Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 18

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Category templates

A large number of WikiProject categories have been CFDed to use "importance" rather than "priority" - the list is at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Manual#Other. However I can't locate the precise point to adjust the templates that populate them - is anyone able to find and initiate the change? Timrollpickering (talk) 07:13, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

In the projects banner template, for example Template:WikiProject Spooks, change |priority=... to |importance=.... -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

This could possibly changed in one go, once all the categories have been created, by removing the support for "priority" from the meta-template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:27, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

To be quite honest, I find it somewhat surprising that such a mass CFD was allowed to go through despite the fact that the WikiProjects in question were never informed; that seems, to me, a violation of the spirit (if perhaps not the letter) of the notification requirements, and has caused the decision to be made without any input from the editors who set up the original scheme, and who would therefore be able to explain the reasoning for it. But I suppose that's really neither here nor there. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 11:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes I suspect there may be a deletion review forthcoming. Although the consensus is clear from that discussion, some may argue that it involved too few editors for such a change. Some projects may realise what is happening for the first time when the deletions start happening. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:34, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, this is a prime candidate for DRV. There are real reasons behind "priority" instead of "importance", and having a desire for consistency does not trump them. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:16, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, dear. This is a disaster. I've notified WP:WikiProject Biography, and I expect them to be quite unhappy. In particular, people have expressed concerns that declaring a person to be "low-importance" could be a BLP violation (whereas "low priority" (for our group to improve this article) isn't). Even if it's permitted by the policy, the wording has generated substantial complaints in the past.

I have no sympathy for the desire for a foolish consistency, but I am extremely unhappy about the failure to notify the affected people. I think we need to take this to DRV as soon as possible. In the meantime, if someone knows who is implementing this bad decision, the person might appreciate a friendly word about the opposition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's a list of affected categories. I'm not sure that this is a complete list, but it's at least a starting point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Tool, bot?

Is there a tool or bot to create the recent changes list for WikiProjects? --Nascar1996 (talk • contribs) 00:14, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I know that there's a toolserver script to generate such lists (http://toolserver.org/~tim1357/cgi-bin/wikiproject_watchlist.py), but I'm not sure what, if anything, can create them on-wiki. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

That bot just generates a list of pages transcluding a WikiProject banner, so in theory that same list can just be dumped to wiki, allowing the use of MediaWiki's built-in recent changes feature. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:05, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

How would you do that? --Nascar1996 (talk • contribs) 01:10, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know exactly how it works, but Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Recent changes shows the most recent changes to WPMED's articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:33, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes there is a bot for Recent changes. Its Femto Bot run by Rich Farmbrough. I asked him if he could do this for WikiProject United States and its been working quite well. If you take a look at the Members page of WikiProject United States you can see a list of the other bots we use as well as what they do and who runs them. There are several more requests pending for various things so if you check back from time to time you will see new ones added. Femto Bot creates the Recent changes page under the project so that the articles can be viewed through the link like WhatamIdoing gave as an example. --Kumioko (talk) 01:36, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I asked Rich. Thank you all for helping. I appreciate it. --Nascar1996 (talk • contribs) 01:58, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Bot request for assessing articles

Folks here might like to consider some of the ideas being kicked around at Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Project_template_fixes_and_assessment. On the list is the possibility of a bot to repair articles that are incorrectly tagged as being "Redirect" class when they're not redirects, or a normal article class (e.g., "Stub") when it's actually a redirect. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of WikiProject watchlists (alphabetical)

I think we need to update this listing of projects. It hasn't been updated since December 2010 and there has been a lot of activity with regards to deleting projects. I recommend if a project is deleted that it be lined out or marked in some way rather than just straight deleted though. That will help to keep track of those that succeeded and failed over time. --Kumioko (talk) 14:49, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

That list is more than a list of WikiProjects; it is a list of WikiProject watchlists.

If your interest is in there being an up-to-date alphabetical list of WikiProjects, then I recommend that the list at http://toolserver.org/~svick/projects.txt be copied to the Wikipedia namespace as Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects (alphabetical) (shortcut: WP:LWPA), wikified, and updated weekly according to Wikipedia:Database reports/New WikiProjects. If your recommendation of lining out or somehow marking deleted WikiProjects on that list is applied, then watchlists of failed WikiProjects can be simply deleted from the list of WikiProject watchlists. Maybe User:Svick and User:Tim1357 can collaborate on Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects (alphabetical).

—Wavelength (talk) 16:54, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

[I am inserting the underlined text.—Wavelength (talk) 17:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)]

The question that won't die

Editors here may be interested in commenting at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Should_WikiProjects_have_a_maximum_size.

NB that the question is "Should we prohibit any single group of editors from caring about more than ____ number of articles?", not "Should we prohibit more than ____ number of editors from working together?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Agree why would we limit our editors from collaborating in anyway? As noted on the Council-guide bot alerts notifications for deletion, RfC, disputed etc.. will be seen thus participated in by many projects and more editors. All this is a plus. Founding principle #4 say - creation of a welcoming and collegial editorial environment. Jimbo has stated in the past - Wikipedia's success to date is entirely a function of our open community'. So lets let our editors decide what they would like to collaborate on and in what way. Moxy (talk) 21:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Project proposals: Not required but recommended

There should be something worked into the descriptions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals which indicates that proposing a project there is absolutely not a requirement for creating a new project, but rather a place to determine if there are others out there interested in working on the same topic. There are quite a few active projects which were never run through the Council, and the Council is overstepping its bounds if it is seeking to monopolize the WikiProject creation process. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:01, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

It's important to emphasize that proposing a project on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals is highly recommended even if it isn't mandatory. There are fewer and fewer new projects that are viable. Almost all subjects are now covered. --Kleinzach 14:25, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if your last claim can be supported as you keep proposing and supporting deletion of the very projects you claim already exist. I already answered your first claim in my comments. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 15:54, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

What we are looking for here is positive contributors. The statement above and others (above here) were you are going out of your way to insult all those involved in one of the biggest projects is not a good approach. You are more then welcome to your own opinions but it gets tiresome to see your negative attitude towards the projects all the time. Are you sure this is an area of Wikipidia that you really would like to help Kleinzach? All your contributions are greatly appreciated just wish you approach the projects in a different light.Moxy (talk) 16:36, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I can't tell who you're directing your comments at, but if it's me, I'm certainly not going out of my way "to insult all those involved in one of the biggest projects" (and I'm not even sure which project you mean). ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 03:58, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I was not clear it was meant for Kleinzach. Moxy (talk) 15:53, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Moxy: You've started at least two projects without proposing them: WikiProject Santana and WikiProject The Supremes (both now effectively inactive). If you oppose the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals process then please just say so. --Kleinzach 01:28, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

You keep puting your foot in your mouth - Yes I did make them by request for the 10 time- and its to bad you killed them as fast as you could. You have stated in the past you hate this type of music so is this why you tag the projects inactive after 5 months? Pls read the guide and understand it!!!!.Moxy (talk) 15:51, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Moxy: All completely untrue. I've never even heard Santana — let alone expressed an opinion about him/them. --Kleinzach 01:21, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Nihon Joe, we've gone back and forth over exactly how to present it. The proposal process is not mandatory.

However... a large proportion of the proposals are from inexperienced editors—people who don't even realize that they are proposing to create projects that already exist, for example. The track record for "projects" started by emboldened but inexperienced individuals is extremely poor. They seem to think that all they have to do is make a page and tag a few articles, and suddenly they'll have dozens of friends helping them. It simply doesn't work that way. They're disappointed by the lack of response and often end up leaving Wikipedia.

So if we explicitly tell them that the proposal process is strictly optional, then they might be more likely to skip it, and thus lose out on critical feedback (like "That project already exists").

For others, I assume that experienced editors already know basic facts, like MILHIST already exists, or that a single person can't be a WikiProject unto himself—and that IAR is policy. IMO those editors can and will boldly create whatever groups they want, without us needing to hang out a sign that says "Editors are permitted to work together without written permission from the participants in WikiProject Council". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I think wording it as "strongly recommended, and here's why..." would work. If people choose to ignore it, and half-create a project which then promptly dies, it can be deleted. I don't think we should be implying (as the current wording does) that it is required to go through this process. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 03:58, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Why dont we make it clear the process will help find collaborators because it will be seen by those involved with other projects. Tell our editors its not at all mandatory, while at the same time implying is a great benefit to do so. thus is a process that can help them get members.Moxy (talk) 17:18, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

That would be the "...and here's why..." part of what I was suggesting above. :) ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:26, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Mason County

This looks more like an article, but I'm no expert on WikiProjects. It's created by a new account.... Dougweller (talk) 07:11, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

It was basically a copy of our article by a sockpuppet, so deleted. Dougweller (talk) 15:22, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Possible revitalization of the core biographies group

I have made a few comments on the talk page of the main Biography WikiProject about the possible expansion of the core biographies group to include more articles. There is a significant problem with the proposal however. There is a very good book on Human Accomplishment which lists some 4,002 of the most influential and frequently discussed people in some areas of human endeavor. It however omits lists of people in business, sports, government/politics/law, religion, and some other topics. There are a few other books listing the "big names" in at least some of those fields, and a published series by Gale which includes some 7,000 biographies. So far, there hasn't been much if any response on the talk page, so it might well be a dead matter, but I was wondering if anyone here might be willing and or able to maybe help to see if the group can or should be revitalized, and, if so, whether they would be willing to help do so. John Carter (talk) 16:04, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

The Biography WikiProject has probably been the most spectacular failure in the history of Wikipedia. How many articles has the project bannered? A million or more? How many articles has it edited? None in the fields in which I am active. IMO the project needs to be completely revamped to concentrate on technical editing and style matters relating to biography. --Kleinzach 03:25, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the original motivation of the Biography project involved, at least to some extent, BLP related issues. There are now separate groups and noticeboards for that specific topic. However, during the time that there were individuals willing and able to spend a significant deal of time working with it, I believe it was rather effective. The problem is, basically, finding such people, and that is the big problem for a lot of projects. But I do think that perhaps a specific group for the most significant biography articles, some of which might not necessarily be related to many if any other active groups, might be one of the few ways to bring real attention to such articles. John Carter (talk) 18:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

At least in my own opinion, one of the ways to make projects more likely to be successful, and maybe make it easier for interested editors to develop relevant content, would be if the main topics of the group have one or a few highly-regarded reference sources of comparatively easy accessibility to a lot of editors which could be used to help determine which are the best sources relevant to the topic, give some idea of the current consensus regarding content, etc. Honestly, in general, such sources are difficult to find, or even print, on a topic like "biography" which pretty much by definition has relevant content containing, for at least some articles, every day. Maybe one way to make it more effective would be to make its content contributions centered on some articles which are included in such reference sources, maybe like the two I mentioned above. John Carter (talk) 18:58, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of sub project pages

