Forum:A big British clean-up
While I was supposed to be doing other important things this week I have been thinking about an idea I came up with a while ago but never mentioned. The idea is that we as a community make a concerted effort over the next month to tidy up the articles in:
- Category:Towns in the United Kingdom
- Category:Cities in England
- Category:Towns in England
- Category:Towns in Scotland
- Category:Towns in Wales (some of these categories are also crying out for merging).
These articles, while uninteresting to many tend to be the first port of call for many of our newer users. I recall looking up my home town when I was an IP and, on finding it to be of reasonable quality, wanting to contribute to it myself.
The general poor state of repair of a vast number of pages in these categories is both a testament to the frequency with which they are viewed and the need for us to do something about them.
Not being a UK-er is no barrier to participation in this enterprise, we would be looking to remove vanity, cyberbullying, remove unfunny jokes and re-write promising ones. If a user deems an article to be utterly beyond saving it could be submitted here for further consideration and a speedy deletion à la forest fire week. Users could sign up here to be a part of it and could record the articles they have looked at. Users who help would be rewarded, in true Uncyclopedia style, with a template with a special prize available for any stand-out participants.
If this is a success I would propose running it again in future with a view to moving onto other categories in need of attention. I feel this could only benefit the wiki as we would be making a focussed effort to raise the average quality of our articles in high traffic categories.
Thoughts? Suggestions? --ChiefjusticeDS 17:15, June 19, 2013 (UTC)
- The ones I have seen tend to be written on the lines 'This town is crap/shit' or 'everyone has married their mother' type articles. I am sure there are exceptions but my guess is a lot can be junked or perhaps, a template can be attached requesting an improvement. --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 07:37, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Agreed, I will be working my way through them over the coming days and weeks, but I hoped that a more concentrated effort from more than just me would reap greater rewards. --ChiefjusticeDS 15:24, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- A good idea. It'd also be a good idea for people to take extra responsibility for the towns in their county, so any slightly more "local" jokes aren't just dismissed. Sir Reverend P. Pennyfeather (fancy a chat?) CUN VFH PLS 16:31, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Having just had a trawl through, the current state of most of these articles is pretty poor indeed. Football clubs are worse. Many of those warrant deletion. The problem is that, as clubs/towns/states are all pretty similar, there are a limited amount of comedy strategies available before they all end up about incest, poverty and chavs. Sir Reverend P. Pennyfeather (fancy a chat?) CUN VFH PLS 16:55, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Perhaps easier to find a good article and use that as a good example of what can work. Keeping it to cities (unless it is an exceptional town) is a good idea. Yes, football clubs articles are generally poor. Perhaps the people who write the wikipedia club articles could be encouraged what they really don't like about another club! --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 17:10, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Leeds was rewritten by UU a while ago, and while it has suffered since it is still reasonable. If we run a special event to deal with these articles we can submit the worst for speedy deletion without individually VFD'ing each of them. --ChiefjusticeDS 17:34, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Perhaps easier to find a good article and use that as a good example of what can work. Keeping it to cities (unless it is an exceptional town) is a good idea. Yes, football clubs articles are generally poor. Perhaps the people who write the wikipedia club articles could be encouraged what they really don't like about another club! --RomArtus*Imperator ITRA (Orate) ® 17:10, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Agreed, I will be working my way through them over the coming days and weeks, but I hoped that a more concentrated effort from more than just me would reap greater rewards. --ChiefjusticeDS 15:24, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
Creation of British City/Town Articles?
