Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 23

Is there a list or tool that shows the top Wikiprojects by article numbers?

Is there a list or tool that shows the top Wikiprojects by article numbers? I am particularly interested list of articles by country projects. I am sure the numbers are totally biased. But, how much? Something for WP:CSB to use. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 20:30, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

@Aditya Kabir: Here is an alphabetical list of WikiProject article counts. --Bamyers99 (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. But this means doing it manually. Possible, but quite daunting. Is there any tool that automates the process? Or gives a processed return? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 21:12, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Working on a script now. Enterprisey (talk!) 23:56, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Made a table:

Table of top 50 wikiprojects by article count

Name Number of articles Biography 1,540,407 United States 366,485 Biography (sports and games) 354,718 Football 335,207 Album 307,238 Years 283,346 Military history 216,232 Film 202,631 India 191,575 Australia 186,308 Canada-related 145,213 WikiProject Cities 140,547 Africa 137,365 Olympics 130,099 Biography (politics and government) 128,929 Television 124,589 France 119,022 Song 112,108 Germany 111,873 Rail transport 109,593 Lepidoptera 101,993 Biography (arts and entertainment) 98,123 Poland-related 94,197 Iran 90,056 Plant 88,296 Biography (musicians) 85,538 European military history 83,940 Geography 83,766 National Register of Historic Places 80,825 Anthroponymy 80,475 AFC 77,756 Video game 77,255 Women's sport 74,297 Japan-related 74,137 College football 73,460 Elections and Referendums 71,905 Ships 70,276 Russia 69,587 Baseball 68,083 Christianity 67,001 Biography (science and academia) 66,552 China-related 64,808 Aviation 64,282 Politics 61,864 North American military history 60,722 Insects 60,580 Biography (actors and filmmakers) 60,508 Architecture 60,367 Ireland 60,072 California 58,545

The code that does this (change NUM_TO_SHOW at the top if you want the table to be longer):

Code for above table

import re import urllib2 PROJECT_INDEX = "https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/pindex.fcgi?sec=%5BAll%5D" TABLE_ROW_REGEX = r"<tr><td><b>(?:<a href=\"[^\"]+?\">(.+?)</a>|([^#<>\[\]\|\{\}_]+?))</b></td><td style=\"text-align: right;\">([\d,]+)</td>" NUM_TO_SHOW = 50 content = urllib2.urlopen(PROJECT_INDEX).read() compiled_re = re.compile(TABLE_ROW_REGEX) # Convert each wikiproject row to (name, count) def entry_from_match(each_match): name = each_match.group(1) if each_match.group(1) else each_match.group(2) value = int(each_match.group(3).replace(",", "")) return (name, value) entries = map(entry_from_match, compiled_re.finditer(content)) entries.sort(key=lambda x: x[1], reverse=True) res = "{| class=\"wikitable sortable\"\n!Name!!Number of articles\n" res += "\n|-\n".join("| {} || {:,d}".format(n, v) for n, v in entries[:NUM_TO_SHOW]) res += "\n|}" print(res)

Hope this helps! Enterprisey (talk!) 03:14, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

A suggestion

Hi. I'm GermanGamer77, and I would like my proposal, WikiProject Bettas, to be considered as a task force of WikiProject aquarium fish. Thanks, GermanGamer77 20:02, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 11

Newsletter • February 2018

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, with plans to renew work with a followup grant proposal to support finalising the deployment of CollaborationKit!

-— Isarra ༆ 21:26, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Including Wikipedia:Help_Project in WP:WPDIR/All

Also posted in WT:WPX
Should Wikipedia:Help_Project be included in WP:WPDIR/All? It seems it would make sense even though it doesn't have Wikiproject in the name (though is in Category:Wikipedia_WikiProjects). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 09:45, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

It should be....but that's the problem with that automatically generated list. Many projects and task forces missing. Its why it was never implemented broadly and then abandoned. ... some sort of seach problem. We are still stuck with manually adding to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory.--Moxy (talk) 09:57, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability: Per WP:MULTI, please can this be discussed in one place, not two? Anyway, Template:Wikipedia Help Project does use {{WPBannerMeta}}, just like most WikiProject banners. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

With WikiProject X getting some new funding....perhaps they can devote some resources to develop a proper bot.--Moxy (talk) 02:04, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Defunct Wikiprojects

Wikipedia:Wikiproject Journalism appears to be defunct or just dysfunctional. -Inowen (talk) 06:53, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Several recent threads on the project's talk page. It's not moribund yet. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:56, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Quality and Importance result?

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Channel Islands has:

Channel Islands-related articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA		1	1	2			4
GA	2	1	2	3			8
B	2	5	9	11			27
C	5	6	24	49			84
Start	3	21	60	231		1	316
Stub		3	21	174		4	202
List		3	8	49	1		61
Category					515		515
File					18		18
Project					4		4
Template				1	29		30
NA			1	21	65		87
Other					2		2
Assessed	12	40	126	541	634	5	1,358
Unassessed						8	8
Total	12	40	126	541	634	13	1,366
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 3,225			Ω = 5.03

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Jersey has:

Jersey articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA		1					1
GA		2	1	4			7
B	2	2	11	14			29
C	1	12	27	38		1	79
Start	2	17	97	261		2	379
Stub	1	6	45	264		3	319
List		4	12	28	1		45
Disambig					1		1
NA		1	2	17	727		747
Assessed	6	45	195	626	729	6	1,607
Unassessed				1	1	3	5
Total	6	45	195	627	730	9	1,612
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 4,226			Ω = 5.19

How can I change the Channel Islands (AKA Guernsey) project to produce a Quality and Importance result like the one for Jersey? All the Channel Islands articles have class and importance parameters. The talk page line {{WikiProject Channel Islands |class=C |importance=Top }} is an example from the Guernsey article.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 02:24, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't have time now (late for work). I think these categories may be relevant: Category:Channel Islands articles by quality; Category:Channel Islands-related articles by importance; Category:Channel Islands-related articles by quality‎; Category:Jersey articles by importance; Category:Jersey articles by quality. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:57, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

@Dthomsen8: See Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot#Setting up for the bot section 1.1 --Bamyers99 (talk) 14:46, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Back from work now. Just as I suspected: a missing category, Category:Channel Islands articles by importance. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:06, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Let's see if these edits make a difference. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:01, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the above is exactly what I want. Thank you.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 15:17, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikiproject Ancient Egypt

How come Wiki Project Ancient Egypt is not on this page ? Shouldn't it be listed in the history section, or am I missunderstanding the classification ? The homepage of the project is here. Iry-Hor (talk) 07:38, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

@Iry-Hor: By "this page", do you mean Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/History and society, or something else? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:49, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Redrose64 Yes, sorry I thought the talk page was only attached to this one. If the project shouldn't be listed in History and society, do you know where is it listed ? Iry-Hor (talk) 10:03, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/History and society is manually maintained. The absence of WikiProject Ancient Egypt from that page merely means that nobody has added it yet, so WP:BEBOLD. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:29, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes! That is a great news, I thought it was bot-based, I am glad to add the Ancient Egypt project to the list. Cheers !Iry-Hor (talk) 13:33, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Violation of Q6

I notice it reads: Q6: Who gets to decide whether a WikiProject is permitted to tag an article? A6: That is the exclusive right of the participants of the WikiProject. Editors at an article may neither force the group to tag an article nor refuse to permit them to tag an article. See WP:PROJGUIDE#OWN.

An editor not part of a Wikiproject decided to change the template [1] and after getting reverted made a post on a talk page [2] asking other editors to "keep an eye on this." They went and edit warred to keep the change there. Do they have the right to change the template of a Wikiproject they are not part of and keep complaining about? Can they tell people who participate in it that they are required to state they say the AFD on the Wikiproject's list? Dream Focus 18:37, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Dream Focus: I don't see the connection. This edit is not WikiProject tagging; compare this edit which is WikiProject tagging. Now, I'm not a member of WikiProject Typography (and have never claimed to be), but to me, a person who has designed a typeface that has been in continuous use for over 100 years on one of the world's busiest transport systems deserves to be tagged for that WikiProject; however, if one of their members reverts me, I shan't complain - I shall accept it and move on. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:30, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

• This attempt at forum-shopping grows out of Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron#Accusations of canvassing placed in code of conduct template which, in turn, grows out of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Young Pioneer Tours. Oh, and that unnamed editor is yours truly. Perhaps I can save us some time by pointing out that I did not tag an article. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:17, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

  Its not forum shopping, I was curious if a rule was violated. Reading more carefully I see the current rules are for tagging the talk pages of articles, not the project pages for the wikiproject themselves apparently. We need a rule for this also. So this is the right place to discuss adding a rule for that. Insisting that everyone in a Wikiproject announces at an AFD that they got there from the Wikiproject's list, is ridiculous, and no way anyone is going to actually do that. Dream Focus 23:35, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

• It says at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Role_of_the_WikiProject_Council I can bring disputes to the Wikiproject council. So please look at the situation and tell me if he has the right to add that nonsense on one Wikiproject he doesn't like, and can anyone add the same requirement to other Wikiprojects as well? Dream Focus 23:38, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

It's probably not worth my time to point this out, but: [3]. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:05, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

The dispute over the "code of conduct" that you linked isn't what we're talking about in the FAQ. What we're talking about in the FAQ is e.g., the editor who was removing WikiProject banners from Talk:Gun violence in the United States and related articles, apparently because he doesn't think that either law or health are relevant to the subject, even though it represents about 8% of violent crimes (which sounds kind of like a legal issue...) and 35,000 deaths each year (which sounds kind of like a health issue...). This kind of tagging question comes up periodically, but the right to express your group's interest in an article by tagging it does not mean that you get total control over the content of every template your group writes or uses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:01, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I would like you to clarify something. In this comment[4] you wrote "The only thing that matters is whether the editors in a particular group actually want to support a given article." So any Wikiproject -- even one with one member -- can add any article to the Wikiproject, no matter how unrelated? I could create WikiProject:Whig party and tag Commodore 64 as being part of my Wikiproject? Could I add all 6,820,940 Wikipedia articles? Or are there any limitations? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:47, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Many WikiProjects have overlapping scope, and although the boundaries on a map are clearly defined, those of a WikiProject are not. For example, WP:SHIPS prefer that only larger vessels are tagged, so they have drawn a line at 100 tons and 100 feet length (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Project Scope), but it is flexible; moreover, if another WikiProject decides that vessels of 50 to 250 tons are within its scope, WP:SHIPS cannot say "hoy, those are ours, hands off".

