Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 1

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Great idea

I think this is a great idea! Might even add something about coordinating with their Portals as well to take the load off there too. There's also issues that we all need accomplished to make our jobs easier and we can work out our game plan together and so be a more effective lobby. Right now I was unsuccessful in trying to convince the GA people to set up the categories as separate pages so we could transclude them. There might be other issues I'm not aware of that make this not a feasible idea.... Anyway, all of this is to say, I don't think is is a wacky idea at all. There's so many things that we (you!) could share to help WP be more effective, etc. I guess we'd need to define how it's different from Wikipedia:WikiProject? plange 16:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words!

Wikipedia:WikiProject is just an instructional page, so isn't really set up to provide a discussion/collaboration environment. (I suppose this idea would sort of be like a WikiProject "WikiProjects"; but the recursive name is rather unpleasant.) Having said that, I imagine—if this were to actually take off—we could eventually absorb the other WikiProject pages (particularly the list of WikiProjects and the new WikiProject proposals) under the umbrella of this setup. Kirill Lokshin 16:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent idea. The PR process is dying IMHO from lack of input as a lot of people seem to use FAC for a PR now. I also see the need for V1.0 interproject issues being handled in a more orderly fashion.Rlevse 18:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

My comments

This is a great idea Kirill! (Another one, yes. But then again, a guy called Lokshin can only have great ideas hehehe... :P) Where do I sign up??? :)

On the subject of PR - yes, the PR is kinda dead and must be reanimated. However, some (=not me) might object that the article might not get a better coverage on project-specific PR. We get 3 (4 if one gets lucky) reviewers per PR at MILHIST, that is not that much. That's why I sworn to PR each and every new article on MILHIST PR... :) Then again, a centralized will may change that.

The directory is long needed, we tried to compile one for WP:FAR and it was a real pain...

Do we need a formal representation? Good question. Yes I think, as making people work together in situations that can sometimes be delicate requires entrusting these people with WP trust beforehand. And yes, these users should be at least experienced editors with a lot of contribs under the belt (and not admins, as adminship is IMHO not a sine qua non for that kind of things). And sure thing, people from great quality project (*whistles* MILHIST...) are needed. Then again, I tend to make complicated institutionnal organizations - must be the accountant speaking inside me... :) And yay for Committee!

Overall, this is a great idea and must see the light! What, unfortunately, it won't improve is keeping good contributors on Wikipedia, but that's another rantstory... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 23:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks good

When do you start? Titoxd^(?!?) 01:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Soon—but we need to decide on a name! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I like "League" :-) plange 01:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

If it's going to be like ArbCom and MedCom, then perhaps Committee, for continuity? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Titoxd (talk • contribs)

I don't imagine this will resemble ArbCom in any real way; I doubt Jimbo will delegate any real authority to this group, for one thing. And "Committee" might raise more anti-bureaucracy hackles than some other name would. But, quite honestly, I don't know; maybe if we can get a third person to comment, we'll have enough for consensus? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, "council" sounds good too. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

"Council" it is, then, at least for the time being. If anyone has better ideas, I'm sure they'll let us know. Kirill Lokshin 02:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Membership

Initial thoughts:

Do we need a formal membership? Something like the Mediation Committee (that is, people with some experience in these issues who are willing to be "on call" to assist individual projects) might be useful; as might be a group of people to coordinate larger discussions and be responsible for ensuring that information is dispersed to the relevant projects. On the more fanciful side of things, we could have representatives from participating WikiProjects that would serve as points-of-contact to them. Kirill Lokshin 02:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, both are a good idea. A formal membership, with the same procedure for entering as in MedCom, and a list of contacts, in case there's a need to spread important news, or make suggestions. Also, contacts with WP:WVWP should exist, and perhaps come under the project's purvew, as well as the list of WikiProjects. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Good ideas on the membership.

And yes, the list of WikiProjects will (hopefully) be replaced by the new directory idea; the current list is so badly organized as to be nearly useless for actually finding a working project. As far as WVWP is concerned, I suspect a lot of the work—encouraging projects to start assessments and such—will happen here; whether there's anything else that happens on that side that wouldn't fit here, I'm not sure. Kirill Lokshin 02:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Formal membership? er.. well I dunno. I wanted to be a member and help out and stuff, but am not sure I would want to be a formal member! (cue "I won't belong to any club that would have me as a member") Is formal membership necessary? Is this council going to have any authority? I'd be surprised if it did. ++Lar: t/c 19:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I would be surprised if it had any formal authority (which is not to say that it won't have some informal weight merely due to acting as a central forum for discussion; but this wouldn't be enforced by anything other than the wishes of the WikiProjects themselves). Hence, a general membership—a simple signup list of participants, in other words—would probably be as complicated an arrangement as could be useful for the time being. Having said that, the idea of some sort of more limited inter-WikiProject Mediation- or Coordination-like group might be something to give further thought to at some point in the future, particularly if we get a lot of WikiProjects coming here with their issues and proposals (which is something that I'm personally hoping will happen). Kirill Lokshin 19:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

OK. Well then I'm happy to help with stuff as I have time, and would add my name to the list of participants, just like any other project... and if we get to the point where coordination/mediation is needed, I'd certainly consider helping with that as well, if there was interest in my doing so. I just wouldn't want to have to campaign/stand for it to get it... I've seen too many things collapse under too much initial structure too soon. ++Lar: t/c 19:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, yes; I've seen that too. I'll go ahead and set up a simple signup list for now, and we can continue discussing these things at our leisure. Kirill Lokshin 20:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

(double edit conflict) Mostly, I suggested formal membership for the same reasons Kirill did: in case this becomes a WikiProject mediation venue. But yeah, too much initial structure will stagnate efforts. Perhaps we should add that to the guide? Titoxd^(?!?) 20:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I haven't even started on the sections about complicated structures yet ;-) Kirill Lokshin 20:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Guide to best practices

I've started work on a skeleton of a guide here; I'll certainly be adding lots of material, once I've had time to put it in writing, but any additions or suggestions would be very welcome! Kirill Lokshin 03:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

An area of interest for me is project banners for talk pages (that have the classification stuff built in). As you know I helped with teh WPBeatles one, and helped the FireFly one, and I know other projects cribbed. But some sort of reusable skeleton for creating these (which hides a lot of the gnarly logic of whether assessments are present, whether comments are present, etc) might be good. ++Lar: t/c 16:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's certainly on the to-do list (see that "Advanced project banners" section?), but it'll probably be a few days before I get that far.

