Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 22

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikisource related proposal

Over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikisource I suggested some sort of attempt to revive that project. User:John Vandenberg is one of the four listed members and has responded. As I think I more or less indicated there, possibly poorly, I think one of the things which that group might be able to do is help in the development of content related to material developed at wikisource. I suppose it would also be possible to have it develop articles, where possible, on some of the works there. And, of course, it could help with adding the Template:Wikisource to the various relevant articles.

A few potential bots occur to me which might help in the interaction between the projects. One would indicate which portals and single-work topics that don't yet have a directly related portal there do and don't have articles here which link to them yet. That information would presumably potentially help editors here add the template where it is missing, and also know what works are available. And, potentially, it would make it a lot easier to develop missing articles here. Personally, I think it might also be really useful if we had clear indications of which PD works are included in the bibliographies of articles in current reference works on those topics, which are more or less those works in the very few Category:WikiProject libraries pages, particularly if the list could somehow listing the number of times specific individual works, particularly like encyclopedia articles or similar overviews, are listed in those pages. So, for instance, if for whatever reason an old Scientific American article is listed as a source in 40 articles on those lists, it would be really useful to know that to make that specific article available.

And, for our use here, having a bot maybe create a list of wikisource indexes (or categories of index pages, for periodicals) or author pages which don't yet have articles here might make it easier to know what at least potentially significant material available there isn't discussed here.

Unfortunately, I have real trouble seeing that the comparatively little activity the WikiProject Wikisource has had would make it likely that they could do this sort of thing themselves. There are a plethora of more topical wikiprojects here which clearly be more directly suited to directly working with these matters on a more specific basis.

So, any ideas about whether there would be any interest in some projects in doing this, and/or whether such bots are even possible? John Carter (talk) 15:16, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

John Carter, I think you should ask for advice about the bots at WP:BOTREQ.

Also, do you know whether Wikidata has figured out which Wikipedia articles match up with which Wikisource pages? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Tom Powers Musician

I really want to create an article on my deceased husband and his illustrious musical career. I have the articles (newspapers and media/billboard etc) to prove he is who he is and has accomplished what he has in his time with us. Can I get some one-on-one help? I would greatly appreciate it...as this is more than overwhelming... Joannpowers (talk) 21:42, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I found http://deathnotices.michigan.com/view-single.php?id=34675015, and I acknowledge that the article "Tom Power (musician)" (whose surname is spelled differently) is about a different musician. Perhaps someone listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians#Participants can help you.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:57, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, JackofOz, who is not presently listed there, might be able to help you.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:07, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, but I cannot help. I'm sure the Project members will be able to. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:09, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Considering Article for Creation has been rejected a number of times, I cannot see it pass WP:MUSIC. Karst (talk) 16:12, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't know much about this area, but the obit suggests that he qualifies for a biography under WP:MUSBIO due to having a single on a national music chart. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Mongols live in Mongolia?

Mongols do live in Mongolia, but they were a conquering people centuries before the modern country existed. We need a separate WikiProject for Mongolia, and not lump it into the Mongols WikiProject. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:10, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

@Dthomsen8:Good comment. The last time I saw the issue of country wikiprojects addressed was in the now defunct Signpost Wikiproject Report: Where in the world is Wikipedia? back in 2012. Ottawahitech (talk) 19:28, 20 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me

Unassessed-Class versus Unassessed categories

I've made a request at CFD to reverse the March 2007 discussion and to rename Category:Unassessed-Class articles back to Category:Unassessed articles. Please comment there. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:16, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

@Ricky81682: Can you explain to the dummies (me) here what this is all about? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 03:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me

There's a number of categories titled "Unassessed X articles" for when a project is added but no assessment (that's the default under the template I believe). However, some projects have "Unassessed-Class X articles" as well (see Category:Unassessed-Class comics articles by work group versus Category:Unassessed comics articles by work group. The majority are Unassessed not Unassessed-Class so I think the parent should reflect that. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:36, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Skull image used in WikiProject Death's banner

WP:WikiProject Death has a (professional/museum-like) photograph of a real human skull as the image in their WikiProject banner. There's a discussion about whether the photo of a human skull in their WikiProject banner should be removed on the grounds that it is "tasteless" or "offensive". The discussion is centralized at Template talk:WikiProject Death#Images. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:16, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

API for WikiProject assessment data?

Hi everyone! If any of you feel like giving some technical feedback, phab:T119997 could probably use your help. :) /Johan (WMF) (talk) 18:41, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Johan (WMF) No question is asked there. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:24, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Eh. That was probably a bit confusing, yes. Sorry about that. I hope it's a bit more clear now. :) /Johan (WMF) (talk) 12:58, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

@Johan (WMF): Can you tell us what Phabricator is? What is in API? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:06, 4 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

Of course. Phabricator is the system used for MediaWiki (the wiki application we use for Wikipedia) software development, after we switched from Bugzilla. It's there to make sure the developers know who's doing what and when and what needs to be done for something else to be possible, and is sometimes used for technical discussions related to the development. An API is a sort of interface designed for computers instead of humans, so that we can build technical tools that can use information from another piece of software. The Wikipedia API makes it easier to use information in Wikipedia in another program, for example. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikiproject X

I have been asked a few times to help fix some projects that have been affected by WikiProject X's new layout. Have been asked to add the navigational templates, current discussion section and tools back ....and fix all the white space....but have been waiting to see if the project even gets off the ground..or realizes people want these things. Where can these projects talk about this? eg Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Technology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red intro is all messed up..let alone all the white space. -- Moxy (talk) 17:50, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Moxy. Thank you for your assistance. While Wikipedia talk:WikiProject X might be a more precise venue, this page will also work. I will add a note on that talk page to cross-reference with this section.

I apologize for the troubles from the interface. They are prototypes and we specifically picked low-activity projects where the level of disruption would be minimal. (Women in Red is a case study of deploying it anew to a project that ended up becoming very popular... in the process, exposing some of the technical issues.)