There was a case five or six years ago, when Kumioko was at their height, that the members of one of the WikiProjects for a particular state in New England (I forget which) were objecting to their state's WikiProject banner being removed from various talk pages and {{WikiProject United States}} being added in its place, albeit with the appropriate state-specific param (one of |CT=yes |ME=yes |NY=yes etc.) being set. That WikiProject member (quite rightly imo) asserted that Kumioko could not unilaterally decide to remove the state's banner. But the main problem was that the state WikiProject member objected to {{WikiProject United States}} being used in addition for things of purely local significance. IIRC it was eventually agreed that for things of national relevance, such as an interstate highway, both {{WikiProject United States}} and the banners of each state traversed would be appropriate, but for a school, only the state's banner should be used. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:27, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Guy, the short answer is "Yes, absolutely: Any WikiProject can add any article, no matter how unrelated." (A "WikiProject" with a single member isn't actually a WikiProject. WikiProjects are defined as social groups, so theoretically you have to have at least two people.) This is explicitly documented in the guideline: "WikiProjects are allowed to have strange, arbitrary, or unpredictable scopes ("Tulips, except for my least favorite species, plus my favorite photo software")". We encourage natural scopes, because we think it's good for recruiting and retention in the group, but we can't actually force people to care (or not care) about articles that they don't choose to support.

The big thing to think about here is that a WikiProject is not a subject area. It's a group of people. Like any individual WP:VOLUNTEER, groups of people are allowed to work on whatever they want. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry if it seems like I am asking the same question twice, but I am having trouble believing that I am understanding the "no limits at all" answer I am getting, so please bear with me for one final clarification request. This will be the last one.

I an not asking whether there are limitations on what a Wikiproject works on. I am asking specifically whether there are limitations on Wikiproject banners, tags, or categories being added to articles. Again, I don't care about "adding an article" in such a way that the addition is only visible on the Wikiproject page. All I care about is whether the addition is visible to someone reading the article or article talk page (for examples of the places I am talking about look at the six places where the phrase "WikiProject Council" is shown in the margins of this talk page).

If indeed there are no limits, then that implies that I can get together with another person, form two wikiprojects titled "Wikiproject white people are superior to minorities" and "Wikiproject tell your kids it is OK to drink bleach" and add banners, categories, etc. expressing those views to thousands of completely unrelated pages. Of course we all know that if I actually tried this I would be stopped, but I can see how the "no limits" rule can be abused in more subtle ways. So please, one last time, confirm for me that there really are no limits, so that I can write up an RfC and attempt to get some reasonable limits added. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:47, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not a regular at this talk page, but I kind of got drawn into this discussion. My guess is that the "limit" would pretty much boil down to "does it contribute positively to Wikipedia content?" Thus, the two hypotheticals that you just posed would fail, but there is plenty of freedom for editors to come up with creative and helpful ideas. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:55, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

If you tried to create those, they'd be MFDd so quick for being inflammatory, not because you were being pointy. Would you like to try more realistic examples? How about actual examples where this is an issue (and judged as such without dispute)? You won't see support in an RFC without the latter. --Izno (talk) 02:59, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

[A] No, I will not create more realistic examples. If I did, the conversation would be hijacked by those who support/oppose the specific examples. If there really are no limits, any example will do.

[B] By saying that "If you tried to create those, they'd be MFDd so quick for being inflammatory" you appear to be saying that there are limits. But WhatamIdoing (and the language of Q6) says that there are no limits of any kind. Which is true? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:10, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject/Inappropriate projects. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:31, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Too much gynocentrism in WikiProjects

This concerns the page Wikipedia:WikiProject. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:21, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

I've noticed someone(s) here likes to really push female oriented WikiProjects apparently ahead of all others, which is by no means an appropriate thing to be doing. There's a lot more WikiProjects specifically about women than compared to, say, African Americans, or any other minority for that matter. Both examples of WikiProjects given on this page are female-centric, and I think this is overkill. Therefore, I've changed these areas to something that is much more universal to all people (ie, human rights). Alialiac (talk) 01:02, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Related read Wikipedia:Systemic bias.--Moxy (talk) 02:44, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

@Alialiac: So, I ended up reverting one of your two edits, and the reason is largely technical. By changing both example texts to the same example ("Human rights"), you effectively removed an example, when there's clear value in giving multiple different examples. I think the change in the lead paragraph from "women's history" to "human rights" is a good one, that edit makes a lot of sense to me. But with that change made, there's no reason to change the placeholder text in the search box, of all things, to "Human rights" again. Not unless your goal is to stamp out all mention of women on the page, which is hardly any more defensible as a correction than the perceived "gynocentrism" it's supposedly addressing. -- FeRD_NYC (talk) 14:35, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

That's fine. Although, I don't understand this idea of stamping out all mention of women. At first it was only women-related pages that were given as examples, everything else was stamped out. There's no mention of blacks, natives, gays, Jews, etc, etc either, and I don't see why there should be any more concern about having to mention women-related pages over any of those other subject areas. But I do see your point about giving multiple examples, and the page as it is now is fine. Alialiac (talk) 10:33, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject assignment and assessment bot proposal

There is a proposal for a new bot to automatically add WikiProjects and access article quality at Wikipedia:Bot requests/AutoAssessBot. --Bamyers99 (talk) 14:25, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Sending messages to 'Active Subject-Area Editors'

What would be the best way of doing this? I've been thinking that for some WikiProjects there may be many editors that are interested but just don't know about the projects. For example I'd like to send a message to the 'Active Subject-Area Editors' on here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Ukraine. This is because there are obviously many members who edit based on Ukraine but there are no active WikiProject contributors. – Craig Davison (talk) 12:11, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Project Roll Call

It appears that there hasn't been a lot of project management/stewardship at WP:Children's Literature, but I know there are several other editors who are doing work on these pages and I would like to at least see if I can put together a current membership list. Is there any sort of tool that would let me message members for a roll call or would I have to do a talk page edit for each listed member? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:44, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Children's literature should give you the list. You can probably find a mass message sender to help you contact them. --Izno (talk) 02:31, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks @Izno: the mass messenger sender was the piece I was missing. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:41, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: I've actually been looking for something like this (see section above). I think only way possible is with AWB template on talk pages – Craig Davison (talk) 12:45, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of Wikipedia:WikiProject Parenting for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Wikipedia:WikiProject Parenting is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Parenting until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the article.. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:35, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Volkswagen Group

I discovered this thing, WP:WikiProject Volkswagen Group / {{User WikiProject Volkswagen Group}} / Category:WikiProject Volkswagen Group members -- it only has one member, no talk page, no project banner, no category, no activity since mid-2016 -- 70.51.203.56 (talk) 08:30, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Participant Lists and Measures of Activity

Hi! At WP:PHARM, we've had some discussion about how to best frame the project's participation list for the purposes of editor retention. Currently, the paradigm we have is split into two categories: "active" and "inactive." Inactivity is defined in a tiered system: at least 6 months without project-specific edits, "reasonably active" on Wikipedia but no project-specific edits for at least 3 months, "extremely active" on Wikipedia (>1000 edits in past month) but no project-specific edits for at least 1 month. Editors moved from active to inactive are to be notified on their talk page, and may add themselves back to the active list, as laid out on the participation page.

I was curious about getting feedback from other projects. What are your thoughts on this system? Do you think it is demotivating to be declared "inactive" based on this system, or do you think that editors may be spurred to action by an inactivity notice? How should an inactivity notice be formulated? Thank you in advance for your input! ―Biochemistry🙴❤ 23:49, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

@Biochemistry&Love: There is a bot-maintained participation list for most WikiProjects. Here is Pharmacology's. --Izno (talk) 01:38, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   10:55, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Clarify Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Advice pages

Add:

As with all essays, contents of WikiProject advice pages that contradict widespread consensus belong in the user namespace.

Thoughts? 12.86.159.170 (talk) 23:23, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I would say yes....but most projects get this point and improve project pages to reflect the norms. That said there is always exceptions even in P and G like WP:MOVIEPLOTS says no sources needed and editor OR is the norm.--Moxy (talk) 00:01, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done JaimeG14 (talk) 20:31, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposed name change of WikiProject Scuba Diving

See discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scuba diving#Proposal to rename the project to WikiProject Underwater diving:

If anyone has an opinion on this please comment on the project talk page linked above. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:34, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Bow Wow Wow

Not an issue for WikiProject Council. Referred elsewhere.

I've recently done a lot of work on Bow Wow Wow articles. While editing Annabella Lwin's article, I added the Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe cover used for the album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy!, and it was removed, citing Fair use issues.

To me, this isn't a violation of fair use. I'm sticking with the subject matter of the band, and the controversy this cover caused. Malcolm McLaren caused controversy by having a fourteen year old girl photographed nude for the cover of her album. Why wouldn't that image be in that 14 year old girl's article?

Follow up question: There are several Bow Wow Wow albums that weren't significant enough to merit their own articles. Would it be a violation of fair use to upload these images for inclusion in the band's article? Again, Perhaps an image next to the paragraph where the album is referenced. Johnny Spasm (talk) 20:22, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

This is not a good place to get an answer on a copyright issue, as hardly anyone seems active here. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:37, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, can you tell me where I would go for an answer to this question? Johnny Spasm (talk) 21:21, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

WP:MCQ — JJMC89 (T·C) 02:33, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@Johnny Spasm: Yes, WP:MCQ is the place - this page is not a help desk, but is for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:WikiProject Council (the general help desk is WP:HD). But one thing that the MCQ people will ask is: did you satisfy all ten of the criteria at WP:NFCCP, including all of the subcriteria? If not, fair use cannot be claimed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:36, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I posted there if anyone in this discussion cares to comment. Johnny Spasm (talk) 16:36, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Category:Bplus-Class articles has been nominated for discussion

Category:Bplus-Class articles, which is within the scope of this wikiproject, has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:30, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Making WikiProject Education's Status Inactive

As Per WikiProject Council, The Definition of a Inactive WikiProject is defined as follows "To qualify as "inactive", a project page should have had no directly project-related activity for at least three months. Comments from outside parties left on talk pages without response would not qualify as activity by this definition."

Following this WikiProject Education's Project pages have not received any substantial project related activity in the past three months.

Should this now be marked inactive? Nolan Perry ^{Yell at me!} 22:45, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Given the lack of response, I would say "yes". I think if projects are not obviously having several people on the go at once, they should be marked as inactive; the projects are still useful for classification and assessment of articles, but if nobody's co-ordinating the whole topic like MILHIST, having it inactive is at least an honest assessment. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:30, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Los Angeles area task force

I need some help in cleaning up a move from "Los Angeles task force" to "Los Angeles area task force." Try this link: Wikipedia:WikiProject California/Los Angeles area task force. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 14:34, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Los Angeles area task force and WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:11, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Timeline Tracer - not active?