Aside from that, getting more people participating here would be a good thing in terms of getting up to speed more rapidly, but I actually have no idea how to best go about that, as there aren't any articles involved where we could advertise. Kirill Lokshin 16:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I tried my hand at the nav templates section, not sure if that was the level of detail you were looking for or if actual templates should be transcluded to give examples or what... consider it a warmup for the Advanced Templates section ({{WPBeatles}} is in the running for MOST COMPLEX template!)... comments?? or just fix it up! ++Lar: t/c 20:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I can probably add some more technical details later, but it'll do for now. As far as {{WPBeatles}}, it definitely deserves mention, but it might be a little too complex to use for a how-to of coding the things; the code is such that I don't know if it'll be particularly feasible to turn it into a boilerplate for new projects to use. Kirill Lokshin 20:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just added to it with a suggestion to keep nav boxes smaller and avoid "kitchen sink"ing them with links to absolutely everything. There are several other templates that I'd like to reduce in a similar fashion within WP Trains, I just haven't had a chance to propose updated versions yet. Slambo (Speak) 20:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The comments are certainly valuable ones; but they're not really related to WikiProject management so much as general template-building, and I think we should avoid trying to rewrite all of Wikipedia's style and usage advice on one page. Hence, I've taken the liberty of moving them to Wikipedia:Navigational templates, where I think they'll be more appropriate; I hope you don't mind too much. Kirill Lokshin 21:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It looks like some of the text I added (removed here: [1]) did not get moved when you moved Slambo's unless I missed something. I guess I don't necessarily agree that some words about article templates are not needed here. I see them as a potential bone of contention in a project. ++Lar: t/c 02:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, you're right; I missed that text. My apologies.

It might be worthwhile to compose a more comprehensive guide for article-related issues like reader-facing template design or layout, and so forth; but I think it might be better off as a separate page from the internal organizational guide, perhaps? Kirill Lokshin 02:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Works for me. I liked your skeleton for project facing, why don't you try your hand at a skeleton for article facing too? in addition to what sorts of templates to use, there's the questions around how much unification is appropriate, what things should go on talk pages, perhaps discussion ettiquete? (I'm just free associating to give you some ideas)... ++Lar: t/c 03:00, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Didn't want to be presumptuous and put this in there as a good idea, in case you guys don't think it is, but I created a template people can subst: for use in expanding task force sections. {{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Work groups/Division banner}} These are for divisions within each task force, but could work just as well for the top of the task force....

any feedback on this? plange 03:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, if you're looking for a personal opinion: I think it's far too dense (the small font doesn't help!), and that overusing boilerplate (particularly repeating the same boilerplate many times on a single page) is a bad idea. Kirill Lokshin 03:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, you've twisted my arm...

Sure, count me in too. I've tried moving WikiProject Trains in a similar direction this month with a unified {{TrainsWikiProject}} banner to cover it and the current subprojects and new task forces (and assessment ratings and comments; I haven't added importance rating yet). So far, I haven't heard any real complaints, so I'm assuming a tacit approval of this coordination (as I stated on the Trains talk page). In reading through the description and comments here so far, I don't see anything that I object to, and I can't think of much that's missing right now. So, yeah, <talk style="FAC">Support</talk>. B-) Slambo (Speak) 18:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Secret Societies

Is there a Wikiproject focusing on Secret Societies? Geo. 19:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't possibly tell you. It's a secret. --kingboyk 19:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Slightly more seriously: no, I'm pretty sure there isn't one. Kirill Lokshin 19:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Would anyone have a problem with me creating one? Geo. 20:00, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It tends to be a highly contentious topic area, but I suppose that comes with the turf. I can't think of any other project that would be working in this area, though, so feel free to create one. Kirill Lokshin 20:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about my little joke, I was fully intending to come back with an answer after a suitable period. As for creating such a project, you're free to do so of course - but maybe first see how much interest there is by asking on relevant talk pages? --kingboyk 20:06, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Good Joke, i will create it Geo. 20:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I encourage you to read the project organization guide, then; the sections on starting a new project are actually somewhat usable now ;-) Kirill Lokshin 20:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Really great idea

Just want to drop a comment, that this is a great idea. There are zillions of projects but there is no "council" to, like, umm, manage and navigate these projects. By the way, I'm from the WikiProject Indonesia. Cheers everyone -- Imoeng 08:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

A different name?

This is a nice idea, although the name may not be the greatest. Perhaps something along the lines of WikiProject WikiProjects, WikiProject InterWikiProject Relations. Those are a little cheesy, but the word council may have improper connotations of athority or the like. Best to get the ball rolling on the proper name early. Kevin_b_er 02:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced it's an issue of any concern, but perhaps "Association" might be more usable. Another option to consider is to switch the word order—to Wikipedia:Council of WikiProjects or Wikipedia:Association of WikiProjects—to make it clear that this is not actually a recursive WikiProject (for any useful definition of WikiProject, anyways). Kirill Lokshin 02:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I have a much simpler idea - you've misspelled it! WikiProject Counsel is probably closer to what you're actually trying to convey (advice, consultation), rather than the meaning behind council (body of elected reps who serve to formally advise on policy). Girolamo Savonarola 22:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Directory ideas

Some initial thoughts about the directory of WikiProjects:

The current list isn't all that useful, primarily because it (a) mixes active projects with a substantial portion of dead ones; (b) focuses on historical trivia, such as project founding dates, instead of information about a project's current activity; and (c) is quite difficult to find a particular project in, due to an often unintuitive listing order.