Some of the issues with white space are caused by the awkward mix of old and new. The newer sections that we designed specifically is meant to use as much of the space as possible (though I understand this doesn't work consistently from browser to browser). Indeed, the replacement of the vertical table of contents with the horizontal icon row was to make more economical use of space. The older sections were simply plucked into the new design, which explains the inconsistency.

For the visual/interface problems (whitespace, unreadable intro, etc.), screenshots would help. We are aware of an issue with Internet Explorer 11, for example.

If there are specific tools people want, we do want to know. WikiProject X is only as useful as the feedback it receives. Thank you again for your help. Harej (talk) 14:46, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, please, talk about this. There is so much we need to fix, and the more you can bring to light that's affecting things, the more we have to work with to fix it. We're doing our best to work with both old and new here, but this is a huge task. -— Isarra ༆ 19:59, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this, Moxy. I have seen WikiProjectX wp:Wall of text posted on umpteen wp:talkpages, but have not been able to engage the editor behind these postings in meaningful discussion. So thanks for opening up the discussion here. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:16, 4 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

As you mention Women in Red, we have had a serious issue with the membership feature which has only now been restored after problems since September. One of the problems now, even after reactivation, is that people cannot easily edit their profiles and in any case would prefer something much simpler. Can we not use a more traditional approach to members on the basis of all the other WikiProjects and the approach used for the WiR editathons?--Ipigott (talk) 17:39, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

@Isarra, more on this issue at Women in Red. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:34, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

RenWeb

I am Pursuing the Deletion of The RenWeb ArticleJonnymoon96 (talk) 02:04, 10 December 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonnymoon96 (talk • contribs) 02:01, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

this part should be ∑F=ma=m dV/dt=∆mV

edited by mehrnaz from iran  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.198.35.193 (talk) 06:52, 12 December 2015 (UTC) 

Notice to participants at this page about adminship

Many participants here are long-term, core editors who know Wikipedia well.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and maybe even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:31, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

WP:PJTF name change

Just a quick update about the "Percy Jackson" task force of WikiProject Novels, which recently changed its name (and expanded its scope) to become the Rick Riordan Task Force. I just redid its listing in the directory. Please do not hesitate to change something if I inadvertently broke formatting. Thanks very much in advance. -- 2ReinreB2 (talk) 01:41, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Seeking active, well-structured WikiProjects to get ideas from in improving my WikiProject

I already know of the Military History and Medicine WikiProjects as being very active and nicely well-structured. Are there other strong examples I can look at as I make organic improvements to my WikiProject? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:38, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

For active WikiProjects, see Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:01, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

@Wavelength: the database report tells us it has not updated since 06 July 2015. Do you know how often we should expect it to update? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 00:55, 20 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

Ottawahitech, the main page (Wikipedia:Database reports) says that the run frequency is weekly. The banner at the top of that page says (in part): "If you have an urgent need for a report to be fixed, please indicate so on the Talk page so we can prioritize it higher."

—Wavelength (talk) 01:24, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Wavelength. I posted a query at:Wikipedia talk:Database reports, and am crossing my fingers that it will bear fruit, but it looks rather deserted there, sigh... Ottawahitech (talk) 01:42, 20 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

I wish I had known about this sooner! Turns out my bot was inexplicably locked out of the database replicas on Tool Labs. But that's fixed now, and I am running the report as I speak. Harej (talk) 02:19, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikiproject Gnosticism

I would really like to revive the proposed project Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Gnosticism. Separating articles that are gnostic/ completely firm with the genre/opposed by Christian and Judaic doctrines/ away from Wikiproject Christianity and Judaism which ignore such articles. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 20:06, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Linking to Wikiprojects on Meta

Hi

I'm not sure how this fits but there are several Wikiprojects on Meta that cover multiple Wikimedia sites, how best could these be listed within the Wikiproject directory? The ones I know are Wikiproject Education for Sustainable Development and Wikiproject UNESCO (which I made), WikiProject Chess and Wikiproject Roads.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 09:40, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

John Cummings. a side project of mine is making sure that all the WikiProjects have proper Wikidata entries. Once this happens, the WikiProject Directory (after some updates) will be able to link to projects on other wikis. Harej (talk) 16:55, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Harej, Wikidata to the rescue :) John Cummings (talk) 17:58, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

From Voynich manuscript Solved by Bartender Karin Marie Olt copyright 4119-4258

Extended content

The answers to the Voynich Manuscript are as follows. The absinthe plant and it's healing properties were written on the Egyptian walls. In 1452,Young Leonardo and Lisa his twin sister were born.She was given to her wealthy Uncle at birth.He joined her at the age of three.As children,they learned all languages,and copied the information they saw from the hieroglyphics that were carved on the walls. They drew step by step illustrations on how to use many healing plants and herbs to cure diseases. The absinthe plant repelled fleas, dispelled tape worms and parasites from the body. See the large tape worm gracing the pages and wrapped around a woman?Also there are pictures drawn of women aiming their arms towards their back sides. See the body syringes? See the fennel plant with the large eyes drawn in the head in the bulb if the plant? Fennel root heals the eyes. Thujone is the extract from the blue flower of the wormwood/artemesia/absintheum plant it is being used to treat cancer today. When it is fermented with the fennel, and Chinese star anise, it creates the Holy Trinity of Herbs.See the right pointed stars?Fennel keeps cancer from reoccurring.Chinese star anise reduced the development of cancer.The molecular formulas to show fermentation are written as Os&Hs. Because I am a Professional Bartender,I noticed the juniper berries, and the hyssop plant.I researched maceration. That is the technique used to create absinthe by fermenting in alcohol. The alcohol they used was gin created from these juniper berries. I knew they were creating a green moonshine called absinthe. It was meant to be used inside and outside of the body to cure the black plague.Thujone has a hallucinatory affect. See the little head drawn in the blue flower?I also identified the plants lemonbalm,sage,thyme,veronica,Melissa,cilantro's coriander seeds,cardamon,lavender,and mint.I also discovered that all herbs have an assigned astrological sign,such as Taurus is the sign for mint. The words hunting for bull are written.See the Gemini Twins next to the zodiac wheel? That is young Lisa and Leonardo holding hands.The same twins from my dream! They came to me in a dream to tell me this was their life's work. They gave me all the answers. Then they said save the Children. See the cures for cancer and Ebola which is like the black plague in that the body erupts in large black spots and dies?If you get your chemistry books out, you will see the equations for the extraction of chlorophyll, light. That is photosynthesis. The M represents the extraction of glucose. The s8 is sulphur meets oxygen in the air. Remember ,when you write chemical equations you start from the middle of the page and work on both sides. Absinthe is to be made only when the moon is dark. See the pale moon? See the moon phases? The extract is most potent and can only be made during a dark moon. Also while being fermented the monks would sing to it. Why? Because certain sound frequency affected the bacteria. The monks low frequency pitch would kill the harmful bacteria and create good bacteria. This is called biotholomics. This manuscript was found in a Monastery. Leonardo drank Absinthe when he painted his twin sister Lisa and called it Mona Lisa. Any questions? I will answer them for you. This manuscript was copied and sold to make absinthe and chartreuse. No one knew it was to cure the black plague and cancer.The Egyptians loved us enough to leave the cures carved on the walls.This manuscript was lost in translation for over 6 centuries. I have contacted the holistic hospitals and told them of these cures. They responded with Thank you. We are now studying plants. One more important thing to tell you all is that this absinthe was a living biological energy force of healing light. When it was created it gave off a bright glowing green light.The molecular formulas to extract the plants living light energy force is written in this manuscript. Thank you for listening.Merry Christmas! Let's save the Children! Thank you. Karin Marie Olt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karin1964 (talk • contribs) 14:14, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