I see that a few of our project editors have been nominating there own sub pages for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion. This I would say is not the best way of going about this. This sub pages should be dealt with by the projects themselves (as they know best). Projects are free to delete their pages after a deletion discussion. They simply need to talk about it, come to a decision and then apply {{db-xfd|votepage=link to closed deletion discussion}} and/or one of the other templates of this nature located at G6. Technical deletions - Uncontroversial maintenance. I think we should add this info to the guide on how to deal with sub-pages that this projects think are useless. Any thoughts? Should me make a special template for this process?Moxy (talk) 00:39, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. It certainly is preferable for projects to manage all their own pages, but project editors should be allowed to make Mfd nominations if they feel there is some advantage to using this process, because the project is inactive or whatever. --Kleinzach 08:06, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what your saying - you agree they can delete them on there own without going to Mfd, but you dont want to let them know how to do so? I made no mention of stooping use of Mfd were appropriate. Moxy (talk) 17:48, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that we still have over 1500 projects not counting subprojects and task forces. The reason this is happening now is because we just stuffed it in the garage and shut the door over the last few years and now its gotten to a point were we need to clean out the garage. Many of these have been long since forgotten, styles have changed, interests have changed. We need to do this housecleaning so we can focus on the projects and articles that need the attention rather than distract editors with non projects that are unlikley to be revived. --Kumioko (talk) 13:07, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I am talking about projects not having to go to Mfd to delete there own pages. I saying I think adding a note to the guide telling our editor that "if they like" they dont have to go to Mfd to delete there own pages. I guess I was not clear as to what I was proposing. Moxy (talk) 17:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

So you propose adding these points:

• Projects with a page they no longer need or want may take the page to MFD.
• Projects with a page they no longer need or want may alternatively (entirely their choice) use {{db-xfd}} to request deletion (or even have some participant who happens to be an admin delete it).

I have no objection to this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:30, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry i was not clear - I should have made the proposal in the style you have just done. Yes what your saying it what i am proposing . Only thing is I think the {{db-xfd}} choice should be first. We should make it clear that projects are free to manage this sub-project on there own.Moxy (talk) 19:10, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps instead of telling them that they "should" use db-xfd, we will only tell them that it's quicker, simpler, and a more efficient use of the community's limited resources. I think that's likely to produce the results you want. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:30, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes your correct - "they" should choose whats best for them.Moxy (talk) 20:24, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I often delete WikiProject Japan pages we no longer need or which are superceded by other pages. Without any MfD. Nominating for MfD is just process for process' sake, which is just stupid and pointless. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 04:28, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Its only stupid and pointless because you don't like it. It has a purpose and that is to allow editors to help decide if a page should or should not be deleted rather than relying on one editor to do it. Also remember that MFD isn't exclusive to WikiProject pages but a variety of other things as well. --Kumioko (talk) 13:21, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm fine with MfD, just not when it's used abusively (all the project pages being nominated which clearly should have been simply tagged with {{inactive}}, for example). ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 16:05, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

There are a lot of people who dislike MFD. It's important that the process be made available and known to groups for two reasons, though: Not all WikiProjects have an admin in the house, and it's the place to go if they don't reach a clear consensus among themselves. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:20, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

A new class for Featured media

I just wanted to let you know that a new class for Featured media (Images, sounds and videos) has been created and added to allow WikiProjects to track the featured media. --Kumioko (talk) 20:04, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

This is kinda a big deal. Should we include it in the next WikiProject Report? -Mabeenot (talk) 20:40, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. If you want to see an example just take a look at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/United States articles by quality statistics. A couple of folks are going to be adding bannes to the applicable files over the next few days. There are other projects interested as well but WPUS is the first out of the shoot so to speak. --Kumioko (talk) 20:47, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

WPConservatism has been using it for quite some time. They may be righties, but they're pretty savvy. – Lionel ^(talk) 01:57, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration

Trying to create member involvement for a collaboration at WPConservatism collaboration. Any ideas? – Lionel ^(talk) 02:12, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

New Proposal: to retain good writers we need better collaboration platforms

During the Wikipedia in Higher Education summit (I was following along on Twitter via the #wihed hashtag) what Sue Gardner said about Wikipedia's coverage of the social sciences and humanities rang true for me. I've been trying hard to get some teamwork and collaboration going to help improve weak history articles (history, especially history outside of the United States and Europe are weaknesses at present) with limited success. With WikiProjects largely abandoned and useless as tools for collaboration, my only success has been through talk pages and the wikipedia-en IRC channel. So, I've created this proposal that–extrapolating from the Wikimedia Strategic Plan to 2015's call for more social and collaborative tools–aims to change the way collaboration works on Wikipedia: Proposal: Moving beyond moribund WikiProjects to a new platform for collaboration. Click the proposal for more on the WHY and the WHAT and the HOW.

This is the proposal summary:

In order to reverse the troubling trend of editors leaving Wikipedia (i.e. improve the recruitment and retention of new writers) it's necessary we move beyond moribund WikiProjects to new platforms for collaboration. This is already addressed, in part, by the "strategy:Attracting and retaining participants" portion of the current Wikimedia Strategic Plan. My proposal deals with how we get from where we are now (in en.wikipedia, littered with moribund WikiProjects) to where the Strategic Plan takes us: the introduction of more social/collaborative tools to the Wiki, including "Users would be able to join topical groups, based on their editing interests (e.g., “18th century American history)". My proposal is about how we get from here to there.

It's just a start, but your thoughts are appreciated at Proposal: Moving beyond moribund WikiProjects to a new platform for collaboration --NickDupree (talk) 04:03, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree we need to promote collaborative editing. We needn't rearrange the deckchairs however as we already have the existing tools to do this. We can prominently show how to monitor recent changes of articles tagged with a wikiproject tag or some other subset. Now if I can just figure out how we did it....it can be displayed more prominently on wikiproject directories. I think creating new subject collaboration platforms is a very bad idea - we already have them for a vast number of topics and subject areas, the key is revamping (hence (1) add recentchanges with subset and (2) show folks how to tweak that to find their own recentchange subsets to monitor, and (2) folks can always monitor contribs of others tehy want to help with. 04:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

eg: monitoring category:Birds of Australia and [1] Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:21, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

"Re-arrange the deck chairs?" The Titanic has already sunk, my friend. So many WikiProjects are dead as it gets, Dead Parrot dead. I don't see how a recent changes display would bring back any of the dead parrots, unfortunately. I think we all need to understand that WikiProject cadavers stacked 6ft deep have a stifling effect on collaboration. The Wikipedia in Higher Education summit emphasized the need to improve the social sciences and humanities; well, WikiProject History is so flatlined and unresponsive that their "Collaboration of the month" is from October of 2007 and no response from anyone on the talk page (and this is a WikiProject listed as active). Editors new and old are left to scream into the void if we do nothing. My proposal suggests that informal collaboration pages anyone can edit replace dead WikiProjects until superseded by the Strategic Plan's "topical groups." NickDupree (talk) 04:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

All a wikiproject needs is a few new edits to spruce it up and list the tools prominently. The tags on talk pages serve to make cats to help track recent changes to articles. e.g Wikipedia:WikiProject United States has recently been renovated after some years inactive. The collaboration has seen some article improvements there. It can be done elsewhere. I have added historical notes to various collaboration templates to give folks some idea of what is/was active when - see Wikipedia:U.S._Wikipedians'_notice_board/USCOTM and Wikipedia:U.S. Wikipedians' notice board/USCOTM/History. If you are thinking history and social sciences, can you give me an example of one subject/topic area you were thinking of in particular (I bet there are a couple...) and we can examine what already exists as a case-in-point. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject History, WikiProject China and WikiProject Chinese history are dead parrots and those are my interest areas. WikiProject History, designed as an important umbrella over the related WikiProjects, is dead and most everything under it is also dead! WikiProject History's "Collaboration of the month" is from October of 2007 and inquiries get no response from anyone. Those examples fit what you meant? --NickDupree (talk) 05:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Approach to projects - I have been here a long time and over the years have seen projects do great things. Projects do not all function in the same manner. Yes some have lots of talking - but most seem to work in the fact they simply get like minded editors together. I am involved in many many many projects and find that most projects are just a "meet and greet" place that leads to people talking on each others talk and article pages over the project pages. So yes some projects have lots of action going on there talk page - while others are more of a "find a interested editor" type page. The proposal above seem to set some strict limits and looks like it would involve much more time spent evaluating projects rather then article and actual project development. However I do like it overall - an introduction of more social element and better functionality to Wikipedia, I believe are great ideas. Not all like the social side of Wikipedia, but its essential to our growth and future prosperity, as this younger generation is much more tech savvy. Will comment more on the page itself after I read more on this (you have given us lots of links and things to think about). PS great to see some forward positive thinking.Moxy (talk) 06:19, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but what is the substantive difference between the "collaboration pages" envisioned by this proposal and the WikiProjects they aim to replace? If the only distinction between the two is the level of structure or formality involved, then I see no real need for a complex process of deprecation and replacement; editors are already perfectly free to restructure an inactive project to whatever form they find useful. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 11:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Kirill, we've got to put ourselves in the shoes of editors new and old who have no idea where to begin to revive dead WikiProjects, for example, the prospect of restructuring something as large and encompassing as WikiProject History is so daunting that I don't expect it to ever happen; we do nothing, it's likely that their "Collaboration of the month" remains stuck in 2007 for eternity. It seems far more plausible to create a separate, informal collaboration page than to wait for a rebuild that–let's be honest–is probably never coming. --NickDupree (talk) 18:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that I might not have been very clear. I'm not suggesting that any editor be required (or even expected) to revive a WikiProject's entire existing structure; as you correctly point out, doing so for all but the simplest projects would be quite daunting for the vast majority of editors. Rather, I would merely suggest that we not create an artificial divide between the collaboration pages you suggest on the one hand and the concept of a "WikiProject" on the other; a "WikiProject", after all, is at its core nothing more than a collaboration page (or set of pages) and the associated community of editors. There is no requirement that WikiProjects have some arbitrary level of complexity, so page you suggest would still, in my view, remain a perfectly legitimate WikiProject (albeit a more streamlined one than most). Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 23:40, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Nick, what I worry about is a bewildering profusion of collaboration efforts, when trying to streamline and strengthen some might be a better place to start. A key part of wikiproject United State's reactivation was cranking the collaboration into gear for a few months. It might stick, it might not. Who knows. Now of the wikiprojects you mention, the China one seems to have some (albeit a low level of) activity. I have an idea...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

