Proposal
I propose these rules for the ratings committee.
I) The Ratings Committee is made up of 9 members at any one time, and 1 sub-member. These nine members have Favor privileges overall all material except that they have written. The sub-member only has privileges over material that another ratings committee member has written.
II) Ratings Committee members must stay active. If they do not activately participate in favoring, reviewing, or improving articles in a two-week period, they will be replaced.
III) A Ratings Committee member can favor any article that they have not written. Doing so requires a short paragraph or more, made under its own topic-header in the discussion. Each favor gets its own topic header, and will follow a predetermined format (such as "Surgo's Favor" or "Favor 1" - to be decided).
IV) When an article has been favored at least once, it receives a Bronze Star. 3 favors gives an article a Silver Star, 6 a Gold Star, and 7 makes the article become a Favored Article. In order to be a true Favored Article, the author must provide a short description to allow featuring on the front page. A picture, while HIGHLY preferred, is not strictly required.
V) Requests for favoring may be made on a special page. Only the best articles should be submitted, and they should be submitted by someone OTHER than the author. When a request is made, each Ratings Committee member must look at the article, and provide some minor indication that they have read it. If it receives at least one favor, all Ratings Committee members are encouraged to read it before it is removed from the list. If it receives no favors after 4 reviews, it is removed from the list.
VI) When a Ratings Committee member steps down or is inactive for a long period of time, the sub-member becomes the Ratings Committee member. The sub-member inherits the old Ratings Committee favors. He may not re-favor an article that his direct predecessor favored, nor may he remove any favors. However, a replacement Ratings Committee member may still favor articles that were favored by a Ratings Committee member at least two positions back.
VII) When the sub-member steps into the new Ratings Committee spot, a new sub-member is chosen. This likely involves applications and a dart board, and is under the purview of Surgo.
Karrius 16:29, September 14, 2009 (UTC)
- Just curious, but at what point in this process would the RC confirm the balance point of the work? Should that sort of thing be worked out and generally accepted before it even gets a favoring request? TarkisFlux 17:14, September 14, 2009 (UTC)
- It should require a balance level category in order to be up for review. The raters can then tell whether it is balanced or not at that category.
- Regarding "V", I think that people should be able to submit their own stuff. If a user consistently submits stuff that is not favored and discarded, then we might need to change that rule. For now though, I see no problem trusting users to know when their content is ready for review. Maybe in the future we might need to require "X favored articles by a user" in order to allow them to submit their own for review. --Andrew Arnott (talk, email) 17:49, September 14, 2009 (UTC)
- Two things:
- I think there should be some sort of refractory period for rejected articles. For example, once being shot down (if such is the case), an article must wait two weeks (or some other period of time) before it can be re-nominated, regardless of how soon the author makes adjustments.
- Not quite as related, but if something gets to five or six favors with no picture, I think we as a community should probably be able to find one that is suitable by our combined efforts.
- -- Jota 18:11, September 14, 2009 (UTC)
- Two things:
- I don't see a problem with either of the two. Furthermore, I think it's pretty easy to see the level of power that an article aims at simply by eyeballing it. The difference between the levels is wide enough that it's not hard to see which category different things fall into. --Ghostwheel 19:06, September 14, 2009 (UTC)
→Reverted indentation to one colon
- For replacing the Sub-Member, maybe we shouldn't be sticking more work on the administration? I can see three ways to do it, actually:
- Democracy: People submit nominations for Sub-Member, accept them, and then get up or down votes of the entire userbase, or everyone with some number of articles. Most approvals wins. You could do a conventional election, but I personally favor approval voting, especially since that allows you to keep voting open while adding new candidates without ruining things.
- Oligarchy: The Rating Committee selects its new Sub-Member somehow, probably through nomination-acceptance-voting.
- Inheritance: The previous Sub-Member selects their replacement. This is a pretty bad idea for obvious reasons, but I'm throwing it out so that it's out there; maybe it can be made into something good.
- Democracy has the advantage of making the Ratings Committee seen as a more responsive body, while Oligarchy allows you to keep the RC good if it starts off good. --IGTN 00:39, September 20, 2009 (UTC)
- At least right now, the difference between democracy and oligarchy won't be so pronounced (since the RC of 9 or so will make the majority (or close to it) of the active user base), but it may come into play later. I think it would be easier to be an oligarchy for now, putting our trust in a safe place, and it can be changed later if something arises in such a manner that forces a reconsideration. -- Jota 01:49, September 20, 2009 (UTC)
Not-So-Final
Since everybody asked me to get a move on and finalize something, here's the next version of the ruleset.
I) The Ratings Committee is made up of ten members at any one time. Each member has Favor privileges over all material except that which they personally have written.
II) Ratings Committee members must stay active. If they do not actively participate in favoring, reviewing, or improving articles in a three-week period, they will be replaced.
III) A Ratings Committee member can favor any article that they have not written. Doing so requires a short paragraph or more, made under its own topic-header in the discussion (either the article's talk page, or the RC forum). Each favor should be under a subsection of a section entitled "Article Favors" (if on the Talk page).
IV) When an article has been favored at least once, it receives a Bronze Star. 3 favors gives an article a Silver Star, 6 a Gold Star, and 7 makes the article become a Favored Article. In order to be a true Favored Article, the author must provide a short description to allow featuring on the front page. A picture, while HIGHLY preferred, is not strictly required.
V) Requests for favoring may be made on the Rating Committee forum. Only good articles should be submitted, and you should only submit an article every other day to prevent overloading the RC members. When a request is made, interested Ratings Committee members should look at the article, and provide some minor indication that they have read it. If it receives no favors after 4 reviews, it is removed from the list.
VI) When a Ratings Committee member steps down or is inactive for a long period of time, a new member is chosen via consultation with a dartboard.
I changed it a bit because I thought the whole sub-member thing was a bit clunky (instead we'll just have 10 members and nobody can favor their own stuff). Also it's my goal to eventually have everything on the wiki rated, and I thought "you can't suggest your own articles for favors" to be counter to this goal so I changed that too. If anyone has a problem with what's here let me know and we'll work it out. Surgo 00:23, September 26, 2009 (UTC)
- I also want to note that stuff that is not all that exciting probably shouldn't be getting gold stars (though silver is fine), and I want to avoid this thing where bronze is basically shit because only 1 or 2 people cared about it. I think we need to address that before we go live. Surgo 00:32, September 26, 2009 (UTC)
- Maybe if something is deemed appropriate for its listed balance level the first reviewer gives it a star (or something else, perhaps), but anything after that must be earned on the basis of merit (and the first reviewer can say such in their review (i.e. "This article is appropriate for its balance level, but is lacking in... [whatever]."). -- Jota 00:43, September 26, 2009 (UTC)