User talk:ThsQ

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peer review and assessment

ThsQ,Thanks for your helpful and quick response. I have made my entry official. I am a professor working on an ongoing project with my students to edit, update, and improve biographies of figures from British history. I just discovered the peer review process this morning, which was a VERY exciting development, as I am trying to education my students about the process of having work reviewed and verified by outside evaluators. I will talk with them and have them make sure that their pages are properly documented, and then have them submit their work for peer review. Let me know how that sounds or if you have recommendations for making the work of the reviewers easier. Thanks...Cyrus Mulready Redcknight (talk) 14:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

hi, Cyrus. Glad to get to know you. I too am new around here. It is a very disjointed place because of the lack of "meaningful" assistance. Oh sure, there is an abundance of help, and of crosslinks from one thing to another. Yet for the important things like peer review, assessment, and quality structure, there really is little thoughtful concern on direction. Basically, it goes like this: STUB, START, B-CLASS, ask for PEER REVIEW, work with suggestions, and then seek outside quality input leading to an A-CLASS rating plus GOOD ARTICLE rating, on the way to a FEATURED ARTICLE classification. Unfortunately, a team of misguided editors can quickly bypass most of everything by working diligently to subvert until they get to the FEATURED ARTICLE category. Everyone wants to be FEATURED so the category is jammed. But...let us forget that for a minute and concentrate on the assessment called peer review. I've been watching peer review for a month or so now and have concluded that there are very few quality reviewers even participating in the peer review process. On the whole, mostly everyone seems to feel that a bot review is satisfactory. I disagree, but that is incidental to this discussion. I believe that you will find more satisfaction in researching the area of GOOD ARTICLE nominations and GOOD ARTICLE reviews. Concentrate your goals towards having your students understand the difference between a machined bot review and a quality GOOD ARTICLE review. I think if you are successful, you will be assisting Wikipedia by making it better on both the levels of peer review and good article review. The more reviewers there are the better Wikipedia gets. In my personal opinion, there are too many editors around here with personal objectives, and an ability to make mischief. ThsQ (talk) 15:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Navigating the assessment process

First of all, I am the person who changed your assessment level on the Danny Casolaro article. I did so because it is not at this point at good or A-class level or featured article status. Peer review is not an automatic part of the quality class assessment process, it something that may be requested to garner suggestions for improving the article in the actual assessment process. Bot-reviews are perfectly helpful in that at the point when an article may be ready to pass from the B-class and below levels, there are some necessary technical requirements for which the bot-review can provide guidance. Since you've only been here a short period of time, it may be helpful not to draw conclusions such as "a team of misguided editors can quickly bypass most of everything by working diligently to subvert." Subversion isn't the goal, quality is. I would suggest that a new user join a WikiProject of his or her interest and work within the project's assessment department to learn more about the assessment project. Assessments of stub, C-class and B-class are fairly easy to make and the requirements are quite clear so those can be done by anyone. A good place to study the requirements for all biography articles can be reviewed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment#Quality scale. All projects have more detailed requirements but all are based on the same general assessment criteria. The assessment process is very organized once an article passes that point, and teams of editors actually work together to come to consensus on assessment and critique for those articles.

An article's quality starts with STUB, then C-CLASS, then B-CLASS. At that point, a PEER REVIEW may or may not be requested, depending on issues that might exist around an article. In any case, once that has happened or not, the next level is a GA (GOOD ARTICLE) REVIEW. There are specific requirements for each level which are all outlined in the assessment sections of the various WikiProjects, but all projects follow a generally proscribed criteria. The good article requirements are listed at WP:GA?. When an article is ready for a GA review, one would submit a request at WP:GAN for assessment, and generally, the article is reviewed by persons who are well-experienced and informed on those requirements. A WP:GA is a mark of achievement for the article and isn't grantly lightly. The article must go through the process to be listed as a good article. I would not advise a new editor to jump in so far as to conduct reviews on articles at this level until that person has some solid editing and process experience on Wikipedia, simply because one must be quite familiar with what is required, through experience. In any case, once an article has been listed as a good article, the next level is A-class. A-class is a relatively new level and is still in its formative stages. Not all projects are presently assessing articles at this level because of that. Once an article has met all the requirements at lower levels, it may be nominated for feature article status. The criteria for featured articles is at WP:FA? and requesting a peer review may be most helpful at this point. Criteria at this point is very exacting and articles are nominated for FA at WP:FAC. Once an article has been classified as WP:FA, major changes should no longer be required or conducted without involved discussion at the article's talk page. I hope this is helpful. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My Story (Julie Couillard)

I noticed your edits to My Story (Julie Couillard). It is undergoing a Good Article review. So, I am curious whether you plan any major changes. One of the GA requirements is stability so if any major changes are planned the review can be put off hold until you are finished. Alternatively, you are welcome to participate in the review at Talk:My Story (Julie Couillard)/GA1 --maclean 19:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Maclean. To be honest with you, I do not know right now. I stumbled into the article when I saw what looked like vandalism from an IP. But when I checked the edit, I saw that the IP had spent some time rewriting the lead, making the lead much better than the version before the IP. So I then began reading further, yet encountered a great deal of sloppy writing in the Background section. That is when I stepped in, and rewrote that section. I have not read further. So in answer to your question, let me try to read tonight, and to edit whatever I can not live with. By tomorrow night, I will be gone from the article for good. Thanks for asking. Does this help?ThsQ (talk) 20:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thank you for your attention. Any help is appreciated. maclean 20:14, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. I've taken a second look. My opinion of the prose two days ago was "this article needs much more work" (or something like that). Today, I feel the same. The prose is laced with slang, or expressions which need to be reworded. If I attempt to edit, my edit will be major. If this is acceptable, just say yes; and I will begin.ThsQ (talk) 20:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is great. I've written several articles on books and this one basically follows the same format. The one exception is that I added a second background section, "Bernier-Couillard affair". I did this because I feel it is necessary context to understand why the book was written and there is no separate article on it to which I could simply link to. Otherwise, the book was was kind of a flop (made all the headlines on Oct 2/3 but very little afterwards). --maclean 21:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Useful Points | Adjustments needed

I wanted to let you know that I found your points useful.

Points of Agreement

I see now how my original language gave rise to confusion.

.. I'm reading about 'third' and 'rfq'. Good point. I am getting a handle on the "preview page" tool.

.. I recognize that the other commenter has revised his view substantially, and I have I hope added clarity.

.. I appreciate that David Corn's text has been posted for quite a while, and that it was added to avoid speculation (a good thing).

Points of Concern

.. The stand by the word "emotional". Please take another look at the comment on mytalk page. My word emotional is understated.

.. One of the grounds of rejecting my view was strange in this way: it seem to be saying that Corn is "really" saying "nothing is conclusive" and yet quote (given from Corn) is in clear contrast to that claim. Can you give me a third party view on that?

Mountain and Molehill

Now I understand the point here. I add this thought to ponder: The benefit or value added of the Corn quote is small while also seeming to shift the prior clear tone of balance; the sentences prior to Corn do summarize very fairly the two points of view.

Backdrop: Why it is important to get it right

a) Media mistakes mimicking standard government claims Jessica_Lynch and the book So Wrong for Song Long (among others) http://www.amazon.com/So-Wrong-Long-Pundits-President-Failed/dp/1402756577

b) The use of government agencies to support government agency propaganda Operation Mockingbird or, if you prefer, to represent the official government position William F. Buckley, Jr.