Editing Vaporstory:Article Rating Scale

Articles will be rated on their talk pages according to the following scale.  Any administrator may rate an article a Good Article, Basic Article, or Stub, and established users may apply for the right to rate articles by contacting an administrator, but Canon and Featured Articles are decided separately.  (The "canon" rating will take effect when the project has grown to the point where it becomes necessary.)

{| valign="top" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1"
|+ '''Article progress grading scheme'''
|-
| align="center" cellspacing="3" style="border: 1px solid #C0C090; background-color: #F8EABA; margin-bottom: 3px;" colspan="2" colspan = 1 | Rank
| align="center" cellspacing="3" style="border: 1px solid #C0C090; background-color: #F8EABA; margin-bottom: 3px;" colspan="2" colspan = 1 | Criteria
| align="center" cellspacing="3" style="border: 1px solid #C0C090; background-color: #F8EABA; margin-bottom: 3px;" colspan="2" colspan = 1 | Contribution to Vaporstory
| align="center" cellspacing="3" style="border: 1px solid #C0C090; background-color: #F8EABA; margin-bottom: 3px;" colspan="2" colspan = 1 | Improvement
| align="center" cellspacing="3" style="border: 1px solid #C0C090; background-color: #F8EABA; margin-bottom: 3px;" colspan="2" colspan = 1 | Example
|-
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Corona Article
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | An article that has been both voted as canon and featured on the Main Page.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Provides new and diverse information for the project and makes mention to established information on relevant subjects.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | No further development is necessary unless new canon information has been approved, but further improvements to the text are often possible.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | None yet
|-
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s> Canon Article </s>
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s> Approval as canon through both the preliminary checking stage and the voting for canonization stage.</s>
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s> A well written article with a complete and thorough description of its subject matter.  Detailed and informative, the canon article is integrated well into the Vaporstory world.  It has new information and proves itself by referring to previously established canon.</s>
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s> Minor edits and adjustments would improve the article, perhaps in an area of the subject that has not been sufficiently created.</s>
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s> None yet</s>
|-
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | It has been suggested that Good article and Canon be merged into one group
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | An article rank added by admin to say the article is of a satisfactory standard, a page can be made to highlight possible pages, but the final choice is made by an admin.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Suggestion - to prevent time wasters, an article up for the Conona stamp must be already labelled as this rank.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Minor edits and adjustments would improve the article, perhaps in an area of the subject that has not been sufficiently created. Nothing dramatic needed.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Still a work in progress.
|-
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s>Good Article</s>
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s>Somewhat detailed information on a subject new to the project.  All major topics are covered; minor details may be lacking.</s>
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s>Has a definite understanding of what the subject is and what it means to the Vaporstory.  The article should add a significant layer of depth to the community's understanding.  Conflicts with canon information should be resolved at this stage, before it can be approved for canon.</s>
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s>Certain relevant information may need to be added, and some conflicts with existing canon may need to be resolved.</s>
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | <s>None yet</s>
|-
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Basic Article
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | An article that covers the basics of its subject matter.  Should have at least one subheading and some links to relevant articles.  Many subsections may be missing or may have the "stubsection" template.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Provides basic information on a new topic.  Not necessarily detailed; some parts may also contradict existing canon.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Substantial addition of content is necessary at this stage.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | [http://editthis.info/vaporstory/Isle_of_Pandora?title=Isle_of_Pandora&oldid=1953 Isle of Pandora] as of April 2007
|-
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Stub
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | A short paragraph or two, or even a single sentence.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Very little information; may even be fundamentally conflicting with established canon.  In such a case, a deletion may occur.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | Refinement of ideas and comparison to similar articles are necessary.  Possibly a check to make sure that the idea of the article itself does not conflict with canon, but no minor conflicts need resolution yet.
| style="border: 1px solid #DDDDDD; background-color: #F8F8F8" | [http://editthis.info/vaporstory/Antarctic_Ocean?title=Antarctic_Ocean&oldid=1809 Antarctic Ocean] as of April 2007
|}
=Slider idea=
[[Image:Slider idea.png|right]]
==Need==

The need is for a simpler way of rating articles quality and standards

==Research/brief==

After looking deeply into the problems of other wikis and their systems, i have discovered that they are not "Present" enough. By this i mean templates are not used when maybe they should have been. This is maybe because of their nature, they arnt at the users fingertips when they need it, so I have decided to design a new system, for which the user can ajust the status when and where its needed.

==Solutions==

*Slider bar - this is a stale type thing where the desired option can be dragged to where it is wanted.
*Dropdown menu - This is a classic selection menu which drops down and can be changed using a click and then a selecting click.
*Edit box Buttons for the templates - Although this is by far the simplest, it is also the least effective, the bar would get clogged up with little icons for each template and users would want their own templates added.

I have chosen the sliding bar solution because it is the most visual and interesting. In a way it puts the rating bar style stars to a different use.

==Specification==
This is a detailing for my idea of a article content slider:

*Slide-able  bar which can be ajusted in several ways
*The bar contains two sectors, a white area and a grey area as shown above, the grey area is where only admins can move the selector.
*Extension which can read settings from a Mediawiki: page
*The white area can be specified using the mediawiki page as to where it is selectable. It is possible to set the grey area to different sizes (as a percentage) depending on the size (in bytes) of the article (Stated as an inequality i.e. 
10<20% //locked at 20% for all articles under 10 bytes 
10>30% //locked at 30% for articles above 10 bytes 
50>50% //locked at 50% for articles above 50 bytes, if two conflict, then the bar should take the largest byte size that applies, for a 56byte article it would be at 50%, but for a 49 byte article it would stay at 30%
*User groups can be specified as to their status:
i.e.
IP=0 //unable to effect at all
user=1 //white area only
sysop=2 //grey area as well
*Users which have contributed over a certain amount are also locked out at the preference of the Mediawiki: page
new=0 //The person who created the page can be adjusted
user10=0=120 //users who have put in over a specified amount of bytes to the article, in this case 10 are also locked out. this can be applied to all user-groups, the final value specifies the number of days in which a user is locked out for, if none is given, take it as infinate.
*the different words along the top can be specified as well:
titles follow:
one=10%
two=30%
three=70%

their rough placement is specified, and if they will not fit at size 12, they should alternate between high and low above the bar.
*The width of the bar should be specifiable in percent or pixel width
*The slider should be split into 100 equal increments, but it should be possible to reduce this with a value.
===The grey area===
This area should appear grey to all users, but users with the correct permissions can move the selector into the grey area, once there, users without the correct permissions cannot move it back to the white area. but the bar still has the grey bit as though the whole bar was not locked out. Users with no permissions to do anything with the bar see it as entirely grey.