19th Century Music

I am putting out some 'feelers' here about a new project. This genre is quite significant, has its own core of composers, musicians, lyricists, publishers, archives, festivals. This time period is quite fascinating and it includes the creation and performance of abolitionist songs, temperance songs, the songs of Stephen Foster and his ilk, and civil war songs. I believe this grouping of articles could very well use some improvement and collaboration for improvement on this topic. Any feedback is welcome. Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 00:42, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Please see MOS:HEAD (sentence case) and WP:CENTURY.—Wavelength (talk) 04:00, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• Hi Barbara, Just wondering if this proposed WikiProject is US-centric? Ottawahitech (talk) 04:09, 21 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me

As a general rule of thumb, if you don't already know two or three editors who are interested in that area, then there's no point in starting the WikiProject. It would be more practical and successful to join an existing group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, I know you believe that wp:WikiProjects are people. but... there are also a lot of w-proj tools available to projects that make them of interest to those who are not necessarily a formal part of the project. So, building a new project even without the help of others, can be useful? Ottawahitech (talk) 18:41, 1 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

If you don't know of people who would actually use those tools, then there's no point in setting them up. Making those tools actually work requires tagging thousands of articles. For the typical established editor, that's weeks of work that doesn't result in direct improvements to articles.

I don't (ever) care about whether anyone is "a formal part of the project". I care about whether they are participating. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

needs-photo=yes

I just discovered that one can request a photo for articles belonging to wp:WikiProject Canada by using this parameter needs-photo=yes in the wproj banner. Shouldn't this be standard for all WikiProjects? Just wondering out loudthanks to Northamerica. Ottawahitech (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

Ottawahitech Yes, and more broadly, it would be nice if WikiProject Banners were more standardized. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:25, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Ottawahitech, to be honest, this information shouldn't be encoded in WikiProject banners. Adding too many features to a template causes them to become bloated and too difficult to maintain. Harej (talk) 14:47, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

@Ottawahitech, Bluerasberry, and Harej: I know nothing about banner template maintenance or the hazards with banner template bloat, but as a non-techie, I'd support an initiative to standardize the banners, and would love it if needs-photo=yes worked in all of them. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:00, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Rosiestep and welcome to WikiProject Council, the central location for discussion for editors who are involved in setting up/maintaining wp:WikiProjects, I think. Please feel free to post any questions comments you have and hopefully there are experienced wproject-editors here who can help. Thanks for pinging me, by the way. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:00, 4 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

Looks like this parameter is also available to wp:WikiProject Biography.

It's available in many, probably most. The question is whether it's preferable to have it in the WikiProject banner, or if you ought to use the plain old {{Photo requested}} template instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject Women in Red

