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I am seeing an increasing number of Rising Stars and FAC with poor grammar and punctuation. I even know of an admin who writes articles with poor grammar and punctuation. Have we no standards? Here are my suggestions: 1. Part of the qualification of an NAB should be grammar and punctuation skills. (Can you tell me why an is correct in front of NAB, even though N is not a vowel?) 2. A grammar and punctuation check should be performed before awarding a rising star or featuring an article. An article that has significant grammar or punctuation problems should never be awarded a rising star or featured. 3. A grammar and punctuation test should be given to all current admins and NAB for them to retain their titles. Why am I saying this? While I was reviewing one of my articles, I discovered a significant edit (by someone else) that turned my grammatically correct article into an article full of run-on sentences and comma splices. The article was then featured (with the errors). How embarrassing! That editor is now an admin. I checked some of that editor’s other articles: several had “rising stars”, even though the sentence structure and punctuation were poor. I thought that “Rising Stars” were suppose to be exceptionally high quality.

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I agree that grammar and punctuation skills can be a part of the NAB test, but I don’t think it is necessary. wikiHow is a global project and we have people contributing from all parts of the world. Some have English as their first language, while some are just able to read/ write English. I, for example, have English as my fourth language. This geographical diversity will lead to many grammar problems. I admit, my grammar and punctuation skills are fine, not excellent. It is highly possible to catch many grammar and punctuation mistakes done by me. What I mean is, adding grammar and punctuation to NAB can result in the disqualification of many good potential boosters. Although a booster is supposed to boost an article, we all make mistakes.

Yes, this is necessary. But, some people are not so good with grammar (including me). As long as the article has good and easily understandable instructions, it can be given a Rising Star. But for FAs, fixing-grammar and copy editing is a must.

Disagree. wikiHow is not a grammar-testing service. We have a huge community with various types of people. Some members, like you, are very good with grammar; while some are not. Adminship is not about being perfect in grammar, it is actually about effectively using those extra buttons, that’ll in-turn help us build the world’s largest and best-quality how to manual. For NABs: A user is made a NAB so that he can boost new articles. Yes, boosting includes grammar-fixing and copy editing too, but bureaucrats think well before promoting any user to NAB. As you might know, one of the parts of the NAB test includes editing. Overall, I disagree with this point too.

The answer to this can be a mix of all the answers given above! Anyways, an admin doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect in his/ her grammar. The admin made a bold edit to your article, which I believe improved the article (though the grammar might be poor). I agree that FACs that are shortlisted to be featured should be checked for correct-grammar. I repeat, rising stars do not necessarily have to be FA-like articles. Any article with understandable and accurate instructions can be a Rising Star. This is not the case with FAs, though.

Rising stars are one of the best new articles started on wikiHow. If you have a look at the article How to Select a Rising Star Article on wikiHow, you will notice these three important points:
Select a Rising Star with good judgement.
They don’t have to be at Featured Article standards.
They don’t need good references, photos or videos.
They do need good instructions to accomplish a task.
--------------------------- PS: I apologize for any grammar and punctuation errors done by me in this post.

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@Carterchas , from what you are saying here, it seems to me that your standards for grammar and punctuation are unreasonably high. You have to remember that this is a wiki, where people from all over the world can edit any article, and the way they may write something may not be fully up to par with your expectations. Just about all of the Rising Stars I’ve read have at least acceptable grammar, so I don’t see any justification for a standards overhaul. And if a Rising Star, Featured Article or any other article doesn’t read well to you; that’s the beauty of a wiki - you can edit the page, help improve it, and (hopefully) collaborate with the original author to find an agreeable solution.

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I think Gaurangprasad makes a pretty good rebuttal on this topic overall. My 2 cents. Out of the 135 odd articles I’ve written, most had rising stars and roughly 35-40 have been featured. But a lot of them didn’t have rising stars and the grammar and spelling was fine. Some of my best work didn’t get a rising star and 7 went to a successful FA debut without ever getting the green RS. Several that I wasn’t happy with at all also had a successful FA debut and 1 was on the home page before I even found out it was nominated! So its safe to say that the rising star is awarded on a flexible variety of merits. I’m neither an Admin or an NAB, but in observation since 2010, it is relative to the Admin how good they think it is and I think they do a pretty fine job. They see the article like an ordinary reader would, seeing it for the first time and if they think it deserves it they do award them accordingly. Its very subjective which isn’t a bad thing, they are acting as test subjects. If I see the green star, I know as a writer that they think not only the article was written proficiently enough to be followed, but also that someone can actually understand the instructions and do what the article promises. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Many of my early ones with an RS were later heavily edited by me as I thought the quality of my early writing was dreadful. I’m still learning:slight_smile:When we take into account some of the copy-edit grade articles written by those with less than perfect grammar skills (and my goodness, there are so many of them), most rising stars I’ve seen are high enough quality and the bar set by Admins is quite fair. Setting the bar too high for the majority of the writers, many of whom are thrilled to bits to get one as it encourages them on to better quality work, may take away a lot of what makes wikiHow a great site and a place for anyone to contribute and learn. Finally, it’s also subject relative as you wouldn’t imagine a youth type article would have formal, proper Queens’ English, it wouldn’t be relevant to them. They’re still worthy of the stars though.

