Forgotten Realms Wiki talk:Good articles

Totally behind this
This sounds like a good idea to me. I'm totally behind this, but admins may be inundated with new requests at frist :P -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 21:32, October 2, 2015 (UTC)


 * True, there could be a lot of requests, but there's also no rush to do it.
 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 21:43, October 2, 2015 (UTC)

TBH, I'm a bit ambivalent as it currently stands. Ideally, all articles should meet these criteria. If fully implemented, everything else, the stubs and unsourced and rambling articles, will become the ordinary articles, which feels uncomfortably like lowering our standards. On the other hand, every article I've written should be counted as Good, so that's nice. :) Ordinary articles could also be updated regularly, so they'll require constant re-evaluation.

I see the benefit of something less than the epic-sized Featured Articles for regular editors to aim for, but they should still be a cut above the rest, so they're not so easy to achieve, nor are we likely to be overwhelmed with possibilities. Wookieepedia has a Good article system that is more discerning: exactly the same as a featured article, but not meeting the length requirement (1000 words). Of course, their feature articles also have more discerning requirements than ours. I listed my proposed requirements for feature articles at Forum:Featured articles!. On that basis, I feel a Good article would cover this limited set of requirements: Complete, Correct, Referenced, Formatted, and Demonstrative (so not including Important, Big, and Illustrated). — BadCatMan (talk) 12:01, October 3, 2015 (UTC)

PS: Also, articles that for whatever reason can't be accepted as Features would make find Good articles. For example, Tome of Torment is pretty good, but we already have Church of Ilmater and it's single-source, so Good is a fine a second place for it. — BadCatMan (talk) 12:19, October 3, 2015 (UTC)


 * True, all articles should be good articles, but that's not the wiki world we live in. But aren't we working to remove the stubs and unsourced articles to make them into good articles? Having a stamp of "goodness" on an article might also give us some nice statistics: "Back in October of 20XX, only 5% of our articles followed our standards; now, in 20XX, 45% do!" This would help us to track that and push for a better wiki overall. (Yes, you and I and a few others essentially write only good articles. That's okay. We should be leading by example anyhow, yes?)


 * Your proposed list (Complete, Correct, Referenced, Formatted, and Demonstrative) differs from mine (Relatively Complete, Correct, Referenced, Formatted, Clean, Policy-adherent, and Not an orphan) only in adding Demonstrative, (which I like,) and not including Clean, Policy-adherent, and Not an Orphan. I think you would agree that all articles should be clean and policy-adherent, so I'm not quite sure how your list differs from mine significantly.


 * In fact, I intentionally took my list from your list and made it more limited, just as you suggest above.


 * I completely agree that Feature Articles that didn't quite make the cut should most likely be good articles.


 * I guess I'm confused as to the source of your ambivalence.


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 02:07, October 13, 2015 (UTC)


 * That statistic works in reverse: X number of stubs then, Y number of stubs now, etc.


 * Well, Clean and Policy-adherent went without saying. I don't think being an orphan should count against an article; some fine ones may be made in areas that aren't otherwise well covered, so they won't get linked to.


 * I guess I see a hierarchy of articles:
 * Featured Articles: Best of the best, big, beautiful, and demonstrating everything
 * Good articles: Not quite featured-quality, still impressive and demonstrative
 * Regular articles: Decent, informative, fairly complete; should form most of the population
 * Poor articles: Checked-over stubs and incompletes
 * Cruddy articles: Unsourced, bad POVs, mucky, otherwise flawed
 * I feel the criteria as currently defined would be picking down to Regular, which I feel would be casting the net too wide or too deep. I don't think regular articles need special treatment, by definition. Perhaps if we all presented lists of what we would consider "Good"-worthy articles, we could settle on some criteria. This type, more than any other, will be rather subjective. — BadCatMan (talk) 13:47, October 13, 2015 (UTC)

Qualifications
I feel having an image shouldn't be a requirement. Being largely novel- and sourcebook-based, the Realms are primarily a written setting. There are some great articles for which there are no relevant images. There are also major novel characters who will have no artwork.

