Wikipedia talk:Triple Crown/Nominations

Volunteer/s needed

Due to an accident a while ago, I have not had enough time to go through the nominations. Any help to verify and award nominations is welcomed. Please contact me if you wish to assist. Thank you. – SMasters (talk) 04:31, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Is anyone maintaining this?

Hmmm. I see my nomination has lingered for awhile and now there's another. Is anyone home? Knock, knock...? Montanabw^(talk) 19:14, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Casliber was on it, with my help here and there. I don't know if he is doing it any longer, but I'll try to go through them as soon as I can. Cheers. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 22:44, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Free time has been patchy - anyone is welcome to get stuck into it. Otherwise I will try to do some in several hours. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:43, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I'll be maintaining this from now on. Leave me a message if you're nominating yourself or someone else for an Alexander the Great Edition Triple Laurel Crown or any lower award. Anything higher than that and i'll have to ask you for some kind of quid pro quo arrangement, i.e review a GA or comment on an FAC I have open in return. Freikorp (talk) 09:45, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

• That is frankly disgusting, and very much not the spirit this page was established in. "Yeah, good work creating a hundred pieces of featured content. Here, review this and I'll admit that you did it." — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:27, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

• Seriously? I spent a considerable amount of time today reviewing 8 peoples nominations without asking for anything in return. I took it upon myself to indefinitely offer to review small nominations purely because nobody else seems to be maintaining this (my nomination has been sitting there for almost 4 months, and some of the ones I reviewed today have been sitting there longer). I was simply throwing it out there that if you have a massive nomination that would take a considerable amount of time to review (I checked each article in each nomination to make sure it met the criteria before I handed out awards today), and you would like me specifically to review it, I would like something in return for my hours of work. If you don't want me to review it, don't ask, and just wait for somebody else like you were already doing anyway. I don't think you're being very reasonable about this. I don't claim to own this award and i'm not holding it hostage, I just made an offer because nobody else was doing anything. Quite frankly i'm extremely offended and confused about being accused me of extortion. Freikorp (talk) 12:38, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

• Quite simply put, that's what it is: "extortion (noun): the practice of obtaining something ... through force or threats". There's an implicit threat that noone will rise above the Alexander level unless they do something for you; by definition, that's extortion.

If you have an issue with reviewing nominations for the triple crown unless something is in it for you, then don't do it. Casliber never used such methods. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:04, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I reviewed 9 nominations today (8 of which I passed) without asking for anything in return before I made the above offer; clearly I don't have a problem with reviewing nominations if there is nothing in it for me, so you're embarrassing yourself by explicitly stating otherwise. I like giving out awards. Here's another two I gave out today for something completely different, without asking for anything in return: [1][2]. However if giving someone an award is going to take up several hours of my time (in your case, it would have required individually reviewing 300 articles and their nominations, which would have taken hours, and unlike a GA review would have been a tedious, repetitive task) I think asking for something like a GA review in return is a pretty fair deal. As my user page has consistently stated for a very long time, "Feel free to contact me for a quid pro quo review arrangement". I like trading reviews; it's fun! If you do a thorough check of my edit history you'll see I regularly make such offers; here's the last one I made: [3]. Notice how I'm not threatening this person, implying that nobody is ever going to review his articles if he doesn't accept my offer, or forcing him to do anything. I'm just throwing it out there - don't like waiting? Me neither! So if you do this for me right now, i'll do this for you right now. Not interested? No worries! Feel free to wait for somebody else to review it for free. It's ridiculous to state there was an implicit threat that nobody else would review your nomination. Clearly large nominations have been processed here in the past, but clearly it also takes a long time to find someone willing to do it. I was just offering to speed up the process in exchange for something that would benefit wikipedia and my own pride at the same time. Freikorp (talk) 13:43, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Cool down everybody, Crisco 1492, Freikorp is stating something that sometimes I (and possibly others) do think but wouldn't generally say so bluntly. Reviewing material on wikipedia (whether triple crown, FAC, GAN, DYK or whatever) can be very time consuming. I think I (and maybe others) do notice if someone (say) nominates several articles at FAC over time and reviews no-one else's. In general, one just moves on assuming good faith. On the other hand, being blunt about it can be a bit of a dampener too. No easy way about it sometimes....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:22, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

