Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 17

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When Was The Change Authorized And By Whom?

This project began as a clearing house of sorts. A place for different projects to discuss matters of common interest with each other without the risk of there being multiple discussions on each of the projects' talk pages. Although that did not work out as well as it might have, no harm and some good was done.

Lately, this has become a tribunal and an enforcement agency. New projects must come here to be blessed before they can be started. Existing projects have been assessed for activity and effectiveness and those that have been found wanting, in the perception and opinion of the favored few, have been declared to be inactive.

When was this change authorized and by whom? JimCubb (talk) 19:21, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

As seen above we are talking about just that - we are also concern we have some rouge editors misrepresenting things.Moxy (talk) 21:31, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
The idea that projects should be proposed at a central location predates the creation of the Council considerably. However, this has never been—and is not, at the moment—a mandatory or binding process; it's merely a way to provide sanity checks for project ideas that might be either redundant to existing ones, or so poorly defined that they're not worth creating. Editors have always been perfectly free to create any project they wish.
Having said that, if a poorly-thought-out project is created without seeking input through the proposal process, other editors might very well ask why such input was not sought; but this is generally a question of a (presumably inexperienced) editor not being aware of the fact that there was indeed a place to get advice before setting out on a major project creation effort.
As far as tagging projects for inactivity is concerned, that has always been the prerogative of any editor who believes a particular project to be in that state. The Council has, at times, attempted to provide some rules of thumb for gauging whether a project might be active or inactive; but, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no concerted effort to apply such tags beyond what individual editors might undertake.
In broad terms, I'm not aware of any significant change to either the Council's mission or its method of operation since the group was created. Keeping track of the "birth" and "death" of projects has always been one of our objectives—as has providing recommendations for making both processes more efficient. Beyond that, however, the Council has no particular authority, and claims none. Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:10, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
What Kirill said; the Council does not have any de jure enforcement authority. It's more akin to a noticeboard. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 23:12, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
So all agree with what was said above in other sections ..good.Moxy (talk) 23:18, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Since what was said (and is being said) above in other sections consists mainly of self-contradictory opinions without a scintilla of evidence or research, even original research, no, I do not agree. JimCubb (talk) 16:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure what you saying? Could you elaborate please.Moxy (talk) 23:11, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

See the entries at

  • 3 Different "types" of projects
  • 5 Measuring success
and
  • 12 Rash of Wikiproject deletions

Some want to delete all projects that are not currently hyper-active. Some want to delete projects that are currently inactive. Some want to delete only those projects that do not have a history of inactivity. Some, like me, seem to see no reason to delete anything. I particularly disagree with the way things have been done.

Look at all that surrounds and, in my view, should surround Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject The KLF (2nd nomination). I can find no notice on the subject project's talk page that the project was notified that it was being considered for deletion. There is also no notice on the talk pages of any of the members of the project. The nomination, especially the last sentence, seems to me to be snide, uncivil and lacking in an assumption of good faith. As a by-product, the penultimate "comment" invoked WP:RETAIN. For the life of me I cannot see how that section of the Manual of Style applies to the issue at hand. Did I miss something?

The worst part of the situation is exemplified by the comment on the deletion of Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivium. There is only a nomination. A single point-of-view does not make a consensus. JimCubb (talk) 18:54, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Just a comment on the KLF project nomination. The notification happened on the main project page rather than on the talk page with the addition of the {{mfd}} tag. See [1]. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:34, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes i do agree deletion of old projects simply by its nomination is not good, regardless of its content - it should have been re-listed with a greater attempt to communicate its nomination.Moxy (talk) 04:21, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry I missed the KLF notification. There were actually two such notices. The first was to the closed 2007 discussion and the second was to the 2011 discussion. I invite you to read the comments on the first discussion and notice how many times "inactivity is not cause for deletion" is stated by how many of the then-members of this project. (Yes, folks, this project went through a period of lack of activity and participation and was re-vitalized.)

So what has done to undelete Trivium? What sanctions have been placed on the admin who closed the discussion? What other discussions were closed in such a capricious manner? What has been done about them? JimCubb (talk) 20:30, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

For what its worth. CBM has stated repeatedly in multiple discussions that 1 editor having a problem constitutes a lack of consensus. --Kumioko (talk) 20:47, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood his point completely - This is a bit worrisome that one editor is having the ability to have projects deleted without proper consultation or debate (its not the nominators fault persay that noone is voting - just does not look right with one vote and should be re-listed). Moxy (talk) 01:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, he is right. If 13 "house-cleaners" want to delete a project and the creator of the project objects, there is no consensus, merely a majority. More plausible example -- If 100 editors want to change the Table of Contents on Category:Biography articles without listas parameter from {{Large Category TOC}} to {{LargeCategoryTOC2}} because the former makes the page load too slowly but two editors need {{Large Category TOC}} to do the clean-up they are doing, the change should not be made because even an over-whelming majority is not a consensus and WikiPedia is not a democracy. Sorry to burst your bubble. JimCubb (talk) 01:15, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

And that is part of why I stopped editing. If one editor can tell 1000 to that they can't do a change because they don't like it when their watchlist fills up or because its tuesday, then the system is broken. It doesn't matter how ridiculous the argument, if someone complains, by CBM's logic, for any reason, then the editor must stop. Regardless of what the rules say, this is not how they should be used nor is it I believe how they are intended. It is for lack of a better word...stupid. This philosophy basically punishes those who do the work and does nothing to the ones who do nothing but complain and discuss every change. --Kumioko (talk) 01:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes it is very disturbing when one - or a small amount of editors are able side-rail editors because of the I "dont like it" rule. Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers#Biographical infoboxes is the best and most often used example of what can go wrong with the system. They actually tell our editors they must ask the project to add something to an article that the community at larger thinks is fine. After edit - PS great to see you back Kumioko - i really do like talking with you - we need more people like you around -you back at WPUSA??Moxy (talk) 01:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
A little off topic but I think thats were something like the WikiProject council should have some power to step in and snap the projects inline. IMO the projects do not have the power to make that kind of decision against the larger policies in place. That sort of control over article content should be discouraged. --Kumioko (talk) 02:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
But thats the point -- (theoretically) no group of editors admin or not has the power to tell others what to do - especially if its not in the spirit of advancing the encyclopedia in a positive manner. At no time should a small group of editors (including those that happen to edit here) have the power to override the community as a whole. Moxy (talk) 03:09, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
True: No WikiProject, including this one, can do that, although some projects and some individual editors have tried.
I just don't see any evidence of JimCubb's assertion that it's happening here. For example, he complains about my interest in figuring out what predicts medium-term success in WikiProjects, but I haven't seen anyone try to "enforce" anything related to that. (And how would you? Post messages saying, "You there! I demand that you be successful!")
It sounds like Template:Inactive irritates him, but that template was created back in 2004 (two full years before WikiProject Council began), and the editors here don't own the template or control its use, so it can hardly be blamed on this group.
We provide a recruiting forum for new projects, but there are no sanctions for out-of-process WikiProject creations (and these do happen), so the claim that they "must come here to be blessed" is false. I happen to believe that many proposals benefit from the publicity of a proposal, but editors may, and do, bypass it.
In short, while I sympathize with the underlying emotion, I'm not actually seeing the alleged problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:54, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Look at the posts that have asked "can I start the project now" or "how do I delete a proposal". There is the perception among some editors that a project cannot be started without this project's approval and that this project controls the approval process.
Out of curiosity I attempted to read the Consensus Policy. It needs a good copy editor and some serious criticism. It seems to me that it describes an oligarchy or a system of unrelated oligarchies. The truly odd thing about the policy are the things that can over ride consensus. Facts from reliable sources do not count.
However, one paragraph in the Level of Consensus section seems to be directly aimed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers#Biographical infoboxes.

Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope. [italics added]

When the members of {{Composers}} decided that articles within the project's purview should not have infoboxes, the members of this project and the members of WPBiog should have written their esteemed colleagues at {{Composers}} to bugger off that their decision violated a well-established guideline and the consensus of the greater was necessary to make the change.
I fear that this is already much too long or I would address other issues. JimCubb (talk) 06:08, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

No, the members of this project shouldn't have told them anything, because we aren't a tribunal or enforcement agency. The entire community should have told them they were violating OWN (and eventually did), not WikiProject Council.
It's strange that you began this thread by complaining that WikiProject Council was exceeding its authority, and now you're saying that we should have done exactly what you were complaining about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Withdraw?

Is there anyway you can withdraw a proposal. I had made a proposal for American Idol, before I saw that there was one for the Idol series. Candyo32 15:18, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, certainly that can be done. Most people seem to remove it from the list of proposals. It would probably be helpful if you provide a link to the existing group, (especially if someone interested in joining it sees the proposal). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Robotics category listings

Hi

I think we have a problem with our category listings for WikiProject Robotics.

The main page Category:WikiProject_Robotics has two categories, Category:WikiProject_Technology and Category:WikiProject_Engineering. On these pages the project appears under W though, instead of R.

I also wanted to add us to Category:Science_WikiProjects which is where I first noticed the problem.

The problem seems to also be that I cannot find a category for Wikiproject Robotics articles and wanted to get the matter sorted out if there is a top-level problem.

Chaosdruid (talk) 05:47, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to the editor that fixed that :¬) Chaosdruid (talk) 05:54, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Project started without proposal, by editor now blocked as sockpuppet

Bit of a lengthy heading, but that summarises the situation.