WP:WikiProject Women in Red (WiR) started as a stand-alone project and after a few weeks, became as task force of the newly-formed WP:WikiProject Women, at which time it became WP:WikiProject Women/Women in Red. We have not found many benefits to this move, but we have found that the move makes navigation within the task force cumbersome. So we want to explore making a change. As WiR's page design is handled by WikiProject X, I've discussed moving back to WP:WikiProject Women in Red with @Harej but I also discussed with him the possibility of WP:Women in Red, e.g. like WP:WikiWomen's History Month. Thoughts? (cc: @Ipigott, SusunW, Megalibrarygirl, and Victuallers:) --Rosiestep (talk) 16:48, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Whatever will simplify navigation and notification is what will get my vote. I don't understand the technical details or why one format is better over the others. What I know is that with the current set up, I do not receive notifications properly, (I'd say less than 1/2 of the page notifications). It seems as if each individual section of the project must be watchlisted to even attain a fraction of the notices. Then there is the whole situation where I end up somewhere I did not intend (Either at WikiProject Women, or at a dead end). Anything that will make it simpler will be an improvement, IMO. SusunW (talk) 17:00, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm with SusunW, anything that will make things easier for editors and navigation. :) Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:36, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I certainly support making WiR a WikiProject in its own right and also hope for fundamental improvements in navigation. Now that Dr. Blofeld is less active on Wikipedia, the tie-up with WikiProject Women is more difficult to justify although I think we should still maintain the links to all the other women's projects we have on our main page. I also think WiR should progress from article creation to all other aspects of improvement up to GA and FA.--Ipigott (talk) 14:55, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't that defeat the object of calling it "women in red" if you plan on tackling GA and FA too? The name is intended to cover just missing articles is it not? Wouldn't it make more sense to just call it WP:Women and cover everything? You shouldn't feel like I have anything to do with it, WP:Women isn't my project, however much I did to get it running. Personally I think the emphasis should go more towards actual quality than quantity (though I do see a desperate need to even up the 15-85 percentage), or a least a project with seriously focuses on both. Yet you can't really have a Women in Red project which focuses on anything but missing articles, otherwise the name is redundant.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:01, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I have no problems with moving back if it makes things easier, but before we do so it might be worth taking another look at the project naming and scope. Should we be solely focusing on just missing articles or should we be working both on GAs/FAs as well as creating new articles. If so, why would we call in Women in Red etc. These are the sorts of questions I think need to be addressed here. If it's purely just missing articles everybody wants to work on rather than pursuing GAs on existing articles then that's fine and perfectly suitable of course.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:39, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The scope of Women in Red has always been new article creation focused on women's biographies and women's works, broadly construed. The scope of WikiProject Women is to unify women's projects under one umbrella, while focusing on article improvement (GA, FA), AfD responsiveness, new article creation, and so on. The current "task force" format within Wikipedia's "wikiprojects" doesn't lend for easy navigation within very active task forces, such as WiR. Maybe 1-10 years from now, things will be different. For now, though, Women in Red feels it would be easier to work on its scope as a stand-alone Wikiproject -- as it was previously --- rather than as a task force. I would make the move myself except that Wikiproject X has some programming incorporated into the WiR mainpage and I don't want to mess that up. Wikiproject X: let's make this split happen. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:38, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, in that case keep the Women in Red project solely focused on missing articles and keep pursuing GAs/FAs as part of the general women scope.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:03, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Received an email about this project asking what does it do? Was it related to The Woman in Red (1984 film) ....I said no its about making articles of missing content.....perhaps this could be more clear in the projects info. .....that is mention of red links--Moxy (talk) 19:46, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

@Moxy: Good point. I've just edited the lede to try and clarify the redlinks connection. If anyone wants to further tweak/clarify, please go for it! --Rosiestep (talk) 20:39, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

@Moxy: refer them to the Signpost article Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-12-16/WikiProject report it explains exactly what we do. SusunW (talk) 23:51, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

@SusunW: If you add this signpost article about Women in red to Category:WikiProjects featured in The Signpost you will make this knowledge available to more readers. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:03, 8 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

•  Done Cool Ottawahitech had no idea that category even existed. SusunW (talk) 16:09, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

• I think my comments on GA and FA have been misunderstood. What I was trying to say was that we should not stop work on the articles we create under WiR just because they have reached Start or C class or even reached DYK. We should be able to take some of them much further, first to B, then to GA and finally to FA. Many of the women whose biographies we have covered during our editathons or from our lists of red links deserve far better coverage. I know that SusunW is keen to work on quality improvement and so am I. If we can identify the articles we have created (thanks to those new templates we have for the talk pages), then I think WiR should also be credited with taking them to GA or FA. It seems strange to me that the project should be limited exclusively to article creation. But I like the catchy "Women in Red" and think we should keep it. If we decide to improve other articles on women up to GA or FA, then they should clearly come under one of the other WikiProjects on women including WikiProject Women itself. I hope Dr. Blofeld will agree with this approach.--Ipigott (talk) 12:59, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
• "Being a task force" doesn't require using any subpages. If the page title isn't working, then you can move it to something that does work. Being a task force is supposed to save you some hassle with page tagging, template creation, and setting up bots. It's not supposed to force you to use a particular name. WPUS has many task forces, and they mostly don't use subpages as their names. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Bringing inactive projects back to life

I just added an inactive project (Time) banner to Category talk:Lists of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2015. I then proceeded to Wikipedia:WikiProject Time and after checking the talk page decided that to change the project status to semi-active to reflect some activity that is taking place.

Just wondering if and when this information will be reflected in all the talkpage banners which now depict this project as inactive? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:12, 8 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Ottawahitech, I believe that it will be fixed as soon as you undo this edit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Ranking contributors to pages in a WikiProject

Is there anyway to rank editors by number of contributions to pages included in a WikiProject? Extra credit would be to limit it to a period of time, like the last six months. I am not interested in showing such rankings in WikiProjects I'm involved in, but rather I would like to use this information to analyze who to invite to become members. Thanks for any ideas. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:52, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure how they did it, but if I remember correctly Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine not only did this ranking a couple of years ago, but actually thanked the "winning" editors on their respective talkpages. I am sure whatamidoing will be be able to elaborate. Ottawahitech (talk) 02:49, 9 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

Thanks for the lead! I inquired over there. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:36, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

@Stevietheman: I followed you to :WikiProject Medicine (hope you don't mind) because I am also curious to find out how they got their stats. Did you ever figure it out? BTW interesting statistics here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Stats Ottawahitech (talk) 00:44, 20 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Directory#Edit counts of subject-area editors. That's where I think we can get useful data if some requested changes are implemented. The WP Medicine stats are much more than I need, and I would likely have to spend a lot of time programming to generate what they did, but I really don't need much more than what's provided in the WikiProject Directory, and it already lists the editors who have recently touched pages in my project. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 12:00, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

The 2015 stats have been posted: Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Stats.