Wikipedia:WikiProject Timeline Tracer is tagged as possibly inactive, but marked as "yes" on the list in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/History and society page. I am new to this, but what I have seen is that there is a distinction between "This WikiProject is defunct" tag and "This WikiProject is believed to be inactive" tag. So I am unsure if it is time or not to mark this project as a "no" in the Active column within the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/History and society page. Thanks. (talk) user:Al83tito 05:55, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

The banner template (to which I have added documentation) is used on fewer than 50 article talk pages. Of these, only three (Jacques Benveniste, Ralph Ignatowski, Lauri Lehtinen) are biographies, which surprises me given that the WikiProject covers claims to lineage and proof of legitimacy - I would have expected a few of the European historical figures to be covered, particularly those involved in (or whose deaths caused) wars of succession. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:19, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 12

Newsletter • August 2018

This month: WikiProject X: The resumption

Work has resumed on WikiProject X and CollaborationKit, backed by a successfully funded Project Grant. For more information on the current status and planned work, please see this month's issue of the newsletter!

-— Isarra ༆ 22:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Wiki-bot for dead links and link update verification

Hi guys, I might be on the wrong page here, but I wonder if there is any bot the scans the wikipages for links and check if they change or die. In particular I am thinking about external links like references. It is quite common that these are outdated. Several actions could be taken; alert the wiki-author, cache a copy of the link until page has been updated. Just change the wiki entry and state the the link has been changed or died. Is this something of interest to the community?

Ravn (talk) 16:12, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure we have a bot for that, and I know we have User:InternetArchiveBot already to fix the problem as best we can. --Izno (talk) 18:26, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@SweRavn: This is not really a WikiProject Council issue (see here for what the WikiProject Council does), your question falls within the purview of WP:BOTREQ. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:09, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Philippine Roads

I've just found Template:WikiProject Philippine Roads which is a mess. I've left a note at the talk page of its creator, HueMan1 (talk · contribs). I cannot find evidence that it was proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:51, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Topicons

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere. This Project was submitted to MFD: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Topicons. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 01:51, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Could someone on the council have a look at the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 26#Possible rules for top icons? and the project itself. Despite the claim that "the need for organisation led to 32 people joining the project within 2 days of its being founded", there appear to be only two members one of whom is active and trying to lay down regulations. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:50, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

For some background, there are no incoming links other than from the userpage of the driveby (one mainspace edit) editor who created the project, nobody other than the project's sole member has ever commented on the talkpage, the founder has already received strongly-worded advice about their messing about with back-end functions, and to the best of my knowledge (and I speak as someone who was there for the original dispute which led to the Userbox migration) nobody has ever raised any kind of concern that the handful of topicon templates (there are only about 50 in total, and that includes the stack created in the past few days by the project's sole member) need any kind of co-ordinating authority. The creator's userpage says he's Portuguese, so I thought potentially this was an established project on pt.wiki which had been translated across and the "32 editors" claim was a translation that hadn't yet been deleted, but pt:Especial:Contribuições/Luístro shows that this is also a brand new editor there. ‑ Iridescent 17:17, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

I should've went here in the first place to discuss the issue. funplussmart (talk) 18:37, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

If there is some need for governance of top icon templates, perhaps the discussion and development would be best suited to Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes, since they already handle userspace templates. You could have a "top icons task force" or something. Then after discussing it locally and gaining consensus, you could try proposing at the village pump again. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 02:05, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Main page

What's the problem with main page (Categories and other projects section)? Eurohunter (talk) 12:35, 8 October 2018

It's probably the {{stack}} template. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:09, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry I should say it's probably caused by this template in first place. I don't know what to do with it. Eurohunter (talk) 22:15, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

DELSORT

Comments please, on Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 26#Semi-automate DELSORT based on Project tags. Thanks, Cabayi (talk) 14:05, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:33, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

MFD of WikiProject Warner

Proposed deletion of newly-created project which was not proposed at WP:COUNCIL: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/WikiProject Warner. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:57, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

HELP WANTED

For a number of years we have been experiencing a steady decline in the number of administrators as a result of attrition and a declining number of editors willing to consider adminship. Things have reached a point where we are starting to experience chronic backlogs in important areas of the project including noticeboards, requests for closure, SPI, CSD & etc. If you are an experienced editor with around two years (or more) of tenure, 10k edits give or take and no record of seriously disruptive behavior, please consider if you might be willing to help out the community by becoming an administrator. The community can only function as well as we all are willing to participate. If you are interested start by reading WP:MOP and WP:RFAADVICE. Then go to WP:ORCP and open a discussion. Over the next few days experienced editors will take a look at your record and let you know what they think your chances are of passing RfA (the three most terrifying letters on Wikipedia) as well as provide you with feedback on areas that might be of concern and how to prepare yourself. You can find a list of experienced editors who may be willing to nominate you here. Finally, I may not have this page on my watchlist, so if you want to reply to me directly please ping me. Thank you and happy editing... -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:41, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I have yet to see a convincing reason why anyone should go though the hell of an RfA in order to do a thankless, tedious job that will make you a target for even more abuse. I say let the number of admins decline until we have no choice but to fix our broken system for choosing administrators. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:59, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Agree with Guy Macon ..... those that know the system best are going to avoid adminship. Need to break up some of the processes... give some Old-Timers the power to delete pages Etc.. Those of us that write policies and guidelines think it's best to avoid being an administrator to avoid conflict of interest. --Moxy (talk) 22:05, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with User:Ad Orientem, but if a Wikipedian is having fun creating or editing articles, what is the up side for him or her to be an Admin? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 17:44, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

By the way, is that typo in the graphic SUPPOSED to be there? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 17:46, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Two technical questions

1) There was a change from simply using wikiproject templates at article talk pages to a new extension which involves adding one special markup line to all these templates. This allowed to view new pages for this wikiproject and their class on a special page. What is the name of this extension?

2) Belonging of a page to categories is shown at the end of the text. Belonging of a page to WikiProjects could also be indicated in a similar way. (Like the banners at the top of the talk page of the article, but a more compact version. For example,

Categories: Stock car racing; Sports originating in the United States

WikiProjects (what's this?): Motorsport, NASCAR, Appalachia

Here "WikiProjects (what's this?): " could be written as "WikiProjects: " instead as a possibility.

Has this been considered before?

--Gryllida (talk) 20:27, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

The "Categories:" list is generated by the MediaWiki software, it is usually placed at the bottom of pages but with some skins this differs. For example, Cologne Blue puts the category list at top right; Timeless has it in the left margin; but Minerva Neue has no category list at all.

To change the behaviour of the cat list - or even add something after it - would require a change request at phab:. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:57, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Redrose64. I guess the first thing is that someone other than me needs to want the change. :) Otherwise it may have low possibility of implementation.

Do you know anything about question 1?

Do you (or anyone) know how to programmatically check whether a particular string ('Physics') is a name of a valid WikiProject? Gryllida (talk) 11:10, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that (1) was ever implemented. I never saw a working demonstration of how it would be done.

Regarding your last q: I wish there was. There are people out there who add invalid WikiProject tags to talk pages. They are either using a script which has an out-of-date list of WikiProjects, or they are simply guessing at the names. I have asked several of these people how they get the names of the WikiProjects that they use, and none of them can provide a satisfactory explanation. The most recent response that I received was along the lines of "there is a page named Wikipedia:WikiProject Foo so there must also be a template named Template:WikiProject Foo. If that template doesn't exist, you should have created it instead of telling me that I made a bad edit". I can only conclude that all of these people are simply too lazy to check that templates exist before adding them, or too lazy to check that their edits don't leave a redlink; either way they expect somebody else (me) to clean up the mess that they leave. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:27, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh dear, having a wikiproject and not having a template for it with the same name is a new kind of mess that I have not encountered before. I think I found it at Special:PageAssessments Gryllida (talk) 01:31, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 13

Newsletter • December 2018

This month: A general update.

The current status of the project is as follows:

• Progress of the project has been generally delayed since September due to development issues (more bitrot than expected, some of the code just being genuinely confusing, etc) and personal injury (I suffered a concussion in October and was out of commission for almost two months as a result).
• I currently expect to be putting out a proper call for CollaborationKit pilots in January/February, with estimated deployment in February/March if things don't go horribly wrong (they will, though, don't worry). As a part of that, I will properly update the page and send out announcement and reach out to all projects already signed up as pilots for WikiProject X in general, at which point those (still) interested can volunteer specifically to test the CollaborationKit extension.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Pilots was originally created for the first WikiProject X prototype, and given this is where the project has since gone, it's only logical to continue to use it. While I haven't yet updated the page to properly reflect this:
  • If you want to add your project to this page now, feel free. Just bear in mind that more information what to actually expect will be added later/included in the announcement, because by then I will have a much better idea myself.
• Until then, you can find me in my corner working on making the CollaborationKit code do what we want and not just what we told it, per the workboard.

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 22:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Change from a Task force to a Project

Hi. I propose changing WP:WikiProject California/Los Angeles area task force from a Task Force to a Project, as is the case with WP:WikiProject New York City. The Los Angeles area is simply too big to be a part of the California Project. How would I do this? Yours, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 21:59, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

The physical size of the area doesn't matter. What matters is that you have people who can support a full project. Do you have such a list of people? Do they want to make it a WikiProject? --Izno (talk) 22:11, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

That's a good point, Izno, and the answer is "No, not yet." So I will get busy seeking to find out whether there are enough interested people to switch from a task force to a project. I'm pretty much familiar with acceptable ways to do that kind of surveying. Thanks for the comment. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 20:33, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Item removed from this page

Your attention is called to the deletion made on this page at [5]), which seems to violate the stricture “The basic rule—with exceptions outlined below—is to not edit or delete others' posts without their permission” (Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Editing others' comments). I believe the deletion should be reverted. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 06:23, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

@BeenAroundAWhile: If you hang around Category:Wikipedia semi-protected edit requests (or one of the other four similar subcategories of Category:Wikipedia edit requests) for long enough, you'll realise that a lot of so-called "edit requests" are not requests at all, but merely cases where an IP (or registered but unconfirmed user) has gone to a semi-protected page, clicked "View source", seen this message, clicked Submit an edit request, and been presented with a form to fill in (check out Template:Submit an edit request/preload in edit mode). Then they got fazed by that, and instead of simply backing out, they clicked Publish changes. In short: they saw an unfamiliar button, wondered "what does this do?", and clicked it. If you ask them to submit more information, they never come back with any. Not once, in the seven years that I've been covering protected edit requests.