What's your idea, Casliber? I'm all ears. --NickDupree (talk) 18:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Nick. Your proposal has created a lot of conversation, which means regardless of the outcome, you've gotten the ball rolling on improving Wikipedia. I've interviewed over 50 projects for the Signpost and understand your frustration with inactive projects. I even keep a list of interesting projects I would like to interview someday should they ever become active again. But amongst all the ghost towns and decaying infrastructure, there are some thriving metropolises. Everyone points to WP:MILHIST and WP:OREGON as examples of successful WikiProjects, but I've also encountered the vibrant communities at WP:Ice Hockey, WP:Ships, WP:Ireland, WP:Birds, WP:Cricket, and WP:Mathematics. Take a look at those projects' talk pages or see how many people have responded to our interviews over the past year. I would say that WikiProjects as a concept are far from moribund. You note that WikiProject China and the related history project are not as active as they should be. I agree. But on the other hand, I'm planning an interview with WP:Croatia, a project covering a small, non-anglophone country that still manages to have a vibrant community on the English Wikipedia. The problems with WikiProject History, WikiProject China and WikiProject Chinese history may be related to the structure of those projects. It may be that we haven't worked hard enough to recruit people with interest in those fields. It may be that these projects simply need a jumpstart like the entire space-related field received in late 2010. It could be that things need to become more centralized or decentralized, something with which WikiProject United States is currently experimenting. I'm all for better collaboration tools, but let's not toss out a bunch of projects because certain topics/communities have not produced the results we wanted. -Mabeenot (talk) 17:44, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject templates question

I searched for information about this an cannot find anywhere. Can anybody please comment on the question I put up here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#User:65.93.15.213

A minor article about astrology is suddenly put under the WikiProject Agriculture and also Astronomy and History of Science. No comment is left in the edit summary. I don't understand this. Is it normal? Maybe this editor is working in good faith, because in some cases the added project seems appropriate, but not always.. Why can anybody put WikiProject templates on Talk pages, even when they are not member of a given Project? MakeSense64 (talk) 11:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Generally speaking, the actions you describe aren't unusual. Tagging articles for projects is a fairly routine thing to do, so editors often don't make any special effort with regard to edit summaries; and many projects either do not have formal membership lists, or allow editors who are not on such lists to take part in project activities such as tagging and assessment.

As for any specific concern regarding the validity of a particular tag, I would suggest bringing the question up on the talk page(s) of the project(s) involved. Mistaken tagging is reasonably common, and most projects are quite happy to examine the need for particular articles to be tagged in greater detail if the matter is brought to their attention. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 16:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

The relevant guideline is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Article_tagging. There are some editors who do little except tag pages for WikiProjects. Generally, it's considered quite helpful, and having multiple projects tracking a page is desirable, although anyone could make a mistake. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Good. That solves my questions. MakeSense64 (talk) 17:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

WikiProjects by size

I recently requested a sortable listing of WikiProjects by size (number of articles tagged with the project's banner) be added to the monthly database reports. Tim1357 made it happen and even produced some bonus data and percentages. The first set of results can be viewed here. Not surprisingly, BIO and MILHIST were at the top of the list, but what surprised me was everything at the bottom. Looking at the list gave me an interesting quandary: why are there so many projects with no articles at all? I know the Guild of Copyeditors and other behind-the-scenes projects don't need to assess articles, but WP:Kazakhstan should at least include Kazakhstan's article. Some of these have been reduced to task force status, but others may just have a broken banner template. It's certainly something we should have a look at. On a related note, there are several projects with only one or two articles. Is that really enough to warrant a WikiProject? Should we take steps to clean up some of these empty projects? -Mabeenot (talk) 22:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about the others, but WP Kazakhstan certainly does have some articles. See Category:Kazakhstan articles by quality. User<Svick>.Talk(); 23:09, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if it has something to do with Kazakhstan being grouped into the WikiProject Central Asia banner. -Mabeenot (talk) 23:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure the statistics are correct; I get the sense that the report is based purely on pages including a particular template (and perhaps not accounting for redirects?), which presumably wouldn't show anything useful for cases where a project's categories are generated by some other banner (e.g. via a consolidated banner, through cross-project assessment, etc.). For example, the report shows MILHIST with 81,306 articles, but the actual assessment statistics indicate that the number is 114,904; the difference is, I suspect, due to a combination of template redirects and additional articles coming in through joint task forces with other projects. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 23:47, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Having a sortable list is a good idea, but there are clearly some details that need to be worked out. For example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight doesn't appear at all; instead the defunct projects Space, and Human Spaceflight are listed. The correct information is already provided by the User:WP 1.0 bot, so why not just import that data into a sortable table? Mlm42 (talk) 00:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Two additional WikiProjects that don't show up at all in this report are Wikipedia:WikiProject Appalachia and Wikipedia:WikiProject Myrtle Beach. The first of these is active; the second seems to be inactive. --Orlady (talk) 03:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks like Tim1357 was using an old database to pull this info. He's working with CBM to get access to the correct data. -Mabeenot (talk) 20:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Check out these results. Did he fix the problem? -Mabeenot (talk) 23:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, yes, that looks much better. Mlm42 (talk) 00:26, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The results appear to be counting among them non-mainspace pages e.g. WP:VG only has about 25k articles, whereas the list claims ~55k. Was it intended to include all pages underneath a particular banner or simply the mainspace pages? --Izno (talk) 04:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it's supposed to be all pages with a particular banner. Projects maintain many categories, files, portals, and other pages that ought to be counted. I suppose an additional column could be added to count only mainspace pages. -Mabeenot (talk) 13:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

If it's showing more tagged pages than there really are, then you should probably look at this discussion. Something about how MediaWiki software handles page moves for transclusions throws off one method of counting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Most of the issues identified here seem to be fixed, but Wikipedia:WikiProject Appalachia and Wikipedia:WikiProject Myrtle Beach are still missing. Neither of those projects has implemented article assessments or priority/importance ratings -- does that make them invisible? --Orlady (talk) 20:21, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, considering that the data comes from the quality/importance assessment database, there is no way that the bot that populates and manages the database would know about the projects' existence. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 00:54, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Eclipses

Just found out about the council, glad you are here. Just got the Eclipses WikiProject up and running. The main member (and originator) is on a wiki-break, so I'm the only active member at the moment (which may give you the impression it's hanging on by a thread, but not really), so what you see is hopefully just the beginning of what will eventually be a slick project with a lot of interest. Whenever there is an eclipse there is heavy reliance by the public at large on Wikipedia for information. So I think the need is there, now I hope the interest comes too. For now I'm whittling away at the things I have the knowhow to do, and acting on the various creative spark and enjoying all the heavylifting TomRuen has done. --TimL (talk) 20:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

First welcome to the "Council page" - looks like a very interesting project. Best way to let people know of the project is to inform related projects. You can also add the project to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science. We could also add this project to related portals like with Portal:Star were it could be added to the "WikiProjects" box.Moxy (talk) 20:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

See also WP:REVIVE for other ideas. The main things are persistence and making sure people know that you want to hear from them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I added a note to the Astronomy WikiProject's talk page about this project, since there are probably some interested editors there. Mlm42 (talk) 20:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Warmly appreciate your help, suggestions and ideas. I'm really excited about this project, it's a really HUGE project, so anyway I can find like minds will be key. --TimL (talk) 20:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget to post your project's revival on the Community Portal and suggest a news item for the Signpost's WikiProject Report. -Mabeenot (talk) 21:41, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. --TimL (talk) 15:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

using subcategories in WikiProjects

So I have a request here ready to move potentially thousands of pages to the Eclipses Wikiproject, but I'm thinking there's got to be a better thing than just having a huge article dump like that. For example Something that confuses me: Solar eclipse of July 16, 2186 has the Article space category "Solar eclipses". I would like articles like this (articles that are abouta specific solar eclipse) to have their own subcategory in the eclipse Wikiproject. Is this possible? Am I duplicating a structure that already exists? It's not clear to me how categories in Article space and WikiProject space relate, (and I'm trying to spare myself reading the wrong documentation) how to accomplish this. Thanks. --TimL (talk) 12:04, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Don't change the categories in the articles themselves; those are for verifiable content, not for which group of editors is interested in the article. WikiProjects tag the talk pages instead. To do this, you type {{WikiProject Eclipses}} at the top of any page you're interested in. That automagically puts the page into Category:WikiProject Eclipses articles, and if you assess it, then it puts it into the appropriate subcategory by quality and priority. All the WikiProject-related bots know to look on the talk page to figure out what you're interested in.

If you want to subdivide them, then you use the "taskforce" stuff in Template:WPBannerMeta. (You don't have to have an actual task force to use the template section designed to support that.) {{MILHIST}} and {{WPMED}} do a lot with these, and might give you some idea how it works. You edit the template to create a "taskforce" (maybe named "solar") and then add it to your article assessment, like this:

{{WikiProject Eclipses |quality=Start |importance=Mid |solar=yes}}

You can create another category structure ("Category:WikiProject Eclipses solar group", or whatever you like) to make it easier to find these articles, and set the template to automatically add any |solar=yes page to the category.

BTW, it looks like you haven't yet set up your statistics page at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Eclipses articles by quality statistics. Once that's done, you'll want to paste {{Task force assessment|Eclipses}} onto a project page to display the bot-generated table. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

That is interesting. I had already come up with a different solution, tag talk pages of individual solar eclipses with the category "solar eclipse" which I have made a subcategory of "WikiProject Eclipses". So I end up with this which has the subcategory Solar Eclipse. Do you see any drawbacks to that? The bot can work in this fashion, if I understand it correctly. --TimL (talk) 20:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes: It will confuse people, since there's no obvious way for them to figure out which pages belong in Category:Solar eclipses and which belong in Category:Solar Eclipse. Also, it requires manual intervention, and it may be accidentally archived off active talk pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to let you know WPBannerMeta has a hook just for this purpose: Template:WPBannerMeta/hooks/cats. Works great! very simple. --TimL (talk) 14:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

It may be worthwhile to try and convince the folks at WikiProject Astronomy to add the Eclipses project to the {{WikiProject Astronomy}} banner. Mlm42 (talk) 20:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Problems!

What's happened to the directory? Take a look. Is it a vandal or a glitch? Dunno. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calledsambyall (talk • contribs) 15:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. TNXMan 15:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject to Task Force

I apologize if this is not the right place to ask this. Some time ago, I suggested to consider converting WikiProject Kickboxing into a task force of WP:SPORT (see here) since there are few active participants and handling all the bureaucratic procedures would be too much. I haven't yet received an answer to my proposal, but I think that it would be better to have WikiProject Kickboxing as a task force. I'm particularly concerned with this because, right now, with a lack of structure, it's a little hard to keep track of all kickboxing articles that are created or deleted, or to assess the quality of articles in order to move them to featured-class. I have seen that other projects have automatic lists and templates for such things, which WikiProject Kickboxing doesn't. I would like to know if I am correct in my belief that WikiProject Kickboxing would work better as a task force, that is, if it would improve its current status, and if so, what would I need to do in order to propose that change. If this is not the right place to ask, please let me know where to do it. Thanks. Jfgslo (talk) 02:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

If you're going to go the route of making it a task force, making it a task force of WP Martial arts might be a better choice for it's slightly more focused article set (a la Video games). WP Sports is obviously a very large set of articles; while task forces can work at that level (Military history), contributors to Sports will for the majority not be interested in Kickboxing. Due to its activity level, I would probably agree that Kickboxing would function better as a task force.

