Wikipedia talk:Admin backlog contest

Let me bring up the obvious concern...

Backlogs can not just be blasted through indiscriminately. Making a contest only encourages that, and minus points for invalid actions doesn't work, because that doesn't count the articles made by newbies who do not know how to complain.

...and yes, I KNOW I'm not an admin, but I do look at the backlogs. -Amarkov moo! 04:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with Amarkov. If you do this, i will expect to patrol deltion logs that week, and overturn any dubious deletions, listign them all on DRV, thus increasing backlogs. DES ^(talk) 20:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• • Well, I'd rather have a backlog at DRV than a backlog in 10 other places like we do now. That would be a sign of a healthy and productive community I think. Also, the deletions don't have to be overturned at DRV to count against whoever deleted it. I don't see indiscriminate backlog clearing being significantly more of a problem with this than it is normally. Grandmasterka 20:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I see. If you aren't concerned about this, at all, this idea is more dangerous than I thoughtWP:MFD here we come. DES ^(talk) 00:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• I already see a lot of over-hasty use of the delete button, often apparently motivated by the desire to clean out "backlogs". I fear that if this has any effect at all, it will only make that worse. Unless some caution is included here, i think this would be only to likely to encourge bad deletions. What, if anything, wouild you do to try to counter this effect? Wouldn't you agree that anything that encourages bad deletions is disruptive? DES ^(talk) 01:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That seems like an amazing failure to assume good faith DESiegel, as well as a bit of a WP:POINT. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 07:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

We've had problems in the past with admins trying to work through backlogs by just, for example, deleting every image with a "disputed" tag on it. It's a lot of work for someone to go along and do the job properly afterwards. This contest is just going to encourage that kind of behaviour. --Tango 19:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

If I may be allowed a bit of self-promotion, I've written an essay/pseudo-proposal called Burn the Backlogs that I think would help address the backlog situation in a low-key, less destructive method. While I think the contest would be cool, my idea could be applied to all of the backlogs, not just the admin ones. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Rogue

How many points for rogue actions that are later endorsed? John Reaves (talk) 04:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

M, of course. -Amarkov moo! 04:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"M"? Aww, I don't get it. John Reaves (talk) 05:01, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Q would be funnier, but I don't like ducks. -Amarkov moo! 05:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you should get points. Luigi30 (Taλらむだk) 12:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Link?

Can you link the WT:RFA discussion you mention twice? Curious. Chick Bowen 05:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll try and find it... Grandmasterka 05:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Found it! See NoSeptember's final comment in that discussion. That inspired this. Grandmasterka 05:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Indeed, very interesting. Obviously I'm well aware I'm not keeping up my end, but the top-heaviness of that list bears thinking about. Chick Bowen 06:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Added One

Getting a speedy deletion overturned is even worse, so I added it :-P ^demon^{[omg plz]} 05:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

First of all...

What about page protections?

Also, this might have a side effect of Wikipedia:Adminitis. It would be annoying to count the admin log, and even more annoying to count the declined requests that are dealt with, and even more annoying to haggle about DRV cases when the admin says he was judging consensus, etc. etc. So this will never fly in practice. What might fly, though, is to focus efforts on a particular backlog. Thus, image backlogs are a notorious problem, so one week could be "image backlog week", another "uncategorized pages backlog week" (non-admin work that I do, but whatever) and so on. YechielMan 07:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Great ideas. I haven't gotten around to adding page protections, you're welcome to add them yourself if you like. I'll dream up some more tomorrow perhaps... Grandmasterka 07:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Heh, I love the idea (I think we're mature enough to not blast through everything, so I have no concerns about that). I do think something is missing, though: non-destructive backlog clearing. I've added missing licensing tags to images that I could have just deleted instead.[1] Considering the time it can take to do this (much longer than just deleting), 5 to 10 points sounds fair. EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Non-admins

I like the idea in principle, though it will be difficult to recall when a block was listed on WP:AIV (esp. while it was backlogged), or when an image was overdue for deletion. Whenever I go through CSD I find that many many items are listed inappropriately and need to be dealt with through other means than admin tools - eg. either article expansion or editing, or adding a {{logo}} or {{screenshot}} tag, or even notifying the uploader. This is stuff that non-admins should be doing, and they should also be rewarded for it, perhaps separately. -- zzuuzz^(talk) 12:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

A contest for non-admin actions is a good idea too. And for admins, we should honor individual categories of action (especially the more neglected ones like image deletions) as well as identifying the overall multi-category champ. NoSeptember 19:19, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Another fantastic idea. I don't have time to write such a thing but I certainly endorse it. Grandmasterka 20:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

If there is a comparable non-admin contest, someone should add something for tagging WP:ACC accounts for similarity (one of the only jobs on Wikipedia that can specifically only be done by a non-admin, and which I use User:Ais523 non-admin for on occasion). --ais523 11:30, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

A non-admin backlog contest would be an even better idea, IMO, with the massive amounts of cleanup and wikification and categorization and such that still need to be done. Sort of like the spring cleaning idea proposed awhile back. Crystallina 21:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Cute idea

Where's the score board? >Radiant< 09:59, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

DRV takes too long

How can you penalise people that perform a deletion that gets overturned when the contest will be over before the DRV is finished? The scoring would have to wait at least a week to make sure any penalties were correctly accounted for. --Tango 19:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

That's a good question. I don't think it would be too unreasonable to wait until the DRV was over for the final results, if it could change the final outcome. Grandmasterka 08:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Trial run

Any volunteers to give this a try for week starting, say, next Monday? I'm afraid I won't be much help because I'm going on tour for most of June with sporadic internet access, starting next week, and I have a project that's currently occupying much of my time. But I'll keep my score too even though it won't be much at all. Grandmasterka 08:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

It's easy as one two three!

No comment. hbdragon88 23:50, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Question

Who maintains the score? Does admin after each admin action update the scoreboard or others go through his log to maintain it or do we have special janitors (volunteers?) to do it? None seems a practical solution to me. --soum ^talk 16:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

Maybe you should add merging articles to this. Since you have to be an admin to do history merge, other editors can't help out with this. Category:Merge by month has year backlog.--BirgitteSB 11:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)