Some years ago we agreed that when an edit request consists only of a heading and a signature, we would simply remove the request rather than replying to it. If the requests were left, a talk page would quickly fill up with these drive-by empty requests, drowning out the real discussions. Their presence can also encourage the submission of other empty requests. The WP:EPH utility allows for the removal of an edit request. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:58, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

This edit is typical. What are we to make of it, other than a test edit? WP:TPO#Off-topic posts says "It is common to simply delete gibberish, test edits ..." and this is plainly applicable in this case. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:25, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@BeenAroundAWhile: Some more examples, all from earlier today: Wikipedia talk:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License (reverted by Mr. Stradivarius); Talk:Login (reverted by DexDor); and Template talk:Multiple issues (reverted by Cabayi), so I'm not the only one removing blank edit requests. Do you think that all of those should have been left for the forseeable future? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:50, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

BeenAroundAWhile If you're going to cite the guideline, then don't just cherry pick. It continues...

• Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning - I think you'd have a hard time making the case that an edit request without content is materially different to an edit request that isn't there.
• "Cautiously editing or removing another editor's comments is sometimes allowed, but normally you should stop if there is any objection." - Have any of the editors whose empty been removed made any objection?

Personally I feel that quietly removing empty requests without any fuss is more courteous and less WP:BITEy than permanently recording a new user's accidental first mis-steps on the wiki.

-- Cabayi (talk) 21:16, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry that somebody used the phrase "cherry pick" in a comment above. A mistake is not "cherry picking," which implies volition. It is simply a mistake. I refer everybody to Wikipedia:Civility. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 20:39, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Naming convention

I know there was an RfC not too far back (can't find the link) proposing a full naming standardization of every WikiProject's page "tree", and it was rightly rejected, for being too WP:CREEPy and for other reasons. But I think there is value in having every project top page begin with "Wikipedia:WikiProject _____", as is almost universally standard already, which will allow us more easily (without having to navigate) to distinguish between WikiProjects and other content in the Wikipedia: namespace (such as essays), and will facilitate automated listbuilding/querying/searching of the projects. Can I get a sense of support vs. neutral vs. oppose for this? UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:22, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Do you know of any WikiProjects that aren't? I haven't seen one. --Izno (talk) 18:47, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I am thinking of the ones listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Directory/All that do not follow the convention, such as Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron, Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit, or Wikipedia:HTML 5. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:52, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Women writers

It doesn't appear that "Women writers articles by quality and importance" table has updated in a while. What is the process to get it updated? JL-Bot appears to only update recognized content on the page, e.g. # of Featured Articles, etc. Thanks. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:14, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Same problem at Project New Zealand. The bot seems to be offline and some editors are trying to fix it. This link was of some help: [6]. But I have no idea what is going on. (Dushan Jugum (talk) 06:15, 13 January 2019 (UTC))

Same question about Jersey and London.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 02:44, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Thoughts for Wikipedia:WikiProject Water

Hello. I thought it would make sense to get an audience from here as well. Please see this thread for discussions on a possible merger of the below three projects:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Water (created on 14 June 2005)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country (created on 24 November 2007)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Sanitation (created on 3 December 2014)

Thanks, Rehman 14:04, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Attention WikiProjects

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Attention WikiProjects. We are designing a bot script to perform a few article assessment–related tasks and would appreciate your feedback. Qzekrom (talk) 08:48, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation 2019

The Wikimedia Foundation has invited the various Wikimedia communities, including the English Wikipedia, to participate in a consultation on improving communication methods within the Wikimedia projects. As such, a request for comment has been created at Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019. All users are invited to express their views and to add new topics for discussion. Individual WikiProjects may also consider creating their own requests for comment; instructions are at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Participant group sign-up. (To keep discussion in one place, please don't reply to this comment.) Jc86035 (talk) 14:59, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Social sciences WikiProject listings

I just noticed that the economics, business and finance WikiProjects are listed under Science, technology and engineering while the rest of the social sciences are listed only at History and society. I get that this might have been accidental, but listing only econ as a science (along with two fields that aren't sciences) is unfair to the other social sciences, including sociology and linguistics. It makes sense to keep all of the social sciences under History and society because there are so many of them and the boundaries between humanities and social sciences are fuzzy, but since some users will go to the sci+tech directory looking for the social sciences (like I just tried to do), we should figure out a way to list them consistently. Qzekrom (talk) 05:56, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Feel free to add cross-references. I don't see a need right now to move things around. --Izno (talk) 14:16, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

New WikiProject

Hello, I need help at the Paramore WikiProject Here. Thanks a lot! Goveganplease (talk) 00:13, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

@Goveganplease: Have you considered making it a subproject or task force of WikiProject Alternative music? Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 19:29, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

New template

Hi all! I have created a new template that you can use to link to WikiProject pages at {{WikiProject link}} (or {{proj}} for short), analogous to {{User link}}. For example, to link to WikiProject Biography, you can type {{proj|Biography}}, which produces WikiProject Biography. Please use this template and leave feedback on the template talk page. Also, feel free to modify or extend the template as long as you keep the basic interface the same. Thanks! Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 03:25, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

@Qzekrom: We already have {{wplink}} with many features and variants but Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Wplink-base only shows three uses in total. I suggest redirecting {{WikiProject link}} to {{wplink}}. It's confusing that they are not the same. All wplink variants currently include a talk page link. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:37, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: I want a version without the talk page or other links, but thanks for the pointer! Maybe the two templates can be merged. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 03:45, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Redirects of alternative WikiProject names

Do we keep alternative names of WikiProjects or do we delete them? I'm not sure if they should exist. Mitchumch (talk) 15:07, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Mitchumch: What do you mean by "alternative names"? The main page for a significant WikiProject usually has many redirects but they are not considered alternative names. See e.g. [7] for redirects to Wikipedia:WikiProject Civil Rights Movement. A redirect can be nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion but a good reason is needed, better than just saying it isn't necessary. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:58, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I not familiar with policy in regards to WikiProject redirects. I tried to find some mention about it, but couldn't find anything. If it's okay, then I'll let it be. One more question. I noticed that talk pages under a redirect WikiProject don't appear in the "What's linked here" page. Am I missing something? Mitchumch (talk) 16:04, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Mitchumch: Always post an example when you have a specific problem. I guess the talk page is not a redirect or you are not using "What links here" on the target of the redirect. "Redirect" is a property between two specific page names. If a talk page is a redirect then the target is usually another talk page. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:35, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

The Talk:W. Lester Banks page had two templates for Wikipedia:WikiProject Civil Rights Movement. I looked at the "What links here" page for the WikiProject American civil rights movement, but the W. Lester Banks talk page wasn't listed there. I couldn't understand why it didn't display. Mitchumch (talk) 16:55, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Mitchumch: Use of the redirect Template:WikiProject American civil rights movement on a page only means the page shows up in What links here for the redirecting template: Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:WikiProject American civil rights movement. A page using Template:WikiProject American civil rights movement does not link to Wikipedia:WikiProject American civil rights movement so it does not show up at Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia:WikiProject American civil rights movement. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:29, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

That clarified things. It didn't occur to me to use "template" instead of "wikipedia". Thank you. Mitchumch (talk) 17:35, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter and Mitchumch: Not entirely true. Links to the template show in only one list, but transclusions show in both. If you look at the top of Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:WikiProject American civil rights movement there is Talk:Muhammad Ali; now try the "Hide transclusions" link, and it is removed from the list. Next, look at the seventh entry in Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:WikiProject Civil Rights Movement where you will again find Talk:Muhammad Ali; now try the "Hide transclusions" link, and it remains in the list. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:39, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

It remains in the list because there is both a transclusion and a (non-displayed) link caused by the transclusion. Special:ExpandTemplates shows the result of {{WikiProject American civil rights movement}} includes this code: <div class="plainlinks hlist navbar mini" style="float:right; clear:right; margin:-1em 0.1em; display:none;"><ul><li class="nv-view">[[Template:WikiProject Civil Rights Movement|<abbr title="View this template">v</abbr>]]</li><li class="nv-talk">[[Template talk:WikiProject Civil Rights Movement|<abbr title="Discuss this template">t</abbr>]]</li><li class="nv-edit">[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:WikiProject_Civil_Rights_Movement&action=edit<abbr title="Edit this template">e</abbr>]</li></ul></div>. There is a wikilink "v" to Template:WikiProject Civil Rights Movement. It's not displayed due to display:none but it still causes a WhatLinksHere entry. If it had linked to the redirect Template:WikiProject American civil rights movement then it would also have caused a WhatLinksHere entry there. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:35, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Those links are precisely why I did this back in July 2014. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:08, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi!

Megrelian Wikipedia, Abkhazian Wikipedia... I will write more :) --ჯეო (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Related changes

How I can extend related changes page to include changes in all categories from the main category? Currently it shows only edits from the main category. Eurohunter (talk) 16:35, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: I don't see why this a WT:COUNCIL matter. Have you asked at WP:HD? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:00, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@Redrose64: It's WP thing. I asked somewhere in Village Pump but it was lost. Eurohunter (talk) 00:02, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:WikiProject Council. I don't see how your question is in any way related to WikiProjects; however, it is a question about how to use or edit Wikipedia, which is precisely the purpose of WP:HD. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:32, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@Redrose64: WP includes related changes pages. I will ask question there. Thanks. Eurohunter (talk) 20:37, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

WikiProjects and Portals

Hello, WikiProject Council (or interested parties),

You might be aware that there is a huge dispute about Wikipedia Portals right now, culminating in an arbitration committee request which is currently undecided. People either love 'em or hate 'em. The main thrust of those who oppose portals is that their purpose is unclear and there are no provisions for updating or maintaining them.

It was proposed in February on the Portal Guidelines page that WikiProjects make determinations or which portals stay or go, which ones need to be merged or expanded. If WikiProjects wanted to take responsibility for determining the fate of portals that are under the subjects they cover, it would resolve what is an impasse right now. Any thoughts about this? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:52, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Remove inactive and/or banned editors from lists of participants?

