WiKirby:Good referendum

Good evening, good peoples of our good wiki! The Good template has been a fixture of WiKirby for nearly three years now, but in its current form, it has arguably outstayed its current purpose. Based on discussion in the Discord server, I have devised something that I believe will enhance the Good template, changing it from a mere mark of "completion" into a mark for our exemplary content, and a proper pool from which featured articles can be selected. Take a good look at this.

Background

This icon is used to mark good content..or is it?

Main article: WiKirby:Featured content policy

As it currently stands, the Good template is meant to mark articles that meet all of WiKirby's basic requirements for a "complete" page, and for files that meet a minimum standard of quality. This was all well and good back in 2019, when large swathes of essential pages on the wiki were still incomplete, but now that WiKirby has matured, I think it's time the Good template meant a little more. I say this in particular because, as of writing this referendum, WiKirby has 3,790 articles, and of those, 3,064 are marked as Good. Keep in mind that things that are ineligible for Good status, such as subpages and disambigs, also add to the article total, so in reality, roughly 90% or more of our articles have the Good badge on them, which kind of makes the badge pointless as a signifier in my opinion. A similar percentage exists for files, and with new systems in work such as the current Aboutfile template, the Good system for files seems to be largely irrelevant.

In addition, as highlighted in this withdrawn proposal, a fair amount of "Good" content actually ended up missing a lot of important information, as the people who marked them (myself included in a lot of cases) were not careful enough to check for true completion on the article before marking something as Good. It is clear to me that something needs to be done to help prevent this sort of careless badge-handing from happening going forward.

The proposal

So, here is what I propose we do to the Good template, in order to make it a more noteworthy icon and to help address some of the issues with it (assuming we don't just axe the thing entirely):

• Completely abolish the Good template from files. - As mentioned above, the new Aboutfile system makes the Good badge for files largely irrelevant now, so we should probably just stop using it. Ideally, all files should be meeting the same set of standards, and we don't need a badge to indicate that.
• Redefine the Good template so that it is awarded only to exemplary articles as a prerequisite for featuring. - This means that an article can only be awarded the Good badge if it is deemed suitable to appear on the front page of the site, even if it is not actually being nominated for featuring. This will allow candidates for featuring to be identified more easily, and gives more of an incentive to make sure articles to receive the badge actually warrant it. This will also de-emphasize having to place the template on more auxiliary articles such as Radish Ruins - Hub.
• Add a new rule disbarring staffers from "Gooding" their own work or from awarding more than one Good badge per day. - Under this rule, staffers have to have at least one colleague check their work to make sure that the article meets all the requirements for a Good badge, adding a little bit of peer review into the system. This will also prevent any new pages from being created "already Good" and hopefully disincentivize staffers getting "lazy" with the review process. In the case of an article that was made by many different people, the disbarring applies to the staffer who made the most recent substantial edits with the intention of pushing an article towards "Good" consideration.

The vote

In order to decide how to proceed, we are asking you, the WiKirby community, to vote on the fate of the Good template. We have narrowed things down to four options, as follows:

1. Option 1 - Change the requirements for the Good template as proposed above.
2. Option 2 - Do away with the Good template entirely.
3. Option 3 - Do nothing and keep the Good template exactly as it is.
4. Option 4 - Remove the Good template from files, but keep things as is for articles.

In addition, should it be decided that the Good template changes (Option 1), a few options to handle pages with the template as it was are as follows:

1. Option A - Try to maintain the Good template on as many articles as possible, and revoke any that don't fit the new standard.
2. Option B - Revoke Good from all articles save for a handful of the wiki's most substantial articles that are not featured, to use as examples for future engoodenment.
3. Option C - Revoke Good from all articles, so that they can all be judged by the new system and re-added one by one.

Which option you prefer will depend on how much you the editor want to be involved with deciding which pages are good and which are not. Option A places the task more on the shoulders of me and the other admins, while option C puts more responsibility (or opportunity) on editors to find articles to make Good. Option B is a halfway-house between these two.

Voting procedure and deadline

Each registered user who has attained Autoconfirmed status or above will be allowed to vote in this referendum using the talk page. Votes must consist of a list of the options from each set from most to least preferred. As an example, a user could vote by saying "Option 1, Option 2, Option 3, Option 4; Option A, Option B, Option C", and it will be ranked per set in descending order. Options will be awarded points per set as follows:

1. First choice - 3 points
2. Second choice - 2 points
3. Third choice - 1 point
4. Last choice - no points

Users will be allowed to change their votes at any time while the poll is open. Users may also choose less than all the options per set, with unchosen options receiving no points. Remember to sign your name on your vote using ~~~~, or it will not be counted!

This vote will run until the 20th of September, 2022 at 11:59:59 p.m. UTC. Once the deadline passes, the score will be tallied and the option with the most points will be selected as the winning choice (the same applies to the options of the second set, should option 1 win). Each user may only vote once, and any dishonesty on part of users will be punished severely. The talk page may also be used to discuss the options, but the conversation must remain civil, and attempts at campaigning for a choice will be squashed immediately. Thank you, and good night. --Samwell (talk) 01:00, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Results

Here are the results:

	Op. 1	Op. 2	Op. 3	Op. 4	Op. A	Op. B	Op. C
1	3	2	0	0	0	3	2
2	3	0	0	0	0	2	3
3	2	3	0	1	0	3	0
4	3	2	0	1	2	3	0
5	2	3	0	1	0	3	2
6	2	3	0	1	3	0	2
7	2	3	0	1	1	3	2
8	3	0	0	2	3	1	2
9	3	2	0	0	2	3	0
10	3	2	0	0	0	2	3
11	3	2	0	1	1	2	3
12	0	3	1	2	0	0	0
13	3	2	0	1	1	3	2
14	3	1	0	2	1	3	2
15	3	2	0	1	0	0	0
16	3	0	1	2	1	3	2
17	3	0	1	2	2	3	1

TOTAL	44	30	3	18	17	37	26

Option 1 is the winner, with 44 points. As such, the overhaul to the Good template will proceed as outlined on this page, and only a handful of "core" pages will retain the Good template to start out. Stay tuned for upcoming changes in the near future. Thank you all for participating.