Wilbysuffolk (talk · contribs) has created {{Wikipedia:WikiProject East Anglian Transport/talkpages}} which appears to be an incomplete attempt at a project banner, and has added this to approx. 50 talk pages (most, if not all, of which are now in Category:WikiProject banners with formatting errors as a result). I can't find evidence of a formal proposal for such a WikiProject. The editor has since been blocked as a confirmed sockpuppet. The parent page Wikipedia:WikiProject East Anglian Transport is up for MFD.

What is the procedure to follow re that talk page "banner"? --Redrose64 (talk) 12:11, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree we should get rid of this. Do you think submitting it to Templates for discussion would be appropriate with a recommendation for deletion? --Kumioko (talk) 12:51, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, except that it's not a template, but a page outside template space being used as if it were a template: hence per WP:XFD it should go to WP:MFD not WP:TFD. This may turn out to be unnecessary, if the abovementioned MFD closes as "delete": it might be that subpages are deleted along with the main page. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
It seems that if the MFD does close as delete, this "template" will also be zapped as a subpage. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:11, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Removal of fields from banners

Hi

I have two questions.

1 Is it correct that editors should not really be changing project assessments/class unless they are a member of the project? I accept that obvious spelling mistakes (stbu, sutb, clas etc.) and perhaps "attention=no" -> "attention=yes" should be able to be changed, especially when the article is perhaps not often read.

2 Is it correct that a field included in a talk page banner should not be removed if the field is set correctly. We have a field "attention=". An editor has brought it to my attention that "The attention bar only does anything when it's to yes, so no reason to have it if it'll just be on no" Is it a policy to remove such fields? We are about to start a drive to improve and reassess articles and it seemed that the field was innocuous enough. It seems a little bizarre that others are going to decide when we can and cannot use particular fields. If the intention is that such fields not be set to "no" then perhaps they should be demoted (by removing the = and options for yes/no) - If the word "attention" is in the banner then it means yes, and if the word is not in it means no?

Chaosdruid (talk) 06:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

For #1 I would say that anyone can assess the article regardless of wether they are a member of the project. If I assess an article I normally change all or most of them to reflect the same (unless that project doesn't support that class such as C class for MILHIST. Some projects may not like this but we shouldn't be telling people they can't do assessments.
For #2, again this is a matter of some opinion but most projects have language in the documentation of their WikiProject templates that says if the field is not being used (= is missing or = no with some exceptions) it shouldn't be used. Thats not always the case though. A couple examples of fields that could be removed that I can think of are Infobox or persondata = no or fields that are depracated like nested. With that said there are a number of users who are perfectly happy leaving unused and deprecated parameters cluttering up the talk pages (many think that the talk page banners are a waste of time in the first place). For example I was doing a lot of work in the area of eliminating unused and depracated parameters, fixing parameter problems, fixing the order of templates, adding WikiProjectBannerShell, Standardizing the banner names and a couple thousand (yes thousand) other things but my AWB was revoked because 1 user had a problem with this and started screaming lack of consensus to anyone that would listen.
I don't really agree with the logic you present for the banner parameter =yes/no though. There are a lot of caveats to that one depending on the parameter. I would say though for attention and a lot of others including task forces if its = to no just get rid of the clutter and remove it. Unfortunately although I agree that this would be agood opportunity to clean up some of the talk page garbage at this same time you probably want to stick with just doing assessments for the drive. Some users will use this as an opportunity to start more drama and block users or some other nonsense because they don't agree with doing cleanup changes. Good luck though. --Kumioko (talk) 13:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
As per the logic, at the moment we have to add attention=yes, it seems to make more sense that just adding attention could do the same as adding attention=yes. As for the =no part, it seems to me that having it in does no harm. It is only one parameter...and we only have two besides class and importance.
I am going to do an AWB sweep to remove the "nested=" field, if there was an already established consensus to remove the attention=no then I would have added that as well. I would prefer to keep it though, until we have finished the drive.
As for assessments, the Robotics project also does not use the C class as an assessment. It is only used as an interim to denote that an article might be a B class to show it as "please assess against the B checklist". I do not like the idea that "anyone" can assess an article though. It may be appropriate for Stub and Start but above those levels it surely needs someone with more specialist knowledge to be able to appropriately assess the article content? Especially when articles are technically challenging, for example how many "anyones" could correctly assess the artificial intelligence, algorithms and mathematics articles (to name but a few) for above C class? Chaosdruid (talk) 14:03, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Just wondering but why do you have to add the Attention=yes? Your right that is only one parameter but I was just using it as an example. There are hundreds of others that = no as well and there are many reasons why we should remove them if they are not needed (speeds up rendering time, can cause problems with bots and AWB, more complicated to read, etc.).
I wish we could do an AWB sweep for the nested parameter but if you do CBM will revoke your access to AWB like he did to me. He seems to be the champion of useless and deprecated parameters at the moment. Do you know how to use the Custom Module function of AWB? If so I can give you some code that might help.
Attention = no falls under the category of useless parameters that do nothing as well as Infobox=no, persondata = no, the multitudes taskforces for Aviation, Milhist and others that = no, etc. Your right there are in fact several that I know of that don't use the C class (some don't use list or A class either). Your right about the articles you identify but I doubt those would probably attract too many. Its more common for Biographies and more common articles that will recieve a drive by assessment. Anything below GA is subjective anyway so I wouldn't be too concerned if someone inflates or deflates an assessment. Sometimes the difference between Stub to start and start to B can be rather subjective. --Kumioko (talk) 14:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
We had 1,450 articles of which around 600 were not assessed (class=??? + importance=???) which I had to look at and do a quick assessment. As this has taken several months I used the attention= to denote articles which needed working on (tagged as multiple issues, single issues, needing expansion or refs etc.). The idea was that they would be looked at before stage 2 was begun (checking assessments and reassessing articles that needed it) so we would be able to address the important work before settling down to the assessments tasks.
I read the discussions but thought that the consensus was that removing the fields from banners was not a problem if the project decided to remove them, rather that it was a problem they were removed and the project was not consulted? Chaosdruid (talk) 16:16, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree with using the attention field as you stated as long as you are making it attention=yes and not leaving it blank or something. As for removing the fields no the problem stems from a rule that a couple folks crafted that restricts using a bot or AWB to remove items from an Article or talk page that does not "render any changes". So if the parameter is deprecated, broken, =no or null then removing it or leaving it doesn't render any changes to the article and is forbidden. Basically forcing editors to remove this garbage manually. I also realize I used the term garbage rather loosely there and not all the fields are "garbage" but since they basically are just taking up space, slow the page load time and making the code harder to edit and read I term them loosely as garbage. --Kumioko (talk) 16:40, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
If you are changing some content on the page, then there's no particular harm in removing stray parameters from your banner while you're at it. But if the only reason you're editing the page is to do that... well, surely there's something more important that you could be doing. Also, if a parameter probably ought to be filled in, then it would be helpful to leave it. For example, practically every {{WPBIO}} banner ought to have | listas = included, even if you're personally not sure how to fill in the field.
Anyone is invited to assess pages, because it's WP:1.0 that really needs this done, not just the WikiProject. As an example, you would naturally want someone to update your assessment from "Start" to "GA" if it passed GA, rather than having it sit about mis-assessed until a project member noticed it. If you're assessing an article as "B class", then it would be friendly of you to update any banners that still say it's a "Stub class", since that is obviously wrong. However, a non-member shouldn't be edit-warring with a member, especially over priority/importance. It's okay for different projects to have somewhat different assessments. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:15, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
For what its worth most of the time I was doing other things at the same time and regardless of what some editors may be trying to convince others of, there are several benefits to doing the edits I was doing. Without rehashing all that yet again though I have also explained several times that parameters like class, priority/importance, living, listas, or many many others should not be removed. What isn't needed are deprecated parameters, parameters such as infobox/photo/image/persondata/etc needed is null or = no, task forces equal to no or missing and a myriad of others. In regards to the listas point BTW I had about 50 edits that I did to fix those including adding them if they were missing, fixing formatting for it, etc. I completely agree with your comments about assessments. --Kumioko (talk) 01:47, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Granted, FA and GA would have been assessed by persons with a fair amount of knowledge on assessing, and have checked it over thoroughly. The problem here is that we do not have a C class, and the B class assessments will be fairly technical. I agree that changing from stub to start is fairly straight-forwards, but that is why I think the attention= is necessary. It would be just as easy for them to change =no to =yes and say "this needs an assessment" on the talk page. We also have an assessments request page which I was thinking of adding into the banner...but I am sure that is far too complicated for people to use ¦¬|
There has also a problem when people have decided "this article is not in the robotics scope", or "this is not important to that project" - I have had to replace a couple of banners which were removed. Agreed that this situation does not arise often though.
I spent the last six months getting the class???+importance??? articles ready for that very reason (WP:1.0) and am glad to say I finished all 640 yesterday !! Woohoo :¬) Chaosdruid (talk) 03:47, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Congratulations on finishing your list of assessments.
You will not be surprised to discover that you are not the first person to encounter the 'ownership' issue related to banners. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Article_tagging for the standard rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:12, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Removing a Proposal

Yea I proposed a WikiProject for Modern Family, but after some thinking and looking at other WikiProjects I have decided that Modern Family doesn't have enough articles under it's register, can someone tell me how I can remove it from the proposal list and could you tell me whats the minimum for a WikiProject NoD'ohnuts (talk) 01:20, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It's very easy to withdraw a proposal: Explain on the proposal page why you no longer think that the best approach, and then remove the link to the page from the main list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Forum on religion, mythology, and philosophy

There is an effort to begin an annual discussion forum on the topics of religion, mythology, and philosophy at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/2011 meeting. If it proves successful, it might make sense to encourage other similar large meetings for other topics. In any event, any and all input from any editors is welcome and encouraged. John Carter (talk) 16:56, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I am revising the heading of this section. See WP:TPOC (point 11: Section headings).
—Wavelength (talk) 19:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Intelligence, WikiProject Espionage and WikiProject Military Intelligence

Dear WikiProject Council,

Since December 2010, I have been a member of WikiProject Espionage. Currently I have tagged a couple of articles which meet the criteria for WikiProject Espionage. Unfortunately in the last couple of weeks, I've found out through Wikipedia-en/Wikipedia-en-help on Freenode that the current founder of WikiProject Espionage has not been actively contributing since May 5, 2010. I quite enjoy doing the espionage particular one article I am in the process of adding information, footnotes and references. Which is located at User:Adamdaley/biographies while not interfering with the main article itself.