I prefer an article be fully complete, because that is most useful and clear to a reader. Of course, completeness might not cover every edition, but an article should at least be complete from the source(s) used/known, and be able to stand alone (i.e, there's no mysteries to the content). — BadCatMan (talk) 12:01, October 3, 2015 (UTC)


 * I fully agree about images; hence, the phrase "if appropriate." That can certainly be reworded to clarify. My point here is that if there are plenty of images of, say, blue dragons floating around, which there are, a good blue dragon article has no excuse not to have one.


 * I think your definition of "fully complete" is my definition of "relatively complete". I completely agree with you that "completeness might not cover every edition, but an article should at least be complete from the source(s) used/known, and be able to stand alone." We can reword the policy to use those very words, and I'd be quite happy with that. When I used the term "relatively" I meant "does not need to be as complete as a Feature Article," for which we require something from every known source and edition out there, if I understand correctly.


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 02:07, October 13, 2015 (UTC)

Possible GA Template
I was thinking of something like this to go on a page that is a Good Article. I wanted it to be unobtrusive, so it's only the width of an infobox and floats to the right.

I went with a gold coin, thinking that we might eventually change a lot of our tag boxes around, as we've been discussing. If and when we do, perhaps we could make stubs have a copper coin image, good articles a gold, and FAs a platinum, with the idea that all other articles are silver? ~ Lhynard (talk) 21:42, October 2, 2015 (UTC)


 * Template looks great! Maybe make the coin a little bigger (30 px perhaps)? And a very washed out gold backgorund colour might be nice.
 * I really love the idea for different coins for different qualities of articles! Stroke of genius!
 * -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 22:08, October 2, 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't really see a need for multiple grades. The Unreferenced, Nofootnotes, Stub and other such templates pretty much speak for themselves and Featured Articles are already covered by FA. Also, grading is subjective and the more grades you have the harder it is to find consensus. Even the word "good" is subjective&mdash;I suggest changing it to "gold". I suppose it would be okay to give out gold coin badges to "complete" articles, but I am not in favor of attempting to grade 16,000+ articles when they are already tagged with those templates I just listed: it's just busy work. And how about this scenario: An article is given a gold coin because it meets the criteria, then someone comes along and adds some 5th edition lore but doesn't have a reference, then someone else adds Fact. Does the article lose its gold status? It no longer meets the criteria, but was a perfectly good article until someone tried to improve it! This gets absurd rather quickly and I feel we do not need yet another bit of administrivia that distracts the admins from actually adding content along with all the other things we have to do. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 03:02, October 3, 2015 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of using images to accompany our tags. Wookiepedia has pertinent images and quotes that really personalise their wiki, though we don't have to go that far (nor is the Realms all that quotable). But coins are nice. It reminds me of a Volo's Guide. :D Actually, why not a golden scroll? Platinum scrolls for Featured Articles, gold scrolls for Good articles. But I wouldn't give them to other articles, especially problematic ones, as per my lowered standards argument above. Regular decent articles shouldn't get special treatment.


 * I agree that bringing articles to "good" status should be a priority before shepherding articles that have Good status. Then again, there is that old rule I just made up: you propose it, you work it. Good luck, Lhynard. :p — BadCatMan (talk) 12:01, October 3, 2015 (UTC)


 * "I like the idea of using images to accompany our tags." yay


 * "Platinum scrolls for Featured Articles, gold scrolls for Good articles."


 * I think I like the idea of coins better than colored scrolls, since a platinum or gold scroll doesn't really make sense, but I love the idea of scrolls as the backgrounds to all our tags. A parchment-colored scroll with an image of a gold or platinum coin on it would be a nice touch, I think ,for good or features articles, respectively.


 * To clarify, Movie, I actually didn't mean to suggest that we should have multiple grades in actuality. We aren't big enough for that. I just meant that it makes sense to think of featured articles as platinum articles and stubs as copper ones, not that we need to go making tags for such things and having special systems of rating them. However, I think it might be fun to use a an old copper coin on our already existing stub tags or a platinum coin on our Featured Article tag. We were talking somewhere else about re-doing all of the tags for consistency anyhow.