I would propose, rather than having a simple list, we create a three-part directory, as follows:

1. Alphabetical feature matrix

An alphabetical listing of active projects, giving links to various important features. This could be done in a table form (with exact columns to be determined, of course):

Project	Assessment	Peer review	Collaboration
Australia	yes	yes	yes
The Beatles	yes
Biography	yes	yes
India	yes	yes
Military history	yes	yes	yes
Tropical cyclones	yes		yes
Webcomics

A simpler listing would also be possible, but might be harder to read.

2. Hierarchical listing

More or less like the current list, ordering projects according to their topical hierarchy. Trim all the inactives and trivia, though.

3. Inactives

Keep all of these separate. Many of them should be merged/deleted/brought back to activity/whatever; but that's a longer-term concern, and for now they just clutter up the listing.

Comments? Would doing this be worthwhile, or is it too complicated? Kirill Lokshin 20:38, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

There are projects that are too difficult to classify, as they span several subject areas, but I agree with separating inactive projects. Also, a different table for Wikipedia-related maintainance projects, perhaps? Titoxd^(?!?) 20:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Maintenance projects generally have a very different setup from topical ones, so much of the listing wouldn't apply to them. Kirill Lokshin 20:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

So we'll have a separate inactive projects list and an other with active projects that will split into to two kind of listing? NCurse _work 20:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes (and possibly a separate list of maintenance projects, as per Titoxd). Kirill Lokshin 20:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I came across a one-member WikiProject which has had a couple of months to attract new members (Wikipedia:Wikiproject Drake & Josh). I posted an enquiry on the Project's talk page about whether it is active or not and after a week had no reply. I proceeded to tag it {{inactive}} and remove the Project's templates from talk pages, only to get an immediate response of "the project is active but has only one member" :) It has a very narrow scope too... Can/should we do anything about this? --kingboyk 12:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

In theory, it would probably be better off merged or task-force-ified somewhere (although I'm not sure what the logical higher-level project is here). In practice, I don't think that actively defended projects (even if they are very narrow) are something we should go after at the moment; once we clean up the truly catatonic ones, we'll be in a much better position, I think. Kirill Lokshin 12:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

There's Wikipedia:WikiProject Television. Of course I appreciate I'm on very thin ice here, with WP:KLF, but at least that project has an FA to it's name, a current FAC, and a queue of articles waiting for FAC :) --kingboyk 13:11, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we should be careful not to throw our "weight" (or lack of) around! Adding an inactive tag is fine, since anyone can do that. But we are not in a position to be able to dictate policy, or to tell a WikiProject to disband. Also, I think we should adapt our systems to the community as much as poss, rather than trying to tell the community how they should run things. OK, the scope of the KLF "microproject" is narrow, but sometimes this can be the best way to channel energy most effectively. If the project is active and successful, good luck to them - and I think subsuming (sp?) them into WP:Electronic music is not helpful.

Also, many small projects can grow - I was essentially the only active member of WP:Chem for many months, but within three months a bunch of chemists joined me and we had a successful FAC. OK, the scope of the KLF "microproject" is narrow, but sometimes this can be the best way to channel energy most effectively. If the project is active and successful, let it do its job. If it really is just one person's vain attempt at glory, then tag it as inactive. Walkerma 13:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much my thinking too (hence originally italicising should we interfere? :)). I tagged it {{inactive}}, he removed the tag, let's leave it. Thanks for the replies guys. --kingboyk 13:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yup, we're in no position to actually push projects around. Having said that, most small and/or inactive projects tend to react quite positively to suggestions about being absorbed in some form into a larger and more active one; the ones that don't (and they are fairly rare, in my experience) we can just leave to their own devices. Kirill Lokshin 14:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I would like it best if we could somehow structure the list according to the table guidelines above, but ensure keeping in the now inactive projects. I get the impression that many of them have become inactive not due to lack of material to cover, but due to lack of involvement. They could well restart later if there were sufficient interest in doing so, as some people are trying to restart some projects today. Badbilltucker 14:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we define criteria for what is a truely inactive project. I'll start a new discussion below.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

So, everyone agrees on the table. Now for the columns:

• Assessment
• Peer review
• Collaboration
• Guidelines?
• Other pages?

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines are mostly on the main page of the projects. So there won't be too many subpages for that. Maybe Participants' list would be useful. NCurse _work 16:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

That's mostly on the main page as well, except for very large projects. I think one thing to note (not necessarily with a link; a simple yes/no would suffice) is the presence of "task forces" within the project, as that's an obvious thing someone looking for parent/child projects may want to know. Kirill Lokshin 16:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:PJ and project proposals

Given that our guide is finally starting to look usable, I've merged the old "Best practices" page (or what parts of it were actually sensible, anyways) into it. I've also trimmed the main WikiProject page to a much leaner form, saving all of the incidental recommendations for the guide.

One point that hasn't been mentioned is the Wikipedia:WikiProject/List of proposed projects page. It seems to be rather badly organized and under-maintained, but I think that some form of informal request-for-advice area for new projects would be worthwhile. Might it be a good idea to move that page here (trimming it of much of its accreted red tape in the process)? Kirill Lokshin 19:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. Probably a few of the proposals could be archived too. --kingboyk 19:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Project Templates

I've been on a tear lately creating templates for other WikiProjects, and so I wondered, why shouldn't the project dedicated to helping other projects have some too? So, I created {{WikiProject Council}}, a project notice template, and {{User WikiProject Council}}, a userbox template ('cause the one thing WikiPedia needs right now is more userboxes! :). In the process, I had to pick a random image icon and that was the first "council" one to pop into my head (replace it if you've got a better suggestion). Actually, in general, go ahead and savagely edit away!

I'll let others decide what pages the project notice should be attached to. Seems like with previous discussions of us pitching in on the guide, best practices, etc, there are a few places that should probably get it soon.