I've also been suggested to see if I would like to join WikiProject Intelligence because it's a relatively new WikiProject starting from scratch. So I thought about it and decided to put my name as a member, while still working on the above WikiProject Espionage article on my subpage.

While I was getting used to being a member of WikiProject Intelligence, I found out that there is a WikiProject Military Intelligence. I am already part of the WikiProject Military History and would rather have WikiProject Intelligence and WikiProject Espionage to be merged.

Currently, there are only four members in WikiProject Espionage and it seems I am the only one keeping the WikiProject alive as being semi-active. To have a founder that does not contribute or reply to my messages as well as another user, it can be frustrating, while I feel having two closely the same WikiProjects nearly the same they should be merged. Otherwise if the WikiProject Espionage becomes obsolete from Wikipedia, then the talkpage tags for that WikiProject will have to be either deleted or replace with another WikiProject.

I would like my above concerns addressed and I welcome any feedback from the WikiProject Council. Adamdaley (talk) 04:57, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello Adamdaley - first off thank you for all your hard work in keeping this project alive. Do you feel that a merger would be more beneficial? If so we can help you merger this. As i see there seems to be some concern on its viability - as in it overlaps some other projects and seems a bit redundant an thus members are divided between them. Would be best to figure this out now before the project starts its own assessment system. As you say it just you there realy right? I personally think a merger would be best. As the sole active member what do you recommend is done with the project? Moxy (talk) 07:51, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Moxy - On WikiProject Espionage, The Bushranger and L.J. Tibbs are still active on Wikipedia or on Freenode. In my opinion, WikiProject Intelligence and WikiProject Espionage could possibly be merged. While the WikiProject Military Intelligence can be left as is as part of the WikiProject Military History WikiProject. I also feel that the WikiProject Intelligence would come under WikiProject Espionage and would help clear up holes in the WikiProject Espionage that doesn't cover. As you can see I'm slowly progressing through the article from my original post, still got possibly more information to be added. My major concern was that I was split between like two or three WikiProjects which were similar to each other and I favour the WikiProject Espionage to be the one in favour. What will happen to the founder of WikiProject Espionage? If he doesn't communicate or contribute to the WikiProject Espionage? Also, if this merger does happen there will have to be some "structured" format with the members who put their name down and have some as coordinators etc. Also, I've recently started to use "Twinkle" with the help of Chzz. Hope my reply helps. Adamdaley (talk) 09:04, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
(Via Wikipedia_talk:MILHIST#Overlapping_project...) In my opinion if you feel that a merged WikiProject Espionage/WikiProject Intelligence would be viable and would complement rather than duplicate the Military intelligence task force of the Military History WikiProject, then I'd say go for it :) Anyone can 'take over' an inactive WikiProject (see WP:INACTIVEWP). If Espionage's founder is no longer active you'll be helping the project out by reviving it... and if they do come back I'd imagine they would be grateful to you for doing so. It might be helpful first to leave messages for the members of both Espionage and Intelligence projects explaining your proposal and see what response that generates (if any). You could also consider partnering your project up with the Milhist Intelligence task force - I'm sure both projects could collaborate and help each other out. Just my 2p-worth :) EyeSerenetalk 13:17, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
I've tried my best to let the other WikiProjects know. Left a comment on their WikiProject talkpage and while I was at it, with the WikiProject Espionage, let each member (since there are only 4 of us) sent them the same message addressed to the user as well as on their WikiProject Espionage talkpage. Told them to leave feedback here to keep the discussion in one spot. Adamdaley (talk) 18:42, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Question 1: What happens if no users join the discussion here? Question 2: What if they do and there is objections or no objections? Adamdaley (talk) 01:23, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
Assuming that "here" actually means "there", if no one responds to your WikiProject merge proposal after a suitably long time (I recommend more than one week), then you assume that everyone agrees with you and WP:MERGE the project pages.
If there are objections, then you must defer to WP:Consensus. In my experience, objections often fade upon explanation. If they don't, then you should probably not merge the page associated with the objections. WikiProjects are fundamentally groups of people, not pages. If someone says, in effect, "I don't want to play with you", then we can't really force him to cooperate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes i agree a message (small proposal) to projects involved - If no objects that cant be over come - merger them including members to one page. Thinking the Military History WikiProject should be informed as well, as they are well populated and very organized and may have some suggestions and aids for the projects.Moxy (talk) 04:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing - I understand what you are saying. So far nothing has been said to my replies with the users or here. I have a feeling WikiProject Military History knows, but I did leave a message for Nick-D for him and for him to let the other coordinators know about this. I'm starting to realise how much work is involved with people who have admin, etc. I only started using "Twinkle" the past few days. This is really my first BIG project to combine the two WikiProjects. Adamdaley (talk) 06:38, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
WikiProject Medicine did a round of this sort of thing a year or two ago, and we have some step-by-step notes at the bottom of WP:MEDTF. If you end up merging the projects, you might (or might not) find those notes useful.
Always remember that WP:There is no deadline. You don't want to do a bunch of work, and then have someone shocked by the outcome when they get back from a holiday next week. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:58, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
If I can offer some further advice re liaison with milhist, you might find it helpful to clearly define the merged project's scope before taking it too much further. Speaking personally (although I'm one of the coord team at milhist I don't in any sense speak for the project) I think there's a potential for objections if editors feel you're duplicating the work of the milhist intelligence task force. With some thought I believe it should be possible to define a scope that complements rather than overlaps the intel TF; once this is done you are welcome to post something to WT:MILHIST asking for further comments. With a carefully-defined scope I can't imagine there will be many objections and you may even pick up a few interested editors who want to join up and help you out :) EyeSerenetalk 14:36, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
EyeSerene - I understand what you are saying. Before I proceed with this possible merger, there needs to be a "structure" or a "definition" of the combined two WikiProjects under the name of WikiProject Espionage. Would like to point out to you that I'm currently adding information to an article which I've already tagged as WikiProject Espionage, which is located at my sub-page User:adamdaley/biographies, that is one example. The "structure" or "definition" of WikiProject Espionage to me would be someone like that, a civilian (not wearing a military uniform of any kind or advertising the real reason he is living there) under false names spying on another country while living there for so many years. Explaining that reminds me of WikiProject Terrorism. But in this case the article I mentioned above does not involve any "terror" or "terrorism". Basically an undercover agent living as a civilian in order to get intelligence illegally and smuggle it out of the country. I am known at WikiProject Military History by AustralianRupert, Ian Rose, Nick-D. The main person to ask is AustralianRupert we are in contact a lot and has helped me a lot which is always appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 23:12, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
As the lead contributor for the WikiProject Intelligence I think that the two projects should be merged and I am completely with the idea however those "structural" problems are evident and some major restructuring is most definitely needed. First of all I think that the WikiProject Espionage should be located within the WikiProject Intelligence seeing that espionage (which is the gathering of intelligence) is just a small part of intelligence (which may include intelligence agencies, films, TV series, person relating to intelligence such as intelligence officers, etc.). And not to mention that the WikiProject Espionage is hanging on by a thread which in this case is a contributor (Adamdaley) and when the founder of the project is not answering messages neither even contributing to the project you could tell something is wrong. Also there are few article that are within the scope of the espionage wikiproject and have the projects talk-page tag on it and there are many article with the intelligence wikiproject tag on it even though we have a long way to go to catch up with other similar wikiprojects. Addressing the obvious structural matter of this merger, I think that I should remain in my post as lead contributor seeing that I started the project. I have worked very hard to make the Wikiproject Intelligence what it is now. Thanks and cheers. Gabesta449 edits ♦ chat 21:11, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Gabriele449 - I have no objections with your proposal. There maybe small things that can be cleared up. I think I left a message on your discussion page that the first userbox needs a little adjustment with the ' in it. While this is still under discussion, there will be minor things to sort out and when more users decide to join the WikiProject Intelligence. I'm sure the we can come to a compromise. Adamdaley (talk) 06:06, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I have corrected the issue with the WikiProject Intelligence userbox. Thanks Adamdaley for the advice. Gabesta449 edits ♦ chat 21:27, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
It's no problem. When I saw the three userboxes for the WikiProject Intelligence, I didn't notice it straight away but after looking at it for a little bit, I noticed it and thought it must of been a simple mistake. Adamdaley (talk) 02:53, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
For the last few days I have been working on the new assessment system for the WikiProject. It is not completely done but I gaurantee that by Friday of next week I will have it up and on the WikiProjct Intelligence Assessment page. Gabriele449 20:52, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