This place is in fact not where you "must" propose a transition. WP:WP Council only suggests. As you've already left a comment on Kickboxing's talk page about a possible move, and it was so long ago, you'll probably be able to move the WP as you see fit, pending a comment at the future parent WikiProject to see what they have to say about becoming a task force. They will likely welcome you. --Izno (talk) 02:02, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Question

Is there a time limit for WikiProject proposals, after which they should be closed. Sir Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 06:40, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

There's a loose guideline, of sorts, specifying that proposals should be closed after three months; but it's not a particularly hard-and-fast rule, nor very actively enforced. In practice, the number of proposals is sufficiently small that keeping them open is rarely an issue. That could change if/when we start having a more active proposal process, of course. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 14:53, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

What about translations in WikiProject_Neopaganism?

Is there any idea for translating the documents to other languages??? Spanish, for instance, considering the huge increasing of pagan movements in Spanish speaker countries and the poor information they (we) can reach?

(I hope to be posting according to the rules.)

Of course I'm making this question with the implied intention to collaborate.

Thanks in advance for your answer. Regards, Kobani (talk) 22:31, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

There are several groups that translate articles. If you are reasonably fluent in more than English, then you might like to list yourself at WP:Translators available. WP:WikiProject Translation has some information, and some country-specific WikiProjects (e.g., WP:WikiProject Spain) are useful places to get help.

Translations go both ways: sometimes people take an article from the English Wikipedia and translate it for another language, and sometimes they take an article from some other language and translate it into English for us.

You can see the current article about paganism on the Spanish Wikipedia at es:Pagano. It's pretty short, and the English version is pretty long, so someone who was good with translations to Spanish might want to translate the English version. It looks like a translation in the opposite direction would benefit our article on Bacterial pneumonia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Espionage and WikiProject Intelligence

There seems to be some discussion concerning User:Sven Manguard and a co-ordinator at WikiProject Military History due to WikiProject Espionage Portal has now been deleted (or red-linked). In my opinion I have been trying to get WikiProject Espionage up and running again and have three other members in support of helping including myself which makes four.

Now I don't have any objections merging with WikiProject Military History as User:Sven Manguard stated that WikiProject Espionage may lose some independence in making decisions. In my opinion WikiProject Intelligence is practically dead as well and it does look better organised than WikiProject Espionage. So maybe WikiProject Espionage and WikiProject Intelligence should be merged with WikiProject Military History.

I'm already a member of the Australian WikiProject Military History and known to the coordinators. It's just a shame I go away for 10 weeks overseas and find out things have changed. Would love to have a position on the ever-increasing size of WikiProject Military History. I will still continue to do my re-write of "Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher" which is located in a subpage under "Biographies". Basically that's all I can do for the moment until other people decide to sort out what things go where and what gets thrown out or whatever. No matter what happens on Wikipedia, as User:AustralianRupert knowns I've had a bad time at the beginning of the year and now it seem's like I'm going through a similar bad time on here, because I'm trying very hard to be constructive. Otherwise, I keep quiet and do my own thing and stay out of the way. Adamdaley (talk) 14:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea what Adamdaley is talking about. I offered to talk to the MilHist Coordinator that I know about what a merge would entail. I even gave my view of the pros and cons of such a merge. However I did not know anything about an Intelligence project. I suspect that Adamdaley may be confusing my desire to work on a Portal on Intelligence (that would be broader than just espionage) with the WikiProject.

As for the idea of merging, I have no opinion one way or the other on merging any of those three. I would, however, recommend cross posting to all three involved discussions telling them that this discussion is taking place. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:35, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

• I was saying that the WikiProject Intelligence appeared dead to me. Adamdaley (talk) 05:08, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

If WP:WikiProject Intelligence is dead, then read the options listed at WP:REVIVE and choose whichever one seems best to you. If it's really dead, then there won't be anyone there to object to whatever choice you make. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll leave it upto User:Sven Manguard to work things out with the person then I'll see if I can help in the one that is merged into. Seem's like I've got in the way, so I'll wait and see what happens. That's all I can say. Just keep me updated that's all I ask. Adamdaley (talk) 08:00, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards and prizes

Please be advised of the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards and prizes.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:47, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

WikiProjects for commercial organisations

I am a little bit uncomfortable having WikiProjects that work on articles relating to commercial organisations. There is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Microsoft which may be understandable give the size of the company but there is also a Wikipedia:WikiProject Nortel. The latter seems to be a means of promoting various products on WP to a level that is not commensurate with their notability and therefore creating a bit of systemic bias towards a certain set of products. Does the WikiProject Council have any thoughts on this matter? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 14:18, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• This user came to the council after requesting to delete over 15 of our pages. And I am objecting to his requests. We have ask for assistance is making the pages better and to understand the information that is needed on each page to comply with the policies, like so many other notable products. We are just a group of editors improving Wikipedias coverage of several companies and technologies:
  • Synoptics
  • Wellfleet
  • Baynetworks
  • Northern Electric and Manufacturing
  • Bell-Northern Research
  • Northern Telecom
  • Nortel Networks/Nortel
  • Avaya
  • Ciena
  • Tenovis
  • Shortest path bridging
  • Provider Backbone Bridge Traffic Engineering
  • Energy Efficient Ethernet
  • Green computing
  • Link aggregation protocols
  • Connection-oriented Ethernet
  • Carrier Ethernet
  • Metro Ethernet

• Single Company projects:
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Microsoft Windows
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Apple Inc.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Linux
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Amiga

• Single Product wikiproject pages
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject .NET
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Apple Inc./Macintosh task force (single product wikiproject)
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Xbox (single product wikiproject)
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Nintendo (single set of products)

• Single Company Portals pages dedicated to a Company or dedicated to a product:
  • Portal:Microsoft
  • Portal:Xbox
  • Portal:Apple Inc.

This was just a quick search if you want more I am sure I can find many. Geek2003 (talk) 19:19, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I believe that the existence of the particular project in question is reasonably commensurate for notability purposes. In this case, I have no problem stating that Nortel is (or more precisely was now that they have been split up/sold off) to business telephone systems what Microsoft is to software. The point is probably moot anyway given that Avaya has taken over most of Nortel's phone business, and their patent portfolio has been bought out by RIM, MS, and others. I also believe User:Alan Liefting has gotten the argument backwards - the existence of a dedicated WikiProject is neither a symptom or a cause of systemic bias. The absence of similar projects is. The bias is the result of appropriate information on competitive companies/products that is currently missing from the project. And the underlying "problem" is that Nortel is so very successful/popular that sources and willing editors are simply far more abundant than is the case for other businesses. There is no need to dismantle what is done correctly, there is a need to bring other topics up to a similar appropriate level of coverage. We need to create and support Wikiproject:Avaya, WikiProject:Cisco, or even WikiProject:Mitel if the sources exist. We don't eliminate bias by limiting coverage, we combat bias by becoming more comprehensive. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 15:59, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Two thoughts:

• WikiProjects are nothing more than groups of editors. We are not in the business of telling groups of editors that they are not allowed to exist.
• Personally, I think it far more efficient to organize such groups as WP:TASKFORCEs underneath larger projects, e.g., WP:WikiProject Businesses. This relieves the often-small groups of a lot of administrative hassle, and gives them an automatic caretaker if they go dormant (say, because the business they liked to write about no longer exists). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Personal I think this projects are good - as in they gather many editors toghter thus insuring neutrality. Much more likely to get a neutral POV if many editors are overseeing this pages as a group rather then a lone editor.Moxy (talk) 22:16, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Small clarifying note: Nortel's business telephone division was bought by Avaya, but wireless was purchased by Ericsson, and wireline by Genband. Though I have no issues with WikiProject Nortel (and more power to any one interested in this project), as it unfortunately has not attracted any new members for at least a couple of years (and the listed members are mostly inactive), I suggest any editors interested in a particular former Nortel portfolio might also look for opportunities to collaborate with editors interested in the purchasing company and related areas. isaacl (talk) 19:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

The Future of WikiProject Espionage.....

Since people are giving up on WikiProject Espionage, I have only four members (including myself) who wants to see it to do well. The Espionage Portal has been deleted, I may as well ask the WikiProject Council to consider the WikiProject Espionage to be deleted from Wikipedia. Or is there another way to merge it with another WikiProject? If so, I'm willing to have a say when they are merged. Till then, I will continue doing articles that's already been established on Wikipedia. Adamdaley (talk) 07:16, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Pakistan task force

Due to its lack of activity and a general consensus at WP:FOOTY to cut down on deadwood task forces, I have nominated Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Pakistan task force for deletion. My reasons are explained in further detail at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Pakistan task force (2nd nomination). Thanks. – PeeJay 10:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to get to WikiProject pages FAST

Tired of typing all those letters everytime you need to get to a project? Why not designate "PJ" as an alias for "WikiPedia:WikiProject"? Join the discussion here: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Make_it_easier_to_get_to_WikiProject_pages. – Lionel ^(talk) 09:53, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:List of shortcuts/Project shortcuts.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:02, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that a shortcut and an alias are very different. A shortcut directs to only 1 page. Aliases work with all subapages, thus far more useful. – Lionel ^(talk) 21:35, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Note

I have nominated List of Aston Villa F.C. seasons for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Strawberry on Vanilla (talk) 14:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Notify the specific WikiProjects associated with the subject, on their talk pages. Not here. -- œ^™ 01:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Starting a task force in an inactive project

I'm trying to start an international criminal law task force at WikiProject International law, however the project's talk page hasn't had an active discussion in over a year. I've spoken with several editors who are not part of the project, but are interested in joining the task force. Can we unilaterally start a task force without any discussion at the project? Should we find a different project for the task force? Any suggestions would be appreciated. – Zntrip 02:32, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

What not just rename it. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Rename what? – Zntrip 03:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

He means if Wikipedia:WikiProject International law is dead you could rename/move it to Wikipedia:WikiProject International Criminal Court. However I would suggest if you have more then 6 editors why not just make it a normal project Wikipedia:WikiProject International Criminal Court - OR - speak with Wikipedia:WikiProject Law and be a task force of the bigger more active project that way more may get involed because they see it by way of association Wikipedia:WikiProject Law/International Criminal Court task force Moxy (talk) 03:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

That makes sense. WikiProject Law seems like the way to go. – Zntrip 06:24, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I recommend that you just take over the inactive group and WP:REVIVE it (possibly first merging it as a task force under WP LAW, which is itself half-dead). The narrower your focus sounds, the (much) less likely people are to join you. Your interest might be one part of international law, but there's no rule that says a project has to work on every single aspect of its nominal scope at once, and in such a specialized and neglected area, I think you'd do well to encourage people to join in, even if they care more about treaties or civil law issues. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Brending

(moved from Wikipedia:WikiProject)

Hello and I would like to propose a project Branding + Friending = Brending I am not a pro user so please don't make fun of me by posting in the wrong area. I understand your AI processes and they are working to push the mission of makeing this a better ground to cultivate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdzarlino (talk • contribs)

I know he didn't put it in the right place. I have no idea where the right place is, but perhaps someone here could point him to it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

A WikiProject is a group of people, not an idea for WP:Your first article. (I'm not even sure that this idea qualifies for an article on Wikipedia. It appears to be a word that someone made up earlier this year.)