Enjoy! --EvilSuggestions 07:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the userbox is a good idea (and have affixed it to my user page), but I can't see any need for the talk page template personally. --kingboyk 10:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not really useful for anything, as we aren't going to be working with any articles directly. We can probably delete it or redirect it to the userbox. Kirill Lokshin 11:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Geez, I was actually pretty surprised that it was the project notice and not the userbox that got zapped. To clarify, my intention for the project notice was not for articles in the main space, but for pages that we might work on probably under the Wikipedia or Template namespaces. Am I totally off base here? It seems like we should have some way of flagging things that this project is going to focus on, if for no other reason than to provide a crumbtrail for folks to follow back to this project, where they could get more info/help/possibly contribute. --EvilSuggestions 15:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Given that this is more of a general advisory group—we don't necessarily intend to go and "fix" outside projects ourselves—and that all of the project-space pages used are going to be subpages of the main one, I really don't see the need for a separate template. (We are, of course, putting links to this page in a number of visible places; but again, I doubt a template would be particularly useful here.) Kirill Lokshin 15:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean tinkering inside other WikiProjects. I meant some of the "meta" pages about WikiProjects, like {{WikiProject}}, Wikipedia:WikiProject, Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects, etc. I might be misunderstanding the intent of this project, but aren't we effectively a "WikiProject:WikiProjects"? That is, trying to improve WikiProject processes, documentation, etc. If so, I think a project notice on certain WikiProject help pages, templates, etc is certainly appropriate. Going into e.g. WP:Care Bears (I hope that doesn't exist :), and slapping our notice all over their pages would not be appropriate, and is not was intending it to be used for. I think this misunderstanding is why I'm a little disturbed by how quickly the project notice got deleted. Not even one day had passed (actually barely a few hours), so there was really no time for I, nor anyone else, to discuss what it might be used for or offer any examples. Is this how I should expect this project to operate? --EvilSuggestions 21:10, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, what I meant was that having a talk page template would be redundant because this project will be linked from the actual page. The entire idea of putting templates on talk pages came about because WikiProjects couldn't put links to themselves directly on articles; since we're working in the background namespaces, this doesn't really apply. Kirill Lokshin 21:19, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. We can link back to the main page and put relevant pages into Category:WikiProject Council at will. That's why we don't need a talk page template. --kingboyk 21:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe I'm continuing to debate this - it's not that important - but for the sake of future contributors to this project: is it standard operating procedure in this project to speedy delete innocent user contributions without allowing hardly any time to discuss? If so, I think I should take my name off of the project page. According to the history on this talk page, the sum amount of time from the "Any objections to me deleting...?" comment to "Duly deleted." was a whopping 19 minutes. Is that how you folks roll here? 19 minutes to comment?

Regarding the notice itself, I disagree on the point that the only reason for a project notice is because we can't link to a project from an article. Project notices are collaboration tools, just like this project is supposed to be. In addition to providing a link and perhaps adding the page to a category, they're also a visually distinctive and recognizable widget that informs users that there's a project that cares about the page, and is willing to provide help. How are we going to link back to this project from the pages we work on? With a "for more info see WikiProject Council" kind of link? That doesn't leverage an existing paradigm nearly as much as a style of widget that now appears all over the place. Besides, there are pages like {{WikiProject}} where I don't think it's appropriate for us to be putting that kind of link on the content page. --EvilSuggestions 03:35, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. Since it's obviously an issue at this point, I've restored {{WikiProject Council}}; its deletion had occurred because it was a redirect to the userbox at the time, not because anyone necessarily wanted to kill the thing outright.

Having said that, the current contents of the banner are obviously nonsensical for the circumstances in which you propose it be used—there are no articles in question, for one thing—and I still disagree that it would be useful at all. The number of pages involved will always be minimal, and most of them will be direct subpages of this one, and thus not require a template to indicate their nature. I might add that {{WikiProject}} does link here already; the "best practices" link points to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide. Kirill Lokshin 09:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I love the logo! I agree with Kirill, though - that banner isn't likely to get used. WikiProject talk page templates are, perhaps, a necessary evil. We only work in project space - where we can link and categorise freely - so it's really not necessary. Deleting it wasn't meant to be a personal slur; there's lots of admins and organisation freaks around here and it's what we do. But, hey, people, show there's no hard feelings and put that lovely userbox on your user pages! :) --kingboyk 10:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, can anyone find a more square image we might be able to use in the box?  ;-) Kirill Lokshin 12:19, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a crop of Image:Swiss National Council Session Spectators.jpg or Image:Repin state council2.jpg might be usable? Kirill Lokshin 12:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

How about a blue (UN-style) version of Image:Wikipedia_laurier_W.png or something in that tune? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 12:31, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, but it will require greater skill with graphics than I posess ;-) Kirill Lokshin 12:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:WikiProject council.png, which I just did. ;) (SVG version available). Titoxd^(?!?) 21:14, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Very nice, but I was actually thinking about a pure white and blue logo (the leaves from the UN logo and a W from any font you fancy) :P -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:18, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Will that still be distinguishable at a small size? White backgrounds tend to drown out fine details. Kirill Lokshin 21:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Erm... yes, let's leave this version... :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've changed over to Titoxd's new image; does that look any better than the old version? Kirill Lokshin 00:50, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Perfect! :D -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 00:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, is it just me, or should the userbox's category be "Participants in the WikiProject Council"? Kirill Lokshin 01:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Or even "Members of the WikiProject Council"/"WikiProject Council members", as that's the wording used on both the userbox itself and on the project page. Kirill Lokshin 01:12, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Anybody? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Members is more natural, but participant may still be better, as it doesn't have connotations of power. Elected people in British government are called members of parliament etc., and counties and towns are run by councils, we need to tread carefully...! Nice job on the userbox, thanks to those who did that. Walkerma 04:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Any objections to me deleting {{WikiProject Council}}? --kingboyk 13:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, since both that and {{User WikiProject Council}} both now redirect to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Userbox, it seems that both cross-namespace redirects should be removed. Slambo (Speak) 14:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Duly deleted.--cj | talk 14:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Spoilsport! :P --kingboyk 14:10, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there a policy written up somewhere as to moving WikiProject userboxes to Wikipedia:WikiProject NAME/Userbox style names? I have, in general, been creating them as Template:User WikiProject NAME for a number of other projects and that appeared to be the standard being followed most everywhere I looked. Not that I totally disagree with the idea, I just think it might be better for us to "eat our own dogfood" as it were, and do similarly to what we're proposing other WikiProjects should do. If everyone is supposed to be making a similar move, then I see the purpose. If other projects aren't, then I guess I don't get the point of us being different. --EvilSuggestions 15:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I stopped following the situation involving userboxes a long way back, but I assume this particular box was moved under the Wikipedia:German userbox solution.--cj | talk 15:31, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