 * I completely agree with you that "grading is subjective and the more grades you have the harder it is to find consensus." My proposal is simply to have good articles be a simple "Yes, this passes a checklist of things we want all articles to be." Featured Articles are a step above that and involve a subjective voting process and show that the community, as a group, wants to highlight an article. I see them as each serving different purposes.


 * I slightly prefer calling them "Good Articles" over "Gold Articles" because to me, saying "gold" implies the very rating system you seem opposed to. I hear "gold" and think, "Where are the silver and bronze articles?"


 * Yes, some of this ends up being busy work. But all such busy work is voluntary. No one would make you or anyone else do it. As BatCat said, if someone has an idea, she or he (I) can be the one's to put in the work. :)


 * The scenario you describe of an article losing status could hypothetically happen to an FA as well, yes?


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 02:07, October 13, 2015 (UTC)


 * P.S.: I love the word "administrivia". :)


 * Thanks, Thomas! Do you think you could find or make me a nice, free scroll background image? ~ Lhynard (talk) 02:07, October 13, 2015 (UTC)


 * I can whip up some scroll backgrounds. It should be noted that adding images as background can be hassle. I found this on the topic.
 * Can you let me know a few different sizes/dimensions you'd want for background images?
 * -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 12:18, October 13, 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, if we accept my idea of having tags for FAs and GAs be no wider than an infobox, the scroll should probably be around 275px and "unroll horizontally".


 * In a perfect world, other tags should stretch to fit the window. To do this with an image would require a crazy use of css or tables with a separate picture for each corner, the top, bottom, and sides, with the middle being a tiled texture. But that's a ton of work. You are good at the graphics side of thing, so whatever you think best. I think it would be nice for these bigger scrolls to unroll vertically.


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 01:41, October 14, 2015 (UTC)


 * If I'm honest, I'm still not entirely sure what is needed, but I've created this image as a first draft. If this is not what you were asking for please elaborate.


 * [[File:Scroll draft 1.png]]


 * Thanks -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 11:04, October 14, 2015 (UTC)


 * That looks really great. I'd make it a shade or two lighter so black text stands out more, but I'd have to see it. Whatever you end up with, if you can give me a left-scroll image, a right-scroll image, and a middle-scroll that is repeatable (so the left edge matches the right edge), I think I can some up with an expandable box that can be an arbitrary width and still look good. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 12:39, October 14, 2015 (UTC)


 * I've updated the image so it's colour corrected. How wide do you want the repeating "middle" sections to be?


 * -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 14:08, October 14, 2015 (UTC)


 * Have we decided how wide these banners are going to be? If they are the whole width of the article, then a 3–5 cm block should be fine. If it's only going to be as wide as an infobox, then 1–2 cm at the most. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 17:15, October 14, 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with using gold coins but calling them Good for the reasons Lhynard gives.


 * Yes, a Featured or Good article could lose its status. But generally, we admins will be watching it, so when new, problematic info is added, we'd be quickly checking it and verifying it. For example, Eilistraee is featured now, but will inevitably be expanded, so we have to keep an eye on it. — BadCatMan (talk) 13:47, October 13, 2015 (UTC)

Banner Test
I hacked up the image of a scroll by Thomas and got an expandable banner working. It's just a proof-of-concept until we decide on how big we want it and Thomas can make some images that actually match up when tiled horizontally. See User:Moviesign/BannerTest &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 22:13, October 14, 2015 (UTC)


 * That works great! Impressive work. Would there be a way to scale the images rather than resize them (to avoid stretching/squishing)? If not, should I upload banner ends at several heights (if so what heights)?
 * -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 23:08, October 14, 2015 (UTC)


 * The one-size-fits-all approach should only be stretching the images vertically but keeping them the same horizontal width. The middle image is tiled as many times as it takes to fill up the box. I can also set the middle to stretch horizontally so one image does the whole job, but that doesn't look so good because you lose the texture of the scroll&mdash;tiling is better.


