Forum:A Fix Tag Proposal

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It seems to me that it would be prudent to have a tagging system that both supports deletion at the end of a month (or some time period) BUT is much more open to intervention in the intervening duration. Further, it would be nice if the worst of the fix tag articles that people DON'T want to keep are more quickly deleted, effectively "filtering" the articles that need fixing down to a size that might allow us to focus on fixing them. Finally, I hope my proposal will allow fix tagged articles to more effectively be brought to the attention of the community before they are silently deleted without anyone noticing they were there. Furthermore, being brought as such to the attention of the community repeatedly, it can more confidently eventually be deleted, as at that point it will most likely be obvious that nobody actually intends to fix the article.

I will attempt to phrase my proposal as generally as possible, as the actual values of the variables in question are obviously up for debate if people agree the general idea is sensible. The following is what I propose will happen when an article, say A, has a fix tag added to it:

• At the end of a smaller interval of time than fix tags currently last for (say every K days, for example K might be 7), a bot places the article on a Quick Vote to Keep (QVK) page.
• If some small number N (5, perhaps?) of people vote to keep, the article is kept for another cycle of K days (after which it will once again be placed on QVK). You may not vote against keeping the article at this point, because at this point (until the fix tag is eventually removed) the article is still headed for deletion. I propose further that if the prerequisite small vote is NOT met, the article is deleted instantly: the reason for this is the "filtering" spoken of above--this will filter out the truly crappy fix-tagged articles, allowing users to focus on the worthwhile ones.
  • I would be willing to write some javascript that makes it extremely quick to vote to keep, ie pressing a button next to the name of an article.
  • Optional: Users may at this point vote to Keep and Remove the fix tag, if some larger number M (10?) vote to do so, the fix tag is immediately removed, and the cycle ends.
• If, after some number R of K-cycles has passed (ie, 3 cycles would be a month), the article still has a fix tag, one of two things I think would be reasonable outcomes:
  • The article is immediately deleted. This is not insensible, because at this point the article has been brought to the attention of at least N of the users R times, and it is beginning to become clear that it is just not going to be fixed. I personally favor this option.
  • The article goes up for one last vote, where a larger number of people (perhaps M as above for Keep and Remove) must vote to keep, at which point it enters another R period of K cycles.
    
    

As a final note, I would prefer that -- if users think this is at least the beginnings of a sensible idea -- that a discussion happen before an actual vote. Or just feel free to tell me I am an asshat.

In my opinion, we could either have K be 7 and R be 3 (ie vote every week for a month), or have K be 30 and R be 2 (ie, vote after a month, wait another month to fix, and then delete). I left these open intentionally so the idea is not shot down immediately simply because my proposal had timing that everyone didn't like.

• TL;DR: Users should have the ability to vote to extend the duration of the fix tag on specific articles, but only requiring a small number of users votes to pass so that the process is still quick. This will further solve the problem of bringing fixed articles to their attention, and the proposal above helps filter out ones that are obviously bad, leaving as fixed tagged only those articles that users believe are salvageable.

Thank you for your time. -- Village Idiot♠KUN Free Speech 03:39, January 27, 2012 (UTC)

• For -- The Zombiebaron 05:25, January 27, 2012 (UTC)
• For with the following timing parameters: a month after being tagged with fix, an article is brought to QVFK where it will remain for two days. If it garners 5 votes to keep, the article is kept for an additional month after which it is deleted. If the article does not gain the requisite number of votes, it is deleted. After discussing with Zombiebaron for clarification, this is the timing he supports, as well. If people can come to a consensus that these are reasonable parameters that they are willing to support (assuming they support the idea at all), I will modify the proposal above to be specifically this. -- Village Idiot♠KUN Free Speech 05:39, January 27, 2012 (UTC)

  I'd just like to add that when talking about a "month" here, we will be dealing with the same system we currently have, where a "month" is measured as 30 days after the last edit. Also, when the second-month-tag expires, pages will only be deleted if deemed necessary by an admin. -- The Zombiebaron 06:49, January 27, 2012 (UTC)

• For Agree with all the above points. As VI says below, the two aren't mutually exclusive, and the two would work well together synergistically, which is a big word, and I like big words. Pup 06:28 27 Jan '12

Discussion

To me, VFDand QVFd are the way to go. The more content we have, the more chances we have to appeal to readers who are looking for a particular topic. That oibsession with lowering the quantity of article is nonsense: we don't need space, we're hosted for free and besides, our traffic is as good as it's always been. Mattsnow 03:45, January 27, 2012 (UTC)

That's fair; I am merely attempting to propose an intermediate step between VFD and QVFD. There are certainly articles that sit between these two. The point, I think, of having an extended QVFD (like fix tags) is not to save space, but rather increase the quality of article offered at Uncyclopedia. I do not believe that "anything goes because we have the space for it" is a good policy. -- Village Idiot♠KUN Free Speech 03:48, January 27, 2012 (UTC)

Another line of thought

I've been thinking about the life span of articles recently and especially the deletion thereof. One thing I've been considering is the nomination and voting on VFD is a pain in the butt. Added to that is the issue of archiving articles and kept article templates and stuff. And I have an idea.