There is growing acceptance of Wikipedia:German userbox solution which suggests project userboxes be moved to a project subpage. I haven't started the move for {{User Trains WikiProject}} yet mostly because I've been working on other aspects of the project. Slambo (Speak) 15:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, WP:GUS seems to be going forward, even if it has not yet been universally enforced in regard to WikiProject userboxes. Given that some have been moved—often less than politely—I think it's worthwhile to avoid doing things that are likely to entangle us in unnecessary conflict at this point. Kirill Lokshin 15:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been following the userbox dustups for the past couple months, and I've never gotten the impression that WikiProject userboxes are considered to be problematic enough to necessitate a move to userspace (or out of Template space in general). As I understand it, the GUS is primarily a way to deal with POV userboxes, and maybe some of the frivolous, non-encyclopedic ones (out of the 22 userboxes templates I put on my user page, only 2 have been moved to User: space, and those were humorous in nature). Under English implementation features/Guiding_principles there's a quote that specifically refers to WikiProject user templates:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Userboxes can be of a clear value to the encyclopedia-building project. Examples include those related to claiming professional or academic expertise, WikiProject affiliations, and claiming access to specialized resources and a willingness to conduct research using them upon request. Templates for these userboxes could stay in template space. Controversial and unencyclopedic userbox templates should be moved to user space.

See also the Userbox location straw poll, where the question about WikiProject userboxes has 14 votes for keeping them in Template:, 7 for moving to Wikipedia:, and only 2 votes for moving them to User:. So, it seems like a consensus hasn't developed yet, but the prevailing opinion is to leaving them Template: for now. As such, I think there's some value in having Council resemble what other WikiProjects do, unless we're leading the charge on a new policy and/or best practice. I don't think that policy/practice necessarily has legs yet (and might not ever), so I vote for sticking with Template:. --EvilSuggestions 21:10, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

You might also note that all new userboxes created over the past week or so—including WikiProject ones—have been moved (and usually not by the members of the project). I couldn't care less which namespace the userbox is in, quite frankly; I merely think that picking a fight—and it will be viewed as picking a fight—over the issue isn't worth it. Kirill Lokshin 21:19, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. Where the template lives matters not a jot, so if it's going to irritate or aggravate certain editors if it's template namespace we put it in project namespace instead. Simple and not worth worrying about :) --kingboyk 21:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Where should the {{WikiProject Council}} template go, on the page itself or on the talk page? I've tagged Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects with it but wasn't sure so put it on the talk page to be safe. We should mention this on the projects page.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Category:Participants in WikiProjects

Category:Participants in WikiProjects is a bit of a mess, and I think we ought to agree on a naming convention and then submit a bulk nomination to WP:CFD. Since shorter category names are generally better, I favour renaming the category to Category: WikiProjects participants and all subcats to Category:WikiProject Name participants. An acceptable alternative is to retain the name and move all subcats to Category:Participants in WikiProject Name. Thoughts? --kingboyk 10:27, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Last time somebody tried this, it was a horrible mess due to the "participants" versus "members" distinction; I very much doubt that trying to force everybody to adopt one usage versus the other will go over well. We might be able to get away with a rename to WikiProject Name [members/participants] (as the project prefers), though. Kirill Lokshin 11:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'm fine with both participants and members, as long as we get the format "WikiProject (title) (members or participants)" for all. We could also adopt the approach of category:Wikipedians by organization and just go with "Wikipedians in WikiProject (title)". Regardless, we should get consensus around what we can get consensus around, and nothing else.--Mike Selinker 14:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Deleting?

I propose that Wikipedia:WikiProject Featured articles be deleted. This project was not created in the correct order and it was led by Minun A user who is now banned for about a year. There is not even at least 5 members, one of the things needed in a project. Alvin6226 ^talk 18:02, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

We don't have any power to delete such things at will, no more than your average rouge admin anyway :) I've tagged it with {{inactive}}. If you think the page should be deleted, nominate it at WP:MFD. --kingboyk 18:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it needs to MFD if you want it gone. Personally, I doubt anyone will object to deleting it, as it seems to be rather lacking in both activity and content worth retaining at the moment.

(If you do nominate it for deletion, the crop of templates that go along with it should probably be listed as well.) Kirill Lokshin 18:26, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Given that the only non-banned member recently resigned, I've deleted it as a member-less WikiProject. --kingboyk 12:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Assessment FAQ

I wonder if we might get together and create a FAQ/howto about the assessment process (what parameters to use, what the grades mean, where to look at other gradings to see the kind of standards we're looking at, why assessments are happening). I think it would be a useful cross-WikiProject page that many WPs would be interested in adding to their banners... and would get us a few visitors too. --kingboyk 12:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The only real objection I can see is that there would be pronounced differences in the "importance" ranking as assigned by each project. As an example, a mayor of Philadelphia might get High importance ranking from the Philadelphia project, Mid importance ranking from the Pennsylvania project, and possibly even Low importance ranking from the Biography project. If there would be some way to address this matter, though, I think it would be a great idea. Badbilltucker 14:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Presumably this would go in the "Assessment" section of the WikiProject guide? Most of the technical details are there already, but there's certainly room for expansion on any number of points. Kirill Lokshin 14:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope, I was thinking more of a "Assessment for dummies". Something for "ordinary" editors to look at when they ask the inevitable "wtf is this all about?" Banner entry might be a simple: FAQ. Just state in simple terms what this is about, how to edit a parameter (we all use class= now don't we? :)), what pages to see for reference, and so on. Probably we could leave importance out altogether, as it varies between projects, some projects don't use it, and it's a param arguably best left to the project leaders anyway...

