantastic job it does) to make Gimmetrow's job easier so that the bot doesn't stall on faulty talk page templates when it closes FACs. To that end, I review every
717:
The only error I've seen is an incorrect topic (e.g. "topic=television") and the templates automatically traps many such mistakes. Everything else amounts to the omission of optional information (the date, the oldid and the topic). Also an incorrect topic is treated as a missing topic, so it isn't a
699:
You name it, I've seen it done :-) Mostly not adding oldid or date, so someone else has to go back and look it up in the diffs, which is VERY time consuming. I'm not saying to make it like FAC; anyone can pass a GA, but make it so that someone knowledgeable does the talk page updating to avoid the
433:
I agree with the above in that it makes sense to not depreciate them, and actually encourage users to still use them (unless they're familiar with AH, with a bot running through to make the change to the more complex and delicate AH. (Of course, barring the creation of some tool (Javascript based?)
1134:
No real point adding a date if there's an oldid. It's essentially duplicate information (if done by a bot). And yes GA hasn't supported a date parameter, but GimmeBot has since, oh, about 10 months ago :) (Seriously, if it looks like {{GA|12:34, 5 June 2007}}, the bot handles it; there used to be
652:
I'm not sure I made my point clearly; I disagree that the articlehistory template is complicated, although it does require reading instructions. The ongoing GA errors occur just as much with the old templates as they do with the new articlehistory; editors passing GAs often don't know how to use
390:
I'm broadly in the school 2 (or possibly 2.5 :-) In other words, I'm in favour of a bot converting these templates into article history actions when they arise, but I'm not in favour of eliminating the templates. I'm against deprecating them (especially the GA templates) unless
ArticleHistory is
1154:
Okay that's good. The templates accept the date in any form accepted by #time, but the documented format is "2007-12-30". Reviewers get used to using dates in the hundreds of other nomination templates, so this should be more reliable than an oldid.If we can also agree that topic parameters are
802:
I am afraid, Hildanknight, that I don't see any attacks there. As a GA regular myself, I don't read anything above besides some suggestions to improve the process where it has flaws. Some (such as a centralized clearinghouse and multiple reviewers) aren't likely to happen, but others are good
391:
entirely automated, because manually adding article history actions is tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone. I do not know whether complete automation is possible, as some of the article history information is awkward to find. Gimmetrow may be able to comment here.
574:
I think there has been a clear consensus here that those who have the expertise and the time should be encouraged to replace instances of the other templates with
ArticleHistory actions. No one is averse to editors doing that, as far as I can tell.
994:
Gimmetrow's response reminds me, I can't tell you how often GA passes include no edit summary, so that when you're looking for the oldid, Dr pda's script doesn't work, so you have to go back through the history, diff by diff, to find the GA pass.
924:
Okay, we better make the date mandatory then, and generate an
ArticleHistory error when it is missing. I guess the answer to Carre's question is that the action, date and result are mandatory, but the oldid and the link are not.
384:
718:
big deal. If any editor wants to spend time filling in this missing information, they are free to do so. Furthermore, contrary to SandyGeorgia's assertion, we do have a means to find these "errors":
217:. Given that we now have a robust and compact way of listing all these article milestones, doesn't it make sense to deprecate all these templates? I suspect there are three schools of thought:
729:
Changing processes to make templates run smoothly is backwards: we should be changing templates to make processes run smoothly. On that, my main point of agreement with SandyGeorgia is that
366:
on templates. We almost *never* get FA template errors anymore; it's a complete rarity now, and ah/Gimmebot is functioning marvelously in the featured areas and wrt maindate, dyktalk.
1067:
863:: it is nice to have it, but not a big deal if it is missing. I occasionally use the cats to tidy up a bunch of GAs, but, to be honest, it isn't a high priority for me. Actually, in
682:. The issue is, as you say, education - what, exactly, are GA reviewers doing wrong? Not adding oldids and/or topics seems like a likely error, but are there any others?
197:
And probably a fair few others. I'm not at all inclined to miss them - they're cumbersome, take up a huge quantity of space at the top of talk pages (the existence of
1155:
optional (and hence remove this error check from
ArticleHistory) then very few GAs should need prepping, since they'll almost always either have an oldid or date.
473:
over the individual templates. While users should not be discouraged from using it to clean up talk pages, NEITHER should users be forced to use it... --
465:
I think of "ArticleHistory" like I think of "cite web", while I find it useful and I think it presents a more condensed and ultimately easier to read
324:
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859:
that is supposed to do this, but it is not very active at the moment. Anyway, from the GA perspective, the topic/date/oldid information is
416:
template. Converting those to articlehistory would be an inordinate amount of work. Probably same for others, such as old peer reviews.
886:
new FAC to make sure the talk page templates are in order, so that GimmeBot/Gimmetrow have less issues to deal with at the other end.
