We are transitioning to the new classification scheme and many articles have been tagged with {{WPBeatles}} and classified. Many were classified based on the old scheme's classification. But at that time there was no way to record comments.
Subsequently a scheme to record comments (and have them appear in the classification tables) has been developed. It involves creating a subpage of the talk page (where the was already added) and putting the comments there. There are a LOT of comments that should be rescued.
It's actually pretty easy to rescue them. Here are step by step instructions:
- Go here Wikipedia:WikiProject The Beatles/Article Classification/Archive_1 and pick a letter (that has at least one article with comments, uncommented articles don't need migration) to migrate from either the main Beatles article collection or the Albums collection (the only two that we had done before).
- Edit the section, that is, click on the edit link at the right of the letter, and change the heading to say "X - in progress". Save the edit. This prevents someone else from doing the same letter as you and wasting effort.
- Edit the section again (perhaps in another window so you have the article links in one window/tab and the content in another.
- Migrate each comment.
- Suppose you're doing Brian Epstein. The contents of that table entry looks like this:
|[[Brian Epstein]]||9 March 2006||{{A-Class}}||No||I would place this article at the lower end of A-class.
It needs sections, sources & citations, another photo (or infobox) at the top, copyediting and an expansion
of the first paragraph to create a better introduction. As an extra comment here, I'd like to suggest that
Epstein's interest in [[John Lennon]], from a sexual perspective, may well have been pivotal in his motivation
to launch the band, as documented in a very comprehensive biography I read many years ago. Of course, a source
for that would need to be cited, and the fact carefully edited to avoid any possibility of offence to any
sexuality.||[[User:Setanta747|Mal]]
- Put it all into the clipboard (CTRL+C).
- Then visit the Brian Epstein article, click on the talk/discussion tab, then click on the "if appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments [here] to" link in the WPBeatles box which should bring you to an empty page at this link: Talk:Brian_Epstein/Comments.
- Paste your clipboard into the page. (CTRL+V)
- Do a little editing to make it look like this instead (after you do a few it goes by rote, trust me) basically what you are doing is removing the pipes and putting the date after the user that rated.
I would place this article at the lower end of A-class. It needs sections, sources & citations, another photo (or infobox) at the top, copyediting and an expansion of the first paragraph to create a better introduction. As an extra comment here, I'd like to suggest that Epstein's interest in [[John Lennon]], from a sexual perspective, may well have been pivotal in his motivation to launch the band, as documented in a very comprehensive biography I read many years ago. Of course, a source for that would need to be cited, and the fact carefully edited to avoid any possibility of offence to any sexuality. -- [[User:Setanta747|Mal]] (9 March 2006)
- If there are multiple comments, do basically that to each one, but put an "*" in front of each one. You may have to look closely to see whose sig and date goes with which commment. The sig at the end usually goes with the first one.
- Optional: If the comment is out of date, you disagree with it, or want to add something, add your own comment at the bottom, again using a "*".
- Preview and if happy, save.
- Go back to the talk page and (if not already present, most are) apply the ratings and decide on the importance ({{WPBeatles|A|Top}}) probably for Mr Epstein, importance certainly no less than High). If the contents of the /Comments page are not showing on the Talk page, just do a null edit (hit edit talk page, leave the edit summary blank, and submit. This "null edit" forces MediaWiki to refresh the page and it will now pick up the comments).
- Done, go on to the next one.
- When you finish a letter, edit the letter section again (in Wikipedia:WikiProject The Beatles/Article Classification/Archive 1) to change it to say "X (Comments migrated by Fred 4 July 2006)" (your name and current date of course) so we know that one is done.
For merges, I've been putting the merged commments in the destination article with "these commments from mergedin article xxxx" see Talk:History_of_The_Beatles for example, which has merged commments from "The Beatles Ltd."
Questions, just ask me! Thanks for helping out. It's not as complex as it seems.