And if that doesn't persuade you, how about 115,000 links when I place it on WPBio? :P --kingboyk 14:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I think I've figured out what you're talking about now; do you mean something closer to this than to the full overview? Kirill Lokshin 15:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep, maybe a bit beefier but something exactly like that! I'm getting the occasional "how do I rate an article", "is an article with an infobox, a line of text and a photo a stub?" (I said yes), etc etc. I've also had one very senior admin ask what the ratings are for... somewhere to send those folks. --kingboyk 15:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so what questions would we want to include? Off the top of my head:

• What are the ratings for/about?
• How to rate an article?
• What do the levels mean?
• What to do if you disagree?
• How to deal with extraneous tags?
• Who can rate articles?

I'd like to keep this reasonably short; but is there anything major I've missed? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 15:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I've started a draft form of the FAQ here; comments and suggestions would be appreciated! I've purposely tried to steer clear of anything that's too specific to particular WikiProjects, and to leave the format somewhat open-ended; my idea is that this could be something which a project could transclude onto its own assessment page and extend with further entries specific to that project. Thoughts? Kirill Lokshin 16:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Never mind that transclusion bit, actually; having looked at the resulting structure more, I don't think it'll work. Kirill Lokshin 17:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the ratings how to is useful, great idea but it may be good to also reference the "how do I setup for Mathbot" instructionns floating around... ++Lar: t/c 16:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Now those are probably better off being integrated into the full guide, in my opinion; the average editor has absolutely no need to worry about the technical minutae of configuring things for Mathbot properly. Kirill Lokshin 16:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

An excellent idea! We should come up with more examples, as well. Seasoned assessors tend to say things like "It looks like a B" and that comes from looking previously at lots of Bs. A list of examples on diverse topics - say a couple of bios, chemical compound, plant, pop song, philosophical concept and a town - would really help. We also need to cover the range of scope from general to specific, from Music to ***K the Millenium. Another thing we should mention is standard formats for types of article - a country should always have History, Culture, Economy, Politics, Geography, Demographics, Administrative Districts and References to be A-Class. Walkerma 16:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Good points, especially seeing as how some of my own assessments of rail transport articles have been politely questioned. However, I think the question of what should be in each type of article is one for each WikiProject to answer in a project-specific MOS. Locomotive articles, for example, should include {{Infobox Locomotive}} and sections for the locomotive's development and construction, regular use and preservation/disposition; while railroad companies (at least those in North America) should include some derivative of {{Infobox rail}} and sections for the company's economic need and background, company officers, construction and operation history and acquisition/merger/dissolution. I've started a basic MOS for trains articles, maybe some ideas could be adapted for a more general scheme? Slambo (Speak) 17:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Project Banners page?

This might sound like a stupid idea; actually, it probably will. But as I indicated on the project page I have been trying to add the appropriate project banners to the talk pages of every article I work on. In anticipation of this, I have created a list about ten pages long of all the project banners which might be appropriate for inclusion on such a page. I was thinking of creating a specific page containing them all, so that others might be able to know both what projects are out there and how to indicate whether they think a specific project deals with pages such as the ones they have created or recently edited. I actually tentatively started such a page, and quickly realized that I was putting that page itself in the area of each project whose banner I put on the page. Do the rest of you think that there would be any specific objection from any projects if such a page were created for the potential use of other editors? If yes, do you think that the banners of inactive projects, which could potentially become active again, should be included as well or not? Also, clearly, if such a page is ever created, I would anticipate that the page itself would indicate which types of articles a particular banner belongs on. I welcome any response. Badbilltucker 14:21, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There's already a page which lists WikiProject banners. Give me a few minutes and I'll try to find it. --kingboyk 14:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Template_messages/Talk_namespace#WikiProject_notices --kingboyk 14:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There's also Category:WikiProject banners, which tends to be a bit easier to navigate. Kirill Lokshin 14:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Both of them are quite useful. The only drawback I think they both have is that all those projects which use the {WikiProjectNotice|Your name here}} banner are omitted. If they could be added to either of the lists, however, they would completely satisfy my request, and thank you both for pointing them out to me. Badbilltucker 15:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Tag for guide pages

Since the {{essay}} tag doesn't really make sense for some of the things we're working on, I thought I'd try my hand at a replacement:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide header

Thoughts? Is this too pompous? Kirill Lokshin 17:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Still loving the logo... but it's a bit pompous yes. Sorry. :P --kingboyk 18:15, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Any ideas on how to make it less so? I was trying to get across the idea that while the guides aren't "official", it's a good idea to read them; is there some way of saying this without being self-congratulatory? Kirill Lokshin 18:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that removing "paying some attention to it is probably a good idea." would be good. Joelito (talk) 18:21, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on the last part. My first thought was to update it further to read... "...it reflects the thoughts of some editors with considerable experience in setting up and maintaining WikiProjects." rather than "WikiProject affairs," but that still doesn't quite sound right. Slambo (Speak) 18:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It's an improvement I think. "This is a guide produced by the WikiProject Council. While it is not an actual policy or guideline, it reflects the thoughts of some editors with considerable experience in setting up and maintaining WikiProjects." End. Not bad... --kingboyk 18:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. ("Maintaining" may not be the best term here, but I'm not sure if there's a better one.) Kirill Lokshin 18:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I like it but would drop the "considerable" experience... that's the pompous part. Just say it reflects thougths of people who have done this before... that is the idea to convey. I like the leaf and W thing, where is that from? I also think that conveying the idea that paying attention will help you save time in the long run is a good one... Better to say that than that you "should" pay attention. That's the idea of this guide, of this council, to share stuff that works and help people not be so bogged down in the how, right? and to get uniformity (where it helps things out) as a side effect? let people draw that conclusion on their own (that's the NPOV way after all) ++Lar: t/c 18:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the "considerable experience" thing is OK - it's true and it's not really bragging. It was the "listen to us, urchins!" bit that sounded pompous to me :) Just my 2c. --kingboyk 19:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