UPDATE...
It appears to be that the WP:WikiProject Intelligence is becoming more of a WikiProject. I have been working with the founder of WikiProject Intelligence with minor details. I feel that we need more members to sign up - which is their choice to sign up, not sign up or just plain contribute to the WikiProject Intelligence articles. As for anything else, concerning information, article's, assessment of article's etc, the founder is the only one who knows what is going to happen with the WikiProject Intelligence. As for WikiProject Espionage, that will be left to the WikiProject Council to decide to keep it or remove it. Adamdaley (talk) 04:52, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I've been re-considering the merger of WikiProject Espionage and WikiProject Intelligence over the last few days. There seem's to be no communication, or progression of any article's (that I am aware of) being considered added to the WikiProject Intelligence. Therefore, I would put forward my nomination of becoming the main person of WikiProject Espionage (or whatever you would like to call it). I feel that the creator of WikiProject Intelligence is too busy to progress or give a little time to find article's or come up with a plan, while no offence is intended by my brief comment just then. If the two I've named previously in this section is willing to become active or decide to leave, please leave a message on my talkpage and give me your opinion. If WikiProject Intelligence does progress, I will certainly keep an eye on it. Feedback here would be appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Several WikiProjects up for Deletion/Discussion

There are currently 27 WikiProjects or taskforces up for deletion at Miscellany for deletion. Some where submitted by me and some but other users but here is a list of the ones I saw on that page:

Please stop by and take a look. --Kumioko (talk) 13:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this notification - much appreciated. Side note surprised to see that the Stephen King project never realy got started - one would think there would be much interest in him. Moxy (talk) 17:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Also note, there are three WikiProjects are up for deletion:
Please take a look for more information. JJ98 (Talk) 00:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
I also submitted Wikipedia:WikiProject M*A*S*H today. --Kumioko (talk) 00:47, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Note all Wikiprojects from now on have a saved copy of there history (archiving since they will be lost) - if anyone needs this just contact me i will provide you with a link to the Council Historical pages - this includes all deleted projects from this month.Moxy (talk) 13:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Great thanks. --Kumioko (talk) 13:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject CSI franchise has been submitted for deletion as well. --Kumioko (talk) 16:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC) and 2 more

The Signpost interview

Publication has been scheduled for 18 April. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
The Signpost will be coming up on their deadline before long. If no one else wants to do it, then I can be the third person for this interview. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Espionage

I've been re-considering the merger of WikiProject Espionage and WikiProject Intelligence over the last few days. There seem's to be no communication, or progression of any article's (that I am aware of) being considered added to the WikiProject Intelligence. Therefore, I would put forward my nomination of becoming the main person of WikiProject Espionage (or whatever you would like to call it). I feel that the creator of WikiProject Intelligence is too busy to progress or give a little time to find article's or come up with a plan, while no offence is intended by my brief comment just then. If the two I've named previously in this section is willing to become active or decide to leave, please leave a message on my talkpage and give me your opinion. If WikiProject Intelligence does progress, I will certainly keep an eye on it. Feedback here would be appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 04:47, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you should go for it :¬) Reviving the Espionage project and killing off the Intelligence one seems the better choice as it seems to be a related/sub-topic of Espionage. It would also avoid confusion over Intelligence being a taskforce of either the psychology or philosophy projects. Chaosdruid (talk) 12:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

References sections?

I have recently started a list of those reference works which have been recognized by various bodies as being among the better reference works to have come out in a given year at User:John Carter/Reference works. These sources are, basically, evidently among the best sources out there to cover a significant subject. In general, they will be either a comparatively unique reference source on that topic, or perhaps one of the most useful. The list is, ultimately, going to be a lot longer than it currently is, believe me. Anyway, I was wondering whether the rest of you think it would be reasonable to add a section to various project pages to include such sources. I tend to think that they would be among the more accurate presentations on the subject and for those which have detailed references for their articles, among the better bibliographies for the subject, at least up to the time of their being produced. Thoughts? John Carter (talk) 18:10, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether this sort of thing would be useful in the general case—many projects don't maintain centralized lists of sources, and many of those that do don't include other reference works—but it would probably be of interest to at least a subset of projects. Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
OMG i love house too....as for the list great job - you may wish to look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Shared Resources as they are the masters of this types of lists. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Libraries as they like this to. I was doing the same thing as you at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/References - that in time was made into Bibliography of Canada and Bibliography of Canadian history.Moxy (talk) 23:31, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
This link shows some of the military references I have. Most pertain to either the Marine Corps or Medal of Honor recipients. --Kumioko (talk) 23:37, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
FWIW, the primary reason I was thinking of it in the first place is that, for a lot of subjects, there may be people who have an interest in the subject, but no very clear idea what sources might exist. I know personally that I have seen at least a few reference works, on subjects like Knitting, for example, which I didn't myself know existed. Granted, knitting isn't a priority subject to me, but for topics like that it might be useful to have at least a few such reference works mentioned, as it might help people figure out where to start for finding material. John Carter (talk) 17:56, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
See The Web Library: Building a World Class Personal Library with Free Web Resources.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:56, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
The downside is some of these aren't available on the web, particularly recent copyrighted reference books. And I have been asked on a few pages to provide some recommended books for authors who want to help develop an article, but don't know much about the subject. If nothing else, giving such editors an indication as to what sources might be among the best available, like those included in academic reference works, might help make it easier for comparatively inexperienced or less than knowledgable editors to develop related content. There are potential downsides as well. I would cringe at a reference work on, let's say, a given battle which provided a separate biography on every individual who died, was wounded, or maybe even participated in a battle. Waaay too much information there. But, for the most part, I think we should be able to prune at least a lot of such lists without much contention to omit any such exhaustive works. And I do think that there are some major topics, like, perhaps, agriculture, really small countries, and veterinary medicine, which might not have many knowledgable editors, so such lists might be useful. John Carter (talk) 16:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Activity reports

Does anyone know whether Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes includes bot edits? (I'd personally prefer that bot edits were excluded.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I would guess that they are; a large percentage of deletion sorting edits are made by bots, for example, which would be consistent with the very high numbers for that project. Kirill [talk] [prof] 08:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it does include bot edits. Svick (talk) 20:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Is it possible to separate out the bot edits? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
I thought the query would be too slow, if bot edits were removed, but apparently, it isn't. I have added a new column to the report that lists edits excluding bot edits, sortable using JavaScript. Svick (talk) 23:49, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you!
The data is fascinating. It looks like ~10% of our WikiProjects received zero non-bot edits during the last year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:21, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, most of the “WikiProjects” at the bottom are actually just redirects (probably from old names), with some subpages under the old name. (Redirects are listed in italics.) Those subpages should be moved to the new name or just deleted, but I don't think it says something about inactivity of WikiProjects. User<Svick>.Talk(); 19:37, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Prehistoric Mammals

I noticed this new wikiproject WP:WikiProject Prehistoric Mammals; I can't seem to find the proposal for it. Was it proposed? 65.93.12.101 (talk) 08:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It might not have been.. Not all WikiProjects need to be proposed before someone decides to create the page. Anyone can start a WikiProject at any time, with or without a formal proposal. -- Ϫ 17:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
The new WikiProject is related to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals and to Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
The scope is logical and clear-cut encyclopedic, but the main agent is a new and enthusiastic user. Question is, the best way forward..Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
How about leave it be and let it develop? Enthusiasm seems to be in short supply these days. JimCubb (talk) 20:18, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I have re-considered my position on this project, perhaps we could foster the users enthusiasm, perhaps ask the user if instead of creating a new WikiProject maybe they could head up a joint taskforce between WikiProject Mammals and WikiProject Palaeontology?? ZooPro 00:24, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Babylon

Can we please link BABEL (autotranslate) to the Babylon (NOT Tower of Babel) article by default?

Grevenko Sereth 122.49.186.194 (talk) 10:18, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Babel is a disambiguation page, whose purpose is to help readers find whatever it is they are looking for, not just whatever you or I would be looking for.
Babylon is an article about a city. I don't see any reason why we would want to link autotranslation to a city.
My guess on the best place to discuss such things is the talk page of the page you want to change. Since this would involve WP:Redirecting the page to your target, then another option is WP:Redirects for discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Contribution Team

This message is to publicize Wikipedia:Contribution Team.—Wavelength (talk) 17:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Broken WikiProject listing

I have noticed a number of broken wikiproject links on talk pages lately so I asked MZM if he could pull a report of them. Here is the report. I have already done most of the US related ones. --Kumioko (talk) 00:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

This is a problem we are having lately - as projects get deleted they leave a red link template on all the talk pages. This has been brought up a few times now but still not solved (one of the reasons redirects are sometimes better then deletions) As seen here they sometimes are forgotten about during the deletion process.Moxy (talk) 00:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

{{WPKING}}

Actually most of them are just broken like someone put WikiProject Illnois in instead of Illinois. Some are due to being deleted though. --Kumioko (talk) 01:10, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
I'd recommend arranging a bot run to fix this. --Kleinzach 01:20, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't think a bots going to be able to fix most of them. I can write some regex code to identify and eliminate a WikiProject template if its eliminated (that way if someone doesn't know and adds it the bot can delete it) but most of the projects on this list are just broken due to misspellings. I would ask Magioladitis if Yobot can do this. --Kumioko (talk) 01:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
Right. So it's not really an Mfd/deletion problem then. --Kleinzach 04:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
This talk page was categorized at 00:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC).
—Wavelength (talk) 06:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
fixedMoxy (talk) 07:09, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Awesome thanks, I'm going to ask for a report to see what articles link to a deleted WikiProject like this next. Depending on the numbers I may ask for this one to be a bot run. I suspect the numbers are going to be pretty high this time on some of them. --Kumioko (talk) 12:02, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

How much control should WikiProject's have over the content that relates to them

I was thinking about posting a discussion to the village pump but thought I would vet it here first. It seems as though a lot of WikiProject try to enforce a certain practice or procedure and often times it goes against the Wikipedia guidelines and practices established through the community. I understand that the Wikiproject's should have some control over the articles in there scope but some of the things I have seen do not seem to jive well with established procedures. I am only going to list examples with out the Projects to protect the innocent but, For example:

  1. Showing "ownership" in articles - I have seen on multiple occassions, by multiple projects, being quite unfreindly to anyone who dares touch one of their articles and isn't a amember of the project. This includes other projects.
  2. I have seen projects establishing rules that are counter to WP rules such as not allowing the use of certain infoboxes, portal links or formatting (like citation templates).
  3. I have seen projects who tell users to do something counter to what the rules are: For example, and I know this is an area of some debate, I have seen projects telling users to use a redirect for a WikiProject banner template instead of the actual template. For example if WikiProject United States told its users to use {{WPUS}} instead of {{WikiProject United States}}.