I recommend that you join the nearest large project that seems related. Perhaps WP:WikiProject Fashion would be an option. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Can a Wikiproject be swollowed up by annother one without consultation?

Notice of this talk has been posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#WikiProject Council notice

Can a Wikiproject swollow up another one without consulting that project or its members and without letting them know till after the fact? I can't find anything in the rules here about this. The case in question is Wikipedia:WikiProject Football‎, which has decided to convert all association football-related projects to task forces, but seems to have failed to notify the Projects that this was discussed and decided. The project swollowed up in this sceario that I work within is Wikipedia:WikiProject German football, who was converted without allowing for any input of the WikiProject German football members and simply confronted with the fact that it happened. The WikiProject German football is an active project with a small but dedicted membership and approx. 4,900 identified pages in its scope. Should, under those circumstances, a project not have the right to self-determine its future rather then the decision be impossed on by another project without consultation? Calistemon (talk) 01:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

No project should be taking over another project unless that project wants it too. Although, that project could create a German football task force in addition to the existing WikiProject German football so that those articles fall under it as well (Several projects do this). --Kumioko (talk) 01:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

No, that shouldn't have happened. You are welcome to revert the undiscussed merger as well. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 04:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree a talk with all projects involed' should have taken place - not just a few. An invite to the talks would have been a common courtesy that should have been done without question. A reversal could easily be called for and done at will - The talks were not sufficient nor involed enough people from the SO CALLED sub projects. That said- I see that the pages were simply moved (renamed) without any real changes (talk pages still there). Is there realy a problem here because the ideas looks sound - is this a real problem or are people simply upset at the lack of respect give to the smaller projects that were not informed. The main question I would ask myself in this type of situation is did the actions benefit all projects involed - I would say yes because all projects will be more visible as a whole. I also see that Template:WikiProject Football is very nicely done with all the projects/task force.Moxy (talk) 04:55, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Personally looking from the outside it makes sense to taskforce the project. But if the members have a reason not to do so then it should be up to them. Agathoclea (talk) 09:02, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. I was bold with my change, so of course anyone is free to revert per WP:BRD. – PeeJay 09:49, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I just want to say I apologise for my actions here. I have carried out a number of WikiProject-to-task-force moves in the last few days, all without disagreement, but I recognise that I should have raised this issue with WP:GERMANY. On the other hand, my argument would be exactly the same as User:Moxy's above; assessment of German football articles was already carried out by Template:WikiProject Football, so no harm done there, so the real issue is which parent project the German football group should have been subsumed into (if any). I would never say the ends completely justify the means, but they sure do mitigate them in this case. Nevertheless, if people want to move the page back to its original location so we can have a proper discussion about its future, I would welcome that. – PeeJay 09:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for that effort, and for your gracious response to objections. It is good for Wikipedia to have inactive projects put under the aegis of an active project, but of course they can't be forced into that relationship. WikiProjects are people, not pages.

In general, even if the group appears to be completely dead, advance notice on the target project's page of a few weeks or even months is often desirable. That allows people ample time to ask questions or to object. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:33, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I would also say in response to PeeJays question of which project they should fall under there is no reason why the project could be added to both the Football project and Germany. --Kumioko (talk) 20:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for everybodies advice, much appreciated. A discussion has been started on the WikiProject German football talk page in regards to the members preferences. Calistemon (talk) 23:11, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out, there is no reason why the conversion should serve to devalue your work. You guys can still be just as dedicated to German football articles as a task force of either WP:FOOTY or WP:GERMANY. The conversion is more a matter of administration. As I have pointed out, the German football group was using WikiProject Football's quality assessment criteria to assess its articles, and using Template:WikiProject Football to tag them. In that respect, nothing has changed, and they can continue to determine the intra-project importance of their articles by setting the "germany" parameter of {{WikiProject Football}} to "Top", "High", "Mid" or "Low". Furthermore, the number of articles in the scope of the project shouldn't be a determining factor in this case, as the English football task force covers a far greater number of articles and is itself a task force of WP:FOOTY. So when you think about it like that, and remove the emotional attachments that go with being able to say "we are our own WikiProject", the only remaining issue is whether or not to locate the project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Germany task force or Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Football task force. – PeeJay 11:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

But that's the dilema, both shoes fit just the same. We could be the Football task force of the Germany project or the Germany task force of the Football project. Either way, it would work fine. I personally think, by just being our own daughter-project of both we solve this dilemma best. Calistemon (talk) 12:09, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

On an alternative note, we couldn't be a task force of both, could we? That would be the other solution. Calistemon (talk) 12:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

You can be a task force of both, but the title would still have to be at either Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Germany task force or Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Football task force, with a redirect from the other. Unless someone can come up with an alternative, that is! – PeeJay 12:49, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Guys, I have a speedy category rename request waiting based on the outcome of this discussion, so can we please come to a resolution soon? We can't keep the CfR-speedy waiting forever! – PeeJay 00:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

As unfortunatley no further input has been provided by the other project members, I would say go with the WikiProject Football‎ decision. Calistemon (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Query

(moved from Proposals page) I have just had a look at the regional WikiProjects, and was amazed to see that there was no "WikiProject United Kingdom", "WikiProject Great Britain", "WikiProject Wales" or "WikiProject England". Can I propose that at least one of these WikiProjects gets started, please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ACEOREVIVED (talk • contribs) 10:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Those projects do exist. Here are links to the ones I know about. WikiProject United Kingdom, WikiProject Wales, WikiProject England, WikiProject Great Britain. There are also several other related as well such as WikiProject London. --Kumioko (talk) 13:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I guess United Kingdom and Great Britain redirect to the UK Wikipedians noticeboard. But the others exist. --Kumioko (talk) 13:10, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

There's also WP:WikiProject UK geography, which has a long list of related projects at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography#Sub-Project_hierarchy.

For better or worse, the UK editors have consistently preferred to fragment the small number of interested editors into tiny, understaffed regional groups. Most of them are semi-active at best. If it were up to me (and it's not!), all of the regional and city groups would be merged into the WikiProjects for the four countries.

As for your idea, a WikiProject is fundamentally a group of people, not a group of pages. If you don't have a group of people, it's pointless to start pages for the non-existent group to use for communication and coordination. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to Merge WikiProject Status templates

I just wanted to leave a note here that a proposal to Merge WikiProject Status templates was submitted at the village pump if anyone is interested in commenting. --Kumioko (talk) 17:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Capitalism

Seems to have been formed initially for POV-pushing of Austrian School economics. Seeking ideas about how to cultivate less POV-driven contributions and more awareness of what constitutes WP:UNDUE treatment. Yakushima (talk) 14:24, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Yakushima's comment has been copied over to the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Capitalism page (which is the specific and most appropriate forum for such comments).--S. Rich (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

While discussion on the project's talk page should be useful, I also think input here from those more removed, and more familiar with projects generally, would be useful. CRETOG8(t/c) 16:38, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Quite true, and I certainly hope discussion will ensue -- on the Project Discussion page. The comment above was added here without any notification being posted on the Project Discussion page.--S. Rich (talk) 16:50, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

"Seeking ideas about how to cultivate less POV-driven contributions" I'm not sure how that's possible, other than encouraging others to not do it, and not doing it yourself. However, you can create open tasks for the project. User:byelf2007 (talk) 16 September 2011

You might find it useful to try making a few friends at some of the other business and economics groups. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Advice please

Howdy. I'm (for want of a better term) driving the Red Link Recovery WikiProject, a largely gnomish task of matching red links in articles to appropriate targets. I'm looking for some guidelines and/or guidance in a few areas.

1. Recruiting; the project could use a few more editors (couldn't they all?) - do we have any guidelines on this? Is posting on WP:VP to drum up interest frowned upon? Is (oh gods, I need to wash it off) targeted marketing - posting on likely candidates user pages - preferred?
2. Cross-wiki working; WP:RLRs tools apply equally well to other projects and languages - indeed they are set up to service the ten largest Wikimedia projects already. Are there any projects successfully running over multiple wikis that I can spy on to see how things are being done?

Ta. - TB (talk) 21:48, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

You might find interest at Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:27, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Have you found WP:REVIVE yet? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Ta - some interesting ideas there. - TB (talk) 14:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed projects that received a not create veredict

I've been browsing through wikiprojects, then I came up with their respective proposal, and I've found that a lot of them had the creation result vetted, so I'm wondering why were they created anyway? e.g.: Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Beyoncé, Wikipedia:WikiProject Beyoncé Knowles. I think that projects that focus on a single area that is not vast are not valid, these kind of projects should be merged onto their hierarchical parents, in this case, R&B WikiProject, it is even funny that those projects receive dozen of attention while the most important don't. Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 17:04, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The project proposal process isn't binding, so someone who makes a proposal that doesn't garner support is perfectly free to create the project regardless. Whether this is a good thing is, of course, open to debate; but that's how things stand at the moment. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 18:22, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

New Project?

Is there a way to create a new Wikiproject, since I do not see one established? A Wikiproject fashion perhaps, since I have created several articles, related to brand name shoes, clothing, etc. Tinton5 (talk) 00:42, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Fashion.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:54, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

On starting a new project

I have written and edited many articles on theoritical physics,but,still I feel the need of more articles.I suggest that we should start a WikiProject on it.This should help to spread topics like quantum mechanics,etc.-talkWill Gladstone (talk) 08:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

You may want to check out WP:PHYSICS first. They can probably help you do what you want to do. --Izno (talk) 14:31, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Systemic Functional Linguistics?

Apologies for the cumbersome title. I think a wikiproject or discrete sub-group/taskforce of this or a similar title would benefit the project and is entirely consistent with WP's aims and pillars.

The international mailing list that binds together the leading professionals and students in this field is setting up a committee to encourage its members to edit the English Wikipedia; this is a move I've been supporting, although I don't have formal qualifications in the field. SFL has grown into a significant field since the 1970s, with precursors earlier in the century. SFL has had a major influence on university and school curricula in parts of the English-speaking world. Semiotic in its orientation and geared towards the analysis of spoken and written discourse, it is conducted almost entirely in relation to English, with increasingly serious offshoots in Spanish, French, and German in recent years.

The key reasons for a stand-alone page are that:

1. SFL is very very different in its theoretical basis and methods from any other field of linguistics or grammar, and deserves a separate identity from existing organised efforts on linguistics and grammar;
2. a wikiproject or sub-group would be likely to draw in editors who are skilled in this area and in language generally.