It would have been nicer if I was less blunt about that. Crisco 1492, i'm reverting your removal of your nomination. I respect the contributions you've made and someone with more free time than I will get to your nomination eventually. I don't want you to miss out just because you have a problem with something I did. Freikorp (talk) 23:32, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

• Please do not revert my removal. I'd rather not continue with the triple crown.

For the future, it might be better to do the review, then leaving a polite talk page message "Hi X, congratulations on your new triple crown. I was wondering if you'd have the chance to review Y, which I've currently got at GAC and has been sitting there without a review for Z months. I'd appreciate it greatly". It's likely not going to get a heated a reaction, and perhaps even more likely to be successful. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:35, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Good and featured topics

Hi! I saw the current nomination features a featured topic, which I just wanted to confirm if it is suitable for being included as Featured Content (the same for Good Topics). I don't have much of a thought either way, but wanted to check! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:41, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Lee Vilenski. Yes, featured topics have counted as a piece of featured content in the past. To the best of my recollection I've only awarded one, and that was for Wikipedia:Featured topics/Overview of Tove Lo. In this case, the nominator was also a major contributor to all three pieces of content within the featured topic. So if you were a major contributor to all the content within it, it would definitely count. I'd probably have to discuss with other editors whether it would count if you were only a major contributor to some of the content within it. Nobody has ever submitted a good topic in place of a GA before, but at this stage I don't see why they shouldn't be accepted under the same rules (once we figure those out) of the featured topics. Happy to hear other opinions on the matter though. Damien Linnane (talk) 14:36, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: @Vaticidalprophet: @Bilorv: Pinging Vaticidalprophet and Bilorv as they're the only two editors who have participated in a talk page discussion regarding the Triple Crown this year, and Gog the Mild as we seemed to agree Featured topics should count as featured content back in 2019 over at Wikipedia talk:Triple Crown#Good topics. Opinions from others are also welcome of course.

I note over the history of the Triple Crown (as seen at Wikipedia:Triple Crown/Standard Winners) about 20 featured topics have been included as featured content for winners of the award. However, all but one of these appear to have been given before my becoming involved with this award in 2015. Since then, I think I've only allowed Wikipedia:Featured topics/Overview of Tove Lo to be counted, as the editor who nominated it was also a major contributor to all the pieces of content within the topic. I stand by this decision and will happily give awards under identical circumstances in the future. My two questions are:

1. Should featured topics count if the nominator is not a major contributor to all articles within the topic? I'm kind of on the fence about this one. I think the editor should be a major contributor to at least half, but I'm also happy to keep it exclusive to all articles within the topic.
2. Secondly, should Good topics be accepted alongside GAs? I note this has never been done before, and is a little unique as the GA column is, obviously, even titled 'GA'. Indicating nothing else has ever been accepted in there. If they were accepted, I'd want the rules to mirror whatever we choose for the featured topics regarding how many article within the topic you need to have been a major contributor to. Damien Linnane (talk) 15:04, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

I think featured topics should be counted as featured content if the person in question was involved in both the nomination and a substantial number of the GA/FA/FL promotions. I wouldn't even go as high as half, depending on the size of the topic—10 articles out of 30 would be fine by me—but it should be multiple, and make you one of the most major contributors to the topic. But I wouldn't object to "at least half" as a rule. I'd be happy to have a good topic in place of a GA for the "good content" box, but if so we should changing the wording of the second bullet point at Wikipedia:Triple Crown to match. — Bilorv (talk) 15:22, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

1. What makes an FT an FT, as opposed to a GA, is at least half of its articles being featured. It seems to me then, that in order to count an FT towards a triple crown a nominator needs to have been a major contributor to those articles which make it an FT. Ie, to have major contributions to at least half of its articles, all of which are FAs. Otherwise it would be possible to claim an item of featured content towards a triple crown without having done any work on any featured content within it, which just seems silly.