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One word: wikiTutor Also, bear in mind that FA Cs are just candidates, and anyone can make an article a candidate. On the thing with “an” and “NAB”, NAB is an acronym that’s pronounced by saying the letters themselves. If you wrote “En Ay Be”, would you put “an” at the beginning? I would. You even made a few grammar errors in your post yourself.

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So? Fix it.

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Once again, WE HAVE NO STANDARDS! One of the persons commenting above was the person that DAMAGED one of my articles with poor grammar and punctuation. I understand this is an international website, but that is not an excuse. I am not suggesting anyone needs to have perfect grammar; I am suggesting that everyone with a title needs decent grammar skills. FIX IT? That is why I am writing this! You know what I think? I think some of you don’t want standards because you can’t meet them! What can I accomplish when I could have any number of NABers or admins come behind me and screw it up? Think about it.

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You are not required to write here. If the fact that we allow people without English degrees to write articles bothers you that much, go write somewhere else. If you are going to openly insult other editors, then we can cope perfectly well without you.

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FACT: if you type something in CAPITAL LETTERS that makes it TWICE AS TRUE. It’s on page 48 of my Internet Rhetoric Handbook, written in 18pt Comic Sans.

And instead of discussing it with them, you’re writing passive-aggressive forum posts about them. That’s lovely.

I can meet them just fine, so, I guess that puts me in a good position to say that while you might have a point buried somewhere under the bluster, you’re still being a douchebag . Fix your tone and offer constructive criticism, and you’ll find that people might be more willing to listen to you.

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Carterchas, calm down a bit and see what everyone’s saying - It’s a wiki where anyone can edit. Having standards might make it easier, yet, being tested by a standard wheather or not to give a RS wouldn’t be the best choice. Why? Because our NABs might be bad at grammar however, they’re NABs for a reason. Their criteria might be different from yours and that’s fine. We have NABs so they can fix up poor standard articles. I’m pretty bad at the English language, but I’ve gotten RSs. I look at what the NAB does after they boost it and learn from what they do. I don’t think saying the other NABs and Admins screw it up, assume good faith and ask them why and find collaborate to find a solotion. More later. June Days EDIT: /me apologizes for any grammar mistakes

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I know that anyone and everyone can write here; I did assume good faith. I checked some of that person’s articles. That was a typical example of that person’s writing. Let me make this clear. While I am upset with that person’s edits, it is thee promotion of such writing and the elevation of such writers that really upsets me. Wikihow has standards for formatting; why not for grammar? Grammar is formatting. I do not have a degree in English, yet.

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I don’t believe saying

^ That, was assuming good faith…:wink:I think grammar is an important thing, and that article can always be improved (The one who wrote it and is an Admin now. ;)), the article was extremely accurate from what I saw, and while you may not agree with what it is rank wise (RS or FA), it’s still an FA. I think NABs should take extra care when awarding RSs, however, in my honest opinion, should stay the way it is. P.S. BTW, would it really be appropriate to test future NABs with a grammar test?:wink:June Days

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I would love people whom are upset at the different aspects of wikis to actually put themselves in other people’s shoes before raging on them. I got raged on last night because someone’s article got redirected as a result of deletion, when I wasn’t even in the process, and still got stiffed up when I asked them to talk directly to the people whom did vote on it. Instead of bashing things towards the community by using the forums, it’s best if you actually go to the specific source and coach them. If you get the jist that they absolutely can not fix their grammar/spelling after coaching (if it’s something that they need to do IRL to fix), then attempt to encourage them to practice on their English. If you feel an article that you started was corrupted by someone’s grammar/spelling, there’s absolutely no need to rage on everyone else. Simple? Yep.

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Can you give a few examples? Please show us the text (the incorrect vs. correct grammar) without identifying the article, if you can. I don’t want this to turn into a humiliating experience for authors or editors.

Impeccable grammar skills are not a requirement for becoming an admin. I don’t think they should be. Admins are elected primarily for their ability to remain professional in the face of conflict and use their admin privileges in a way that’s consistent with wikiHow policy.

If an article is chosen as a Rising Star, that means it is one of the best new articles on wikiHow. Considering that there are so many low-quality articles published on wikiHow every day, boosters are trained to look for articles that stand it in some way, whether it’s very informative, or has excellent formatting, or whatever else the booster is impressed by. The standards here are relative. Also, when we developed the Rising Stars feature, it was ultimately intended to be used as a way to encourage promising authors. It’s a positive feedback tool first, quality identification tool second. If an author has shown good effort and might flourish if we show him or her that we appreciate that effort, a Rising Star is a good way to do that.

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That should be “The one who wrote it, and the one who is an Admin now could edit it.” The original sentence also had no predicate. The second sentence is what my junior high teachers would call a “Run-on Sentence Fragment”. It should be written as: I think NABs should take extra care when awarding RSs; However, in my honest opinion, <what nabs=“” or=“” rss=“” frogs> should stay the way they are.

To answer you, Maluniu, I did coach some people on this. Their responses were like the responses above. I am complaining because nobody is noticing, and everybody doesn’t seem to care. Except me.

</what>

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OK then…

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What the fuck was the point in that, Carterchas?

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the* Everyone makes mistakes:wink:

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Yeah,carterchas…you obviously are the only person on this entire site that cares about proper grammar. not… RSs are very good beginner articles. Some of our editors and boosters are not those who have English as their first language. We do the best we can…NONE of us is perfect. I think I have pretty good grammar and I KNOW I have above average spelling abilities…but I make mistakes too.

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The end result of this: nobody is perfect.