Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Automatic scorer/1

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Automatic scorer[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: In the absence of anybody saying no (apart from Vami who dropped a line and naffed off) I think it's a keep? If someone objects to this, don't blame me. The coords have been pinged. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:15, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As part of WP:DCGAR and as the original GA reviewer in 2020, I am placing this article nominated by Doug Coldwell up for GAR in order to keep its status as a GA. During the original review I was involved questioning some of DC's claims, finding new sources, and shaping the focus of the article. Now prior to this DCGAR process, I have gone through the article again. Regarding copyvio issues, there was nothing egregious but there were a few borderline too-close paraphrasings, which I have now reworded. Regarding text-source correspondence, again there was nothing really bad but I have fixed it up in a couple of places. In sum, I believe the article corresponds to the GA criteria and its status should be kept. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:23, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WTR, there are no offline sources here, so we don't have to worry about that.
Have you personally examined every one of the newspaper clippings, since Earwig can't detect copyvio or too-close paraphrasing from them?
On the oft-expressed frustration about DC's haphazard citation style (me, EEng and XOR'easter), might you correct article titles, etc, while you're in there? For example, a better title for this newspaper clipping might note the nature of the source: 777-Help Wanted, Male Salaried Jobs, Technician, Service Engineer. That would make it easier for people to question whether, for example, that classified ad should be used to support "AMF and Brunswick each had their set of Customer Service Engineers in a territorial area that repaired the computers."
I have found cases where the citation style obscures a non-RS, eg, throughout the Cartier articles, leaving out that sources were written by a Cartier, and the misrepresentation throughout the Ludington articles that the Willis Fletcher Johnson Memoirs were published by Ludington's family. So additional scrutiny on making sure the citations are written correctly is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:45, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I did examine every source, and I considered all or most of the points being raised here and I came to different conclusions from others here. Re the article titles point, it is now moot since XOR'easter has taken out the classified ads. Which I don't quite agree with, but am not going to argue. If there are any other cites that you think the formatting of should be improved, let me know. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:50, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is just one more article that could be a good, small article, on topic with good sources, turned into a sludgepile by DC with his ridiculous sources. I remember seeing and fighting about this particular article before -- maybe at DYK? -- including the moronic use of a classified job ad. It looks like somehow nothing ever got fixed. How can we go on like this, article after article? Everything he created should just be TNTed, with a few exceptions where for some reason we can be sure that, through some miracle, the article's not a timebomb just waiting to make us all look like fools sooner or later. EEng 18:48, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Having been pinged here, I took a look and immediately noticed problems, so I think this needs further scrutiny. XOR'easter (talk) 22:33, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at one sample:
  • California was considered a good prospect for making early sales since there bowlers were obliged to pay for human scorekeepers during league competitions.
    From https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55273065/
    Another indication that DC just did not know how to use sources correctly, and WTR, you need to read every single source. This is some guy in New Jersey entering a maybe sorta kinda speculative statement in his editorial column. It doesn't belong in the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:02, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The California paid-human-scorers angle was real and it gets discussed in other sources too, for example this 1970 story that was already used as a cite. Now that story says that California would be less like to use the automatic scorer, not more, so I need to do some more research on this angle before putting anything back in. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:35, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I trust you will get it sorted ... all of this was just a reminder of how carefully you have to scrutinize all-things-DC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:06, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PS, a likely reason we end up with this kind of rubbish in all DC articles is word count is padded up to meet DYK expansion. Newspapers.com was not a good thing in DC's hands, and his research methods were flawed. I noticed another citation where this same guy was the author. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:06, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the next sample from the same author (which by the way, is the same article under a different name):
@SandyGeorgia: On this last point, I have to respectfully disagree. I think the two sources together state that Village Lanes in 1967 was Brunswick's first field test of the automatic scorer. And I've found this story from 1970, three years later by a different author in a different paper, which says that Brunswick "installed the first test models in Village Lanes in Chicago in 1967." So unless you object further, I plan to restore this to the article with the 1970 cite added. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:12, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Where do you find support for the "first"; this is a classic DC issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:17, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PS, I'm fine with restoring it if you simply omit the word first. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:17, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I got 'first' from one of the 1967 sources because it said the field test, singular. And the 1970 source confirms that. But I get that you are burned on DC and firsts, so how about if I say 'initial field test'? Wasted Time R (talk) 00:30, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You don't really need to add an adjective ... it works just to say it was field tested there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:50, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I have added this back in, with no adjective. And I realize that in my haste to type responses last night, I gave the wrong link for the clip of the 1970 story! No wonder you were still puzzled. Arrrgh. This is the right one. Reminder to self, always double-check posts on Talk pages ... Wasted Time R (talk) 11:36, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Another DC classic (that is, because he struggled to paraphrase, meaning was frequently distorted):
  • Automatic electronic scoring was first conceived by Robert Reynolds, who had expertise in modern electronics and their use in calculations.