So, sometimes I'm surprised when I look at lists of WikiProject participants and sometimes see editors who haven't contributed in years still listed, or even users who have been banned. I wouldn't be upset if we took an active approach and start reviewing these lists to remove inactive and banned users, but at the same time, I can see how some projects might prefer to trim lists on their own. Thoughts? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:38, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

It's up to each WikiProject to maintain their own membership lists; for example, DavidCane (talk · contribs) does this once a year (usually in October) for WP:LT, see histories of Wikipedia:WikiProject London Transport/Members/Active and Wikipedia:WikiProject London Transport/Members/Dormant and Inactive. An unmaintained list may be a sign of low (or zero) activity. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:32, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:VG gave up and now refers to the automated one produced by automated process. --Izno (talk) 14:28, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Proposal for new WikiProject

I would like to start a new project WikiProject Mysticism, looking at mystics of different faith traditions. I shall be happy if this becomes a task force in related WikiProjects, such as WikiProject Religion or WikiProject Spirituality. Vorbee (talk) 08:02, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

@Vorbee: Please see WP:COUNCIL/P. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:40, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Research about WikiProjects

The next mw:Wikimedia Research/Showcase has two talks: "Group Membership and Contributions to Public Information Goods: The Case of WikiProject" and "Thanks for Stopping By: A Study of 'Thanks' Usage on Wikimedia". They'll begin on Wednesday, April 17, 2019, at 19:30 UTC (11:30 a.m. PDT). It will be recorded on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmb5LoJzOoE

This might be interesting to anyone who deals with groups or who uses the Thanks button. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:07, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Headbomb, this is built on the navbox template series, so it'll be invisible to more than half of our readers and a growing fraction of editors. Did you consider not making it a mobile-hostile navbox? (Please ping me.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, feel free to make a request at Template talk:Navbox or WP:VPT to have a mobile-friendly navbox class, because I have no idea what's involved with making it mobile-friendly. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject by most active

Hello, Is there an auto-generated list by most active WikiProjects? I remember being told that WP:WikiProject Women in Red was the most active at one time, but how do I check that? Thank you. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:03, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

If the top two aren't WP:MILHIST and WP:FOOTY, I'll be absolutely stunned. How would you measure "activity"—number of posts on the talkpage, or number of edits to articles in the project's remit? If the latter, then even utterly moribund projects like WikiProject United States, WikiProject Biography and WikiProject England will romp ahead just by virtue of having the broadest topic area. ‑ Iridescent 19:11, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

They aren't (but close! :), either by editor or 'participant' (where the former is editors involved on the project pages of interest and the latter is editors involved with any page under the scope). --Izno (talk) 20:32, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Assessment listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:Assessment. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Trialpears (talk) 21:37, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject Men nominated for deletion

Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Men. Leviv ich 15:39, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation 2019 – phase 2

The Wikimedia Foundation has invited the various Wikimedia communities, including the English Wikipedia, to participate in a consultation on improving communication methods within the Wikimedia projects.

Phase 2 of the consultation has now begun; as such, a request for comment has been created at Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 2. All users are invited to express their views. Individual WikiProjects, user groups and other communities may also consider creating their own requests for comment; instructions are at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Participant group sign-up. (To keep discussion in one place, please don't reply to this comment.) Jc86035 (talk) 14:48, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Tamil cinema

I have just created this Wikiproject. However, it is a very excruciating and straining process to complete the page. Will someone please help? Or is there a template I can copy and just change names? --Kailash29792 (talk) 15:37, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia:WikiProject Oshwah really be in the Wikiproject namespace?

Wikipedia:WikiProject Oshwah started out as an April Fool's Day joke, but has since evolved into a fan page/social site. Should this be moved somewhere else, perhaps to userspace, or even outright deleted per WP:NOT? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 20:57, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion delete it or at a bare minimum move it into Oshwah's userspace, although there is precedent for us turning a blind eye to individual editors having their own personal WikiProjects. ‑ Iridescent 21:09, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

To my knowledge, while Oshwah is aware of the site's existence, he was not involved in its creation or upkeep, so we'd have to ask him if he'd want to host it. - BilCat (talk) 21:16, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

@Oshwah: - BilCat (talk) 21:29, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

LOL... it doesn't matter to me. Do whatever you feel is the right thing to do. If you want to move it to my user space, have at it. ;-) You can throw it over to User:Oshwah/WikiProject Oshwah and it'll continue to sit there without my direct involvement but gather some smiles and some good laughs. :-) Cheers - ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:09, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Or your can just turn a blind eye... after all, it's just a humor page. We have lots of those in the Wikipedia space. :-P ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:11, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Also, wow.... LOL. I just now visited that page for the first time since I can remember. That's hilarious!! And all over my ridiculous and stupid hair... haha ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:13, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

No doubt it hilarious. I just wasn't sure the community wanted it in projectspace. - BilCat (talk) 22:36, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

I've removed the Wikiproject tag, and clarified in the Q&A that it's not a real Wikiproject. Well see what happens next. - BilCat (talk) 22:43, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 14

Newsletter • June 2019

Updates: I've been focusing largely on the development side of things, so we are a lot closer now to being ready to actually start discussing deploying it and testing it out here.

There's just a few things left that need to be resolved:

• A bunch of language support issues in particular, plus some other release blockers, such as the fact that currently there's no good way to find any hubs people do create.
• We also probably need some proper documentation and examples up to even reference if we want a meaningful discussion. We have the extension documentation and some test projects, but we probably need a bit more. Also I need to be able to even find the test projects! How can I possibly write reports about this stuff if I can't find any of it?!

Some other stuff that's happened in the meantime:

• Midpoint report is out for this round of the project, if you want to read in too much detail about all the problems I've been running into.
• WikiProject Molecular Biology have successfully set up using the old module system that CollaborationKit is intended to replace (eventually), and it even seems to work, so go them. Based on the issues they ran into, it looks like the members signup thing on that system has some of the same problems as we've been unable to resolve in CK, though, which is... interesting. (Need to change the content model to the right thing for the formwizard config to take. Ugh, content models.)

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 21:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Help with aspects of starting a new project?

Hi everybody. Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I've proposed a new project and I'm finding some of the things I'm meant to put together on the proposal page to be somewhat arcane. Where can I get some hands-on help?

Many thanks!

Cadar (talk) 14:56, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello @Cadar:: I am happy to help; I responded on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Climate Change to your specific query there. Please post any additional questions here or there and I will try to answer. The proposal is coming along nicely, thanks for your work on that. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:28, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks! Your help is most appreciated OK, so I'll direct all future questions to you on the talk page for the proposal.

Cadar (talk) 17:03, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

When and how is it OK to use newsletter delivery bots?

Quote: Newsletter delivery bots can help with delivering project newsletters to the project participants who have signed up. Are there any guidelines besides WP:COMMONSENSE on when is it OK to send a newsletter to the participants of a WikiProject? For example, since 7 June 2019 there have been a lot of notifications for userbox category discussions over at WT:UB, but it seems that most participants either do not watch the project's page, don't check their watchlist, or just don't care enough to participate. Would it be OK to send out a big newsletter advertising these discussions? What about inviting members to participate in one of its tasks? Do the newsletters contain information on how to unsubscribe? Are there any recommendations on how to format a newsletter? —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:08, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Converting a taskforce to a project

What happens to the "task force" page when the group upgrades to stand-alone project status? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:57, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've ever seen a need for such a thing. You can just redirect the task force page--the same as if a full project became a task force. --Izno (talk) 04:22, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

makes sense, thanksNewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 08:20, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Please advise on the importance of importance

Wisdom of experienced project space eds is sought, on the question of why bother doing importance assessment, and how to convert prior assessments when a child task force grows up into a standalone (daughter) project? Please add your thoughts to the thread here. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:41, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Myrtle Beach

I'm not sure what's typically done with abandoned WikiProjects, but Wikipedia:WikiProject Myrtle Beach is completely inactive and the project's page has just become a spam magnet. -- Ed (Edgar181) 18:15, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

@Edgar181: what is typically done is tagging it as inactive, which I just did. If the page is also a spam magnet, I would also suggest you request it be edit-protected. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:47, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I have indefinitely semi-protected to page to stop the ongoing addition of inappropriate external links, with a note that it can be unprotected if the WikiProject is ever reactivated. -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:40, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

If it becomes clear that the inactivity truly is permanent, you can send it to WP:MFD. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:55, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

My read of recent MfDs is: if there was ever any activity, the WikiProject is very unlikely to be deleted. YMMV, of course. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:11, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Inactive geographically-oriented WikiProjects, if they are well and truly inactive, can be merged to the nearest related WikiProject. In this case, you'd propose a merge to Wikipedia:WikiProject South Carolina. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Merging WikiProjects

Also asked at WP:Village_pump_(technical) and WT:WikiProject Merge

Hello, There's talk about possibly merging WP:MCB, WP:GEN, WP:BIOP and possibly WP:COMBIO (discussion). I've a few questions:

1. What's the most logical way to merge their talk page archives? Are there useful precedents?
2. What's the easiest way to merge the various talk page templates whilst retaining some sort of 'task force' tag similar to {{wikiproject medicine}}? Because of the overlapping scopes, many talk pages have have two or three of them.
3. If the projects, WP:MCB has the most equivalents in other languages. Is it logical to effectively merge into it and rename, or effectively tart a new one from scratch?
4. What other processes would been to be done to complete a merge? WP:WikiProject Cell Signaling was just sort of abandoned, and I'd be keen to avoid something similar.

Let me know if there's anything else I'm not thinking of! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:11, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I like the idea of merging Wikiprojects. I know of a few that could be merged. Also, merging multiple low-participation projects may make the resulting project more active. Unity and coordination will make Wikiproject system work. PrussianOwl (talk) 01:27, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

As a note for the record here, I've found the page with some relevant information on merging WikiProjects (with the option of turning the original projects into taskforces) at this link: WP:WikiProject_Council/Guide/Task_forces#Converting_existing_projects_to_task_forces. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 01:48, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

T.Shafee, I'd add that the most important thing is that everyone involved agree to a merge. It's no good trying to forcibly merge away some other group's WikiProject pages. If the other group is completely inactive, then of course nobody is there to object, but for anyone who is present, it needs to be purely voluntary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

It would have been helpful had the original poster used the full titles of these pages instead of the shorthand versions. Thanks for letting me vent. I will now click on them to see what they mean. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 03:52, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Having done that, I abstain. Yours, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 03:55, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Possible bot request

@DannyS712: I saw your offer to assist with automated tasks above. I'm curious, can you have bots do things like change uses of {{WikiProject Wikipedia Saves Public Art}} and {{WikiProject WSPA}} to {{WikiProject Public Art}}, and similar tasks? Seems like a minor request, since both redirect to the correct template, but I run across these all the time and I get tired of 'fixing' them manually? Just curious if you might someone I could ping for repeated tasks as such. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:17, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

@Another Believer: absolutely, though I would need to file a WP:BRFA for such a task first --DannyS712 (talk) 18:19, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

DannyS712, Sure, makes sense. I know nothing about the bot approval process, or even how bots work, but I sure say to myself 'it'd be easier if a bot could do this' often. Would you like me to suggest something more formal for you to consider? Are these sorts of tasks helpful enough for the trouble? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:21, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

@Another Believer: if they help you, I don't mind. --DannyS712 (talk) 18:22, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