If you want to know who actually writes the articles, then you might take a look at mw:User talk:Johan (WMF)#Wishlist (and follow some of the links). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Thanks, but I don't know what to look for at that link - it doesn't jump to anything. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 11:17, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Argh, it was the wrong link. I've fixed it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Using AlexNewArtBot

Just wondering if anyone here has experience in setting up and running AlexNewArtBot for their project. Is it worth the trouble? What does it do? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 23:33, 16 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Winningest in sports articles under discussion

Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#"winningest" in sports articles. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:09, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Looking for Americans renouncing citizenship in records numbers in the assessment table

I posted this question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States/Assessment, but it looks like a dead wp:Tasforce(?) -- so I am wondering if anyone here can speculate? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:52, 23 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Looking for guidance

As a template editor and active here I keep getting asked to revert the removal of films and now actors and writers from musicians and other navboxes. But I have been reluctant to do this because in the past the members of WP:Films edit war over this claiming ownership over all templates with films in them saying that NO films should be listed in navigational aids pointing to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Film#Navigation. I am not sure how one project can run around all over removing these valid links claiming that one type of article cant be linked despite our guideline one the matter (WP:ADVICEPAGE). I am not sure how impeding our readers ability to navigate articles is helpful...but they really think this is a good idea....looks all to be based on the fact they dont like all the templates at the bottom of pages. What is the best way forward here....what do i tell people asking for help and how can we stop all the problem raised by the projects aggressive stance that they know best. -- Moxy (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

The same thing that has happened to Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers is happening to WP:Films ,,,as in people are going out of there way to avoid this project from seeing there work. WikiProject Composers has the problem for years now that people will not tag new composers articles with the project banner so members there dont see them...now we have people avoiding adding "any navboxes" not just ones with films to actors articles because they say the film project just removes the template and removes the links aswell.....people are saying its best they dont see them to begin with. Having people go out of there way to avoid a group of editors is never a good thing....how can we solve this problem. -- Moxy (talk) 19:56, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps anyone interested in these subject areas can join the WikiProjects and ask for a review of these policies, as generally, one has "standing" if one is actually a member. If it seems that the WikiProject is not providing for an open discussion of their policies (given reasonable wait for a response), then perhaps start an RfC on the WikiProject's talk page (or in a more neutral spot) -- with this, if there is any WikiProject policy that is out of line with Wikipedia-wide policy, this can act as a corrective given there is a consensus. This is all just my understanding of course. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:09, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

(Offtopic) one has "standing" if one is actually a member I have posted to many w-projects without becoming a member, and in my experience most active w-projects appreciate input. Some are extremely helpful (WP:WikiProject Architecture comes to mind), and a few are hostile. Ottawahitech (talk) 02:37, 9 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

I was talking about best practices -- if you want to improve your chances of being taken seriously in a WikiProject. Certainly, many WikiProjects these days are starving for input, from members or non-members, and so will welcome it. It seems to be the case here (and thus on-topic) that the WikiProjects in question might tend to be hostile to what are differing views. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 10:03, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Not glad to see one of these template editors ban today..but this may get the others to look at what there doing and how much a problem it is. Content editors are getting more and more upset. -- Moxy (talk) 16:44, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Link please -- I'd like to see what has happened with that. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:41, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

@Moxy:, me too. Ottawahitech (talk) 00:47, 20 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

Hes editwar block is over ... I think the best thing we can do for our editors is to inform them of the problem like I did here. I hope letting people know there is a problem will stop all the questions all over. -- Moxy (talk) 19:03, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Moxy, it's been a few weeks since your last update. How is this situation now? If we need to, we can expand ADVICEPAGE to use the explicit example of navboxes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

No luck...mentioned it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#Time to look at what is best!! ....all i got was a run around....playing dumb. -- Moxy (talk) 14:14, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

It's clear you got "the brush off", with others implying/pretending that your issue wasn't something significant. You may have no choice but to start a site-wide discussion about it. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 14:54, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I have some ideas about how this could be addressed. I think it might be helpful to provide a more thorough explanation of the freedoms that WikiProjects have (e.g., to decide what they are interested in, to organize their pages, to write essays, etc. – all of these freedoms are only extensions of what we offer every individual editor), and the rights that they don't have (e.g., to demand that their advice be followed by the rest of their community). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

That would be a good idea.. edit like this do not help our readers navigate the topic....it in fact impedes direct navigation causing readers to have only "run around links" to find cast members, creators and writers. There is no thought to those with accessibility issues ...making people have to click multiply times to find someone (every click is hard for some) and having to load huge pages (not all have fast internet nor unlimited data allowances) to find said info. Not to mention the fact many many readers navigate to the bottom of pages to find said info at a glance. Some edits are just odd to me ....I think most are done in good faith...but without realizing why we have nave templates to begin with. -- Moxy (talk) 13:56, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

What WikiProjects can and can't do

Yes

No

They're groups of editors, so we treat them like we would treat an editor. The equivalent of userspace in "Wikipedia:WikiProject Example" pages Use it for in-group communication, like you would use a user talk page. Use it for drafts, lists, and notes to yourself, like you would use a sandbox or user subpage. If your group is good at something, then you'll get respect, just like individual editors get respect for their expertise. The group gets to pick which pages it wants to support, just like individual editors.

They're groups of editors, so we treat them like we would treat an editor. You can't overrule the whole community. You can't dictate your group's preferences about infoboxes/navboxes/citation styles/anything else to editors at any article. WikiProjects don't own articles.

What else can we add that describes this in concrete terms? I don't mind if you or anyone else adds things to this table; it might help organize our thoughts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

So two things we can do to move forward...first the chart above outlining do's and donts and a site wide discussion. I will start an RfC at the policy page this week. Any suggestions on the wording that would be best for a RfC.....as I dont want to single out any one editor or group as was done here...just want to see if the community believes a project/group of editors have the right to omit a certain type of articles for navigation aids...my guess is no but lets see what others say and the reasons behind the actions thus far. -- Moxy (talk) 18:43, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

pls see Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Banning articles from navigational aids -- Moxy (talk) 20:40, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I guess the RfC is not done well....i will simply continue to inform editors about the projects POV when they inquire about it.....I also think its a good idea that MOS:FILMS makes note of the POV. -- Moxy (talk) 13:25, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