A number of apparently moribund small linguistics wikiprojects are likely to be merged into Wikiproject Linguistics as specific task forces. It could be that SFL might be best served by the creation of another such task force. Is this possible, and how would one go about creating it? Tony (talk) 08:14, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Structure of politics projects

I wonder if some wise heads can have a look at the proposal to merge WikiProject Political culture into WikiProject Politics, here. Wikipedia:WikiProject Political culture was created on 8 September without any prior proposal and has only 2 members, however it now has a complex structure incorporating four old politics projects (Fascism, Liberalism, Oligarchy and Corporatism) as taskforces. For that reason, I think a merger also implies a re-structuring of WikiProject Politics, and possibly other related projects. --Kleinzach 02:11, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Reviving of WP:CVU

So I'm tring to revive the Counter-Vandalism Unit. It would be good to get some more participants on it. ~~Ebe123~~ (+) ^talk
_Contribs 20:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

See Category:Wikipedians in the Counter-Vandalism Unit.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:REVIVE has some suggestions for "advertising". WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I already requested MessageDeliveryBot for a message. ~~Ebe123~~ (+) ^talk
_Contribs 09:24, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-05-16/WikiProject report#Back to Life: Reviving WikiProjects.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:23, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Merging of 2 WikiProjects

I have requested that WikiProject Vandalism studies gets merged into the CVU. The proposal is at WikiProject Vandalism studies' talk page. ~~Ebe123~~ (+) ^talk
_Contribs 15:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Is WikiProject Revolution Software authorised?

How do I find out whether Wikipedia:WikiProject Revolution Software was formally authorised or not? If not authorised, what should be done about it? --Redrose64 (talk) 13:41, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

When starting a WikiProject, you don't have to get it authorized by the Council. We just recommend you formally propose it here to see if there are enough interested editors for the project to actually be viable. This also gives us a chance to gauge whether the project's scope is too wide or too narrow. -Mabeenot (talk) 16:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Request edit

Add a new shortcut, WP:WKPJ. --MtGp2012 (talk) 12:13, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Shortcut already leads to WP:Wikiproject. --Jnorton7558 (talk) 17:11, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The shortcut was created by MtGp2012 just two minutes before this thread was raised. I think that MtGp2012 is asking for the existing {{shortcut|WP:PROJ|WP:PJ}} to be suitably amended. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:06, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I added the shortcut now. Regards, mabdul 09:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Multiple WikiProjects to join

Is there a limit to how many task forces/WikiProjects/teams you can join on Wikipedia? ToadettePink (talk) 01:36, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

No. Join as many as you can contribute to. -Mabeenot (talk) 02:01, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

A Proposal

Below are some ideas on restructuring and revitalizing WikiProject History. This proposal has appeared on several other history-related WikiProjects in the past hour. It may be easier to keep discussion in one place, perhaps here.

General Points

• Restructure the front page so that it more closely resembles that of WikiProject Military History. This design is easy to navigate, and getting to specific areas of the WikiProject is made quicker and less difficult.

• Forge closer ties with some of its "daughter" projects. WikiProject History should serve as a focal point for history-related article improvement drives and discussions, and should be a community of editors supportive of smaller, fairly inactive region-specific history projects.

• Expand the A-Class review process. This should be a major function of WikiProject History (conducting A-Class reviews for smaller, "daughter" projects).
  • Work on expanding the number of History Good and Featured articles.

• Host task forces devoted to improving recently-created articles. Some editors should work with WikiProject Deletion Sorting to save as many quality history-related AfDs as reasonably possible.

• WikiProject History should be less of a "front-lines" WikiProject, like the Military History one, but more of a coordinating effort. An enhanced A-Class review process and forging relations with "daughter" projects would help to achieve this goal.

Membership and Leadership

• All current WikiProject History members would be members of the new, revitalized project. WikiProject Military History members, as well as members of all region-specific history projects, would be automatically inducted into the project, although these users could opt out at any time.

• All members of the WikiProject should have an equal say in WikiProject affairs.
  • However, a group of five coordinators should be elected by all editors that are part of the abovementioned categories to make the WikiProject "flow" smoothly. These coordinators would serve for twelve months each, and would be elected in February of each year.
  • Each coordinator would have a specific task, or "department".
    • Chief Coordinator. This coordinator would serve as a guide to other coordinators and members of the project.
    • Assessment and Review Coordinator. This coordinator would sort reviews, with the help of two delegates that s/he could appoint.
    • Membership Coordinator. This coordinator would deal with membership issues, and would direct and judge "contests" on the project.
    • Resources Coordinator. This coordinator would assist members in need.
    • Content Coordinator. This coordinator would work on improving articles in need, and would direct efforts and drives related to this.

Role on the Encyclopedia

WikiProject History should be a visible, important part of the encyclopedia, as it should work to coordinate other projects and direct various task forces and drives on the website. Newcomers interested in history should be assisted and guided by the Resources Coordinator and other helpful editors.

WikiProject History should work together with other projects to achieve some of the goals of the encyclopedia as a whole.

Thank you for reading this, and for commenting, if you are interested. DCItalk 23:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. I'd stay away from automatically transferring membership from the daughter projects to WikiProject History. Instead, you can encourage members of the daughter projects to voluntarily join the parent project. The various coordinator positions may be difficult to fill at first, but once things are up and running there should be a number of strong candidates for these positions. I can help spread the word about the project's revitalization through news items in the Signpost if you leave a message at the WikiProject Desk. -Mabeenot (talk) 01:39, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Guidelines vs advice (essays)

I have recently been adding {{WikiProject style advice}} to some project guideline pages and came to the realization that they should not be sub titled "guideline" pages at all. Has this ever been mentioned before that this should be renamed/moved to "advise" pages. I am sure we can all agree that having them named " guidelines" without WP:PROPOSAL process being followed is wrong or at the very lest misleading. Think a proposal like this would cause an uproar or is it as clear cut to all as it is to me? That is these are not "guidelines" in the true sense of the meaning here, thus are misleading. i.e Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Guidelines - moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Advice. Moxy (talk) 06:29, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Please see http://www.diffen.com/difference/Advice_vs_Advise.

—Wavelength (talk) 07:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The word "guidelines" seems correct to me, but I am open to considering what other editors might have to say about the matter.

—Wavelength (talk) 06:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Project guidelines are surely guidelines. There is a whole category of them — Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects — 100 of them at least. Why is Moxy adding these tags? Have they been discussed anywhere? Do they have the backing of any consensus? Can we have some background information on this? I'm concerned that Council pages are being used to introduce policy on the fly without due oversight. --Kleinzach 23:51, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

See this is the problem people think that project advice pages are real guidelines and assert they are. Of course we all know they are not - they are advice pages and nothing more (really just essays). They should be move to avoid confusion because even old editors think they may be binding. As the link Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects clearly states " Such pages are non-binding and not "official" guidelines". What i am concerned about is projects "introduce fake policy on the fly".Moxy (talk) 02:03, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

There is a basic difference in common English between an 'essay', which expresses an opinion, and a 'guideline', that explains a systematic rule. Moxy can look at a dictionary to learn more about this. Writing links like [[WP:ESSAYS|non-binding and not "official" guidelines]] is misleading. --Kleinzach 00:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Generally, you're right: they shouldn't be called guidelines, and if Kleinzach checks that cat's talk page, he'll find a CFD in which this fact is explained, along with my personal suggestion (which was adopted) that the disruption involved in moving the cat wasn't worth the trivial benefit. WP:The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays is ultimately small.

The only practical problem with calling them guidelines is that a sizable proportion of editors believe that "guideline" means "the rules everyone must follow". And since a WikiProject is just a small group of editors, and small groups of editors do not have the authority to declare that everyone must follow their rules, it's best if we don't call them "guidelines". (Kleinzach will remember, for example, how little deference the community gave to the "guidelines" of a project he's active in.)

Basically, at this point, if you want an official guideline, you need to make a WP:PROPOSAL to the whole community. But any group of editors is welcome to write down their advice. If you want, you can suggest to the WikiProjects in question that they might choose to move the pages. I don't see enough value in the distinction to "require" it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) (WhatamIdoing is referring to the composer infobox controversy and Rfc in which she was a principal non-Composer project participant.) Relevant to the question being discussed above, I now see WhatamIdoing added a section to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide on 1 January 2011 [2]. Of course, few editors are aware of this 'guide'. WhatamIdoing did you add the section without any discussion, without first obtaining any consensus? I can't find any record of any kind of consultation that would be normal before making policy. --Kleinzach 03:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Content changes - that seen - do you see a problem with the changes from a year ago?.Moxy (talk) 04:17, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I simply believe this should all be clear starting with the title of pages. I personally don't care about the cat's title - No-one looks at cat's. The title "guideline" as with "policy" have specific meaning here on Wikipedia. As we all know by experience not all think there is a difference (especially new editors). This results in these advice pages being linked and referred to as guidelines. I think some of this advice pages are great and think people should link to them to show examples, but not as guidelines as implied by there titles. The titles "guideline" and "policy" should be (if they are not already) reserved for community approved pages only.Moxy (talk) 03:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

WP doesn't own the English language so we can't (and shouldn't) reserve the meanings of words. --Kleinzach 03:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Kleinzach so far from your responses I take it you do not see any/ differences between Official guidelines and Wikiprojects guidelines am I correct? Do you believe they whole the same merit, thus do not need to be distinguished from each-other? Moxy (talk) 04:27, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm pleased that Moxy has asked me that, rather than attributing to me opinions that I don't hold. I certainly do think that WP-guidelines should be distinguished from WikiProject ones. However 'merit' is the wrong word, it should be 'applicability'. WP-guidelines obviously have wider applicability. I also think that WikiProject guidelines should be compatible with WP ones. I hope that is clear. --Kleinzach 00:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Moxy, the thing is that, back when most of these pages were created, the community didn't make a distinction. The process of declaring something to be a guideline back in the day was literally a single person slapping the guideline template on it. That's changed, but it's a relatively recent change, and we have all of these older advice pages leftover.

Kleinzach's example is relevant: he was one of the people advocating for the supposed right of a WikiProject to overrule the community-wide guidelines on infoboxes in "their" articles (a concept that is, itself, an OWN violation). That particular group of editors happens to do very good work (we are all aware, I hope, that the productivity and quality control varies dramatically between WikiProjects, just like it varies dramatically between any informal group of editors), but that still doesn't give them the right to set up a "guideline" that contradicts the community-approved guidelines and insist that their WP:LOCALCONSENSUS matters more than the community-wide consensus.

Since that discussion, we've been trying to make the distinction somewhat clearer. Among the steps taken were the creation of the templates (and, yes, Kleinzach, they were all discussed, both repeatedly and in multiple forums) and the encouragement of WikiProjects to write advice pages. (The prohibition on such behavior was added to the WP:Consensus policy by Radiant in 2007, which substantially predates this particular example.) But I still don't think that it's an issue for "force": if I were concerned about it, I'd be leaving friendly notes at projects to suggest that they voluntarily move the pages to more suitable names (or, if they've got something particularly useful, that they start a formal WP:PROPOSAL and plan to move it out of the WikiProject space. Many of our official topic-specific guidelines began life as WikiProject advice). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I like your idea and I will write to projects - For the most part when I am talking to these projects they "get it". The above was the first time anyone seems to say otherwise.Moxy (talk) 16:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Moxy: Please list the projects you are contacting here. --Kleinzach 02:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Why? Any editor is welcome to make any suggestion to any group. Moxy doesn't need permission to tell a group that he believes moving a page would be desirable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing misrepresents my opinions — in contradiction to everything I've written in the past.