I agree that WikiProject's should have some control but these types of things are harmful to the cohesiveness of the community as a whole and eventhough WikiProject should establish thier own internal rules there should also be some Wikipedia wide guidelines that the projects need to follow: They should not, for example, be allowed to tell its users to put categories at the top of the article, they should not be able to tell them to undo edits made by someone other than members of the project , etc. I am not trying to get this into a big long heated debate and I know that the council doesn't have much control over the projects but I would like to hear others comments on the types of conduct they have seen (please don't name names) and what they think. --Kumioko (talk) 17:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Ownership of articles#Multiple-editor ownership (permanent link here).
—Wavelength (talk) 18:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
For convenience, here is a copy of the text there.

The involvement of multiple editors, each defending the ownership of the other, can be highly complex. The simplest scenario usually comprises a dominant editor who is defended by other editors, reinforcing the former's ownership. This is often informally described as a tag team, and can be frustrating to both new and seasoned editors. As before, address the topic and not the actions of the editors. If this fails, proceed to dispute resolution, but it is important to communicate on the talk page and attempt to resolve the dispute yourself before escalating the conflict resolution process.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
The second question was answered at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Advice_pages a year ago. The abuses you name do happen, and they are not acceptable.
The third question is answered thusly: Redirects are cheap. It is far more important that articles get assessed for the 1.0 team than that editors type out a name that complies with the failed proposal at WP:Banner standardisation.
Naturally, no one should make an edit that does nothing at all except change the name of the template (either to or from a redirect), but so long as the page was being edited anyway, which name is used is ultimately unimportant to the community. It's okay for you to type out {{WikiProject Military history}}, if that's what you remember, and it's okay for someone to change it to {{MILHIST}} because that's what the project likes. There are more than two thousand WikiProjects, and many of the older ones recommend the "non-standardized" template name. For example, I noticed today that WikiProject Environmentalism still tells its members to use the briefer redirect {{Environment}}. WikiProject Academic journals recommends {{WP Journals}} in their writing guide. If that's what they want (and they're willing to give up the IMO trivial benefits claimed for the standard scheme), then we really don't care. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you both for the comments.
I'm not trying to reopen the WikiProject banner can of worms but I would like to note a couple things about the WikiProject banner standardization. I agree that the members of the project should be allowed some freedom to put what they want to a degree but given the fact that we have over 2000 projects, and there are many uses for the related templates (different ones use different parameters, generate categories, etc) it is difficult for me to understand why the names shouldn't be standard. We have a standard naming for the WikiProjects (they all start with WikiProject (as far as I know), Portals (we don't call them just Medicine and we don't abbreviate them to ports, PTS, PTLS, etc), Categories, Infobox's (for the most part they all start with Infobox), Citations either say Citation or start with Cite and the list goes on. I am aware of the, as you put it failed, attempt to standardize in the past and would like to mention that aside from 3 or 4 the Templates themselves all say WikiProject X (regardless of wether the projects use the redirect the Template is WikiProject X). As for the implication that the gains of standardizing this template are nisignificant and aside from the usual arguments of its hard to program bots and scripts and its confusing to readers; its also hard to write reports. If I want to create a report in the toolserver to do certain things (like see if there is a template associted to a project) I have to know the name of that project template. Case in point (and I am not trying to bring him into this I am just using his work as an example) I asked MZMcBride to pull a report showing if there were any deleted WikiProjects that still had an associated template here]. If you look at the SQL, in order to do this, he had to match WikiProject X to its associated template. So if the associated template does not start with WikiProject (like WPEnvironment, or Environment), the query doesn't work. It also doesn't make sense to me for the template to have a different naming convention than the project its associated too.
As for what the projects suggest to their members that does seem to differ I agree. Also using the examples given I believe that the reason that many projects refer to the old template is because the documentation was never updated when the template itself was moved. It does not IMO indicate that the project encourages one way or the other a standard use of the template. Also, since many of the templates documentation are edit protected, its likely that many will remain tied to the old naming for some time to come.
I would also disagree somewhat that assessing the articles for the 1.0 team trumps all other uses of the template. It is definately important and that may be the reason they were created but certainly isn't the case anymore on many projects. I can think of several projects (MILHIST being one and Aviation being another) that gets far more use from the banner than the 1.0 team. --Kumioko (talk) 19:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
They don't all follow the standard naming convention. See what Wikipedia:WikiProject Philippines' real name is, for example. {{Drugbox}} and {{Chembox}} are heavily used infoboxes that do not follow the usual naming convention. There are dozens of citation templates listed at Category:Citation templates that do not begin with the letters "Cit".
Portals and categories are their own namespaces, so obviously (by definition) everything in them identifies the namespace. Claiming that these follow a naming convention of including "Portal:" or "Category:" is like saying that the names of essays, noticeboards, and AFDs follow the naming convention of starting with "Wikipedia:".
I haven't seen any templates with fully protected doc pages. There are a very small number of doc pages that are semi-protected (seem to be less than 2% of the templates that are semi-protected), but that wouldn't stop a WikiProject member from changing them. Furthermore, most of these recommendations are on the project's main page, not in template docs. They might not have yet bothered to change them, but there's nothing stopping them from doing so if they choose to. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Fair enough I guess there is an exception to every rule. Were getting a little off topic though. All I am trying to do is gather thoughts about the interactions of WikiProject and how much control they should be able to push on the articles in their scope. --Kumioko (talk) 12:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
IMO projects should have more autonomy not less. Limiting "how much control [WikiProjects] should be able to push on the articles in their scope" inhibits the creation of the encyclopedia. In any given set of articles (even about the most mundane of subjects), questions of usage, style etc will come up. The role of the project is to solve those questions, within the special and often limited contexts in which they arise. Then it is for the wider community to see if the solutions that have emerged are more widely applicable, with project guidelines evolving (or not) into Manual of Style pages etc. Wikipedia should be a bottom up model with ideas coming up from the coalface, not a top down model with rules imposed by bureaucrats. --Kleinzach 13:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Redesigning the WikiProject Directory

Per Kirill's suggestion, below is a rough draft for redesigning the WikiProject Directory. I threw this together as a wikitable, but the final version should be a template with some of the fields populated by a bot.

Instead of the current labyrinth of pages and redirects for various categories, every project would be in one sortable list. The list's initial order could be alphabetical, by parentage, or anything else. There's little point in having a sorting function in the current system because the separate clusters mean you're only sorting about three or four projects in a cluster.

In the proposed system, "Categories" would be listed in a column and serve as tags that could be used to limit the viewable projects, accomplishing what the current hierarchy of categories and clusters does but with fewer pages and less redundancy.

Italics in the "Name" column would denote a task force, subproject, or even MILHIST's "Operations" with a more specific description in the "Type" column. "Status" would be assigned by a bot based on the semiactive and inactive tags at the top of project pages. The colors are up for debate, if they're needed at all. Additional columns may be needed for watchlists, peer reviews, etc.