Does this include creating some new ones to fill in the gap as many famous British cities are missing and I could write a few. Also each British city article ahould have an info box to make it look more encyclopedic. An example is the one I put on Sheffield. Sir ScottPat (talk) 20:52, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- There are already a lot of sub-par ones. If you've got a good idea for a notable one then go ahead, but a clean-up before making new ones would make sense. Sir Reverend P. Pennyfeather (fancy a chat?) CUN VFH PLS 22:13, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Info-boxes are good in small amounts. If put on every article, they all tend to end up with non-sense numbers. On towns especially, as all we'll ever get is POPULATION: 100,000 chavs/beggars/incestuous twats/sheep; only 1 ME. Info-boxes, like most templates, drink, and all of life's other pleasures, in moderation. Sir Reverend P. Pennyfeather (fancy a chat?) CUN VFH PLS 22:34, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
Articles for speedy deletion
If we're doing this then we need somewhere to list those articles which we feel cannot be saved by simply tidying them up. This place is here, just below this helpful instructional text. Please make the effort to tidy them up before listing them. Once listed articles will stay until 30/06/2013 when an admin will review them and make the final decision as to their fate. If you want to save an article on the list simply remove it. --ChiefjusticeDS 18:13, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
Articles for deletion
- Ankh-Morpork - Almost entirely nonsense. If the nonsense is removed there will be no article left. --ChiefjusticeDS 18:18, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Derventio Heritage Village - I live about a mile away from the abandoned site. Mis-classified, not particularly notable and pretty crap. Sir Reverend P. Pennyfeather (fancy a chat?) CUN VFH PLS 18:22, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Chaddesden - Particularly unfunny. Surprisingly little on chavs, considering that most the comments on other towns' articles genuinely do apply to here, but the article will always suffer from a lack of notability. Sir Reverend P. Pennyfeather (fancy a chat?) CUN VFH PLS 22:34, June 20, 2013 (UTC)
- Birmingham - Pure stupidity and vanity. Recommend purging with fire. --ChiefjusticeDS 18:15, June 21, 2013 (UTC)
- Hang on just one sec. Considering Birmingham is the second biggest city in the UK I think it deserves an article. I will attempt a touch up. Sir ScottPat (talk) 18:18, June 21, 2013 (UTC)
- Having a closer look it doesn't seem to bad. A lot of it is funny with a few areas that need touching up. Sir ScottPat (talk) 18:23, June 21, 2013 (UTC)
- Oakwood, Derby - Not particularly notable, and not particularly funny either. Sir Reverend P. Pennyfeather (fancy a chat?) CUN VFH PLS 22:55, June 25, 2013 (UTC)
- Preston - Nothing here to work with, would require a full rewrite. --ChiefjusticeDS 19:18, June 28, 2013 (UTC)
- Lairg - In three words: "Shower of Cunts". Sir Reverend P. Pennyfeather (fancy a chat?) CUN VFH PLS 12:09, July 5, 2013 (UTC)
- Kingston Upon Hull I found this article as a lot of anons edited it and, in fact, it was almost fully written by anons. I don't know if it is good or not but I am sure that more work is needed. Anton (talk) 09:15, July 15, 2013 (UTC)
- Malton is currently being written by an anon. Don't want it to get deleted or anything but I think a little attention to this page is needed. Anton (talk) 13:05, July 16, 2013 (UTC)
Articles which have been tidied up/created/rewritten
Please list any articles you have already looked at here to save us going over old ground. I trust all of you to do make a decent job of this so won't be re-checking these ones unless anyone specifically asks me. --ChiefjusticeDS 16:29, June 21, 2013 (UTC)
Articles
- York - Removed vanity and nonsense, in the process of rewriting a couple of bits. --ChiefjusticeDS 16:29, June 21, 2013 (UTC)
- Sheffield - Re-written intro and added info-box. The rest looks fine. Sir ScottPat (talk) 16:43, June 21, 2013 (UTC)
- Leicester - Some fairly hefty editing and tidying. I think this is passable now. --ChiefjusticeDS 19:05, June 21, 2013 (UTC)
- Halifax - Wasn't too bad to start with, removed some vanity and made some minor changes. --ChiefjusticeDS 14:16, June 23, 2013 (UTC)
- Manchester - I'm rewriting large sections of this at the moment. --ChiefjusticeDS 05:54, July 12, 2013 (UTC)
Anon who is willing to help
There seems to be an IP user who is doing a big British clean-up all by himself. He probably needs help, as he added several sections to at least 6 articles in several minutes and is exhausted. He has not received any acknowledgements yet, but, on the contrary to that, all his contributions got reverted. Anton (talk) 17:06, July 3, 2013 (UTC)