 * If we custom-make every scroll image, then we'll have to have different templates for each banner, or add complicated coding and additional arguments to the template so it chooses the correct images. If all we need is one "big" and one "small" banner (which might be the case if we use a big one for Featured Articles and a little one for the gold coin "good" articles), then we could go the custom route, but if we have more than two, or want to be flexible for the future, then I like the one-size-fits-all approach. If you want your scrolls to look their best, increase the resolution so that stretching them vertically doesn't make the browser interpolate between pixels (which is why they start to look blurry). So, if you are designing 72 dpi images (what's the metric equivalent of dpi?) then bump it up to 150 dpi, for example. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 23:58, October 14, 2015 (UTC)


 * Cool, I've updated the images and it looks much nicer. You've done a great job on that CSS. I've given more 'padding' on the image so the shadow isn't cropped. This means you can decrease the actual table's padding a little.
 * -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 01:25, October 15, 2015 (UTC)


 * Those look awesome! Although I kinda liked the more ragged edge, it's a nightmare to get it to match up at different sizes. :-/ I have tweaked the design a bit more, font size, line size, color, shaved off a bit of padding, but not much, and upgraded the example. If anyone has suggestions, now is a good time to put them out here. Do we want a miniature version of this for the gold coin tag for "good" articles? We should come up with a different image for Featured Articles. Maybe an open spell book or something. Ideas? &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 04:53, October 15, 2015 (UTC)

Wow! I go away for 14 hours and you two have created exactly the kind of thing I was imagining. Great work!

For the GA articles, I like the idea of them being only the width of the infoboxes and text minimal. Using the new scroll, my GA template now looks like this.

However, I can't seem to make it any smaller than about 400px. Can you allow it to go smaller than that?

~ Lhynard (talk) 06:09, October 15, 2015 (UTC)


 * Let me work on it, but we might need a set of smaller images for a mini-box (alluded to in my previous posts) &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 13:25, October 15, 2015 (UTC)


 * I managed to get a smaller version working, but the text alignment is tricky so it may need more tweaking if you change the text. As I said in the edit message, it's more complicated than I'd like it to be, but it works. If we use this scroll-banner in other places, we might want to consider making it two separate boxes so we can adjust one without breaking the other. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 19:24, October 15, 2015 (UTC)


 * That looks perfect. ~ Lhynard (talk) 02:14, October 16, 2015 (UTC)


 * Let me know what dimensions you need and I will get that done. -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 02:42, October 17, 2015 (UTC)

These are just lovely. :D I like the reduced height of Lhynard's scroll. I like smaller tags and my philosophy with the wen design is to get to the content faster. One concern is that the golden coin blends into the gold/light-brown paper. Perhaps a lighter paper, shadow, or border could distinguish it more clearly?

I had an idea we could extend these to other notices, with different coloured scrolls and symbols: a red scroll and the symbol of Mask for a plagiarised article, a blackish scroll and the skull symbol of Bhaal for one to be deleted, etc. — BadCatMan (talk) 04:01, October 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * The height is determined by how much text you put in (and the font size you choose). It is currently set to have a minimum height of 80px with padding and margins ballooning that out to 110px overall. The width defaults to the width of the surrounding box, either the full width of a wiki article or a &lt;div&gt; set to a fixed width. The scroll images shrink/grow to fit whatever you choose. For different colors, I can alter the hue, saturation, contrast, etc., but it's probably better if Thomas makes more professional looking versions. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 14:29, October 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh, that would be awesome to have the black and red scrolls you describe. :) ~ Lhynard (talk) 21:45, October 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's the idea I had for colours. If you guys like this, I can upload parts with any other colours you need. I may also weaken the shadow a little.
 * [[File:Scroll left red.png]][[File:Scroll middle red.png]][[File:Scroll right red.png]]
 * -Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [ talk ] 22:43, October 17, 2015 (UTC)


 * Can that red be extended to cover the whole of the middle of the scroll, i.e., a thick band of red from edge to edge or margin to margin? I figure that would distinguish it more from other scrolls. — BadCatMan (talk) 02:50, October 18, 2015 (UTC)