Name Type Status Assessments Collaboration Portal Categories
Architecture WikiProject Active Yes Inactive Portal:Architecture Arts, Culture, Science
Beauty Pageants WikiProject Semi None None None Arts, Culture, Entertainment
Entertainment WikiProject Inactive None None None Arts, Culture, Entertainment
Television WikiProject Active Yes None Portal:Television Arts, Culture, Entertainment
Arrested Development Task Force Active WP Television None Portal:Television Arts, Culture, Entertainment

Comments? -Mabeenot (talk) 00:32, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I wonder whether the "task force" item ought to provide the name of the parent project. (Do any task forces claim multiple parents? I've heard it proposed, but I can't think of a specific example. If so, that would complicate matters.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes some taskforces do claim multiple parents. --Kumioko (talk) 07:32, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I like this idea - I'll try and think of some with multiple parents. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Library of Congress has duel parents of WikiProject United States and GLAM. This is just one example though. I would say the Military task force under WikiProject Biography is also duel with WPMILHIST but not 100% sure. --Kumioko (talk) 12:30, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
That's true, but I'm not sure whether this information really needs to be reflected in the directory. The main processes (assessment, review?) will already be indicated, and anyone interested in the finer points of the task force's setup will presumably click through to the TF page. Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:16, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Right, but if you have two (or more) parents, you may want to name all the parents in the assessment column. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Would it be useful to have a "Review" column to point to project-specific peer review processes and such? Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:16, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree that I don't think its necessary to show all the second and third level associations. Just the Main parent should be fine or else the important data just becomes buried in details. I think having a column for A/Peer review might be useful but there are so few of them it might be easier to just have a sentence somewhere saying the following projects have X. --Kumioko (talk) 20:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I like the basic idea — especially introducing 'semi-active' — but would prefer to see task forces more clearly related to projects. (In the example above 'Arrested Development' is an implied task force of WP Television. However this wouldn't work if WP Television was non-assessing.) I also wonder whether it's worth keeping the collaboration column (what does it mean in this cpntext?). Another thing, presumably 'categories' in this context are just subjects? --Kleinzach 04:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I can think of 20 possible columns.
  • linked name of the WikiProject
  • shortcut(s) for the WikiProject (Wikipedia:List of shortcuts/Project shortcuts)
  • linked WikiProject category (or categories) for the WikiProject (Category:WikiProjects)
  • number of articles managed by the WikiProject
  • date of establishment of the WikiProject
  • link to the user page or talk page of the editor currently leading the WikiProject
  • link to the user page or talk page of the editor next in charge of the WikiProject
  • link to the page reporting page views of articles in the WikiProject
  • link to the external watchlist for articles in the WikiProject (Wikipedia:List of WikiProject watchlists (alphabetical))
  • total number of page views of all articles in the WikiProject
  • number of page views of the WikiProject page itself
  • number of subpages in the WikiProject (very large numbers for some, such as "Academic Journals", "Military history", "Novels", "Pharmacology")
  • number of sub-subpages in the WikiProject
  • number of sub-sub-subpages in the WikiProject
  • number of sub-sub-sub-subpages in the WikiProject
  • linked name of the corresponding article category
  • linked shortcut(s) for the article category
  • number of articles in the article category
  • date of establishment of the article category
  • link to the corresponding main article for the WikiProject
Some cells would be blank. See also Wikipedia:Database reports.
—Wavelength (talk) 20:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
[I am adding a link to a list of shortcuts for WikiProjects.—Wavelength (talk) 20:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)]
I'm not sure that we need even the number of columns currently listed. For example, perhaps we should drop the "Portal" column, since portals aren't exactly owned by WikiProjects. If a project has a portal, they can advertise that on the project page.
I'm a little concerned about the size of the table. There will be at least 2,000 rows. Is that going to take forever to load? Will sorting the columns take five minutes? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
20 columns of information would never be maintained. I think we only need 7, as follows:
  • name
  • status
  • assessments
  • parent project
  • descendant project(s)
  • taskforce(s)
  • notes
--Kleinzach 02:48, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
I think that list of WikiProjects would be hard to maintain, regardless of how many columns does it have, unless some bot does most of the work. Maybe something similar to the WikiProject banner, but for WikiProjects themselves, would help keeping track of the information that's hard to collect automatically. User<Svick>.Talk(); 06:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, presumably we can get some automated or semi-automated maintenance in place? I think most of the key items that we'd want to list can be collected from other automated listings, and wouldn't require any regular input from the projects themselves.

More generally, I think we might be focusing too much on the "structure" of the listed projects, and not enough on other data points. My guess is that most visitors to the directory are not really looking for a detailed description of how different projects and task forces are related to one another, but rather for information on the individual projects available in their area of interest. In particular, I think visitors are likely to ask three main questions for a particular project:

  • How large is the project? (# of articles, # of members, # of task forces, etc.)
  • How active is the project? (# of edits, # of article improvements, etc.)
  • What services does the project provide? (assessment, review, collaborations, reference libraries, etc.)

Almost all of these are data points that either (a) can easily be collated from the WP1.0 assessment listings and the various database reports, or (b) are fixed structural items that don't often change.

I think a directory listing focusing primarily on such "numerical" descriptors of projects' state would be more useful than an exhaustive listing of their inheritance hierarchy. (Indeed, I'm not even convinced we should be listing task forces at all, except perhaps as notes under the parent project.) Kirill [talk] [prof] 14:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

We are talking about two different things — 'structure' and statistics — both of which are important IMO. They will not be easy to combine on a single page, so I think we need two different listings. Up to now the directory has been devoted to 'structure' and I think it's better to keep it like that - basically a maintenance list. --Kleinzach 04:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
While I'm not categorically opposed to having two separate directories, going with that approach substantially increases the maintenance overhead, particularly if both must be maintained by hand. I think that at least one of the two would need to be automatically generated for the idea to work; otherwise, they're likely to be out of sync almost as soon as they're created. Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:42, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
It's normal, and probably unavoidable, for WP lists like these to be out of sync. The statistics list would indeed have to be automatically generated, otherwise it would never be compiled. --Kleinzach 15:33, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposals advice

We've recently expanded Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals to address the issue of whether a formal proposal is mandatory. I've got mixed feelings about this, since I think the process is extremely valuable and this may encourage some people to skip it, but it's true: a formal proposal is an optional step.

However, the section currently begins with this sentence:

"Firstly note that WP:IAR is policy."

Notice that there's no link there, just the initials. It is consequently entirely opaque to newbies. Also, I'm really not sure that emphasizing that "IAR is policy" in a section whose whole point is to say that the process is optional is striking the right balance. Yes, the proposal process is optional. But ~99% of editors ought to do it anyway. I am concerned that telling them they are required to ignore all rules to improve the encyclopedia, plus telling them that this process is optional, is going to result in dead projects and discouraged editors.

We aren't even telling them what a WikiProject is on this page. There's nothing that indicates that, for example, that a WikiProject is a place for collaboration, and consequently requires the involvement of multiple editors. We get a remarkable number of (usually bad) proposals from very inexperienced editors. And yet we're very strongly emphasizing that they can skip the proposal process and declare themselves a WikiProject whenever they'd like.

It seems unbalanced to me. I think we can do better than this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:45, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree - we need to make it clear that projects needs support BEFORE they start - We should simply emphasize the fact that projects should be compiled by multiple editors (not just one to start a project) - The definition of what a project is should be clear in this fact (its a group effort) and the fact that a GROUP of editor is needed before a project gets off the ground. Moxy (talk) 13:59, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Indeed. One thing I think we should do is update the "Before you begin" section of the guide to be a more pointed discussion of whether a new project is actually necessary, and how to go about building collaboration before going down the path of a wholly independent project. Kirill [talk] [prof] 14:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Is it possible (or can it be made possible) to see a list of the newest pages beginning with "Wikipedia:WikiProject"?
The list would be more specific than http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:NewPages.
—Wavelength (talk) 17:55, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Based on the feedback here, I have made a change. Please feel free to improve it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I think having list of all new pages in the WikiProject sub-namespace wouldn't be very useful, because most of them are subpages of some WikiProject and are relevant only to that project. If we excluded subpages, that could be useful for tracking new one-man projects, so I have created the list (updated weekly) at Wikipedia:Database reports/New WikiProjects. User<Svick>.Talk(); 11:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I have added that page to my watchlist and I have updated User:Wavelength/About Wikipedia/List of WikiProjects (discussed in the next section).
—Wavelength (talk) 14:57, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Do you think it would be both easy and desirable to suppress redirects? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Redirects are in italics in my report, so they should be easy to ignore, if that's what you meant. User<Svick>.Talk(); 17:27, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

List of WikiProjects

During several sessions per day (possibly about 24 cumulative hours) spread from April 22 to 27, 2011, I searched through the pages of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex for links to pages beginning with WikiProject in the Wikipedia namespace. I omitted disambiguation pages (Category:Wikipedia project disambiguation pages) and soft-redirected pages (Category:Wikipedia soft redirected project pages), but I included inactive and semi-active WikiProjects (Category:Inactive WikiProjects and Category:Semi-active WikiProjects). I omitted subpages and sub-subpages and so on, and page panel pages (which were not always subpages).

Along the way, I discovered that many WikiProjects need to be categorized in Category:WikiProjects, and that Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam has by far the largest number of sub-subpages, with links occupying hundreds of pages in the Prefix Index.