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837:
Might I suggest that a decent step forward would be to indicate, in the respective template documentation, which parameters are
434:
that can understand and parse the AH template to provide a simple form-driven interface for adding in the right details :-) --
814:
484:
446:
Ideally the other templates should just be signals to a bot to update article history, but we are still some way from that.
1196:
719:
17:
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1158:
Meanwhile the TfD has closed, with 3 templates deleted, 2 deprecated, and the GAN guidelines have been updated.
1195:. If the topic field is missing or empty, I think it's only flagged if it's a GA or FFA/GA, and then only with
1012:
Pain enough when you're doing it by hand. It's even worse for a bot: yeah, just get the last 100 revisions of
700:
errors. Have them pass the GA on a central page, where someone else does the technical/logistical aspects.
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I was thinking more along the lines of "result = helpful" or "result = waste of time" for peer reviews :)
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This is a good point: I'm going to be updating various GA guidelines soon, and have taken this on board.
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FA regulars should stop attacking GA and start suggesting how the template can be made easier to use. --
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Isn't the topic field more or less optional in the current code? I think the topic only generates a
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indicates we put too much on the top of talk pages) and aren't nearly as easily machine-readable as
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These templates should be deprecated and a bot should convert all instances of the templates into
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Concerning dates for GAs, the issue here requires some work, because (much to my amazement)
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But then GA becomes watered-down FAC, which we don't want in the same way we don't want
1077:(part of ArticleHistory). This threw up a dozen or so articles, which I've been fixing.
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has listed some of the above templates (namely the ones which are currently unused) at
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The AH system is set up assuming there will always be a date. If the template is just
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If you are one of the few
Wikipedians who know how to use it, go ahead and replace
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be deleted. New instances of the templates should be converted by the same bot.
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Someone once used "not reviewed" as the result for a PR with no comments ;)
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oldid information, and adding it to the GA template on the talk page.
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Of course I have no doubt someone will find an alternative viewpoint
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old templates would, it seems to me, only accelerate this trend.
36:, when used correctly, deprecates a lot of templates:
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provided a date parameter, in spite of the fact that
293:on the list, as they cannot be incorporated into
1073:I've added an error check for a missing date to
936:Result is optional for peer reviews, I believe.
678:(if it's ever implemented) to be a watered-down
1185:if it's specified *and* it's not recognized by
8:
231:, and the templates should then be deleted.
527:know how to use it replacing instances of
323:Note, some previous comments can be found
855:(ec: reply to Sandy) There is actually a
724:Category:Good articles without an oldid
523:But would you be averse to anyone that
251:The templates should not be deprecated.
496:Oppose deprecation of other templates
7:
1197:Category:Uncategorized good articles
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24:
547:, etc, with properly-implemented
404:Template talk:ArticleHistory/work
1:
1206:23:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
1183:Category:ArticleHistory error
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1126:18:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
1092:never, in its entire history,
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851:17:49, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
820:01:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
798:00:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
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766:17:24, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
713:17:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
695:16:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
670:16:08, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
635:04:53, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
601:16:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
582:12:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
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18:Template talk:Article history
508:is too difficult to use. --
1228:
1016:- that'll be a nice, oh,
947:Peer review failed hehe!
790:J.L.W.S. The Special One
627:J.L.W.S. The Special One
510:J.L.W.S. The Special One
303:. Discussion, please.
244:. However, they should
1135:quite a few of these.)
402:Gimmetrow's list is at
1114:both do! Conseqently,
1075:Template:Historyoutput
1068:Templates for deletion
1020:API query! Grrr....
759:are badly documented.
615:, etc. templates with
647:ArticleHistory and GA
1070:. Comments welcome.
26:It strikes me that
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83:FARpassed
74:FACfailed
65:FormerFA2
1190:GA/Topic
1109:FailedGA
1014:Talk:Foo
861:optional
816:contribs
805:Jayron32
754:FailedGA
498:because
486:contribs
475:Jayron32
345:Comments
186:multidel
110:failedGA
56:FormerFA
47:Featured
999:Georgia
890:Georgia
775:Georgia
704:Georgia
661:Georgia
471:favored
420:Georgia
370:Georgia
353:Raul654
159:dyktalk
1056:Update
680:WP:RFA
676:WP:RFR
655:either
168:Oldafd
1029:melon
1023:Happy
997:Sandy
956:melon
950:Happy
888:Sandy
843:Carre
773:Sandy
702:Sandy
691:melon
685:Happy
659:Sandy
597:melon
591:Happy
566:melon
560:Happy
418:Sandy
368:Sandy
312:melon
306:Happy
16:<
1104:and
1090:has
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895:Talk
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794:talk
780:Talk
749:and
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709:Talk
666:Talk
631:talk
625:. --
557:??
514:talk
480:talk
438:ASEM
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375:Talk
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325:here
525:did
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291:not
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274:FAR
264:FAC
246:not
1199:.
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