DannyS712, Great, is this talk page the best place to submit WikiProject-related requests, or do you have another location in mind? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:23, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

@Another Believer: my talk page would probably be easier, if its just a request for me, since this page is heavily watched --DannyS712 (talk) 18:24, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! ---Another Believer _(Talk)

Bear in mind WP:COSMETICBOT and WP:NOTBROKEN. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:21, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Redrose64, Yeah, Danny mentioned, which I find a bit disappointing. I see avoiding redirects as general cleanup and would even be in favor of eliminating template redirects if they can be systematically phased out and declared unnecessary. Seeing "Wikipedia Saves Public Art" in markup across thousands of talk pages suggests there's still a project by this name. Regardless, I appreciate your comment here, good to know. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:25, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Recommendations on WikiProject invitation templates

Hello! I would like to create an invitation template for WP:SOCIALISM. I went through a lot of different invitation templates to see examples. Is there any particular set of examples that you can recommend? Any advice on wording? Thank you! --MarioGom (talk) 08:12, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

MarioGom I don't know if there's a standard invitation template, but I recently did a similar thing (going through invitation templates to get inspiration). I ended up creating Template:Mammals invite, largely modeled after Template:Accounting task force Invite. If you enable Twinkle, you can add custom welcome templates to the standard set, making it really easy to invite users to a specific project (3 clicks). Enwebb (talk) 16:22, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Enwebb Thanks! The wording in your template convinced me. So here's my shameless copy: Template:Socialism invite. --MarioGom (talk) 18:14, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Instructions for closing successful proposal

Hi Folks, Recenlty a proposal to create Wikiproject climate change succeeded by way of an agreement to convert an inactive task force (under WikiProject Environment) into a stand alone WikiProject. Hooray! The old and (until recently) inactive task force, and all of its subpages, has been moved to WP:WikiProject Climate change.

Meanwhile, back at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals we still have two legacy pages

• The 2019 proposal that started all this (now hatted as historical)
• The 2019 proposal's talk page (which is still "live")

QUESTION and OBSERVATION The WikiProject Guide seems to omit a section on the nuts and bolts of closing a proposal. Question, does the hatted 2019 proposal hang out where it is? Does it get moved to a subpage of the project? Something else? Same question for the talk page, noting that the threads at the talk page might make the most sense (in a WP:MULTI sort of way) if the talk page were folded into the talk page at the former task force/current project talk page.

We need some wikignome/clerkish advice on keeping house from the project experts. Thanks! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:40, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject Sculpture

Just FYI, a few editors have decided to make WikiProject Sculpture active, and I've updated the project page accordingly. Also, I've asked a question here re: charting the # of articles associated with the project. Anyone able to help? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 17:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Climate change task force to WikiProject: can a bot help us?

There is currently a proposal underway to transfer the climate change task force into a WikiProject (now under the inactive WikiProject Environment). There are loads of articles tagged to belong the the task force. Is any of the current bots able to move all of these assessments to a new WikiProject? If not, would it be feasible for some of our programmer heros to make such a bot without much effort? Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:10, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

@Femkemilene: Sure, I can do it with DannyS712 bot - just let me know what you want changed. --DannyS712 (talk) 18:12, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Awesome....NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:34, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

The WikiProject is online :). I think the following two things need to happen (correct me if that's wrong):

• A Template:WikiProject Climate change needs to be made.
• All those talk pages containing {{WikiProject Environment|other parameters|climate change=yes}} should have that replaced with the new template. As we didn't have a task-force specific importance, the WikiProject importance and assessment can simply be copied as the new parameters.

As I don't know how to either of these two tasks, help is immensely appreciated :). Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:57, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

FYI I have started a project sub page for experimenting. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:44, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

It's probably best to do that at Template:WikiProject Climate change/sandbox. The underlying {{WPBannerMeta}} code will behave much better if that is done, since it's not expecting to be used in Wikipedia: space. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:39, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Category Foo articles vs Category WikiProject Foo articles

I have a relevant question posted at WikiProject Categories. If you can shed light please comment in the thread at the other venue. Thanks NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:42, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 15

Newsletter • September 2019

A final update, for now:

The third grant-funded round of WikiProject X has been completed. Unfortunately, while this round has not resulted in a deployed product, I am not planning to resume working on the project for the foreseeable future. Please see the final report for more information.

Regards,

-— Isarra ༆ 19:24, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Interested in participating but not in creating a Wikiproject

I am interested to participate to Wikiproject:Management and Wikiproject:Standards or something similar. None of these Wikiprojects exists at the moment, but in case you would create one or both of them, please let me know and I definitely will participate, because I am collaborating in this fields on it.wikipedia and would like to do the same here. There are thousands of pages to create, especially regarding standards (e.g.: pages related to certification marks in the world, members of IAF, ISO and IEC standards, etc.) and I could suggest a lot of other activities to do in these Wikiprojects. Thank you. --Daniele Pugliesi (talk) 14:07, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@Daniele Pugliesi: will do, but those subjects currently fall under Wikipedia:WikiProject Business and Wikipedia:WikiProject Engineering, both of which would welcome your contributions I am sure. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:09, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@UnitedStatesian: Sorry to say the contrary, but Management is a wider and more diversified subject than simply Business (e.g. let think about Quality Management, Safety Management, Environmental Management, Energy Management, Time Management, Team Management, etc.), and Standards are not only related to Engineering (e.g.: let think to Certification procedures for products and services, Accreditation, Standards related to Management Systems, Mutual Recognition Agreements, etc.).

This means just a small part of "Management" is related to Business, while I agree a lot of standards are related to Engineering, but Engineering itself is not sufficient to understand what is a standard: it is necessary also to understand principles of national and international law, organization policies, etc.

I understand a lot of people are not familiar with these two subjects, but I can assure you that there is a lot of work to do on Wikipedia, a lot of pages to create and a lot of people are needed to do it (at least 5-10 for each Wikiproject).

Obviously, in case I am the only person to understand the complexity of these subjects and interested to contribute on them, I will continue to organize the work to do on my user pages. --Daniele Pugliesi (talk) 07:06, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Sorry again, I forgot that I had made a proposal about a similar WikiProject: Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Technical standards. However I know how a WikiProject works in it.wikipedia, but not on en.wikipedia (I think there are some different rules, practices, etc.), so I need some technical assistance for creating the WikiProject (and participation). --Daniele Pugliesi (talk) 17:15, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Daniele Pugliesi, if you don't have a group of editors to work with you, then you don't need a WikiProject page. Just go edit the articles that interest you. :-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Unify project banner documentation

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide § Purpose of WikiProject banner tags points to Wikipedia:Template messages/WikiProject banners.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/WikiProject § Recruiting refers to {{WPBannerMeta}} for basic banners, Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Technical notes for advanced ones, and also describes how to build a basic one from scratch, but discourages it.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Technical notes § Advanced project banners describes how to build a complex banner from scratch. It has an initial notice about {{WPBannerMeta}}.

It looks a bit confusing. It is hard to tell what is the recommended way to start (I assume {{WPBannerMeta}}), what is its primary documentation and which methods are advanced or discouraged. I'm thinking about streamlining this documentation, but would like to hear your thoughts on the situation, what the recommendations should be, and where the primary documentation for them should live. --MarioGom (talk) 12:10, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@MarioGom: What question were you trying to answer? It sounds like: "How do I make a project banner for a new project?". Or are you concerned about the guidance for "What is the purpose of project banners?" Ajpolino (talk) 17:43, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Ajpolino: None, actually. I have done some work on WikiProject maintenance during last months, and learning to do most things required me to identify well-maintained WikiProjects, check their code, asking questions here and there. I've noticed some newer practices are not documented or documentation is a bit outdated. A few days ago I was checking the guides here for other purposes (reviewing active bots for WikiProject maintenance) and came across the project banner documentation, prompting me open this thread. --MarioGom (talk) 18:13, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@MarioGom: Ah, I see. Yes, I had a similar problem when merging a project into WP:RIVERS a few months ago. Much of the documentation related to the templates and tools used by WikiProjects seems to be fragmented and dated. I'm happy to help update it! I'll have a chance to look at the banner docs you link in the next few days. Feel free to post other fragmented/dated documentation here and we'll work on that too. I'll have to look back to try to remember what I found confusing... Thanks for bringing this up! Ajpolino (talk) 18:24, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

This feels like the kind of project that would benefit from User:Redrose64's advice and/or recommendations about other people to involve. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:17, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

New bot for removing completed infobox requests

Hello, my bot for removing infobox requests on articles with an infobox has just been aproved and any Wikiprojects that are interested in using this feature are welcome to contact me. It's currently operating on an opt-in basis to allow for customization for each WikiProject. For more details please see the BRFA and User:PearBOT/Infobox request/config. --Trialpears (talk) 22:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Deprecation of the manual WikiProject Directory

Maybe it is time to deprecate Directory of WikiProjects (manually maintained) in favor of WikiProject Directory (automated). The manual version could be marked as historical and incoming links replaced with the automated version. At least once User:Reports bot is up and running again with the updates. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Directory for potential outstanding problems with the automation. --MarioGom (talk) 17:27, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Does anyone know what Report Bot's status is? If we could get the automated directory to note active vs. inactive, and project vs. taskforce (or filter by only projects, or something), then I'd be all in favor. Right now the automated directory is only as good as the categories for the projects (i.e. sometimes not great). I think the definitive list of projects for now is this Bambots hosted one. It would be nice if we could move to one list, since we're certainly not able to maintain three... Thanks for bringing this up! Ajpolino (talk) 19:08, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I asked the bot operator about Reports bot a couple weeks ago and got no response. I was asking because the directory hasn't been updated in a couple months. Enwebb (talk) 20:03, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Automating this would be nice, if it actually works.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:10, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Join every wikiprojects

Hello I like to join the wikiproject council because I like to make Wikipedia a clean and safe place to go The Awesome Guy in the world (talk) 21:45, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

@The Awesome Guy in the world: Welcome! There is no membership list for the WikiProject Council, so just watch this page and feel free to contribute to any discussions. Also I see you're fairly new around here, so welcome to Wikipedia. If you need help getting started, consider asking for assistance at WP:TEAHOUSE. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 21:17, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

@Ajpolino: I’m Not New here The Awesome Guy in the world (talk) 18:00, 10 November 2019 (BST)

RFC on overlapping WikiProjects

Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 63#Request for Comment - 1 November 2019 - Is WP:ANIME subordinate to other projects? could probably use some advice from people who are familiar with the difficulties that arise when WikiProject #1 says "must do X" and WikiProject #2 says "must do not-X" about the same article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