It appears you got pretty good advice regarding the construction of the RfC. I would advise dispassionately determining where the issue you see originates (maybe not the WikiProject after all) and pinpoint that in an RfC if necessary, but perhaps trying discussion in the best spot first. It seems that there could be instances where adding films to a navbox could be useful, but adding all of them won't be. I would suggest making this less a conflict against the WikiProject and more about getting to the bottom of the technical issue involved. Be a surgeon, not a warrior.  :) Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 14:40, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I am done with the whole topic...its clear my concerns are being dismissed and/or misunderstood all over. I dont even edit these types of articles or templates. Just a point of contention that keeps coming up by other editors at help desks and user talks... that I was trying get a definitive reply.....I did..its clear ... its fine to omit articles from navigation in this manner...no one else sees a problem. If template editors and project members really think that movies and actors etc.. have no place in navigational aids not much can be done as they are the ones new editors will have to deal with when trying to edit these templates and articles. Best to simply make note of the POV in the MOS...need to mention that not just films and actors...but also producers, creators and writers should be omitted all over. -- Moxy (talk) 16:19, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

No matter what you do on this matter, you'll have to get consensus agreement. Might be best to drop it completely if you don't want to work through all that.Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:42, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I think its best others update the MOS this time ....as I have stated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#Add info about films and creators etc.. -- Moxy (talk) 17:57, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

What else can we add that describes this in concrete terms?

What happened at wp:WikiProject Breakfast may be added (after the dust settles), but I am not the best person to explain it ( I may be biased):

• WikiProject Breakfast was a testbed of wp:Flow
• The trial was shut down by consensus of non-participants in the project
• I tried to object, unsuccessfully to removing the Flow trial from WikiProject Breakfast.
• For those who are interested and have lots of time on their hands see:User_talk:Ottawahitech#Flow_.2F_projectbreakfast_RFC

Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 21:38, 23 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

"WikiProject Los Angeles Rams" / "WikiProject St. Louis Rams"

The pages and categories for this wikiproject are all screwed up, see Template talk:WikiProject St. Louis Rams ; can someone help fix them? -- 70.51.200.135 (talk) 05:30, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I cannot find a WikiProject named WikiProject St. Louis Rams. Anyone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ottawahitech (talk • contribs) 20:55, 23 January 2016‎

Some pages are located under Special:prefixindex/WP:WikiProject Los Angeles Rams others Special:prefixindex/WP:WikiProject St. Louis Rams and the categories are more messy -- 70.51.200.135 (talk) 05:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject watchlists

I vaguely remember that many w-projects used to have a watchlist which appeared as External links on the wikiproject page. See for example Wikipedia:WikiProject_Time#External_links. I also vaguely remember it used to be very useful tool.

I think all watchlists are now and one of the editors User:Dispenser who used to do this type of work and is still around has moved on to other interests. Anyone here interested in this topic? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:35, 8 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

If you don't mind using AutoWikibrowser, it's fairly simple to roll your own project watchlist. Check out WP:LOU/CP. The first two linked watches are based on a Watchall page (list of all pages in the WikiProject) I build using these instructions. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:59, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

@Stevietheman: not everyone (this includes me) has access to AWB. Ottawahitech (talk) 02:48, 10 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

@Ottawahitech: access to use AWB isn't required as you don't have to login with it to build the lists. All you need to do is install the AWB app. All that's required is a modern version of Windows to install it on. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 12:43, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Its still works, just on another server because of the pricks at WMF don't allow redirects to third party servers (despite it working before they took over). They also don't like responding to email and take 6 weeks to restore service, but will immediately cut service off while writing that email to legal they requested you to write.
I updated Wikipedia:List of WikiProject watchlists (topical). — Dispenser 21:22, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Dispenser for fixing all wp:WikiProject Watchlists. I know you are busy, but can anyone explain the issue of third party servers to those of us who are clueless (me). Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 21:20, 9 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

dispenser.homenet.org is my home server with a secure database connection to Wikimedia Labs. WMF and I have issues , like I want 24+ TB to archive links and they want to neuter the encyclopedia. They preach Open Source, then buy Google Apps licenses. Deny IP address access for privacy, then provide a public IP geolocation service. They talk about wanting a link checker, I mention I did it 8 years ago. They're just dysfunctional. — Dispenser 05:24, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

There is a proposed simple change to the software that would make WikiProject watchlists a lot easier to maintain. See Phabricator ticket. Harej (talk) 03:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

user:Harej, Can you please explain in layman's terms what you are getting at? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 21:15, 23 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Ottawahitech, basically: there is a special page, Special:RecentChangesLinked, that shows you the recent changes for all the pages that are linked on a given page. For example, if "X" and "Y" are linked to from "Z", Special:RecentChangesLinked/Z shows you the recent changes for "X" and "Y". Many WikiProjects have categories that include all their articles, for example Category:WikiProject Ghana articles. But WikiProject categories technically categorize the talk pages, rather than the articles themselves. So you only get recent changes to the talk pages and not the articles. The ticket I linked to is for a proposed change the software that would show you the recent changes for the articles that correspond to those talk pages. This would allow WikiProject watchlists to exist with very little additional effort. Please let me know if there is anything else I should clarify. Harej (talk) 06:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Democracy

User:Harej, someone just created WP:WikiProject Democracy. The project appears to be about promoting the use of democratic methods on Wikipedia, i.e., WP:NOTDEMOCRACY stuff, rather than about improving articles on the subject. Can you make sure that it gets listed in the correct section of the Directory? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I added it to Category:Wikipedia WikiProjects, which is the proper category for non-content-related WikiProjects. Harej (talk) 03:36, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

user:Harej, What is the proper category for wp:content-related WikiProjects? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 21:18, 23 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Ottawahitech, any of the subcategories of Category:WikiProjects by area (or their subcategories) will do. The exception is Category:Wikipedia WikiProjects which is reserved for "meta" WikiProjects that are not directly content related. Though I would like to at some point rename the category and give it a clearer name. Harej (talk) 06:45, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject DYK (article alerts)

Did you know that:

• Article Alerts' is a fully-automated subscription-based system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles tagged by their banner enter Articles for deletion
• Article Alerts are updated daily by a BOT, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results
• Article Alerts allow a certain degree of customization
• User:B. Wolterding who coded the BOT was not permitted to operate it because he did not wish to disclose personal information which was required to operate a bot on the wp:tool server. He/she is now listed as a wp:Missing Wikipedian.