So does that make us sea otters? <grinning, ducking, running> Slambo (Speak) 19:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe rephrasing it to say something to the effect of "while it is not official, it does reflect the current consensus of opinion on the subject" might be better, as that sounds a bit more wikipedia-like. Also, maybe providing a link to the talk page in the tag itself, with some phrasing to the effect of "Any reasonable comment on these guidelines is welcome at [talk page]]" would be perceived by some as being less threatening. The one thing I think we really want to avoid here is giving people the impression that the Wikipedia Council is some sort of Star Chamber or other conspiracy theory group, and that input from everybody is welcome here as well as anywhere else in wikipedia. Badbilltucker 14:53, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, we don't necessarily know whether it reflects consensus (or among whom that consensus might be, for that matter) at this point ;-)

How about this version:

This is a guide produced by the WikiProject Council. While it is not an actual policy or guideline, it reflects the thoughts of some editors with considerable experience in creating and maintaining WikiProjects. Comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Is that any better? Kirill Lokshin 16:18, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I think this one is perfect. NCurse _work 17:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've provisionally added it to the guide and FAQ pages, so the talk-page link works now; does it seem to be okay? Kirill Lokshin 19:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Importance field in assessments

User:Slim Virgin has expressed some concerns about the importance= field. We've been discussing it at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography#Tagging_BLPs. Possibilities for WPBio include abandoning importance or, perhaps, on a WP1 scale, renaming it "priority". Please read the discussion and add any comments or proposals you wish to make. --kingboyk 08:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Public Relations

I think that everyone in this project would likely agree that a project of this type is necessary; otherwise, none of us would be here. However, I do think that members of some of the other groups could perceive it, obviously incorrectly, as being a "bunch of self-appointed, self-righteous, {fill in the blank}s trying to take control of the entire wikipedia." The best way I can think of to ensure that this view doesn't take root is to provide support for the other projects themselves and to actively foster cooperation between the projects. Two specific ideas come to mind:

I am personally in awe of the person at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography who developed the bot for automatically indicating that stub articles within the purview of WikiProject Biography have the project banner indicate that the article is of stub quality. If we were to be able to contact the developer of that bot and ask if it could be copied and distributed to the other projects doing assessments, and, if yes, having a member of this project offer the bot to the other assessing projects, that would definitely be a feather in this project's cap and improve our pr across projects. Other, similar, attempts to share resources would also be useful.

Secondly, there are a number of articles which clearly fall within the purview of a number of projects. Biographys of major military figures come to mind, as they clearly fall within the purview of the projects for biography, military history, the figure's states or counties of residence, etc. Perhaps if the members of this project could somehow get together an occasional cross-project collaboration effort (and hopefully be successful in it), that would be both in everyone's best interests and help ensure that this project is not perceived by everyone else as a bunch of elitist snobs.

Those were the only two I could think of right away, but I am sure other specific actions of this general type would be welcome by the other projects while at the same time indicating to the members of those projects how useful and valuable, and definitely not "elitist", this particular project is. Badbilltucker 15:19, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The person who did the Stub thing for us is User:kingboyk and I'm sure he'd be happy to help share! I thought it was brilliant too and am going to start using it to tag American CW stubs tomorrow for the new ACW task force. In response to the second idea, I don't know if this helps, but I created {{COTWCurrentPicks}} to have a central spot that lists all current collabs -- most projects were already using a template to state the article name, but a few didn't and so I made it for them and in some cases went ahead and inserted it in their template or let them know of its existence on their Talk page. Perhaps we display it here too? plange 16:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Neat idea, but the template is a bit hard to read as it's formatted right now ;-) Is there some particular reason it needs to be so compressed? Kirill Lokshin 16:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

It was originally larger but got some complaints on how huge it was (see Talk page). I welcome changes, etc., I just wanted to get the data collated, but am not too good on design :-) plange 16:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't invent the bot though, that's just AWB in auto-mode. That said, AWB now supports plugins so I'll probably be writing one or more plugins to do this and similar jobs, which of course I'll be happy to share. --kingboyk 18:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I think Badbill raises a very important point. I have been part of Work via WikiProjects which has been contacting WikiProjects for almost a year now (please help with this important activity!), and the way we have avoided the "elitism" is simple, we have not been elitist! The whole premise of WVWP is based on the idea that the WikiProjects are full of experts who know their own field (be it Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Zoroastrianism) far better than we do, and they will know what is best for their work. That means that even a pompous old git like myself has been able to work with some level of humility. So I think this group should see the WikiProjects as knowledgable communities who might like to share their valuable, clever ideas with other projects. This group should not think that it knows best, and it should not tell the projects how to run things. Because of WVWP I have come to know many of the people on this Council, people who indeed make me feel very humble, and I think they are in agreement with me on this - but we have to make it abundantly clear from the start. If we see ourselves and project ourselves merely as a group of humble servants facilitating the sharing of ideas between projects, the good ideas will naturally get adopted - we won't have to push them. Walkerma 02:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree with the idea that we should not try to "lord over" the WikiProjects and impose our will on them; without even getting into the various philosophical issues involved, this simply wouldn't work in practice, as the individual projects would ignore us (at best!) and keep running on their own.