I've stated on many occasions that project guidelines should follow, and not contradict, WP-wide policies and guidelines. If editors disagree with WP-wide policies and guidelines they should try to change them, however frustrating they may find this, given the way that 'metapedian', non-contributing, editors have tried to take ownership of the main processes.

Subject-based guidelines (in Wikipedian terms project guidelines) are vital to any encyclopedia. Copy-editing rules and standards have to address real issues in the presentation of content. Specialised groups of editors must look for solutions and make suggestions. Then these should be adopted, refined, rewritten and upgraded to become WP-wide policies and guidelines: a bottom-up approach.

Heavy-handed, bureaucratic attempts to impose rules and policies from above only have one result — to de-moralize the coalface editors who do the real work on the encyclopedia. The attempt to deter projects from developing guidelines applicable to specific sets of articles, by calling them 'essays' etc. is deplorable in this context.

Background: The result of the two-month long Composers project Rfc, started by Buzzzsherman (also known as Moxy) in February 2010, for which see here and following pages, was the complete disruption of the project. Most of the experienced editors either left or stopped working on composers' article, and assessment of articles stopped etc. At the time the Rfc started there were no unassessed composers articles, there are now over 700. In the year prior to the Rfc, there were more than double the number of discussions (see archives 19 to 27) compared to the year following (for which see archives 31 to 34). Moreover the end result of the Rfc was only to confirm the previous arrangement (that the project did not recommend the boxes, see here), so the Rfc was not only disruptive but also futile.

Can WhatamIdoing please be more scrupulous in checking her facts before posting here? --Kleinzach 02:15, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

You seem to think this is all about you and things that have happened to you in the past dont you? You keep implying wrong doing yet have only linked to old pages that seem to emphasize what the overall problem is. That is the confusion this pages cause and the fact that projects dont own articles. So now I see you have reverted my good faith edits, are referring to us as "not real editors" and want me to let you know who I contact in the future about this? So you have no solutions to offer just accusations and demands? What positive actions have you taken here at all? You have yet to show in any manner what you believe is wrong with the "Guidelines" here. Do you not agree with the banner? I also see that no one has questioned the contributions of the pages ...we are talking about there name that is all. Moxy (talk) 02:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Moxy: Please don't add the banner to any more guidelines until everybody has had a chance to express an opinion on this. My view is that the banner is unnecessary, counter-productive bureaucracy-cruft (bureaucruft?), however I would be interested to hear the views of guideline contributors and other editors. Few of us know about Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide, which is not even listed on the main navigation template. It's time to open this up! --Kleinzach 03:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Kleinzach that is why we are here - I dont see the benefit in adding the banners all over when all we need to do is move the pages for our readers to understand the differences. By the way at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Navigation the first link under WikiProject guide called "Introduction" is to the page you are referring to. Yes I would also like to here from some informed editors who can comment on the matter at hand. Moxy (talk) 03:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Some other opinions

• I don't have any real objection to the clarifying banner being placed on the top of WikiProject article style pages. I personally think they can be helpful. WhatamIdoing added them at WikiProject Opera two months ago. At that time, I took the opportunity to also copyedit the text of those pages to change all instances of the word "guidelines" to "guide". However, making all projects also move those pages, to /Advice is complete overkill, make-work, and frankly no help at all. Most of them were created long before the word "Guidelines" became codified here and simply meant "Guidelines" as used in the real world. They were not part of a sinister plot by WikiProjects to undermine Wikipedia.

It is both a simplistic and a false assumption to say: "all we need to do is move the pages for our readers to understand the differences". It's the textual content of the page that counts, not the title, as demonstrated by the existence of Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects. It doesn't save any effort or time to move everything, because the individual pages still ought to have the banner (or equivalent text). Thus, it doubles the work + the added work of changing shortcuts and project internal navigation menues.

Note also that many projects have the dreaded word "Guidelines" directly on their main page, not on sub-pages, e.g. WikiProject LGBT studies, so they'd still need copyediting. Ditto the projects which use /Manual of Style for their sub-pages instead, e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Olympics/Manual of Style, which is equally "naughty" since the real Manual of style is an official guideline and they're not. Ditto projects which use an innocuous page title but then the actual page text uses the dreaded "Guidelines", e.g. WikiProject Airports/page content. Honestly, I can think of much better ways to expend effort on Wikipedia for a far greater return than this proposal. Voceditenore (talk) 19:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, was worried the tone of the conversation would deter everyone. Your assessment of the situation is both factual and well informed. I agree that its not just a matter of a move (one of many things that these pages need to fix). I was think it would help because headers are very dominate on a page. Your reply to the original question of this inquiry "if they should be moved" - I agree its not the main problem and thus no big deal - You are correct that the wording on these pages is much more of a concern. I see its not that simple to solve and will look more into it and see if I cant get more involed see what we can do.Moxy (talk) 20:36, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

It is curious to me that the most vituperative arguments on Wikipedia are not over what things are but what things are called. This is a classic case. The page of the classical music project that we are discussing contains instructions on formatting, on terminology, on spelling, and on other technical issues on how information of the project is to be presented. These instructions are followed universally by everyone on the project. When an article - often written by someone from outside the small coterie of project members - does not follow these instructions, an editor often corrects this, and there is almost never any argument. So, de facto, the directives on this page and on the official guideline pages are equivalent in their authority, even if, de jure, their authority is different.

I see very little point in a bureaucratic procedure to grant these style directives the title "guideline". What does the larger Wikipedia community have to contribute to a discussion on whether lists of instrumentation should include strings first or woodwinds first? On the other hand, if Moxy believes that "guidelines" is a reserved word for style directives that are universal, as opposed to project-specific, I see no problem with calling the page something else. How about "Style standards" or "Style directives"? And a uniform naming convention and template at the top of the page for each of these project-specific standards sounds like a good idea. That way, if I ever edit an article about video games, I will know where to look for style direction.

Here is my suggestion for a template at the top of the standards page:

How does that look to folks? --Ravpapa (talk) 17:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Not to bad - however it seems to imply ownership over certain type of articles that happen to fall within a groups scope. At no time should a project say "should be followed" - Especially when its the opposite of community consensus. I just finished Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Recommended structure you will see there how neutral wording and linking to actual policy over group talks will help cement the ideas in a proper way. All should be based on policy not small group talks. Moxy (talk) 17:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with much of your argument, but the distinction between 'official' and 'unofficial' is a false one. It should be between WP-wide rules and ones that apply in specific instances. The scope of the project is not relevant. Also 'Style standards' is surely the wrong expression? We are not dealing with industrial regulations or patents! 'Style guidelines', 'Style guide' or 'Style guidance' would all be OK, though the word 'style' may not be applicable to all the guidelines that individual projects have generated (as pointed out by someone in the Composers project discussion that preceded this one). --Kleinzach 01:53, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I think we all agree that the word "guide" is the problem and should be left out entirely. "Recommended structure " is a good title as it does not imply ownership in any way. Despite what some may think we dont have separate levels of guidelines.Moxy (talk) 00:21, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Moxy, I am confused by your use of the terms "community consensus" and "ownership". When a group of people belonging to a project get together and agree to write articles of the project in a certain way, is that not "community consensus"? It is unclear to me why you think that the group of editors interested in general style - which, in many cases, is a smaller group than editors of a particular project - must be involved in decisions about which geodetic grid is to be used to define lighthouse locations in order for it to be deemed "community consensus".

And, by the same token, I don't see why an expectation on the part of project editors that articles within the project purview be uniform is a type of ownership. I have been involved in editing many articles on disputed subjects, where certain editors have jealously defended wording that they considered favorable to their positions. That is ownership. Deciding that key signatures should be written in upper case does not seem to me to be an act of ownership. --Ravpapa (talk) 16:34, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Ravpapa expresses this well. I'd endorse that. --Kleinzach 00:34, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Later: I looked at what you consider to be a good example of a "structure" page and something with neutral wording (Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Recommended structure), and ended up even more confused. First of all, most of the directives on that page do not deal with structure at all, but with style. Secondly, I fail to see how a sentence like, "The lead of an author bibliography must clearly state something to the effect..." is more neutral or less ownery. Is this not stating a standard that you expect all editors on the project to follow? --Ravpapa (talk) 18:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I object to the phrase "should be followed". The major problem with these WikiProject advice is that they sometimes (usually unintentionally, but not always) directly conflict with the official guidelines. In those cases, you should not follow the WikiProject's advice. What if (as has happened multiple times) WikiProject A and WikiProject B make exactly opposite declarations—say, WikiProject Composers declares that infoboxes are the scourge of Wikipedia, and WikiProject Biography declares they're great? Or how about when WikiProject Pharmaceuticals says to use {{Drugbox}}, and WikiProject Chemicals says to use {{Chembox}}? The fact is that we cannot follow this contradictory advice, and therefore we "should" not even attempt to require it.

As to whether a group of editors constitutes "community consensus": No, it doesn't. No little clique working in isolation is the community. To have community consensus, you have to have at least attempted to get outside input. The usual methods for doing that are described at WP:PROPOSAL. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of WikiProjects have only a few editors involved. There are many that currently have zero or one editor active. Should that lone editor get to tell everyone else what they "should" do, even in the "specific instances" of whatever articles I happen to decide are within my scope? If I wanted to be a tendentious pest, I could create a WikiProject today whose scope is defined as "any article that Kleinzach has ever edited", and I could write a style advice page that declares that 100% of articles within the scope of the project must have infoboxes. Nobody should be obliged to follow such bad advice merely because I declared myself to be a WikiProject (or even if I recruited other pro-infobox people to join me and thus really became a WikiProject).