Source: Wikipedia:WikiProject Article Alerts in The Signpost Ottawahitech (talk) 03:32, 18 December 2015 (UTC)please ping me

The Toolserver (run by Wikimedia Deutschland) is also a "Missing Wikipedian", as of several years ago. (Wolterding declined to be identified to WMDE in 2008.) I wonder whether the WMF's Tool Labs has a similar policy. I've never heard of any such requirement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:58, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, as far as I know, you don't need to provide your identity to the Wikimedia Foundation for Tool Labs. Only situation I can think of would be for an NDA to get access to private information, but that pretty much never happens (and is unnecessary for most people). Harej (talk) 07:28, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 6

Newsletter • January 2016

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

What comes next

Some good news: the Wikimedia Foundation has renewed WikiProject X. This means we can continue focusing on making WikiProjects better.

During our first round of work, we created a prototype WikiProject based on two ideas: (1) WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and (2) The content of WikiProjects should be automated as much as possible. We launched pilots, and for the most part it works. But this approach will not work for the long term. While it makes certain aspects of running a WikiProject easier, it makes the maintenance aspects harder.

We are working on a major overhaul that will address these issues. New features will include:

• Creating WikiProjects by simply filling out a form, choosing which reports you want to generate for your project. This will work with existing bots in addition to the Reports Bot reports. (Of course, you can also have sections curated by humans.)
• One-click button to join a WikiProject, with optional notifications.
• Be able to define your WikiProject's scope within the WikiProject itself by listing relevant pages and categories, eliminating the need to tag every talk page with a banner. (You will still be allowed to do that, of course. It just won't be required.)

The end goal is a collaboration tool that can be used by WikiProjects but also by any edit-a-thon or group of people that want to coordinate on improving articles. Though implemented as an extension, the underlying content will be wikitext, meaning that you can continue to use categories, templates, and other features as you normally would.

This will take a lot of work, and we are just getting started. What would you like to see? I invite you to discuss on our talk page.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

---

Hi Harej, your following objectives sound good:

1. WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and
2. The content of WikiProjects should be automated

Can you please provide us information about what is already there in this respect? (and can you please fix the indents of your previous message) Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 21:06, 23 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Ottawahitech, our pilot projects (see Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Dashboard) are experimenting with new designs that aim to do those two things. This new design is combined with some automated task lists from SuggestBot and Reports bot. While this approach makes progress on those two objectives, it does so while making the pages harder to maintain unless you have a strong knowledge of the templates. Thus we will be working on a WikiProject infrastructure that is easy to set up and maintain (for those WikiProjects that want such a thing). Harej (talk) 07:24, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

@Harej: There appear to be more problems than what you are letting on. For example wp:WikiProject Women in Technology which appears right at the top of your "dashboard" has no template-project banner and as a result no articles can be added to the project. I brought this to your attention on Dec 9, 2015 -- but there has been no progress. See:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Women_in_Technology#WikiProject_template. Sorry to be blunt, but it appears you are more interested in collecting money from WMF than actually providing value? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 00:44, 25 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me Please don't shoot the messenger

@Ottawahitech: There are indeed multiple glitches and areas where things could be better, including things I can't recall off the top of my head. I track issues on this work board and I add to the work board as necessary. The situation with the Women in Technology project is that it was created specifically to test the new design. I did not have time to fully flesh it out as a WikiProject, including the requisite talk page banners, as I am focusing more on the overall system than that specific WikiProject. If the Women in Technology participants are interested however I would be happy to get talk page banners deployed. But in general I am less interested in "how do we get talk page banners easily deployed for any WikiProject" and more interested in "how do we let WikiProjects add articles to their project, regardless of whether they want to spam talk pages with banners"? The planned extension should be making progress on that while still allowing banners for those WikiProjects that find them to be useful. Also, if there are other bugs you see, please let me know. Harej (talk) 23:57, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Religion

I am a member of the Nation of Gods and Earth's. I wish for other Gods and Earths to help me correct the information about us. However, help from anyone else is welcome. Contact me here on my Wiki acount or my email- . Thanks. Derp00765 (talk) 13:14, 26 January 2016 (UTC) Derp00765

@Derp00765: This talk page is about discussing WikiProjects in general. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion would be a better place to ask for the assistance you seek. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:39, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

@Derp00765: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion does not seem to be very active right now, so if you ask there and do not get an answer within a couple of weeks, please come back here and let us know and maybe someone will have more ideas on how to find others interested in the topic of Nation of Gods and Earths. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:01, 26 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Could the navigation bars please be added by default to the "WikiProject articles by importance" and "by quality"-categories

Example categories: Category:Top-importance history of science articles | Category:B-Class Open articles | Template: Template:Category importance

---

I don't know why this isn't done by default already. Is there any advantage of that not being added by default to any "WikiProject articles by importance" and "by quality" category?

These navigation bars are really essential for browsing WikiProject articles (especially for newcomers) - and that in turn is a major necessity for effective WikiProjects.

There are multiple ways this could be done. There could be a change made to Wikipedia so that the bars are added right when the WikiProject is created. I don't know if these "by quality" and "by importance" categories are created once a WikiProject is created (if they aren't they probably should). But in the case that they aren't and that there's a good reason for that the navigation bars could also be added once the categories are created by the user. And if nothing helps even a bot could do it (which is probably needed anyways to add the navigation bars to the already existent categories).

If there are multiple navigation bars and you want to leave it to the WikiProjects which one they choose I'd say that the navigation bars can still be changed once they're added by default and for the already existing "by quality" and "by importance" categories there could be a detection if the category already has some other navigation bar set.

Not sure if this suggestion would be better off at the village pump or elsewhere (if so - where?) and whether or not this is already on WikiProject X' radar.

What do you think of this?

