Wikipedia talk:Cleanup/Archive 9

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Hi,Agent008 here I'm a newbie but I want to help Wikipedia by cleaning up messy articles.Of course I'll need instructions on how to do this,but if you don't want my help just tell me,thanks!One more thing I am a very busy man so I can only manage as much as 4 articles a day.Thank you for you co-operation,people!-User:Agent008 04:09 PM.

I've removed him from the list as the article has been wikified and is in fine condition Travellingcari (talk) 21:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to simply remove it from the list if you've fixed it. Do specify why and what you've removed in your edit summery. --Lendorien (talk) 02:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been going through this list. I'd like to propose a cleanup drive on the wikipedia cleanup list. We have a lot of listings from 2006. It'd be nice if we could make a concerted effort to get them taken care of over the next month and off the list. Perhaps posting something at the top of the page to encourage activity. Anyone have any thoughts? --Lendorien (talk) 02:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm game for it. I normally work in

the backlog, kicking the occasional article here when it's in need of more hands but I'm happy to focus some efforts here/ TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours}

04:32, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, it would be nice to prune this page down, especially since it's mostly been superceeded by category pages. Ultimately, the idea would be to eliminate it entirely and use this page as a clearing hosue for information and such. But a lot of the articles here do need work. Some don't and just need to be checked and removed, but I've been working on pruning this page for over a year and it's only dropped by about 40 kb in allt hat time. Some focused effort by a larger group of editors would do a lot of good to get things down to a more managable size. --Lendorien (talk) 16:07, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I got bored in the backlog and tackled some of the page today. I think the issue stopping all of us, although not necessarily with the same aritcles is level of comfort/expertise/interest. Some are technically above my ability, or a topic I have zero interest in, like 'book reports' and character minutiae. I think this page would benefit from the attention of a number of projects/expert tagging. I've 'invaded' a couple of projects for help on an article and got the help. I think active encouraging or related projects will help get it down. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I tackled what I could from the first section. Some was easy: had been cleaned up and/or re-directed and some were easy fixes. I feel like I've made a smidge of progress :) TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 03:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a case for having a "general listing" with articles to be tranferred to relevant list pages after "a suitable period" - this page is easier to find, and allows appropriate comments to be added (while the other lists do not) Jackiespeel (talk) 17:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC).

IN MY PERSONAL OPINION, THIS PROCESS IS SERIOUSLY AND FATALLY FLAWED.

ARTICLES ARE TAGGED WITH A "CLEANUP" TAG WITH NO FURTHER EXPLANATION AS TO WHY IT WAS TAGGED AND NO REQUIREMENT THAT TAGGED ARTICLES BE ENTERED HERE WITH SOME SORT OF EXPLANATION AS TO WHY EXACTLY THEY WERE TAGGED. I'VE LOOKED AT SOME OF THE ARTICLES ON THIS LIST AND SHORT OF MASS DELETIONS, I SEE LITTLE TO BE IMPROVED. IN THE ARTICLES I'VE ATTEMPTED TO "CLEANUP", I HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED TO SEEMINGLY ARBITRARY HOSTILITY, LIKE SOMEHOW THE EXISTENCE OF THE TAG IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE CONTENTS OF THE ARTICLE.

I HAVE TRIED TO CLEANUP ARTICLES, BUT DUE TO SOME UNKNOWN CRITERIA, UNKNOWABLE CRITERIA, THE CLEANUP IS NEVER SUFFICIENT, ACCEPTABLE OR ENOUGH. AND ATTEMPTING TO ENGAGE THE EDITOR WHO PLACED THE CLEANUP TAG IN THE ARTICLE IS POINTLESS; THEY DO NOT DEIGN TO DISCUSS THEIR REASONING OR WHAT EXACTLY THEY THINK IS NEEDED TO "CLEANUP" THE ARTICLE.

SOME OF THESE CLEANUP TAGS SEEM TO BE 'MAKE-WORK' FOR SOME EDITORS. THEY TAG, BUT DON'T DO ANYTHING THEMSELVES ABOUT IT. IF THEY MADE SOME RUDIMENTARY EDITS SO THAT OTHERS CAN SEE WHAT THEY SEE AS A PROBLEM OR PROBLEM AREA, IT MIGHT HELP. BUT JUST LEAVING A TAG WITH NO DISCUSSION, HERE OR ON THE ARTICLE'S DISCUSSION PAGE, IS WORSE THAN POINTLESS. IT MAKES THOSE OF US WHO HAVE DONE OUR BEST ON AN ARTICLE FEEL WORTHLESS. Signed Raokman.01:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

