Conservapedia talk:Team contest

Scoring System

I suggest including edits to Template:Newsline, Template:AboutC, and Template:Tfa, since they help this site as well. Crocoite 09:55, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Excellent suggestion. Contributions to the front page are always very helpful. ~ Sharon^Talk 09:57, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for adding that Sharon. I also suggest adding points for Welcoming new users. Crocoite 10:33, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

I have added welcoming new users to the scoring list for one point. ~ Sharon^Talk 07:24, 6 July 2007 (EDT)

Thanks Sharon. --Crocoite 08:05, 6 July 2007 (EDT)

Now we have a link from the Main Page to older news. We have only started retrieving the Previous Breaking News articles. I suggest adding a point to the scoring system to encourage other sysops to add to this valuable archive. --Crocoite 15:26, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

At a quick glance, it seems like giving points for blocking is going to put teams with members that don't have blocking rights at a disadvantage. Plus, you also have a bit of dumb luck there too, depending on the quantity of vandals online when a particular sysop is online. Also consider, you are saying 5 blocks = 1 Quality New Article in point value. The time taken to write a quality article is much greater than the time it takes to block 5 people. Just my two cents. --Colest 10:07, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

It is expected that all team members will have blocking rights. If they don't already have them when chosen to be on the team, then they will likely be given blocking rights for the contest. Note that a good block is valuable and draws upon skills, even if it doesn't take much time. Time is not the only consideration for rewarding points. So I don't see a reason to change that point scoring basis.--Aschlafly 10:32, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Thank you for clarifying. --Colest 10:54, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Does uploading a file have any points? (?) --User:Joaquín Martínez, talk 16:59, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Quality

How will quality be measured? BritCon 11:02, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Judges will be picked after the teams are determined. Would you like to volunteer for possible selection as a judge?--Aschlafly 11:09, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

According to the Rules A panel of judges shall be chosen from among the Sysops.... As far as I am aware I am not a sysop. Are you making the rules up as you go along? How will the judges measure quality?

BritCon 11:20, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Oh, I see. You're right. No, I'm not making up the rules as we go along (note that the contest has not yet begun, by the way). Obviously the captains (I'm not one) will have to agree on the rules, rule changes, and any judges chosen. You might still volunteer to be a judge, but it seems less likely you'd be chosen unless you become a Sysop (a process open to all, by the way).

The judges will evaluate quality, not me.--Aschlafly 11:26, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Scoring system

I suggest that the points awarded to a new entry be decreased from 6 to 5, and the points awarded to a quality edit of an existing entry be increased from 4 to 5. It seems to me they should be rewarded equally, as they are equally valuable.

Also, a quality contribution to the front page is worth more than 2 points (and takes longer also). How about 3 or 4 points for that? Godspeed.--Aschlafly 21:56, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

Your suggestions are excellent. ~ Sharon^Talk 22:37, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

I would like to see at least a vague definition of "quality new article", so we can know what we are aiming for. Also, if the description merits it, more points should be awarded to quality new articles, and less for blocking/categorizing. Also, perhaps giving points for blocks is a bad idea - it would give an incentive to block users who may be new or inexperienced, and don't mean any harm. This works directly against our goal of attracting new editors. My $0.02. --Ĥøĵĭmåçħôńğ^talk 22:46, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

Hoji, you'd make an excellent judge.

Better you, would like to organize a public school team to take on the winner of this contest??? Godspeed.--Aschlafly 00:43, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

I would revel in such a... marvelous opportunity, if I can find out who on CP is educated by the public school system. Also, I do not think I would like to judge, as I am still waiting for a response from Conservative, re his spot on Team 1 (he expressed disinterest). Thanks, --Ĥøĵĭmåçħôńğ^talk 12:45, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

On second thought, I would be glad to be a judge, provided it does not interfere with the plans being made. --Ĥøĵĭmåçħôńğ^talk 12:50, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

I heartily endorse Hoji as a judge!!! You'd be fantastic. As soon as Joaquin and Sharon become aware of this and approve, I'll add you Hoji to the judges' confidential namespace. Godspeed.--Aschlafly 12:59, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Excellent! Hoji has my full support as a judge. ~ Sharon^Talk 13:00, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Hoji is fine for us. --User:Joaquín Martínez, talk 17:14, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Judges' pages

Andy, should't the judges have their own confidential page?

Also: the judges will need access at least to a roster of each team in order to tally points or to evaluate each team's point claims.

Last of all: I propose that the team gets its two points for a block, so long as the judges determine that any reasonable and prudent non-competitor would have acted similarly. Anyone can have a block reversed, but still have good and sufficient cause to apply the block at the time. But I wouldn't want to encourage even the appearance of someone blocking without cause merely to earn points.--TerryH^Talk 06:44, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Great points, TerryH. The judges (and I hope you've agreed to be one) will have discretion to add or subtract points as prudent, just as a referee has some discretion in sporting events.

I'll set up a namespace for the judges now.--Aschlafly 12:30, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Record pages

I've given two contestants a notification that their record pages should be located at "User:JohnDoe/Contest" (with "JohnDoe" being the user's name), for the sake of simplicity. The only other logical thing I could think of is "Conservapedia:Team contest/JohnDoe". Input? --Ĥøĵĭmåçħôńğ^talk 18:19, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

It think a common page makes more sense for each team, so that players can easily see the contributions of teammates. That's what I'm going to set up for team2 at Team2:Record.--Aschlafly 20:01, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Team2:Record cannot be seen by the judges, correct? And several users have already set up user:.../contest pages to record their submissions. Wouldn't it be best to stick with user:.../contest, but to transclude (i.e. like a template) those individual pages into Team2:Record? Philip J. Rayment 21:55, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Variable scoring?

