User:Lx 121/POTY 2009: draft proposal for poty award categoriesheirarchy/organization

raw material

       i would like to challenge that on several points:

unindenting

1. fp is not adequate as a filtering system; we have, apparently, approx 900 fp promoted in 2009. presumably that number is going to increase next year.

900+ canditates in round 1 voting is not a reasonable number! sane, normal people are not going to go through all 900 images, even if they are neatly subdivided into categories (how to best/most fairly sub-categories, i leave as a separate question. probably, most of people arent even going to properly consider all the images in the categories they care enough about, to vote on.

we already need more filtering, even just for (fp)oty.

2. fp is the product of a relatively small working group of dedicated users. poty is a wikimedia community-wide event. these are different things.

the problem is that the "unambiguous" filtering process is being conducted by a small group of users who have a focussed interest in "fp". the decisions made reflect their tastes/opinions/standards/etc. they do not accurately reflect the opinions of the community as a whole.

"judge's choice" vs "people's choice"

i'm also aware that there are many users who are unhappy with various aspects of the current fp process/system, but for the purposes of poty, that is somewhat beside the point. we're here to put together poty2009, & make it better than the year before, not argue broader issues. that can be done elsewhere.

poty is for everybody; or, at least, everybody who cares enough about wikimedia, to contribute a reasonable number of edits-per-year.

if the competition is meant to only be about fp, then it should properly be renamed: "WIKIMEDIA COMMONS: Featured Picture of the Year"

3. it is also somewhat problematic that our "picture of the year 2009", if limited to fp promotions only, only requires that the image have been "promoted to fp" in 2009, & not created, signifucantly edited, or uploaded to wmc during 2009.

there is a logical disconnect here...

4. appropos; i'm drafting some suggestions for both a nomination peocess, & revising the structure & category system of the poty competition.

i know this is extremely late, but i'm focussing on practical options, that can be implemented this year.

the "short"-short version of it would be suggestions that:

a) we set up an open nominating process that allows any qualified voter to nominate/support images in any category. we require a given number "support" votes to pass a nomination (let's say 10, for example). we set a deadline for the nominations to close, obviously.

we setup a page (or pages) for nominations.

do some quickie templates & help/faq's to make it easy to nominate

we spam advertising around wm & anyplace ekse that's relevant

if/when a pic gets the required (i.e.:10) supporting votes, we clear it for round 1, & move on (minimizing the amount of effort we have to put into processing noms!).

that way,, we achieve 2 distinct goals:

i. we get a reasonably fast & efficient "unambiguous filtering system". that should let us cut the round 1 numbers way down; any image that can't get at least the minimum supporting votes for nomination hasn't got a chance in the competition.

2. we get a clear reflection of the will of the community, for poty candidates.

b) we re-think categories & heirarchy for poty;

as regards fpoty, it would mean that we have a "specific category/categories" for "fpoty", as distinct from other cats, such as: "jury prizes", "open" category (any image created/uploaded to wmc in 2009), & maybe logical groupings of: i. technical quality, ii. artistic quality, iii. educational/usefulness.

we could also consider options like most unique/rare/extraoerdinary, newsworthy, historic, or etc.

clearly we're not going to have it all sorted this year, but we could do a basic re-working of the system, to make it more logical, & better reflective of the community as a whole.

(done for now; will finish a rougjh outline draft, & post it here when it's at least minimally presentable)

Lx 121 (talk) 07:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)