RfC about tagging redirects

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Which redirects should be tagged with WikiProject tags? Should any content in addition to the tags (e.g. {{Talk page redirect}}) accompany these tags? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:42, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: Discussion started on my talk page (now archived), then proceeded to a request for third opinions and the help desk that escalated it to a full RfC. Including Richhoncho and Lee Vilenski, from previous discussions. Examples that were actually in question include Talk:Spin_the_Bottle_(Juliana_Hatfield_song) and Talk:So._Central_Rain_(I’m_Sorry). Examples of hypotheticals that were not actually subject to the dispute include things like misspellings. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:49, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
• Redirect-Class is not part of either the standard or extended quality scales, so those WikiProjects that recognise it will have a custom class mask. There are presently 521 that have a custom mask that is in the subpage form, it's not easy to work out how many use the inline form. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:36, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
• Redirects with possibilities are maybe worth tagging with WikiProject templates, because they indicate titles that could be articles if someone took the time to make it happen. I can't see why any others are worth tagging, because WikiProjects exist to coordinate the maintenace of articles, and no other types of redirects are likely to become articles. If an article is made into a redirect and its talk page exists, the correct thing to do is redirect the talk page to the target's talk page (unless the talk page of the redirect has meaningful discussions or other significant history). —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:56, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
• I tag any redirect related to WP:SOCIALISM on sight. This is particularly helpful to get them into article alerts when there is a deletion discussion. --MarioGom (talk) 08:25, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@MarioGom: Do you mean when there's a deletion discussion about the redirect? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:42, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@Compassionate727:: Yes. But you can ignore my previous comment. I have just realized that article alerts for redirects are determined based on the target page, so there is no need to tag the redirect itself. --MarioGom (talk) 14:51, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, I did ask Koafv to get consensus on this, this matter has been on 2 user pages, half a dozen talkpages and 4 WP pages including here and Koavf reporting me for 3RR where the response was ‘'This is dumb. How about just redirecting the talk page like we do for all other redirects? In any case, No violation.'

The real argument and discussion is not whether redirects should be tagged for projects as Koafv claims here, if it was, we wouldn’t have a dispute, but should misprints, incorrect titles, incomplete titles, unnecessary disambiguation and other errata be project tagged?

Our ongoing argument with has centred round WPSongs and I give you 2 examples:

1. Spin the Bottle (Juliana Hatfield song) which is tagged as “R avoided double redirect|Spin the Bottle (Juliana Hatfield Three song) and Spin the Bottle (Juliana Hatfield Three song), which is tagged as a song & with a WPSongs tag. Koafv thinks both should be project tagged, I say only the ‘correct’ title

2. Similarly, List of Doris Day songs is tagged as ‘unprintworthy redirect’ and is directed to where the article is, at List of songs recorded by Doris Day. Both are tagged for projects Song, List and Pop. I say only the active page. The redirect on the talkpage is sufficient. Adding and arguing with other editors there should be tags is pointless.

FWIW, If I thought it would gain traction I’d nominate a fair percentage of these errors for deletion.--Richhoncho (talk) 12:10, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• I think WikiProjects should decide which redirects they want to tag and for whatever purpose is useful to them. Other than that, I think the default should be that redirect talk pages not be created unless necessary. If the page does exist, e.g., an article that got turned into a redirect, the default should be for redirect talk pages to redirect to the target article's talk page. – Levivich 03:16, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• IMO Levivich has the right idea overall. Groups that want to tag redirects are permitted to do so. Most don't, or only do for a small percentage (such as Compassionate727's suggestion of redirects with possibilities). If you're a participant in a WikiProject, and your group is trying to decide whether to tag redirects, then I encourage you to think very carefully about whether that will bring you any practical value. So far, almost no group has found any value in doing that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• I think it has to be up to the WikiProject. I'm sorry, I realize that's not a very satisfying answer for this specific dispute. See what other WikiProject members think. --BDD (talk) 14:23, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• It's still not clear to me what the benefit of tagging redirects for projects would be (assuming, as MarioGom said above, article alerts for deletion discussions will go to the projects listed on the target page). That said, I don't see any reason to prohibit tagging redirects for projects. It just doesn't seem useful... Ajpolino (talk) 15:56, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

  There's a couple reasons. One is to catch (generally) bad faith actors restoring articles from deliberate redirects. A second is for good faith actors who want to know about potential articles (R with potential). Mostly, I don't think people tag redirects otherwise. --Izno (talk) 15:59, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

• It should neither be required nor prohibited, generally. Individuals can tag or not if they want, WikiProjects can tag or not tag by default as they prefer, but whatever don't edit war over it. As noted above it has benefits for redirects that are (or might be) converted to articles, it is also useful for redirects that are relevant to a specific project where the target is not - usually this will be where a target is broader than a redirect (e.g. WP:SONGS might be interested in a redirect from a song to an album but not interested in the album itself; the Cricket project may want article alerts about the Nathan Smith (cricketer) redirect but not the Nathan Smith dab where only 2 of the 15 people listed are cricketers). Thryduulf (talk) 13:35, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• It should be up to the WikiProject. I don't think there's much value in tagging redirects now that Article Alerts associates them with the tags for their target. When a WikiProject banner is set up to automatically detect that a page is a redirect, the class parameter should be left blank. I do think it is worth tagging redirects with possibilities. When redirects are placed in article categories following WP:INCOMPATIBLE, it may make sense to tag with an appropriate Wikiproject (e.g. SONGS for song redirects to albums). If merged article has extensive talk page discussion, it may be appropriate to leave a tag on the talk page rather than redirecting it to the talk page of the merge target. In my opinion, redirects that are misspellings, alternative disambiguations, alternative phrasings of descriptive titles, etc. should not be tagged. Plantdrew (talk) 17:07, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Updating link text for a couple mid-level categories

I wasn't sure where to pose this, and appreciate any guidance. Would it be okay to make updates as follows?

1. Update the "Science, technology and engineering" portion of Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory and also update [Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science]] so that the the subtopic "Science" in Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory and "General Topics" in Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science agree on link text as "General science topics".
2. Similarly, update the "Science, technology and engineering" portion of Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory so that the the subtopic "Meteorology" in Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory is re-labeled as "Environment" so that the link text agrees with "Environment" at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science.

The reason I'm interested is to ensure the information hierarchy is the same. Practically speaking, I'm doing some work on identification of topic mapping for some metrics (see phab:T234839 for some context) and one of the scripts involved in the process noticed the mismatch in the labels and for now I've just manually overridden the mismatch, but would think it nice to update the source pages.

@Ajpolino and Andrei Kuryan: mentioning you here for visibility based on the diffs in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AWikiProject_Council%2FDirectory%2FScience&type=revision&diff=919381413&oldid=919275054.

I'm doing my work as a paid Wikimedia Foundation staff member, so I also wanted to check on whether this contribution would be okay for me to make under my work handle, if I should use my volunteer handle, or if someone else might be okay making the update on my behalf, as it's not exactly article content, but does speak to some level of curatorial judgment, however benign the terminology.

--ABaso (WMF) (talk) 18:30, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@ABaso (WMF): Sure, those titles are fine. Sorry about the mismatch, I hadn't noticed it (and I may have caused it)! I can't imagine it would be controversial if you made those changes with any account. If you feel uncomfortable, let me know and I'm happy to make them on your behalf (if I haven't heard from you, I'll do it later today when I have a moment). Thanks for posting here. Let us know if there's anything we can do to help! Ajpolino (talk) 21:43, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Ajpolino: Thanks, I made the updates! --ABaso (WMF) (talk) 11:35, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject Black Women Creatives

I stumbled upon Wikipedia: WikiProject Black Women Creatives which seems to have been created in 2016, but never listed anywhere. Can someone go about an regularize this WPP? (ie. list it, add it to the category tree, check activity status, etc) -- 67.70.33.184 (talk) 07:15, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

What a coincidence! I also recently stumbled upon that page. I posted at WikiProject Women in Red since I hoped that would be the active group most interested in helping out with the project. Also the page has {{Project}} at the top, which categorizes it into Category:Active WikiProjects. It's not in the manually updated project directory yet, but I'm hoping to go through and update the (seriously outdated) directory in the next few months. Thanks for bringing it up here. Feel free to post at other talk pages to try to drum up support for picking up where Wikipedia:WikiProject Black Women Creatives has left off. Ajpolino (talk) 15:58, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

It hasn't got a WikiProject banner template. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

New WikiProjects

Hello all! I'm writing a WikiProject Report for the Signpost, and I was wondering if there is a place I can view recently created wikiprojects, as I would like to write about a new one. Thanks! (BTW, please respond here and ping me. Thank you all! Puddleglum2.0 ^{Have a talk?} 02:46, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Puddleglum2.0: See WikiProject List and sort by the Created column. --Bamyers99 (talk) 14:35, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

New WikiProject Created!

Following a successful proposal, WikiProject A Cappella has begun work! If you are interested in joining, please do! You can read the instructions on our main page. Thanks! Puddleglum ^2.0 19:32, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

sounds terrific. thanks for your note, Puddleglum2.0. will take a look. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

New update from WikiProject History

Hi everyone. I am a new coordinator page admin at WikiProject History. I took that role simply by vounteering for it. none of the other past coordinators are active there any more. I have posted the notice below on the project's main page, and a similar one on the project's talk page. if anyone here would like to get involved, help out, or else simply say hello there or let us know what you're up to, please feel free to drop by and write a note. We'd welcome your comments, and would be glad to hear from you. I welcome everyone's input. and you can feel free to reply here as well thanks!!

Message posted:

Hi everyone. I am writing to ask for any volunteers who might like to help out, or to get more involved here at WikiProject History. Right now, we would like to get WikiProject History up and running again. A number of people have signed up in the past, and indicated their willingness to be involved. If you're still here, we need you!!