From my research, I have produced User:Wavelength/About Wikipedia/List of WikiProjects, mainly for the purpose of using it as a watchlist. Therefore, I have deliberately left the 1775 entries in ASCIIbetical order and also included the 1775 talk pages. Other editors may wish to adapt a copy of it for the Wikipedia namespace.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Can you give us a list of those that aren't currently catted as WikiProjects? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:31, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
It would take some time, but I will see what I can do. Incidentally, such a list would be of interest to the editors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories.
—Wavelength (talk) 22:56, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. This is a much better reference for the Signpost's WikiProject Report than poking through page after page of the prefix index. Now we just need to conduct a WikiProject census... -Mabeenot (talk) 02:03, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Good job, I will look through this list as well to make sure my code for the WikiProject banner cleanup is up to date. A couple notes:
  1. a couple of the projects listed are red links
  2. There are quite a few inactive
  3. Several have no corresponding WikiProject Template.
  4. Some share a WikiProject template of another project
  5. There are a couple missing from the list
Other than those few minor things good job. --Kumioko (talk) 11:56, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
The red-linked ones appear to be projects with a project page but no talk page... possible evidence of a lack of activity. -Mabeenot (talk) 23:16, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
This is my second reply to the question by WhatamIdoing at 22:31, 28 April 2011. Category:Geographical WikiProjects shows Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps as being included in it, but the latter does not show itself as being included in the former. This is one of several WikiProjects which I have found with this strange feature.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:22, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
It looks like the project page itself ("WP:WikiProject Maps") is not in the Geographical WikiProjects cat; it's the similarly named category ("Cat:WikiProject Maps") that is included there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Wavelength, if you were just compiling a list of WikiProjects, you should have asked someone to do it automatically. I have put the list of all pages starting with “Wikipedia:WikiProject ”, that are not subpages or redirects here: [2]. Those of the list that are not members (not even though sub-categories) of Category:WikiProjects are here: [3]. User<Svick>.Talk(); 16:27, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for those lists as well. The second list with projects not appearing in the categories had several that were either invalid or haven't been around in years. I submitted several of them for deletion. There are several remaining that should be added to the WikiProject Categories and I will start working on some of those next. There are still quite a few that are basically just junk and should probably be deleted. I don't want to inundate the MFD list though. --Kumioko (talk) 17:03, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, Svick, for those two lists. Yes, I should have, and I was considering asking at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) whether it would be practical to enable the automatic generation of a list at the intersection of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:NewPages and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex.
Can you please enable an automatically generated watchlist of all the WikiProject pages and their corresponding talk pages? Would that particular request be more suited to the work of User:Tim1357?
—Wavelength (talk) 18:45, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Categories of WikiProjects

I cleaned out Category:WikiProjects today. Category:Wikipedia WikiProjects probably needs some attention. It appears that a few projects misunderstood the name. I'm going to explain the purpose of the cat in a minute, but may not get back to the clean-up work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

In accordance with WP:TPOC, I am revising the heading of this section from "Cats" to "Categories of WikiProjects" for clarity, and to avoid confusion with Wikipedia:WikiProject Cats.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:58, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

May 21

There is a discussion on whether or not 2011 end times prediction is an appropriate addition to May 21, it would be great to have some involved in the project to share their thoughts at Talk:May 21--RadioFan (talk) 21:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Keeping up with the content, new editors, and other probably excessive comments

This could probably reasonably be described by several as a disjointed, almost random edit. Do I care? Well, I wrote it anyway - draw your own conclusions.

Somehow, particularly for groups/projects which do not have people actively involved in their maintenance, keeping up with the content, particularly new and potentially duplicate articles, may well be one of the more serious problems we might have. Editors will, I think reasonably, often act on their own when creating a new article on either a "new" notable person or cultural artifact (movie, TV show, book, painting, event, musical work, whatever). Of course, we should support their ability to so. Unfortunately, by doing so they will also often create redundant articles. I created an article on a mosque in Afghanistan which already had an article on another name once, and even got a DYK for it, and also once found three separate biographical articles on the same friend of Mohammed, whose names differed only in the matter of punctuation.

There is also the problem of how to encourage new editors, and keep them. Many new editors may well be most likely to stay if they can create an article from scratch, rather than from the start give attention to existing articles, many of which will already be well developed and/or of perhaps similar, short, length to articles on the topic which might be found elsewhere. We, of course, do not have the space restrictions many print encyclopedias do, but new editors might not think of that. And, for lengthy articles in particular, it can often be hard for even more experienced editors to tell what the article's weaknesses are.

And, of course, there is always the problem of dealing with BLP issues. Personally, I largely avoid editing articles which might fall under WP:BLP because of the difficulties of ensuring policies and guidelines are followed on articles where the content is likely to change after you've done your edit, sometimes dramatically and even, sometimes, in such a way that what you added might later be found to be inaccurate or just plain wrong, like, for instance, some questions of paternity.

I can see a few ways to deal with some of them, but wonder whether there would be enough people interested to make the ideas practical.

1) One might be to create three specific "organizational types" of articles, which might be called "active," "developing," and "historical." All BLPs and many articles on newer active companies and the like might fall in the first, as the articles specifically about the subject in general are likely to be changed, sometimes dramatically, later, depending on developments. These articles would be the kind most dependent on news articles and other type sources, as the material is subject to regular, significant changes. "Developing" might apply to countries, cities, cancelled TV shows, music or videos one or more year old, and similar articles where it might reasonably be said that the bulk of the directly related content is already available, but there is the likelihood that some significant changes will continue to occur. These would be less dependent on news-type articles, but would still probably need regular attention, to ensure they are up to date. "Historical" might apply to dead people, inactive institutions, or artifacts which are of sufficient age that the majority of the content relevant to the subject is unlikely to change. Published books might be the most complete sources for these articles. It might, maybe, even be worthwhile to adjust banners to indicate such differences, although I acknowledge the staggering amount of work which might be involved there. But doing so, in some way, might make it easier for newer editors to find articles that they can help develop more reasonably. If projects were to have "Bibliography" articles or similar, with maybe shorter lists of more recent "reference" type works, newer editors might be able to more quickly find articles which are still in need of development, and find materials to use which would assist in development. If there were articles on the works themselves, particularly regarding their strengths or weaknesses, that might help even more.

There is a problem with this, of oourse, keeping up with these reference sources. I've found about 1000 philosophy and religion "encyclopedias" reviewed on Infotrac. Those two topics being one of 10 main categories we have, that might mean about 10,000 recent "encyclopedias" in total. Finding material on that number of works, and developing related content, would be a serious amount of work. But I think it would be potentially very useful to projects and groups, in both keeping older articles up to date and in developing new articles. And it would be even more work to keep up with later editions, later reviews and books about reference sources, and the like.

2) I also think that, where possible, these reference works could be used to maybe help establish "missing articles" lists for various projects. If, for instance, a given "encyclopedia" article has sufficient references for the subject to be notable as per WP:N, it might help editors interested in a particular subject to have some sort of list of such missing articles, which they could then consult the sources on and develop. I think that might be of particular usefulness to newer editors, but it is dependent on having people keep the lists of reference works and missing articles updated, which would probably be a lot of work. Some of these books have thousands of articles, and some don't have individual reference lists for articles.

For what little it might be worth, I am in the process of e-mailing myself all the articles from subscription databases which deal directly with such "encyclopedic" reference works as I go through the results list. I could, probably, in a few weeks, start to get together lists of such sources relevant to most groups and WikiProjects. I am less sure that I would myself be able to do the development of all the potential articles which might arise from that material.

Do the rest of you think that it would be useful to maybe establish some sort of formal or informal guidelines regarding the types of articles mentioned above (or, maybe, similar classification based on "currency" of content), and, maybe, to develop the lists of references and missing articles? I think they would be beneficial to newer editors, and even some older editors, but am unsure about whether the gains would be worth the amount of effort involved in the creation and maintenance of such. John Carter (talk) 16:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Article wizard and Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
I admit there is a small problem with duplicate articles but I don't think its a huge one. I also admit that I have less of a problem with the notability aspect. Notability is so subjective as long as there are sufficient references, I typically don't worry about notability in itself. I also think that there are still a lot of articles that need to be created. I have a list of over 1000 Medal of Honor recipients alone plus a ton for the Library of Congress, Smithsoonian and other projects. --Kumioko (talk) 20:32, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
FYI, there is somewhat of a tracking category for duplicate articles, see Category:Duplicate articles and Category:Redirects from duplicated articles. -- Ϫ 05:05, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate the responses regarding duplicate articles, but that is, at least to my eyes, maybe not the most important point. The response about the Missing encyclopedic articles project is relevant, but it seems to me anyway that maybe "isolating" such information to a single project, particularly one of the maybe less known (and perhaps less appealing to newcomers) group. Maybe, and this is just a maybe, do the rest of you think it would be useful to, maybe, create dedicated lists of missing articles (and/or, in some cases, missing content in existing articles) for many or most of the extant WikiProjects and subprojects?
The obvious downside is, of course, the larger projects, like the Biography project, as several of these references sources seem to be exclusively biographical. The lists for even the existing subprojects for most of the Biography groups would be incredibly long. The same might also hold for countries and areas which have less material in English about them and their people. But I do think that, maybe, having lists of articles that don't yet exist, particularly if there were also lists of sources which might be used for them, might be one of the best ways to encourage editors to take an active role in some of the content that doesn't get as much attention. John Carter (talk) 17:05, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
WP:DERM did something like what you suggest in point #2 with their "Bolognia push". They took some standard reference work (a dermatology textbook or reference book; Bolognia is the main author's name) and created at least a tiny stub for each an every condition named in it. My impression is that it was a truly enormous task, and wouldn't have been undertaken or had any hope of completion without My Core Competency is Competency (talk · contribs). List of skin conditions (now a featured list) is one major result of that project. One advantage of the systematic approach in this particular instance was the lack of duplicate articles. Many skin conditions have multiple names, and the source they started with told them what all the synonyms were, so they set up redirects as they built the stubs. They now have ~2500 non-redirect articles, and more than three-quarters of them are currently assessed as stubs. I'd guess that a majority of the articles created under this heroic effort still contain no more than two or three sentences, one (excellent) source, and an infobox. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
FWIW, I myself would object to creation of stubs on an almost automatic basis based on a reference work. But it might be different if, for instance, the WP:WikiProject Jainism, which seems to me rather inactive, created a project page listing, maybe as redlinks, pages which have yet to be created, and, maybe, sources which could be used to make reasonable non-stubs on the subject. I hope I made it clear that, despite some of my own earlier efforts regarding articles on saints, which were often based exclusively on Holweck's encyclopedia of same, it would probably help to say that, where possible, the sources listed in the bibliography of the book be used, not the listed encyclopedia or dictionary. That would give us, and maybe some classroom projects, a clearer idea of what notable content we already have and might be able to develop on RS sources. At least one of the sources I found was a book about hummingbird feeders which allegedly contains an "encyclopedia" of 18 hummingbird species. Sources of that type might be used to create maybe at least multi-paragraph (if only two or three) articles on those species. For other projects, like Christianity, I acknowledge the list of bishops and other clerics who have achieved notability is probably too long for a single page of redlinks, and I could reasonably see, maybe, not creating such a list for them. But, for Jainism, and maybe other smaller projects like Woodworking, having a list of sources which could be used to create articles from a list of articles which are notable but don't yet exist might help a bit in stimulating creation of such articles, particularly if there could be some sort of accompanying "article creation drive" for that subject. I think, from what I've seen, food and cooking, clothing, non-Western areas, and women's topics are possibly among the most poorly developed we have, and such efforts might, maybe, be a boon to stimulation of content for them. Maybe. John Carter (talk) 21:24, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology

