User blog:LostInRiverview/Project of the Month - August 2013

 Project of the Month - August 2013 We're back again with another Project of the Month, for the month of August 2013! But, before we can get to discussing this month's project, we need to take some time to recap July's project goals and recognize those who helped out.

July Project of the Month recap
Last month's project was quite monumental - clean up The Sims Wiki's images and files. We had a couple specific goals set for the month and, while we didn't meet them all, we definitely did make some progress. Let's go through the goals one at a time:


 * Unused Files
 * Goal: 25% reduction in the number of unused files (from ~550 to ~410)

We did pretty well in reducing our number of unused files, bringing the total from about 550 down to (by my count) 373 unused files. This translates to about a 35% reduction, which is beyond our month's goal!
 * Images of Poor Quality
 * Goal: 50% reduction in the number of Images of poor quality (from 63 to 32)

We also did a solid job on poor-quality images, dropping the total number down to 29, just within our 50% reduction goal. Uncategorized files reduction didn't really have a set goal, since we weren't even sure how many uncategorized files we have! Unfortunately, this number has largely remained the same. It's worth noting that most of our licensing templates will automatically categorize the files they're used on, so most if not all of the Uncategorized Files on that list do not have proper licensing information. Hopefully in the future we can get this issue under control.
 * Uncategorized files

We have several users who helped in the July Project of the Month. I did my best to compile a list of those who helped, but it's very likely that I missed someone. If that's the case, I apologize. This list is in no particular order.

Thank you to:

Everyone else who participated! (please let me know in the comments if I missed you or someone else)

I promised a special userbox for July participants. I haven't forgotten! I'll post the code here once I've made it.

So, all in all, I believe the July project went pretty well. If you have any input to give on the project or its outcome, please leave a comment below.

August Project of the Month
The August Project of the Month comes to us from a suggestion made by Beds. She noticed that our list of stub articles is growing quite long. It seems that we've added many pages but have neglected to fill them with all the information we can. The result is that we now have (at last count) 534 articles in the Stubs category, with even more articles within the different stub subcategories. To put this in perspective, we have an article count (in the main namespace) of 8,319 articles (as of today). This means that at least 6.4% of our encyclopedia is made up of inadequately short articles.

Fortunately, there are many ways to address stub articles.
 * Remove false positives. Often, new articles are flagged as stubs while they are still being constructed. Later, once the article is more substantial, the stub templates are usually removed, but sometimes they are forgotten. Checking to make sure we don't have long articles with stub templates could help to bring down the total number.
 * Combine or delete short articles that cannot be expanded. Sometimes we just don't know a lot about a particular subject, so any page we create on it will be a stub. It is preferable to combine multiple short pages about similar subjects into one larger page which can cover them all. If an article's topic seems especially trivial, it could even be deleted or merged into a larger article. Keep an eye out for articles tagged as stubs that could be combined with other articles or merged into a larger article.
 * Expand the article. If the purpose of The Sims Wiki is to construct a comprehensive Sims encyclopedia, then this should ultimately be our goal in most cases. If an article is marked as a stub and can be expanded, then we should do all we can to find the information and add it to the article. Articles about parts of newer games and expansion packs tend to be stubs because we haven't completely learned about the new features yet. The best way to expand these articles is to play the game, check with other players, or with other Sims fansites, and add that information to the appropriate articles.

Ultimately, we know that we probably won't eliminate all the stubs. This is an acceptable fact. However, there is a lot of room for improvement. That said, let's aim for a 50% reduction in the number of articles in Stubs by the end of August, and marked reductions in the other Stub subcategories. Don't be afraid to be bold in addressing these stubs.
 * The Goal

As always, any and all help is appreciated in attaining this goal. Ideas for future Projects of the Month are also always appreciated.

Be sure to check the TSW Weekly News blog for updates on this project as we go through August.

Happy simming!

--  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 06:22, August 2, 2013 (UTC)