You can always ask on the article's Talk page why the cleanup tag was placed. If you can get no answer after a reasonable time, and you believe the article has been fixed up properly, then remove the tag. EdJohnston (talk) 03:35, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. I HAVE tried discussing it on the articles' discussion page. I have queried the editor who placed the tag directly. All I get is stone-walled. Nothing. The editor will not DEIGN to discuss just what exactly it is that needs "cleaning up". I looked at just what that editor does with his time on wikipedia and as near as I can tell he goes around putting tags up, and articles down. I don't see any actual contributions from him other than criticism. I am all for cleaning things up, and adding citations and references, but once I do so, to be told it's "not good enough, try again without any feedback or suggestions from me. I'll let you know when I'm satisfied", well then, that's just mean. Signed: Raokman. 16:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.220.46 (talk)

Can you give me a link to the article(s)? I'd be happy to look at them and try to help if I can. I'm dividing time today between

the backlog and this page, and a change might me nice. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours}

16:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The last straw was here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ford_Windsor_engine&action=history

But again, I don't want anyone to waste any time on it. I just want to be able to discover what exactly needs "cleaning up". Signed: Raokman 16:23, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh that's irritating, I agree. A revert war over a tag. I can't understand not putting a note somewhere as to what needs to be fixed, whether in an edit summary, talk page or here (if they're aware of it) because otherwise how else is someone supposed to know what needs to be done. We're not mind readers. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}Tell me yours 16:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's uncommon to put cleanup tags on an article without explaining why. Usually they're self explanitory. I took a look at the article. I can see a number of issues with it that could justify the cleanup tag. I often put to-do lists on talk pages that refer to what needs to be done and I think it's a good idea, though I don't expect folks to do that if the issues are obvious. --Lendorien (talk) 13:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that cleanup tagging is often done for obvious reasons, so it isn't necessary to post an explanation every time it is done. However, when the tag's presence is challenged, it is usually a good idea for the individual placing the cleanup tag to provide an explanation for why the tag is there.

Further, it is a bad idea to revert tag removal with an edit summary describing the removal as vandalism, as done in

Ford Windsor engine. Such descriptions quickly heat up disputes, and—even if the person strongly believes the tags should remain—clash with Wikipedia's policy page

on vandalism, namely: Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not considered vandalism. Removal of the cleanup tag was twice explained in the edit summary with a polite request, falling well short of a "bad faith" action.

As it is only polite when discussing the actions of another party, I will post a message on Scheinwerfermann's talk page pointing here. -- Michael Devore (talk) 16:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Michael Devore is quite correct. In addition, any further discussion of this article should be taken to that article's talk page, not here. --Lendorien (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Irritated by a misterious cleanup tag, I check what does the tag mean and I am glad to see I am not the only irritated by lazy taggers. Can the tag be changed so that it accepts an argument like ((cleanup|too technical language used))? Some articles get a tag because they are too long, I concur that at a certain point a threshhold is reached where there is too much info for a single article to be readable, but I think that deletion is a stupid solution and instead splitting the paragraphs into their own articles is a the solution (information is kept and can be expanded and is not limited): influenza is an example of this more ideal aproach. I think making a tag that request an article's paragraphs to be subdived into their own articles would be good, to make this catch-on long articles tagged with cleanup could be tagged with a split up tag. Could new tags be made? is it a good idea? --Squidonius (talk) 00:28, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

There already are split tags. I don't have time to find them, but they do exist. --Lendorien (talk) 13:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

As a student,I'd love to help clean up the Rider University page, but what exactly is wrong with it? The Wikipedia:Cleanup doesn't have any mention of it at the time it was supposedly marked. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.239.133.88 (talk) 03:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit: Nevermind. It's under the WikiProject Universities to standardize the layout and content. Need for cleanup understood. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.239.133.88 (talk) 04:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

This page is a consistent magnet for vandalism. There are more vandalism edits than any other.

I think it might help if we cleared some of the entries out. This list goes back over 2 years and many of the entries have seen little attention in that time. Some simply need expert attention (in which case, they should have that tag added and be directed to the wikiproject related.) Others need sourcing, which is the scope of another wikiproject and as such, should be tagged as such and removed.

I'm going to make a personal effort to clear as many entries out of here as I can by the end of June. I'd like to get it down to half of its current size at least. I invite others to help me. --Lendorien (talk) 19:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to help but my on-wiki time is a bit focused at the moment. I'll do what I can when I can. I don't know that removing articles will help with the vandalism, someone pointed out to me that this page is linked from {{cleanup}} so an IP clicking on any such-tagged article lands here and has fun. _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 01:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

That's probably the reason then. Still, paring this page down and getting rid of the backlog is probably positive too. I'm finding a lot of articles that aren't really that bad and only need minor work. --Lendorien (talk) 15:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

If an article only has one or two things wrong with it, which are easily more specifically tagged, is it ok to tag them appropriately and remove them from this list? (eg.

