Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/February 2025/Op-ed

Your military history newsletter – Issue 226, February 2025 Front page • Project news • Article news • Book reviews • Op-ed

By Matarisvan

Hawkeye7 published an article in the last issue entitled "State of the Wikiproject". A quote I think would be appropriate here is:

Regrettably, our process is faltering. In 2024, we promoted 23 A-class articles, compared with 33 in 2023, 48 in 2022, 61 in 2021 and 84 in 2020.

From 2020 to 2024, there is almost a 55% fall in the number of articles promoted. A caveat: the big number in 2020-2021 might be a result of the lockdown freeing time for people who were otherwise too busy to take out time for the project. However, Hawkeye7 does note that there has been a long-term downtrend in the number of A-Class reviews. Now that I am done with the boring numerical analysis, I would like to offer some ideas to improve the A-Class numbers:

• Fasten Up the Timeline of the Reviewers' Awards: WPMH gives out reviewers' awards every quarter. I reckon that these have worked well for improving reviewer retention. I personally enjoy waiting for the end of each quarter to see the awards list. However, I think myself and other editors do not have the stomach for such delayed gratification. I am not saying this is the fault of the current or previous co-ordinators, but we could surely fasten up the timeline for these. Instead of awarding these every 3 months, I think awarding these every month would be better for retaining and rewarding reviewers, because it would provide somewhat instant gratification in this dopamine-fried world.

• Add A-Class Reviews to the WikiCup and Other Contests: I have been very busy on Wiki recently, occupied with a Good Topic rewrite and a huge FA rewrite. However, I admit, quite embarassingly, that I have been able to take out time for reviewing FAC and GAC nominations. I find reviewing at A class as equally rewarding as doing so at FAC and GAC. But the reason I have been working more on the latter than the former is the allure of WikiCup points. Therefore, I think it is suitable to ask the co-ordinators of the WikiCup and other such contests to somehow add points distribution for A-class reviews (especially since all WikiProjects have been considering the initiation of their own A-class review systems).

• Provide Benefits to Reviewers at WikiConferences: Now I think this will be a controversial idea. However, given that many WPMH members attend the annual WikiConferences, I think there should be some limited WPMH programs at these conferences. There are almost no locations in the world where there are no opportunities to research military history, fortunately or unfortunately, however you may choose to look at it. This idea came to me when I was reading the GLAM newsletters, and realized how many IRL activities they do. If we do start hosting these WPMH programs, I reckon we should award some benefits to the top reviewers and nominators. For example, a printed version of The Bugle's latest issue, sponsoring the tickets for battlefields or museums, buying some souvenirs or books, et cetera.

These are some of the ideas I had for improving the A-class review numbers. I do have more of these which I could add to a second part of this op-ed. However, I would like to test the waters with this first part, lest I find myself building castles in the air which look absurd to other contributors.^[a]

About The Bugle First published in 2006, the Bugle is the monthly newsletter of the English Wikipedia's Military history WikiProject. » About the project » Visit the Newsroom » Subscribe to the Bugle » Browse the Archives + Add a commentDiscuss this story These comments are automatically transcluded from this article's talk page. To follow comments, add the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try purging the cache. "Fasten Up the Timeline of the Reviewers' Awards". Maybe put them on a rolling basis? Similar to the A class medals. Eg, a one-stripe for 2 reviews, a two-stripe for four but one has to be an ACR, a three-stripe for seven, a CRM for ten but two have to be an ACRs, a chevrons for fifteen but three have to be ACRs. You are never more than five reviews from an award and you can do them in your own time; want an award, review two MilHist GANs and in an hour or two you've earned a one stripe. Gratification doesn't get much more instant. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:15, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply] Many thanks to Matarisvan for this thoughtful article. I might write an article with my views on this in a future Bugle, but a couple of suggestions are to add a time limit for nominations and introduce a more serious (though still informal) expectation that nominators will review other nominated articles. Both help to keep FAC moving along. I suspect that there are lots of devils in the details on both points though! Nick-D (talk) 10:01, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply] To the "Provide Benefits to Reviewers at WikiConferences", someone could apply for a rapid grant for some of those things. I also seem to recall there being some appetite a long, long time ago for a MILHIST user group. If revived, that affiliate could do the applying. Ed [talk] [OMT] 20:04, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]