2. Well, if we are accepting FTs, we should accept GAs on a similar basis, and I struggle to see any reasonable basis to not accept being a major contributor to a GT as an item counting towards a triple crown in a similar way to GAs. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:13, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

A little cheekily I have anticipated the outcomes of this discussion and submitted a nomination which includes both FTs and GTs. As I an the major contributor to all of the constituent articles that shouldn't be a problem, and I have a surplus of both GAs and FAs if the GTs and/or the FTs get rejected. It may serve as a test case to see how practicable the ideas are, although this part of the nom seems if anything easier to both complete and check than others. I look forward to comments. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:42, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

@Damien Linnane: should we come to a conclusion one way or another on this, at least on whether we're going to count GTs towards the GA (perhaps to be renamed "Good content") column? — Bilorv (talk) 15:33, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry I already updated the Triple Crown header but I didn't reply here yet.

I'm thinking it's a bit too complicated to have separate rules regarding how many articles you need to have been a major contributor to for good and featured topics depending on the number of items within the topic, so I'm inclined to stick to the 'half' rule for simplicity. I'm seeing the point Gog the Mild raised regarding it being possible to be a major contributor to a featured topic without contributing to a featured article though (since only half the articles in a featured topic need to be featured). I'm thinking maybe the best way around that is saying for featured topics you need to have been a major contributor to half the content and at least one featured item within in. What do you think?

I'm totally on board with counting GTs as good content. Happy to have the columns renamed. Damien Linnane (talk) 08:59, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Weell, I guess I could live with fewer than half the FAs if it makes the admin simpler, but could I suggest two rather than one? Two being the minimum number of FA needed for an FT. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:29, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm happy with that. :) Damien Linnane (talk) 11:21, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

"at least twenty-five percent of an article's content"

I had always understood the "a "major contributor" is generally someone who had contributed to at least twenty-five percent of an article's content ..." criterion to mean 25% of the current content, not 25% of all the content there has ever been. Ie the % of authorship, not of added text on XTools. I note that the discussion around TheSandDoctor's nomination seems to revolve around the latter. With long-established articles which attract a lot of swiftly reverted fan cruft - like Keith Richards or The Rolling Stones - it may be theoretically impossible to constructively contribute 25% to them, as the current article may have had more than four times its current text size contributed to it since its creation. Of course with the authorship facility currently down on XTools this creates a practical difficulty, but that is a separate issue. (XTools states that TSD has contributed 25,460 characters to Keith Richards; if all of these are current - which may be a stretch - then they are responsible for more than 21% of its current content, not 14.7%. Or I have contributed 37.2% of the total characters ever added to Punic Wars, but if all of these are still current - and I have reason to believe that is a reasonable approximation - then I have contributed 87.5% of its current content.) Gog the Mild (talk) 17:44, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I completely see your point. I wish there was a way to check for contributions to the article as it currently stands. In the past this has never presented much of a problem though, as typically a "major contributor" for an article submitted for the award has contributed a lot more than 25%, and if it's a couple percentages short I just let it slide. In over five years of handing out the awards I don't think I've rejected more than five nominations for not hitting that benchmark, and typically this is because the person submitting it is well under 10%. In TSD's case I didn't really look into the GAs that strongly as the main issue was with the featured content submissions, where the percentage contributions is lower than 5%. I can understand that the current rules may be dissuading some people from submitting in the first place. I'm not sure about the solution though. Quite frankly, I don't relish having to make the time to search through edits manually to find out the actual percentage of live edits, and I think asking people to do that themselves might dissuade them from bothering to self-nominate in the first place. Damien Linnane (talk) 23:44, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