Inocente de Ti has complaints of a long cast list and long plot - splitting the cast list into 2 or 3 columns will make it more presentable, and there is a cleanup tag for long plot summaries.). What if there is no relevant WProj to notify? Thanks, Cricketgirl (talk

) 18:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I personally would be hesitant to pull items that have simple issues to fix. Many of these articles are unlikely to be taken care of any time soon unless we do it, and some have been on this list for years. I'd rather try to fix them than dump them on someone else as who knows when they'd be taken care of otherwise. --Lendorien (talk) 15:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Also what is Cleanup policy on articles that are only missing refs - tag with {{unref}} and remove from list? or move to an "Unreferenced but otherwise ok - please find references" section on this page? Cricketgirl (talk) 15:34, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether this is the correct place, but I'd like to announce that I am offering listings of articles flagged for cleanup, covering the scope of individual WikiProjects or workgroups (task forces, subprojects). This may be of help in the cleanup process. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details.

Also, the following statistics may be of interest regarding the current state of the cleanup process:

Cheers, --B. Wolterding (talk) 11:40, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Why would a talk page have a cleanup tag on it? Shouldn't it be freeform discussion? Seems like a waste of time, and blurring out the pages that really need a cleanup. --Nzhamstar (talk) 17:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

someone probably mis-tagged it when they meant for it to be on the article page. When I find those I move them. _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 17:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Rather than clog up the system with a bunch more drive-by cleanup tags, I thought I'd address this someplace where it might make a difference. This project actually appears to be making a dent in the backlog here.

While going through the 58 lists in the above category, I came to the realization that most of them are totally unreferenced, and only three are more than 50% referenced.

User:AlexNewArtBot/CleanupSearchResult picks up new articles loaded with undesirable words. Colchicum (talk) 20:01, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

what is the difference Interface USB 2.0, Ethernet and PictBridge Interfaces —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.104.27.252 (talk) 01:19, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The article has seen quite a number of edits since it was posted here and seems to be in good shape. --Sultec (talk) 10:24, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm making an effort to prune the physical list on this page and get articles off of it. It's huge and never touched by anyone by me it seems. I'm almost inclined to kill it as it's been superceded by the cleanup catagoty anyway.

In any case, I could really use help as my efforts are just managing to keep the list from growing and I only have so much time to spend on it. I'd like to get it down to just the past couple months.

I'd strongly suggest starting at the bottom of the list with the oldest articles. Many of the ones listed there are items that have needed cleanup for years and are beyond my interests or abilities to fix. Thank you in advance for your help. --Lendorien (talk) 17:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean, by pruning the list and getting articles off of it, that you're putting specific cleanup tags into the articles to get them into categories and make listing them here superfluous? If not, what criteria are you using to remove them from the list? (I'm new to cleanup and not sure I know all the places to look for articles.) --Unconventional (talk) 17:18, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

The physical list on this page needs pruning and work. The process is to go into the article, check to see if the issues that were listed have been fixed. If not, try to fix them. If you see things that need work and aren't fixed, tag the page if you can't fix them, then put an explanation for why you tagged it on that page's talk page. Always put an explanation for why you tag a page on the talk page so other editors understand your reasoning.

Articles that only need sources should be tagged as unreferenced and pulled from this list. Unreferenced articles have their own wikiproject. Of course, if you want to reference them, that would work too.--Lendorien (talk) 19:45, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking for a way to contribute regularly to WP maintenance, and considering trying out Cleanup. I'm confused by what seem to be conflicting process descriptions. WP:Cleanup process#De-listing cleaned articles says to strikethrough the listing of an article after it's cleaned. In contrast, WP:Cleanup resources#De-listing cleaned articles says not to strikethrough, but to delete it, and in fact there are no struckthrough listings as of right now. Is WP:Cleanup process just out of date, or is it dependent on some condition existing (such as presence/absence of some tag)? --Unconventional (talk) 16:42, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

The first listing you mention is legacy text. The manually maintained lists on this page have to an extent been superseded by category lists that are automatically generated from the {{cleanup}} banners placed on articles. See Category:All pages needing cleanup and Category:Cleanup by month. The list on this page is old and outdated, but still used by some.

By and large, the current process is to delete the article from the list when it's done. I think optimally we'd like to clear everything from this list completely and move to using the catagory lists instead. Help, of course, is appreciated! --Lendorien (talk) 19:36, 28 November 2008 (UTC)