At the same time, this should not lead to timidity on our part. If we know something to be a fundamentally bad idea—and I'm sure just about everyone here has seen certain approaches fail rather spectacularly—then we should not shy away from explaining the likely consequences (and, ideally, suggesting alternatives) to anyone who asks. There's little to be gained, in my opinion, from failing to warn people (particularly newcomers to the WikiProject concept) of common pitfalls under the guise of our "not knowing best". Kirill Lokshin 03:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Quite true, though I think we should tread carefully until we establish some credibility within the community. But you're quite right, in cases like a new project with inexperienced people the participants will probably welcome help and guidance - indeed such situations are and should be a major part of the mission of this group. I stand corrected on that point! Walkerma 03:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The easiest way to avoid being elitist is of course to allow anyone to join :) --kingboyk 05:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I just want to make it clear that I was in no way saying that this group ever would or even could try to "lord it over" anyone else, but rather that we should make every effort to ensure that no one ever, correctly or incorrectly, thinks of us as trying to do so. The first way to achieve this goal would probably be to appear to be primarily (or at least initially) seeking to provide assistance rather than "guidance" (barring instances where such guidance is obviously useful or required). Offering the carrot before the stick, as it were. Secondly, I think that, as I stated initially, that there will be several articles which clearly fall within the scopes of several projects. Most of the top importance biographies do so. Maybe we could suggest something along these lines to the various projects and notice boards which are currently functioning in lieu of actual projects (for states like South Dakota, Wyoming, etc., which don't have projects, countries in the same situation, etc.): Ask them to gather together a list of the (let's say, for now) 25 most important articles, as they see them, for their individual "fields" (state, country, scientific field, religious group, whatever), and ask them to rank each of these articles on the basis of their current "quality" (stub, etc.). In the event that the majority of the top articles which fall within the scope of a given project are already at the good- or feature-article level (whichever is decided), ask them to keep going until they have a list of at least 25 articles of comparatively high importance to their project that "need work". Gather these lists together, and see if anything falls on more than one list. If they do, suggest that the projects that listed them as important collaborate as projects on improving the content of that article, each project paying particular attention to their own field of expertise. It even might be possible and advisable to ask the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for writing an encyclopedia to try to focus in the short term on creating at least stub-quality articles on subjects referenced in the collaboration article itself. If this could be successful on one or more of top importance articles initially, it would be very likely to contribute to the positive perception of this project by the other projects, and thus individuals, in wikipedia. If such a collaboration were to ever take place, having a banner which shows the icons and names of each of the participant projects on the "collaboration of the week/month/millenium/whatever" banner would be useful too. I am frankly abysmal at anything remotely resembling art, so don't look for me to provide an example, by the way. And I know that I blather on way too much, so I'm shutting up now. Badbilltucker 15:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we should definitely offer only carrots first! As for the second part, any work on that should definitely be coordinated with WP:WVWP (which I hope may become redundant if this project takes off) - there is a lot of overlap with work done there. Walkerma 22:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe then we should change our name.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:inactive wikiproject

Template {{Inactive}} is nominated for deletion here, this might be useful for this project no?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Talk) 21:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've closed as Speedy Keep. I have to take the risk it'll get me into trouble - how can a template which is so widely used not be useful?! --kingboyk 21:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Meh, you're probably going to get yelled at for doing that; the nomination is suggesting that having such a template isn't actually useful, rather than that the template isn't used, and is a pretty legitimate (if perhaps misguided) reason to want something deleted. Kirill Lokshin 21:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

We'll see :) Seems like a no brainer speedy keep to me. If he "complains vociferously" (yells!) I can always undo the closure. --kingboyk 21:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Desysop!... I'm not sure you'll get away with the speedy but I hope you do. I was poised to explain why it was useful when I found it closed. ++Lar: t/c 22:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I was a bit mad. Such a bad, pointless nomination. Seems like a nom for the sake of it (which is WP:POINT). Anyway, can we get back to serious business now? :) --kingboyk 22:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, I think there should be a discussion about that template. Can there be anything like an inactive WP? What are the criteria? Doesn't it scare away interested members, perpetuating the situation? It has led to situations where a WP that has only one member get's tagged: the creator and only member removed it, saying the WP was not inactive, just underpopulated.

For all those reasons, I say we delete it (although my opinion might result in blocking by kingboyk , -kidding-). There might be something similar like the tag for underpopulated categories? Maybe Template:PopWP? Pff I'm starting to feel like the Template Man by now...--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I think this could be a logical step to take after we've completed a rudimentary review of the existing inactive projects (perhaps as part of creating the directory?). In many cases, a project is inactive because its putative scope matches (or nearly matches) that of an active project; in others, it's because the project's goals don't make sense for the WikiProject structure, violate policy, or are just silly. While we should try to bring most inactive WikiProjects back to activity, I see no reason to extend this blindly to all inactive WikiProjects; some of them, quite honestly, would be better off deleted or redirected to an active project working on the same thing. Kirill Lokshin 16:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think so too.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Non userbox banner?

I'm not as fond of userboxes in my "projects" section.. anyione want to make a banner like most projects have that isn't a user box? I'm lazy or I would...  :) Maybe I still will. ++Lar: t/c 01:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, we seem to have picked up {{WikiProject Council}} and {{WPCouncil}} (yes, these are two separate templates!), both of which are intended to tag pages into the project. Since we don't appear to be doing that, why not turn one (or both!) of them into a full-size user banner? Kirill Lokshin 03:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I just redirected one to the other, so scratch the part about there being two identical but separate banners ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

OK I'll pick one of them for that and leave the other one for page tagging. One thing maybe we should propose somewhere is a consistent naming convention for these banners, boxes, etc.. different projects sometimes have the opposite names for the same things (names swapped respectively, I mean) ++Lar: t/c 06:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The most useful convention I've seen was the one that grew up out of the userbox conventions; if the main project banner was {{XYZ}}, the banner for userpages would be {{XYZ User}} and the main userbox would be {{User XYZ}}. It's not clear how useful that is now that WP:GUS is on; are these "banners" going to be considered just big userboxes and moved to project-space as well? Kirill Lokshin 09:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Well I guess I WON'T use those empty templats then but rather use ones in conformance iwth your naming convention. However should XYZ be "Council" or "WPCouncil"... the former word is widely used and using it may pollute the namespace. no idea about Gus and project membership banners. Project membership typically is not very controversial (with some notable exceptions)++Lar: t/c 12:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I've seen both {{WikiProject Council}}- and {{WPCOUNCIL}}-type naming used quite widely; the alternate capitalization ({{WPCouncil}}) seems to be somewhat less common, as it's a bit harder to guess from the project name/shortcut. Kirill Lokshin 12:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

WPCouncil=WikiProject Council, that's my favoured form of template name - perhaps I'm just strange! :) "WikiProject Council" is too long - the shorter the name the easier it is to remember. WPCOUNCIL is OK! --kingboyk 20:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)