You can reply here in this section, or else on on the project's talk page, even if it's just to say hello. If you want, you can reply simply let me know what you are personally working on right now. or also, if you want, you can let me know what your interests are, what topics you find interesting, what you;d like to do, or how you'd like to be involved. whatever it may be, we'd like to hear from you. we appreciate it. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:55, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Feel free to write back. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 15:41, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sm8900: Sounds cool, I'm in! Puddleglum ^2.0 00:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Puddleglum2.0, thanks!! I hope to move ahead with a few efforts in this area at once. Also, please feel free to look at and comment on my idea below. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 05:28, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I have added WikiProject History to the directory of active WikiProjects. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 05:35, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I have reverted my own edit to the directory of active WikiProjects, to show the correct current status of WikiProject History as semi-inactive. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:19, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

• I am surprised to see WP History is not listed as active. I am not too sure how activity is measured but it seems to me people are still frequently including the WP History template on their talk pages. Indeed, it looks to me that any wikiproject with over 50,000 articles is pretty active (especially as well over 1000 are GA or higher). May I suggest it may be useful to consolidate ties with Women's History which now contains almost 47,000 articles, many of them biographies of women who were active before 1950. Members of WP History might be interested in collaborating on improving some of these up to GA.--Ipigott (talk) 11:18, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

WP Women in Green

Sm8900: I have just noticed that WikiProject Women in Green does not appear to be included in the lists. I have just created Category:WikiProject Women in Green but don't know whether that is sufficient to have it listed. If is isn't, please let me know what more I should do. It's a pretty active and successful project, its main aim being to improve women's biographies (and other articles about women) up to GA class (i.e. green) and beyond. The project is closely related to WP Women in Red.--Ipigott (talk) 11:40, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Because Women in Green is structured as a task force of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women (which does appear), it will not show up on the lists. Feel free to move it out, to Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Green (currently a redirect) UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:49, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

well, that's a great point, from both of you. @Ipigott:, if you do want that listed, we'd be glad to do so; we can simply list it as a sub-item under the main WikiProject. would you like us to do so? thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 19:18, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I would first like to see what the project coordinator Alanna the Brave and perhaps SusunW think about it. For the record, Women in Red also used to be dependent on WP Women but we decided it was much better to become a separate project. It looks to me that with the increasing interest in Women in Green, the time has come to make that a fully fledged wikiproject too.--Ipigott (talk) 07:11, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not remotely sure even what this means. As everyone is aware, I am not technically inclined. I don't understand what list the project would be on. Am assuming there is a list of WikiProjects somewhere, but the search engine we have (which is never intuitive to me) does not make that easy to find. Literally, if I want to find a WikiProject, I find an article name that I think would be in that realm and look at what projects it has listed on its talk page. For example, I just finished a biography of a woman who worked in coffee production, I went to coffee production to see what projects it had listed. As to how it should be listed, I would think as a sub-project of WikiProject Women, since it is only one facet of our work on women, i.e. like Women in Red, Women in sport, Women writers, etc. My second thought on it is that separating it, makes it harder to obtain metrics on all women, as then one must know which separate projects are related. Keeping them all as sub-projects seems to me the easiest way to obtain usable data, as the connections are clear. But, if it is possible to separate them and keep the connections clear, it really doesn't matter. As ever, I bow to whatever consensus is reached. SusunW (talk) 14:30, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

From your comments, SusunW, it looks to me as if one of the priorities for WP Council is to create an up-to-date list of wikiprojects with summary details of scope and activity. The list I was looking at was Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes which is 30 months old. Unfortunately there does not appear to be a list of activity by page views or by the number of tags added to talk pages.--Ipigott (talk) 15:56, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Having Women in Green listed as a sub-project of WikiProject Women sounds fine to me for now -- the possibility of upgrading it to a full WikiProject is something we'll have to talk about with other WiG members. :-) I'm interested in seeing what WP Council might have to offer, but it seems like WP Council's members are currently in the midst of discussing big changes to the project, so it might be prudent to wait a little while until things have settled down. Alanna the Brave (talk) 17:30, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikiproject that shouldn't be edited?

so there is an archived wikiproject that was never officially created but the person who was making it has left wikipedia and I would like to start it up again and continue it is there a way to do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carri796 (talk • contribs) 03:36, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Carri796, a WikiProject is our jargon for a group of people that like working together. It's not something that needs to be "officially" created. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:08, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Though just starting one without going through the WP:COUNCIL/P proposals process is discouraged, and is apt to result in the creation of a redundant project or one unlikely to work out well. I think what Carri796 is getting at is that a project page already exists but is inactive. There's probably no issue with reactivating it. But Carri796 may be referring to a COUNCIL/P proposal that effectively failed; I would suggest re-proposing it, after reviewing why it did not attract support (or even attracted opposition) and then making adjustments, as well as rounding up other editors who are clearly interested in working on the project, so they can state they support it and would participate in it. Also, consider a taskforce/workgroup – many proposed new projects and moribund old ones do better when merged as a subproject page into a larger, broader project. The principal problem with newly proposed projects is that most of the ones that are sustainable in numbers of editors and amount of [actually encyclopedic] content to work on already exist. Major gaps are rare, and many ideas for stuff that might raise WP:RECENTISM concerns (mostly entertainment topics) turn out to fail as projects after a short while (e.g. the TV show gets canceled, the band breaks up after their second album, whatever).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:59, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject Houston

I am trying to gauge interest in WikiProject Houston. The project is listed as active, but I am the only editor currently assessing articles, and I am only aware of one other project editor who has assessed articles over the past two or three years. The project page is dated, but I have not made any changes because I was deferring to the original coordinator of the project, who appears to be inactive again. There is not much maintenance for high traffic articles other than from the anti-vandals, who from what I can tell, are not connected with the project. I raised these issues issue about two years ago and nothing has changed. I have promoted at least two Houston-related articles to GA, but did so with no support from the project. I hope to be a part of creating a better experience for those who would like to contribute to Houston-related articles. If we cannot revive the project, at least a status change would be justified. Oldsanfelipe2 (talk) 23:10, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Oldsanfelipe2:. Sadly, your experiece is typical of many WikiProjects here. There's no official set of criteria for marking a project inactive; The closest thing is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Dealing_with_inactive_WikiProjects. If you feel WP:HOUSTON is inactive and it'd be beneficial to mark it as such (so others interested in the topic would be more clear-eyed coming to the page) feel free to unilaterally do so. It looks like you did so in October 2018, but it was quickly reverted by another editor intending to reactivate the project. That user's userpage is now marked "Retired" so I think it's safe to say they're no longer interested in reactivating the project. You can proceed as you see fit. If y'all decide you'd like to merge the project into WP:TEXAS and need a hand with the merge, feel free to post here. I hope that helps. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 15:52, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Oldsanfelipe2: I agree with Ajpolino's insightful comments above. if you have an interest in that subject area, then I encourage you to go ahead and edit it. if you want to let others know you are there, you can feel free to comment on the talk page for that WikiProject; and also, you can feel free to revise the main page itself for that WikiProject. No one will object to you making good-faith edits, just to get that project working again.

and also, I would like to invite you and highly recommend that you go visit the page for WP:teahouse if you wish. there you will find a large variety and number of editors, all of whom are ready, willing, and gladly able to discuss any ideas, comments, etc that you may have. I hope you will drop by there any time, if you wish. Of course, you are very welcome to continue to discuss any topics here on this page, that you may wish. I appreciate your input and ideas above. thanks!!! --Sm8900 (talk) 16:03, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Oldsanfelipe2, I like your suggestion (at WT:HOUSTON) about merging it with WP:WikiProject Texas. WP:REVIVE has the (minimal) directions. User:BrownHairedGirl had expressed some interest in WikiProject merges recently, and as she's not afraid of technical stuff, perhaps if your group decides to merge, then she might agree to help you all out with updating the templates and such. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Yes, I in the last 6 months I have become aware that there are vast numbers of moribund WikiProjects. In addition to the the many projects tagged as inactive or semi-active, my sampling found that there are many times that number which meet the criteria. Then there are even more projects like this one, just outside the criteria, but with too little activity to serve a useful purpose.

So I think that we are now long overdue for a massive programme of merging WikiProjects. My sampling may not be representative, but I guesstimate that between 50% and 80%+ of current projects are too narrow to justify continued standalone existence.

However, my recent experience of similar efforts to cull redundant structures as been extremely bruising, and I will not personally take part in any such exercise. I wish good luck to anyone who undertakes such a valuable task, but in my experience there is a simple structural problem in any such cleanup: most of those who agree with the cull don't see it as important enough to lend support, while a vocal minority can dig in and make a lot of noise, hurling FUD which makes the whole process an unpleasantly conflictual time-sink. So I'm not going there.

I have never done a WikiProject merge, so I don't know how it's done ... but if a decision is taken to merge this one and nobody else is ready to do the technical stuff, please gimme a shout and if I am around I will see if I can help. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:59, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Merging WikiProjects is pretty routine just so long as you ask on the talk page of the affected projects beforehand. It's usually pretty easy to make a case (see WP:VG/IPC which has some boilerplate text). If you get consensus to do so, a bot request can be made to merge the banners. --Izno (talk) 21:14, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the various responses. I am now realizing that a merge with WikiProject Texas would be futile. Its pages are better organized and contain better updating tools than WikiProject Houston, but there appears to be no administrative activity there, either. For example, I had forgotten that I had posted a question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Texas/Help in August 2018. No answer. I am marking both Texas and Houston as inactive projects. Do most of the US state WikiProjects need to be reorganized as Task Forces under WikiProject United States? If Texas cannot generate enough interest, then what about the others? Oldsanfelipe2 (talk) 21:20, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Oldsanfelipe2. I think you are making some valuable and important points about WikiProjects in general. if you want, you are welcome to come by Wikipedia:WikiProject History any time. I have been making some changes in format and content there, just to build up activity and interest.

Just to be totally clear, we still do not have much activity on that page, but you are welcome to come by, if you are interested just to glance at just one possible approach to the area of formatting pages, and for setting things up to attract more users. but again, I have simply been experimenting with different approaches. if you have any new ideas for attracting activity at your WikiProject, I encourage you to try them out. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 21:35, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

A particular user, now banned, attempted to merge the state projects into WP US; I believe part of the was due to the disruption caused to users who neither needed nor wanted the help. Things may be different now, as that was some 5-7 years ago.

You can mark it as inactive as you please TBH; I think if you're willing to keep the lights on, you get to be the one to say whether it's active or not. :) --Izno (talk) 21:42, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Izno, do you think that WPVG would be interested in writing a more general, step-by-step guide on how to merge WikiProjects? I'm not sure if anything's changed since Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Task forces#Converting existing projects to task forces was written. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:02, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I can probably find some time to make it more general, or consolidate the Stuff to do. There's probably other material out there; I am pretty sure I've seen similar on the Council Guide pages. --Izno (talk) 02:07, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Oldsanfelipe2, even if WP:TEXAS is inactive, it might still make sense to merge all the smaller groups up to it. It's true that a lot of US state projects were merged up to WPUS some years ago. It was handled more aggressively than we recommend, and it was seen as a bit of a power grab by some of the smaller groups. I don't think those mistakes should stop you now. Just do it properly: notify all the projects and wait a while. Any objection = don't do it.

The simplest "merge" process looks like merging an article: copy over anything you particularly need to keep, and then redirect one page to the other. (Do the same for the templates.)

The reason I think that this is worth doing is that if WP:TEXAS remains inactive (and it might not), it'll be easier to merge just WP:TEXAS to WikiProject US, than to merge everything all at once. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 30 January 2020 (UTC)