• Have the VFD votes work on a system that is similar to VFH - each nomination is a separate page, there is a compact view and a detailed view, and on creation of the page the timestamp is added, blah blah blah.
  • Advantage 1 - easier to locate archived votes for deletion.
  • Advantage 2 - votes can be archived by adding a template onto the page, rather than a cut and paste
  • Advantage 3 - on a page deleted due to VFD vote a link to the actual vote itself can be used
  • Advantage 4 - we can use a similar js for adding votes to nominations, so someone can give a yes or no with only a couple of clicks
  • Advantage 5 - something else that I've forgotten right at the moment, but when I though of it I was excited, so it must have been good.

I've also been looking at the guidelines for VFD (as per the conversation with Zombiebaron on his talk page, with input from Socky, Al, and I think BB also jumped in. Given the drop in our userbase, maybe we could also be looking at a simpler system. Such as:

• Eliminate the 24 hour grace period - if an article is deleted it doesn't mean it can't be restored, but I'd there is more support for deletion than keeping, then why should we wait longer?
• Change the vote margin to a vote ratio of 60% votes for deletion, with a minimum of 3 votes - When we had a dozen people regularly voting for it against deletion, 5 was a reasonable number, when we have less people, 3 is a reasonable number, but more than anything we need a majority of votes to delete. This means if we have only 3 votes, 3:0 to delete, 4 votes, we need 3:1 to delete, 5 votes => 3:2, 6 votes => 4:2... 10 votes, 6:4, etc. this system works when we have a high active user base and a low active user base.

  Further note on this: it was suggested to me that we look at a halfway point for shitty articles that mean if we have no votes, but it stays on the page longer than x days than we kill it. I think with the above changes that wouldn't be needed, and the problem with that system is no-one adds an article to VFD unless they think it's shitty.

• Limit of 15 active articles on VFD at any given time - just to ensure that a user has a chance to go through them and decide in a reasonable time period. Any articles that someone wants to nominate when we have 15 articles can be added to Poopsmith's lounge.

'TL;DR Articles that are placed on VFD are likely to be deleted if there is a majority consensus for deletion. They can be deleted in an expedient manner. VFD becomes the preferred channel of choice for deletion of articles rather than expiration of maintenance tags. And this is less prone to abuse than the current {{fix}} system.

This, along with VI's suggestions above, seem to me the sanest way to go ahead. Pup 04:29 27 Jan '12

I should also say there's more thought that I've put into this suggestion than the above reflects (scarily enough). If anyone has any questions I'd rather answer them on my talk-page than here, so as to avoid the topic spiralling too far into digression. Pup 04:32 27 Jan '12

I am personally not opposed to changing the way VFD works, I simply believe that something like what I suggested above should exist--an intermediary between QVFD and VFD. QVFD is sort of like, "This page should just be deleted now, mostly anybody would probably agree." VFD is along the lines of, "Is there something like a consensus among users that this article should be deleted?" What I am proposing is a "this article is headed towards deletion, but we shall bring it to the attention of users a few times first, giving them the chance to intervene and save it." I believe changing VFD is not incompatible with QVFK as I proposed, because QVFK is for lower quality (read: obviously bad unless fixed) articles than VFD, and should be used if there should be a sense of inevitability attached to the threat of deletion if nothing is done. In essence, VFD is a place where users have to vote to delete an article to delete it, whereas QVFK is a place where (a smaller number of) users have to vote to keep the article to save it (because it is presumably bad enough). -- Village Idiot♠KUN Free Speech 04:53, January 27, 2012 (UTC)

• For -- The Zombiebaron 05:25, January 27, 2012 (UTC)
• Conditional for that at least some sort of intermediate between QVFD or VFD, something like the one I describe above, is implemented (though I believe my suggestion for this is a reasonable one, obviously). Again, I do not believe these changes to be at all mutually exclusive. -- Village Idiot♠KUN Free Speech 05:39, January 27, 2012 (UTC)
•  Strong against removing the 24 hour minimum on VFD; a little patience won't kill people, and the longer it has, the more representative the vote may be. In any vote around here, the first wave of voters is usually either a pile of idiots or rallied on IRC. Or a pile of idiots rallied on IRC. Uncyclopedia is not a cabal, and it is also, actually, damned hard to get things undeleted again, and for good reason. 1234 ~ 05:59, 27 January 2012

  Okay - assume 24 hour limitation is still in place, what are your thoughts on the remainder of the proposal. Pup 06:25 27 Jan '12

  I don't know; I haven't read it yet. 1234 ~ 06:50, 27 January 2012

• For Given it's my proposal... Pup 06:28 27 Jan '12