I realise that I'm a bit late to bring this suggestion, but instead of having the following:

• Quality new entry: 10 points
• Any new entry: 6 points

We should have:

• New entry: 6 to 10 points.

(And similar for editing existing entries)

The point being that some "new entries" might be very minimal, while others might be much better, but still not enough to qualify for "Quality new entry". I believe that the judges should have the discretion to allot points anywhere between 6 and 10 depending on the quality.

If we don't do this, it raises another (minor) problem. If a competitor creates a new entry that is more than just a very minimal one, do they list it as a "new entry" or a "quality new entry". If they list it as the latter, and the judges deem it to not be so, what happens then? I guess they can reallocate it to "new entry", but if they are going to be deciding which it is, then there's little point in us competitors trying to decide which it is (quality or otherwise).

Philip J. Rayment 22:01, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

I'm just afraid by the time the judges get down to determine if an edit is a quality edit or just a generic edit, it might get awfully tedious looking at 14 different users everyday; they may not have much time for anything else. That's why I suggested an honor system, where the contestant nominates certain of his/her edits for higher credit. It might save some time. Also, a judge could upgrade a generic edit or entry to quality if he was impressed. RobS 22:49, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Apology

Just wanted to apologize for my absence from CP for the past week or so... I was out of state for the week without internet access. And I'm really mad I missed the joining of the teams. Is there any way I can still join one and help? Thanks! DeborahB. 13:47, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

You're on team1 now, DeborahB.! See Team1:Players for your own team info. Godspeed.--Aschlafly 16:45, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

Moving goalposts

Why are the scoring rules being redefined/defined now, after the contest has already started?? Sorry, but I just don't follow anymore. This is creating more grief than its worth I think, especially with having to break down our own edit histories, decide what qualifies as what, create new articles, all while fending off the constant flow of vandals and trolls and watching RCs to revert their contribs too. File:User Fox.png Fox (talk|contribs) 15:08, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

We're not redefining any rules, but we are clarifying them as various considerations become apparent that weren't apparent before. And remember, your blocking actions do your team credit, too. -- Judge TerryH^Talk 15:16, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

Clarifying? They were fairly straight forward before, now the "clarification" has effectively redefined them. File:User Fox.png Fox (talk|contribs) 15:17, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

Hmm. If Fox is on team2, then I think he has a point. However, if he is on team1, then he should be ejected from the contest and all of his points should be given to team2! (specifically to me) Bohdan 15:19, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

• Don't get angry Fox, this was just a joke Bohdan 15:29, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

You just wish you had him on your team ;-) Learn together 15:33, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

ACE (baseball) and the contest

Is this a result of this contest? It's essentially useless. It has one sentence of inane content, a completely unrelated picture, some unrelated external links, and then an obviously cut-and-pasted list of external links to glossaries, four of which don't mention this term. The title is malformed (nobody types "ace" in all-caps), even the single-sentence is highly debatable, I've heard the term used to apply to any good starting pitcher, not just a team's best (which may not actually be very good).

I just see a lot of mass creation of what I can only charitably describe as entires of questionable quality and it seems to be part of this contest.

By the way, I made a point of not looking at the article history. I don't know who made it, and I don't want to know. I'm just afraid that the admirable goal of helping the encyclopedia has sort of been lost in the rush to rack up raw numbers. (E2's experiences in this regard may be enlightening, although it has a very, very different mission.) AManInBlack 10:20, 12 July 2007 (EDT)

Fix it if you don't Like it :P And as for the quality of entries, you obviously don't remember wikipedia when it first started. It was a mess of cruddy one liners (and it still has a whole shed load of crappy one liners, except they justify them by tagging "stub"...); over the years, some were deleted, some were expanded, some were merged into more cohesive units. What is it with all the critics here who expect every entry to be a graduate-level thesis on the subject? File:User Fox.png Fox (talk|contribs) 10:28, 12 July 2007 (EDT)

Heh, {{sofixit}}, then, huh? ;D

Well, the problem is that I can't fix it. It's misnamed, and the article is useless. There's also almost nothing to say on the subject that doesn't belong in, say, pitching. Its origin comes from the use in common English of "ace" to mean "the best." Its use in baseball is exactly congruous to its use in English.

Wikipedia dealt with this problem with What Wikipedia is not, which attempted to narrow things to encyclopedia articles. (A full history on this obviously requires more space than this really needs.) Everything2, which admittedly has very different goals from this project, dealt with this problem by automatically adding public domain content outside the individual-user reward scheme.

I don't have a problem with short articles other people can fix. (These are a Good Thing.) Indiscriminate, contentless articles nobody can really fix aren't so hot. AManInBlack 10:43, 12 July 2007 (EDT)

Currently, not only is the article useless, but even if I could think of something worth adding, but the page is protected. I can't quite figure out what from, admittedly. AManInBlack 12:57, 12 July 2007 (EDT)

I looked at the history to see who created it, and I'd like to say that it wasn't done by one of the contestants, but instead I'll point out that you don't (yet) know how the contest judges will score it. Philip J. Rayment 10:38, 12 July 2007 (EDT)

Right, I don't. I was hoping bringing it to the judges' attention would help make sure this sort of thing doesn't get scored. AManInBlack 10:43, 12 July 2007 (EDT)

That's not the only one. Does Conservapedia have an AFD? Or {{db-empty}}? AManInBlack 12:19, 12 July 2007 (EDT)