Archive:The Big Cleanup

What's going on here? We need you, yes you, to sign up as a tester for the Big Cleanup. As a tester, for each article in a set of articles, you'll do two things: first, you'll go through a simple "to do" list; second, you'll slap the {{checklist}} template on the talk page and fill it out. Neither of these things is terribly difficult.

How to get started as a tester

Follow the following instructions; if you have any questions, ask below!

1. Sign up above. To find your articles, go to Special:Allpages and search on the page for your first article.
2. For each article, complete this to do list (it's quite easy to do), which can be found at The Article Checklist:
   • Bold the article title, if necessary.
   • Remove all unused (red) templates, category tags, images, and interwiki links. It might be a good idea to copy the templates and images to the talk page for people to reinsert later.
   • Add workgroup category tag(s). Note, the checklist will allow you to say "I don't know what the categories should be." Also note, you must use only the workgroup categories listed under Citizendium Pilot:Discipline Workgroups. For other workgroups, that have no appropriate workgroup, use Category:Needs Workgroup.
   • Add (or remove) the CZ Live tag as appropriate. Note: remove "CZ Live" if no significant changes have been made to an article. Removing unused templates, etc., are not significant changes. For purposes of this exercise, let's define "significant changes" as at least three changes in three different places to the wording of an article. Deletions count as changes. Any new article, even if a stub, is automatically "CZ Live".
   • Check the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box if the article is sourced from Wikipedia. NOTE: if this is the only edit that you make to an article, you have to make some small edit in the article text box as well (e.g., add a space at the end of a line--it won't show up). Otherwise your change won't be saved. Doublecheck at the bottom of the page that there's a link to Wikipedia.
3. Then add Template:Checklist to the article's talk page, and complete the Article Checklist. Basically, copy the code in the box below, paste it on the article's talk page, and fill out the form. It's pretty easy. Essential instructions for doing so are on Citizendium Pilot:The Article Checklist.
4. If you have any suggestions or questions, please state them below. If you think this is all a big big mistake, say that, too!

Here is the checklist template you can copy and paste:

{{checklist
|                 abc = 
|                cat1 = 
|                cat2 = 
|                cat3 = 
|           cat_check = 
|              status = 
|         underlinked = 
|             cleanup = 
|                  by = 
}}

Some examples

A complete list of articles that make use of the Article Checklist can be found at Category:Checklisted Articles.

Tester sign-up

Samples article sets, for testing. These are just the first twelve articles in the first five letters of the alphabet. We really need some practical experience doing this before asking people to do this on a large scale.

To sign up to handle the articles in the set (12 articles per set), just sign your name.

1 CE - acclamatio

Cleaner: Larry Sanger

Baccalauréat - Bahá'ísm

Cleaner:

Cachalot Scout Reservation - Canthal scales

Cleaner:

Daboia - Daboia persica persica

Cleaner:

Ear - Echidna Gabonica

Cleaner: Supten

Factor analysis - Fence plowing

Cleaner:

Suggestions

Particularly if you have been doing some testing, please give feedback here. Are there Article Checklist fields that you'd like to see added? Would you like to see new categories tracked? New things to put in the checklist?

If basic cleanup includes removing underlinking, will the links have to be reinserted as and when those new (related) articles come up in CZ? But will anyone be tracking them at that time? On the other hand, if the red tags remain, that may stimulate some of the contributors to start articles on those - at least in WP I had created many new pages from the underlinks. Supten 22:56, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Questions?

Please list any questions you have below, and Larry (or someone) will answer them.

What if I don't know what category to put an article in?

Choose the one that seems most likely to you, and then make sure that on the checklist you set cat_check to "yes" (so, one line in the checklist template looks like this:

cat_check = y

If none of the categories look right, then add Category:Needs Workgroup to the article.

An article is not linked from other expected articles not because the links were not made, but because those other articles do not exist yet. Expected links from existing articles instead exist. Does such an article qualify as underlinked? --Nereo Preto 14:19, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Yes, it does. The point of tracking "underlinked" articles is that we want to encourage the development of the important conceptual pathways, as it were, to our relatively specialized articles. The more of these "in demand" articles we create, the more sense CZ will make to the end user. "Underlinked" articles are a superset of orphaned articles (articles to which no other articles link), but reason for caring about the concept is roughly the same.