The advice written by a small number of people, with no oversight or approval from the community, is an WP:ESSAY. Many essays are excellent: WP:BRD, WP:UCS, and WP:TE are all essays. There's nothing wrong or demeaning about admitting that there's a difference between a small group's (often excellent) opinions and the widespread community consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

"should be followed" in the Bib advice page fixed - was not added by me - and I missed it. anything else wrong.Moxy (talk) 02:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

There wouldn't be much point in writing guidelines and saying "these should not be followed". Let's use common sense here. Of course, project guidelines should be compatible with WP-wide ones. (Let's not use the silly word 'official' — nothing is 'official' here!). If there is conflicting advice, that should be dealt with. In my experience there are actually very few instances of these, because the project guidelines usually deal with matters of detail that are not covered in the much more general (and often insubstantial) WP ones. (The example used of a WikiProject based on the work of a single editor would not be a collaboration, so it could never be a project. It would be promptly deleted. So that's irrelevant. )

I don't agree with WhatamIdoing's concept of community, which is a kind of denial of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. Contributing (coalface) editors should collaborate with each other in WikiProjects, rather than working is isolation. We should be doing everything to encourage them — not indulging in 1984-style dictionary manipulations, telling them what common English words they may or may not use! This kind of bureaucratic control in the name of the 'community' — in reality a bunch of power-tripping metapedians hanging around strategic pages — is contrary to everything that Wikipedia should represent. --Kleinzach 01:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

When two different little groups get to make up their own "rules", conflicts are inevitable. So the examples I gave above were not purely hypothetical: WPPHARM and WPCHEM make different recommendations about which infobox to use in articles within their scope. All drug articles are within the scope of both projects (because all drugs are chemicals, by definition). So whose recommendation "wins"? Which project gets to OWN the article? And why should either of those groups get to control the article's contents, if the people actually doing the work on the article don't want to be part of those groups? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:23, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia — in fact all encyclopaedias (I have worked on several) — is all about encouraging creativity and then applying consistency. First comes the creativity, then the consistency. If two groups of editors clash they have to try to resolve matters bilaterally. If that fails, they must involve outside editors. The Rfc is a mechanism for that. Of course if there is a structural problem with overlapping projects that also has to be dealt with. (One of the problems with WP at the moment is the ridiculous over-bannering of articles by groups that are not actively editing them, but I don't want to stray off topic.) --Kleinzach 01:38, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

"encouraging creativity and then applying consistency" This is exactly right - and is why we should encourage wikiprojects not abandon and tag them and is why we have a Guideline proposal system to make sure consistency is applied correctly. The problems arise when a project advice page conflicts with the rest of the encyclopedias advice.Moxy (talk) 02:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is disputing that having guidelines which conflict with other guidelines is a real problem (albeit one that can occur regardless of whether the guidelines in question happen to be written by a WikiProject), and that such conflicts need to be resolved. That doesn't mean, however, that a preemptive renaming campaign across every WikiProject page is either necessary or useful; simply renaming, relabeling, or retagging the pages in question will do nothing to solve the conflict you describe, since the average editor will still be receiving contradictory advice. Instead, it will merely serve to demean the projects and make their participants feel as though their advice is not valued—despite the fact that, in most cases, the contents of such pages are completely uncontroversial in practice. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:34, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Well expressed. In my experience, WP guideline vs. WikiProject guideline conflicts are very rare. It's interesting that WhatamIdoing's example is actually WikiProject guideline Vs WikiProject guideline. --Kleinzach 05:16, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Would like to hear if anyone has a solution to the problem?Moxy (talk) 15:57, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

At this point it's more like a solution looking for a problem, not the other way around. OK, in a few cases, there might be some conflicting recommendations in different project style guides, and in even fewer cases that potential conflict might become a real one in a particular article. So, editors work it out on the talk pages. It's not a big deal and certainly not worth the huge amount of virtual ink being spilled here. Even the-called "official guidelines" allow for flexibility and local discussion. What on earth is the point of having a banner with "WikiProjects are encouraged to write advice pages addressing issues within their areas of interest and expertise" if editors shouldn't follow that advice and expertise? There's nothing scary about an implicit "should. People aren't so stupid that they need Wikipedia's official guidance and/or task forces on how to interpret modality, or how to ignore it for that matter. Voceditenore (talk) 20:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

A call for a solution

I think the foregoing discussion has clarified what the real issue is. No one here seems to be suggesting that style specifications concerning a specific project - like how to list instrumentation for a symphony, or whether to use Ashkenazic or Sephardic transliteration of Jewish religious terms - are mere suggestions that editors can follow or ignore as they wish. On the contrary, these types of directives are required if the encyclopedia is to have any consistency.

The issue is that some (very few) project-level decisions about style can conflict with decisions by other projects, or even with the MOS itself. Two examples of this have been offered: the Classical music project's decision to eschew infoboxes, and the type of infobox to be used for drugs.

So, first of all, let's circumscribe the problem. We are talking here only about those style directives that are in conflict.

I can think of three ways we can deal with this issue:

1. Include in the project style manual a specific statement of the conflict, and require discussion on the talk page of an article when the conflict occurs: "This directive is contrary to the (other project's directive, the MOS, or accepted practice). Please discuss this on the article talk page before deciding how to edit the article."
2. Appoint a task force of the project council to discuss such conflicts, and to seek an agreed policy. I would guess that in many cases (for example, the conflict over which infobox to use for drugs), a solution could be worked out (add optional fields to the Chembox specifically for drugs).
3. Appoint a task force to discuss conflicts on a case-by-case basis as they occur.

The worst thing we can do is to throw out the baby with the bath water - to downgrade all project style manuals to mere suggestions, and essentially abandon all consistency within project articles to the whims of individual editors. --Ravpapa (talk) 17:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

There is noting being downgraded - they are by definition already essays - so yes they are already a lower class of suggestions type page see Role. That said I agree that common sense should apply and is why I believe a title of "Recommendations" is more appropriate.Moxy (talk) 07:57, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Amen to your last point. What we need to do is make it easier for project-generated guidelines to be incorporated in WP ones. This is essential if editorial standards are to improve. It has to be a bottom-up model, not a top-down one. --Kleinzach 06:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Moxy should not refactor the apparent order of messages by changing the indents [3]. --Kleinzach 09:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thats why there is a date stamp for all to see. Moxy (talk) 16:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Consensus for using {{WikiProject style advice}}, {{Wikiproject notability essay}} and {{WikiProject content advice}}?

The preceding discussion clearly indicates a lack of consensus for using the {{WikiProject style advice}}, {{Wikiproject notability essay}} and {{WikiProject content advice}} tags as recommended by the WikiProject Council/Guide. Should we remove mention of them from that page? (WP-guideline pages are supposed to be consensus-based). --Kleinzach 05:54, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

oppose (old time consensus) Oldest template is from 2007 and is used on 100s of projects and thus far its the best solution to the current problem we are talking about. Are you proposing deleting them outright or simply removing them from the 100s of projects. Anyways I see no consensus at all saying there not useful in fact we are working in the other direction. Time to get on-board. Moxy (talk) 06:35, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

{{WikiProject style advice}} is only on 17 project pages [4], {{Wikiproject notability essay}} is on about 50 project pages[5], {{WikiProject content advice}} is only on 3 project pages[6]. Moxy should strike through his 'opinion' . --Kleinzach 06:55, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Please try an answer the questions that are address to you. What is your proposal here? To remove all the templates from the "almost" 100 pages (as pointed out above) or just the advice on using them for the council page. Do you honestly believe that the above talk indicates a consensus that there not useful? Moxy (talk) 07:49, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Moxy, you claimed that these templates are "used on 100s of projects" as an indication that there is a some sort of wide consensus to use them. In fact, they are "used" by a net total of 66 individual projects, a mere fraction of the number of existing WikiProjects. Of those, the vast majority (about 50) are for {{Wikiproject notability essay}} (probably the least contentious of the three templates, and the only one which has been around for a number of years and received any significant discussion.[7]

Of the remaining 18 projects which "use" {{WikiProject style advice}} or {{WikiProject content advice}}, 8 had them unilaterally added either by you or WhatamIdoing. Thus, at most 10 projects could be said to have "chosen" to use them. Both those templates were created less than a year ago with no discussion at all, although the former was announced as a fait accompli here. Also, the unilaterally added templates were to pages which may have very few or no watchers. Both WikiProjects Opera and Classical Music do watch their style pages and were probably the only ones to even notice their addition.

I thought Kleinzach's proposal was quite clear and pertained to removing the advice on using them from the council page, which is an official guideline page. I'm going to comment on the proposal on that basis. Voceditenore (talk) 10:37, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Let's turn down the heat a bit. Though I agree with Voceditenore and Kleinzach that use of the essay template is unwarranted and improper, Moxy and Whatsinaname have a point. There is no intermediate status between a guideline that has passed through WP:PROPOSAL and an essay. That means that, from a strictly legal point of view, these project style directives, as essential as they may be to creating uniformity and clarity, are mere recommendations.

I have posted a suggestion at the Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) talkpage suggesting that project level style directives be granted a special status - more than an essay but less than a guideline. Let's see what others have to say on the issue. --Ravpapa (talk) 11:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment I assume by 'special status' you mean a template explaining the level of authority of the WikiProject guidelines. Is that right? Or do you have something else in mind? --Kleinzach 01:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment I didn't say the use of these templates was improper. If you read my initial comment here, I said "I don't have any real objection to the clarifying banner being placed on the top of WikiProject article style pages. I personally think they can be helpful." That's the reason why I left them on the Opera project style pages, apart from one which didn't belong there. The templates are certainly much improved since Kleinzach changed the wording from "essay" to "advice" and added the word "recommendations". But note that saying "they can be helpful" (for some projects) is not the same thing as endorsing the use of such templates as a blanket guideline, or giving members of the WikiProject Council the green light to unilaterally add them to every WikiProject style page without even a heads-up on the projects' main talk pages. I wouldn't go as far as removing them entirely, but I would at least replace:

"Please tag your project's advice with these templates:"

with something along the lines of:

"The following templates are available to WikiProjects for clarifying the distinction between WikiProject guidance and Wikipedia-wide guidelines:"

Voceditenore (talk) 12:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Great suggestion - I have replaced the info .Moxy (talk) 16:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: per Moxy. – Lionel ^(talk) 12:57, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, and I think that Kleinzach's rephrasing to remove the word "essay" in the middle of a discussion about their status is inappropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Kleinzach reworded it before the subject was even brought up here, not "in the middle of a discussion". That's no more inappropriate, and actually less so in light of your view, than editing this section of the Guide 2 days ago right in the middle of the discussion. Besides "procedural issues", the wording is a great improvement. See Kirill Loshkin's comment above [8] with which I fully concur. In any case the key wording and links remain:

This advice is not a formal Wikipedia policy or guideline and is not part of the Manual of Style.

What is "inappropriate", in my view, is the kind of confusing "Wikipedia-speak" that would describe these largely technical "How to" pages as "essays". Montaigne would be spinning in his grave.;-) Voceditenore (talk) 08:13, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I've already asked WhatamIdoing once above [9] not to misrepresent me. I particularly asked her "be more scrupulous in checking her facts before posting". Obviously we never want to call out a fellow editor for lying — but a track record is a track record. --Kleinzach 08:17, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing has now reverted the wording on the Template:WikiProject style advice [10]. As this obviously doesn't have consensus I will change this, but only once as i observe a 1RR.--Kleinzach 00:04, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

OMG are you ever right? PLS READ Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Role - As you can see Wikiproject advice pages are listed under "essay" not guidelines or policy. Not that the wording is a big deal just need you to understand that this talk is not about changing there status - but to rename the pages they are on from guidelines to something else. So yes its clear the community refers to this as "essays". PLS READ Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Role Moxy (talk) 15:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

For those who wish to continue this discussion, please put your comments at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#An aspect of this issue that no one has yet mentioned, where the RFC discussion is taking place. Thanks, --Ravpapa (talk) 11:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)