I think most people looking for this will look under history, not science. I know I did. Dougweller (talk) 13:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

agree. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:19, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
It can be in both categories simultaneously.—Wavelength (talk) 16:31, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Yes indeed, though archaeologists would normally classify the subject with anthropology (social science) not history. --Kleinzach 01:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
It'd definitely be relevant in both history and science (archeology is somewhat the science of history, if you will). Tyrol5 [Talk] 00:29, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
If this is in reference to the PROJDIR, it could certainly be included in both sections, with perhaps one a link to the main listing elsewhere. If it fits better, and more directly, under history, placing the main listing there would make sense to me. John Carter (talk) 21:39, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Reference sources, specifically online ones

Hulk is back. Hulk has created big list of reference sources. Hulk sees that many highly regarded web sources may be useful for more than one project - National Public Radio, for instance. Maybe Australian, British, and Canadian BCs to, Hulk not know. Hulk thinks maybe a lot of editors might not think of using them, so a list might be helpful. Hulk wants to know if there might be somewhere where we could make a list of high quality web sources. And Hulk is getting tired of jokes about his gramma. Hulk's gramma as good as anyone else's. And, even if she is old, Hulk's gramma has same short temper Hulk has, and doesn't like being insulted. Hulk might calm down to become puny Carter now. John Carter (talk) 19:18, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what your saying - but was interesting to read.Moxy (talk) 19:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Main project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange
Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Shared Resources
Requests: Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request

Articles

Hulk tried telling really bad joke, and apologizes. But there are a number of online services, some of which are free, which a new editor (and even some older ones) might not think to use or consult. TheBookHive at www.bookhive.org, www.kidsreads.com/series/index.asp are both listed by the ALA as among the best free online sources available. Some of the people who might edit literature related content might not think to use them, or look at the lists of websites and databases. Also, as a frequent listener, I have to admit it never occurred to me to access NPR's free site for old programs, much of which could probably be used to help establish notability, if nothing else. www.time.com allegedly provides or provided free access to full text searches of its entire content run. elib.cs.berkeley.edu/aw/index.html allegedly has fairly full descriptions of somewhere around 4,500 species of amphibia. For all of these sources, if someone were a non-specialist looking to edit one or more of the relevant articles, it might not occur to them to check these or similar high quality sources. Also, I don't know, a lot of these might not be particularly high returns on Google, and in some cases the first several pages of returns might contain much less useful links. Just wondering if there might be some purpose to, maybe, a page somewhere, maybe of the Council here, which might list the better free websites for information, maybe with links to some of the pages you included above. Put I am thinking, particularly for newer editors, they might want to edit a poorly developed article, and might not know what the better sites they might have access to are, and, maybe, what kind of specific information they contain. And, in some cases, it might be easier to verify content or do other similar things if we had some sort of central page for sites, with, maybe, links to other pages as called for. I am starting a list of these better sources at User:John Carter/Reference sources, which also indicate who described them as good, and I know I personally probably wouldn't have thought of, or even know of, some of these sites. Granted, however, many would help with some text to explain what the sites are good sources of information for. John Carter (talk) 20:01, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
You might mention this at WT:Notability or WT:AFD. I can't tell you how many times editors have simultaneously claimed that (1) they magically know that the subject is obviously, inherently, automatically deserving of an article and (2) that it's utterly impossible to find the sources to prove it, because newspaper archives don't exist.
If we had one really good page that summarized these lists, I would support listing it at WP:NRVE] or WP:FAILN. The research skills of the typical Wikipedian are apparently limited to asking Mr Google. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I know about the "automatic notability", believe me. I think I myself may have made that mistake once or twice. What I am ultimately thinking of, particularly for the geography and/or religion groups with which I have been involved, is making a list of redlinks for those projects, based on encyclopedias/dictionary entries, maybe even providing references for them, if they have separate entries in those sources. I do think such lists might be useful for development of topics, if nothing else. There might still be problems about whether they deserve separate articles, particularly if the entries are short, but it might make things a bit easier at XFD.
As a basic proposal, maybe one way to proceed might be to create some subpage or subsection of the WP Council providing a list of recognizably good, high quality sources which might be useful for a number of projects, like NPR, the Australian, British, or Canadian Broadcasting Corporations, Time magazine, links to public domain works of art, and the like, with at the bottom links to the first-level "descendants" pages or subsections, like for biography, science, music, literature, and the like, with similar links to further "descendant" pages or sections, as appropriate, there, such as, for instance, maybe a series of links from Geography to Countries to United States to New York to New York City, perhaps. While it wouldn't be a single page, it would be a coherent structure which might be useful for some purposes. John Carter (talk) 15:10, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Miscellany for deletion

As mentioned above we have a big amount of deletions. There will simply be to many for me to chase after and fix. Meaning I will simply be overwhelmed with the amount of work that will be needed done after the projects and portals are deleted. What it is I need help with? --> Well after a project gets deleted We/I have to go around and remove all the templates from the talk pages and portal templates for all the articles. All this has been mentioned before but no solution has been found. What would be nice is if the people that nominated them actually had to do the cleanup work cause because of the deletions. For example Portal:Family Guy as seen here will have to be removed from the projects templates (Template:Family Guy) and the portal its self removed from all the pages it's on. So any help here would be great as I cant keep up with the deletion of projects and portals at this time. See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion for a listing of projects and portals that we will have cleanup after.Moxy (talk) 16:04, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Have you considered requesting a bot to do this work? User<Svick>.Talk(); 16:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
I am in the muddle of making a proposal that when templates (banner), portals and Wikiprojects etc, get deleted they automatically will be placed there. The proposal is something that will require more work on the part of closing admins. Most of the time it's not that many and by hand is good because the bot sometimes remove links we would like to keep like this. But i guess that's the best way for now. I will dump all this in for bot deletion when the time comes. Moxy (talk) 17:09, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
For what its worth I personally agree with many (but not all) of the deletion requests. In many cases these projects and portals were created and never completed or only active for a few months before fizzling out. There is just no need to keep them. I have also tried to help with removing the templates and I have crafted some regex code that will do it fairly quickly even without a bot. I also asked MZMcBride to create a report and I think that has all been worked out so all we have to do is run it from time to time and fix the ones that show up. I also think that doing a bot request would be good but it takes weeks or months to get a bot request approved so in the mean time well have to do it manually. --Kumioko (talk) 17:23, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Yes it takes time (sometimes 6 weeks) and is why i do it by hand most times - but if you know of a script and a report that works that would be great. And yes i agree most can go, just wish we did not have to deal with the outcome of the deletion talks ourselves. We need a better process to handle all this red links (sometime thousands are out there because of a back log) - As the guidelines suggest redirects over deletions are better in some cases and would cause less work for us on the back end. But until all the dead projects are cleanup we will have to deal with thisMoxy (talk) 17:51, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Ok here is what we have so far. I asked MZM to run the reports again and here they are [4] and Broken WikiProject templates. As you will see by these 2 reports most of the remaining ones are 1 or 2 articles each. WPUK is a redirect. --Kumioko (talk) 18:27, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for that - looks alot better then i thought.Moxy (talk) 18:53, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Stupid newbie question

Do we have a way to sort all the articles in a category into the importance x quality score matrix, as project pages allow? LADave (talk) 18:16, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

You want something like Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/United States articles by quality statistics, except with the articles chosen on the basis of "listed in Category:X" rather than "tagged by WikiProject X"? It's possible that the 1.0 bot could be adapted to do that, but I don't believe there is any existing method of doing so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
Exactly. Lots of articles don't fall into a WikiProject. For example I would like to find examples of good articles about small towns in the U.S. LADave (talk) 13:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Well... You could ask CBM about the bot (link in the history of the stats page above), but it's a bit complicated. Without a WikiProject banner, there's physically no way to assign importance or quality to the articles. So you could get data on the ones that have an assessment, but untagged pages would be unknown quality/unassigned importance—and would pretty much have to stay that way, because you can't assign upper-tier quality or any importance without knowing something about the project's goals. (On the other hand, basically every small town ought to be tagged by WP:WikiProject Cities, so when you find such pages, you could tag them and assess them yourself).
If you're looking for WP:Good articles about US towns (rather than good articles), then the complete list is at Wikipedia:Good articles/Geography_and_places#North_America. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! Great answer. I was at a loss, but this led me to a couple articles about small towns I think are very good examples. LADave (talk) 12:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
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