CZ:The Article Checklist

The function of the proposed Article Checklist is to track certain metadata about an article that we can use to organize article improvement projects and to compile statistics meaningful to humans.

An example of the Article Checklist can be found at Talk:John Doherty (fiddler). If you're interested, feel free to play with the parameters of the template on that page, to see what they do. It makes use of a template found at Template:Checklist.

The blank template

Here's a copy of the blank template that you could (but don't yet!) copy and paste onto the talk page of an article.

{{checklist
|                cat1 = 
|                cat2 = 
|                cat3 = 
|           cat_check = 
|              status = 
|              orphan = 
| templates_to_import = 
|    images_to_import = 
|             cleanup = 
}}

The template fields explained

Here are explanations of each field on the checklist. Bear in mind that we can, especially now, add and remove fields.

Workgroup category or categories

Should be identical to the workgroup list found on the article itself. This is necessary in order to generate certain categories automatically.

Fill in 'cat1' before 'cat2' or 'cat3'. Template:Checklist permits only three categories, 'cat1', 'cat2', and 'cat3'.

Check categories?

The small-font parenthetical note is generated by 'cat_check'. This is used to indicate whether, in the opinion of the person filling out the checklist, the category list is OK or, instead, needs review by editors. Simply write 'y' or 'n' (or variations on these) for yes or no.

This generates handy "category check" categories, such as "Category:Philosophy Category Check" or, if no categories are specified, "Category:General Category Check".

Article status

There are four options for 'status' (examples to be given later):

1. Developed article: complete or nearly so
2. Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
3. Stub: no more than a few sentences
4. External article: from another source, with little change

This populates categories that could be very useful indeed for us, including categories corresponding to each of the four options, as well as "Internal Articles" (combination of 1-3) and "Nonstub Articles" (combination of 1-2)--and for each of the categories listed. Thus, for example, if we have the Article Checklist on all of our articles, then we can produce a complete list of "Philosophy Stub Articles" or "Music Developed Articles" or "Biology Internal Articles".

Orphan?

Check "What links here" in the toolbox (from the article, not the talk page). If nothing links here, then the article is an orphan. Yes/no as before.

This will create a redundant list to Special:Lonelypages, but it also allows us to discover, e.g., "Chemistry Orphans".

Need to import templates?

Variable is 'templates_to_import'. Should be self-explanatory (for now).

Need to import images?

Variable is 'images_to_import'. Should be self-explanatory (for now).

Basic cleanup done?

This variable, 'cleanup', is just yes or no (so, 'y', 'Yes', 'no', etc.). What it indicates is that the article has gone through a "basic cleanup," which means

• Bold the article title, if necessary.
• Remove certain templates.
• Add workgroup category tag(s).
• Add (or remove) CZ Live tag as appropriate.
• Remove any category tags that are red.
• Remove all interwiki links.
• Check the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box if the article is sourced from Wikipedia.
• Complete the Article Checklist.

To do

• Add 'by' field (for the person who filled out the checklist to get credit, and to date the data)
• Add 'alphabetize_by' field (for biographies etc. to be properly alphabetized)
• Think hard about a few other possible fields
• Create a sample updated workgroup page
• Create a "Big Cleanup" page

Any other suggestions?

How we could use this to organize mass work a la The Big Speedydelete

Initially, we might use the Article Checklist as part of a Big Cleanup, in which we do the above-listed "basic cleanup" items, including adding the Article Checklist, to all articles in our database. There are many useful categories that would result, but most important perhaps would be the "status" information about the articles in our database (and thus, what percentage of articles are "developed," "developing and past stub stage," "stubs," and "sourced from elsewhere and undeveloped"), and how many articles are in each category. This sort of data would be really useful for workgroups to get an idea of where they are at, what their needs are, and so forth.

Also, these categories would make new projects possible: we could tackle orphans by workgroup; we could upload images and templates by workgroup (or alphabetically); we could expand stubs alphabetically, or by workgroup; we could make and execute some hard decisions about relatively unedited articles from Wikipedia, Britannica, and other sources.

The extensibility of the system

In the future, we might place the checklist atop the talk page of all new articles.

What is particularly interesting is that it will be possible to expand the template, so that we keep track of other sorts of data we might find useful--e.g., how much copyediting an article needs; whether the article has any number of specific problems, such as improper use of footnotes, not enough footnotes, stylistic problems, etc. Each of these pieces of data can then be used to track the overall maturity of an article, and to organize large-scale efforts to tackle particular problems.

There is no reason, moreover, that we cannot keep this data up-to-date. This is not a foregone conclusion, but it seems entirely possible that people will develop a strong interest in keeping data about, for example, the "status" of the articles they work on--and thus, the other data as well--up-to-date.