Wikipedia talk:Cleanup

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[edit] Accepting Requests

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.

[edit] Arthur H. Vandenberg

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)

[edit] Proposing a Wikipedia cleanup cleanup drive

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/ TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell 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. TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell 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 :) TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell 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).

[edit] MAKE WORK FOR LAZY EDITORS

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. TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 16:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't want you to fix the article. I want to be able to fix the article, any article, without worrying about a kneejerk reversion based on mystery criteria.
The Cleanup Template needs to be modified to require some kind of input from the tagger as to why it needs cleanup, where it needs cleanup, and why subsequent cleanups don't satisfy.
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. TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell 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.
On the other side of the fence, conversation through edit summary is not a good means of dispute resolution, and should be discouraged in favor of using article and user talk pages. I see no history on this article's talk page or the tagger's user talk page showing contact from the person attempting to remove the tag.
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)

[edit] Rider University

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)

[edit] Page Cleanup Drive

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. TravellingCarithe 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)

[edit] Cleanup per WikiProject

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: User:WolterBot/Cleanup statistics.

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