    From https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55210290/democrat-and-chronicle/ which actually says that:
    Robert Reynolds, a West Coast electronics calculator expert. Somehow, DC gets from calculators to expert in modern electronics and their use in calculations. Every Single Source Needs Scrutiny. I really want to stop at three, but it's hard to avert one's eyes from these trainwrecks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:15, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You can blame me for this one, in this DCGAR edit, I thought that DC's wording was too close to the source and so I rearranged/reworded it. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:27, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rather than try to figure out a better paraphrase that isn't too close, I've now just quoted the source. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:42, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's about where I usually end up :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:49, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Summary, having looked now at scores of DC articles, it will be hard to convince me that any article that is still 80% DC content can be GA-worthy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:20, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Shearonink, for example, is trying to save similarly save Thomas Johnston (engraver) at WP:GAR, and has had to completely rewrite (reducing DC content to a third). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:24, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking in my capacity as a (newly-elected) coord, I have to agree with Sandy. It's down to 64.8% Coldwell content now, but that's still entirely too high. Coldwell content must be scrutinized extremely closely and in most cases requires total rewriting. Not just for copyvio, but for failed verification, original research, and poor writing in general. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:43, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Trainsandotherthings: I have to respectfully disagree with your conclusion here. I have scrutinized the DC text for copyvio, text-source correspondence, any DC-introduced notions, and so forth. I do not think the article has to be completely rewritten and I do not think the percentage of DC content is, by itself, a suitable metric for this GAR.
Note that this is not the 'normal' DC composition, both due to the subject being more contemporary/accessible and in particular due to my heavy involvement in it during the initial GA review. A number of the sources that are in the article are sources that I found at the time of that review and that I verified at the time that he was accurately using when he incorporated them into the article text. Many of the points that the article makes were influenced by my review, and if you look at that review you can see that we went back and forth on several points and almost lost patience with one another. Now as part of this GAR, three different editors – myself, XOR'easter, and SandyGeorgia – have had at the article to identify and fix outstanding DC-related problems.
I put a lot of work into the original GA review, and I have put a lot of additional work now into this GAR. So if possible I would like this to be judged not on a 'guilty until proven innocent' basis but rather on the more normal basis of 'does this article meet the GA requirements'. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:42, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree there is much to be said about this article compared to other DC content because of your involvement at the GAN level. Some of the GAN reviews I've seen were little more than a word tweak here or there. Nonetheless, it's good progress that the article is now at 64% DC content (from 80 the last time I checked in :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:16, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not going to close this since I've commented on it, but I just reviewed the Coldwell content using Who Wrote That and I remain concerned. I can see you've done a lot to improve the article, but there are a few paragraphs almost entirely unchanged. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 13:49, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Those would be cases where I looked at the DC text and didn't see any problems with copyvio, erroneous claims, mistaken attributions, etc. I'm not going to rewrite the text just for the sake of rewriting it. The point of what I am doing is to try to preserve a little bit of what DC did, not completely replace it.
Because in human terms, this is the worst calamity I've seen in my 18 years as a Wikipedia contributor. Imagine that you are retired and you decide take on a full-time volunteer position with an organization that builds structures. You get really into it and build lots and lots of structures. The organization seems to like what you are doing; it highlights hundreds of your structures on their web page, and then gives a lot of them awards as good structures. Then after more than a decade of doing this, the organization suddenly says that you've been building these structures all wrong. It revokes the good structure awards and even worse, it tears most of the structures down. How do you think you would feel? Wasted Time R (talk) 14:58, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a great metaphor. It's a fundamental policy of Wikipedia that plagiarism is not acceptable. Every contributor should be aware of this, let alone someone who was here for 15 years. It wasn't some massive surprise that people finally wised up to the massive issues with his content. I could go on and on about the multiple failures of oversight and excessive deference to established contributors that led to this disaster, plus the lust for shiny icons on his userpage that pushed Doug to shit out massive quantities of shoddy articles, but this isn't the place to do so. I'm not actively opposing, but I cannot actively support keeping this GAN either. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:02, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure it feels awful for DC, but he's 100% responsible for what he did -- 15 years of holding buildings together with chewing gum, using library paste where cement was required, and then professing that he thought that was how buildings are built. (The reviewers who failed to do their jobs are also 100% responsible, for a total of 200% -- there's that much blame to go around.) EEng 21:11, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Immediately delist and send to WP:CP for deletion and/or replacement with a new, untainted article. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 18:35, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Vami IV: I believe your stance is not in accordance with the instructions given by WP:DCGAR FAQ #2 and #3 to the original GA reviewers: "If you believe the GA status might be retained ... you need to be willing to open an independent GAR ... and able to verify all content cited to online and offline sources ... Re-evaluate the content" per the problem areas listed in FAQ #1. That's what I've done, and I believe the current article is free of all of those listed problem areas. If someone points out an issue that remains, I will fix it. But nowhere at WP:DCGAR does it say that an article has to completely replaced with a new article. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:40, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Vami, I don't think that assessment is in line with the article status. I am not yet ready to declare a Keep (mostly because I have never understood what makes a GA), but if any copyvio remains, it would help to know where. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:20, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Wasted Time R and SandyGeorgia: and @WP:GAR coordinators: , sorry to ping everyone again, but some sort of consensus here would be nice. Also, could one of the coords close the Albany GAR while we're all here? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:48, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    If I thought the article should be delisted, I'd say so; I don't enter a Keep because the GA standards make no sense to me and I don't understand them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:09, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Albany is stalled because it has some remaining citation needed tags. I'd fix them myself but I really don't have time. I'd hate to close as delist because it's close to being a keep, but I cannot in good conscience close as keep something with active citation needed tags. Given my comments above, I don't think I should be the one to close this GAR. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:50, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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