XTools' Page Statistics (accessible through revision history) has an authorship pie chart for the current version of any given article. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 02:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Vami_IV. Are you referring to the 'Authorship' sub-section of Page Statistics? As Gog the Mild mentioned above that's not operational. When I load any page that secion just give me an error message. Damien Linnane (talk) 02:23, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Bizarre. Works fine for me. If it does the math bizarrely, though, I hadn't noticed. I use that function a lot in the course of CCI to estimate how much work lies ahead of me, and then crack open old diffs and Who Wrote That? for current text. Actually, if you're using Chrome or Firefox, Who Wrote That? is a good alternative, but will break if the article has hyphens in its citations or has deleted revisions. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 23:14, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi again Vami_IV. Thanks for letting me know about Who Wrote That. It looks like it could come in handy for me for a lot more than just this award. Anyway the Authorship sub-section of Page Statistics is back online now, but it's great to have an alternate program in case it goes down again. :) Damien Linnane (talk) 11:46, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

My most popular articles submitted for my own Triple Crown by page views are List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events and The Fifth Element. They get over 2.5 million views and 1 million views a year respectively, and I am regularly reverting added fancruft and vandalism to them (by comparison, Keith Richards gets over 1.5 million views a year). Despite this, I still clock in at 61.1% and 68.8% of added text to those articles, according to XTools. Granted this number increases to 97.4% and 76.4% respectively assuming all my edits are live (they aren't). Point being, if you've written most of the article, XTools overall text count is still an excellent rule of thumb for checking. Damien Linnane (talk) 00:15, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

• I was not disagreeing with your decisions re SandDoctor, but raising a general point.
• Personally I feel that "at least twenty-five percent of an article's content" is a fairly low bar and wouldn't object to it being raised slightly, if by "content" we mean authorship.
• Authorship is back up on XTools, so I can see that for Punic Wars I am responsible for 92% of authorship, but only 37% of added content.
• Picking an article at random, Scarlett Johansson is 39,665 characters long. If I were to replace every single one of them with new content, including every "the", "a" and "and" I would still only be responsible for 14.3% of added text and so wouldn't be considered a major contributor[!]
• As time goes by older articles are going to accumulate ever greater volumes of added text, if only from reverted vandalism.
• All of which leads me to strongly support the 25% threshold being explicitly linked to authorship.
• Cheers. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:38, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: precisely. I'm not arguing either wrt the FAs or end result of my case. By added text, I am 12.9% (69,184 characters) of The Rolling Stones...but by authorship I am 20.5% and #1 (#2 on Richards). It should probably be either 25%+ or #1, whichever best matches. Being #1 (or in the top couple) definitely should mean that you are a "major contributor" to the article. Mick Jagger is the exception where I am top of both. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:52, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I made something clear earlier. I use the added text counter when 'Authorship' is not available. Now that it is available again, I'll use that again.

Oh that's a good point. If nobody has hit 25% we would of course accept the person ranked in the top position, possible the second depending on how much they have contributed. We'd take that on a case by case basis as for considerably less popular articles, the second top contributor may have only made one or two edits. See for example Mya (program), where I have 92.7% of the article's authorship, and the second and third top contributors by authorship are actually bots with about 2% authorship. The next top contributor who is a person ranks in at No. 4 with 1.3%. There would be many articles where the second top contributor has done extremely little in helping the article be promoted. Damien Linnane (talk) 23:21, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

@Damien Linnane: Thank you for clarifying. I think that it strikes a fairer balance than it did before. That makes total sense wrt selecting #2 on lesser known issues potentially causing a problem; when I was thinking of it, I was mostly thinking of highly trafficked articles (e.g. Keith Richards) where it could be tens of thousands of characters contributed or where #1 and 2 have very little separation. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:39, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

@DL, great. That all makes sense to me. Gog the Mild (talk) 09:55, 15 July 2021 (UTC)