--Fixuture (talk) 22:50, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for asking a dumb question, but what are wp: Navigation bars? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:58, 23 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

@Ottawahitech: No problem - they are the bars on the top of the "WikiProject articles by importance" and "by quality"-categories which are used to navigate these categories - I linked a template right on top: Template:Category importance. --Fixuture (talk) 00:14, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

A bot to add {{category importance}} and {{category class}} to WikiProject assessment categories would not be a bad idea. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

@Titoxd: Yes, I'm wondering why nobody has done it yet. Hoping someone who has already written a Wikipedia-bot reads and implements this (shouldn't be that hard). --Fixuture (talk) 00:14, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Clarification of Wikipedia:WikiProject Sia proposal?

Can someone confirm if there was ever a proposal for this WP? I can't find one. It looks like it has been fan created and there is only one member. There's never been a discussion for there to be a group of people to join it and be apart of it. It shouldn't exist; it's meant to be about the people involved to maintain it, not the existence of a page.  — Calvin999 23:33, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Seriously? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:33, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, seriously. You haven't gone through the procedure of getting votes in favour to allow its creation. You can't just create projects willy nilly. You have to create a proper proposal, define it's scope, show you have people who will be involved in its maintenance and regularly working on the articles in order to keep the project active and relevant. Other editors are then supposed to vote in favour or against the creation, depending on whether you have demonstrated that it is actually worth having the project. You've not done that. You've just made one up without permission and no-one is apart of the project except you, thus the project does not exist. As it is on the project page here, "If you do not have a group of people, then you do not have a WikiProject."  — Calvin999 23:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, well, I was bold and started a new project. Let's move on... ---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:47, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Haha, well there's no one in the Wikiproject but you! So yeah that is a pretty big problem!  — Calvin999 23:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Right. Ok. Well, I am going to go work on other things now. Thanks for your concern. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:52, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Assistance with banner template?

Despite Calvin999's resistance (for reasons I fail to understand), I am attempting to build WikiProject Sia. However, I am having trouble enabling the article assessment features via Template:WikiProject Sia. Is someone able to help? I was able to get the importance categories set up. I would also appreciate the file, project, category, etc. categories as well. Thanks for any assistance in advance. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:58, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

My reasons are the rules of the WikiProject Council, just thought I'd make that clear.  — Calvin999 23:59, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok, great. If someone else is able to help, I'd appreciate a moment of your time. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 00:03, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Update for Statistics subpage

Greetings, For the Statistics subpage I moved the pie chart under the stats table. Doing this reduces the excess width issue for Wikipedia:WikiProject Council page. Regards,  JoeHebda (talk)  19:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

CfD discussion relating to divisive "membership" language creeping back in

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 January 31#"WikiProject Foo members" to "WikiProject Foo participants", again (it's just a discussion, not a move proposal at present).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:44, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Restricting memberships of a Taskforce?

I can't find anything on whether that is possible. Perhaps they are all intended to be open to anyone to read about. I am attempting to set up a taskforce on a controversial subject and want to keep out the Troll types for the sake of clear thinking.Jed Stuart (talk) 03:33, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

My best guess is that memberships cannot be restricted in general, although some projects have niche positions that are elected by the membership. I don't think a subject-area taskforce would normally be seen as a niche position. I think you can get away with saying members must have an account, though. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:51, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I did not follow the wp:dramah at the time, but wasn't an editor who pushed for a project with restricted membership get banned from Wikipedia not too long ago? (I do not mean to start a rumour, just vaguely rememeber something like this -- please correct me if I am wrong) Ottawahitech (talk) 02:55, 10 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

@Ottawahitech: I assume you're thinking about the "new" WikiProject Wikipedia, which happened about 4-5 months ago (you can find this version of the project in the page history). This project gave users different levels of membership as opposed to a simple "Members" list. The editor who created it, Tortle, isn't banned (in fact, they've never been blocked); they just aren't active right now due to (I'm assuming) real-life commitments. They're welcome to come back anytime (my opinion, at least). CabbagePotato (talk) 19:46, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

There are no provisions for invitation-only WikiProjects (including task forces). There are no provisions for banning individuals, except the normal WP:IBAN and WP:TBAN procedures, which can be used to stop any individual from talking to another individual, posting to a WikiProject's talk page, etc.

There have been very few problems with this in the past (fewer than I once predicted). The usual solution to the rare problem is for the good editors to abandon the WikiProject to the disruptive/angry/unpleasant/unwanted editor, but to keep working together – and possibly join or create a related WikiProject. (Think "I don't want to sit with the mean kid in the school lunch room, but the school won't let us make him move. Therefore, we will let him have the table that we used to sit at, and we will all go sit at another one.") This is ultimately a bad solution; therefore, I believe that it would be appropriate for WikiProjects to be able eject a would-be member if necessary. But as of now, no such procedure exists.

If your group is sufficiently small, you should consider keeping everything in your userspace; many editors would give you more leeway there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Being able to exclude people one disagrees with would lead to an obvious WP:OWN / WP:VESTED problem, and we already have far, far too much of that when it comes to wikiprojects (this problem is much of why we have WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy, and multiple sharply worded WP:ARBCOM decisions reminding wikiproject that they are just random editors agreeing to collaborate, not independent organizations making up their own rules, much less controlling particular content areas over which they claim scope). WP operates on openness, transparency, and collaboration. If an individual is being genuinely disruptive at a project, see WP:DR, and if necessary use WP:ANI to deal with the problem.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:00, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

However, in reality the people attracted to a particular wikiproject are not going to be random editors. If it was truly random they would nearly all not want to be there. A wikiproject on vintage cars would probably mainly attract enthusiasts or those wanting them off the road and probably a few others with particular interests. Whilst accepting not ownership of articles is a good principle, maybe it would work to accept ownership of interest areas in wikiprojects. In the Task Force I was thinking about there would probably be two or three or maybe more types of interested parties and I would not mind them all there if they would declare their interest. Unfortunately, from past experience in internet forums there would inevitably be some who would not declare and would play lots of silly disruptive games, which could possibly be dealt with but take way too much time.Jed Stuart (talk) 00:26, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Hello

In here don't wikiproject asia (indonesian) why? Arifys (talk) 10:52, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library

Been some talk about the Wikipedia Library project adding {{Research help}} in the ref sections of articles that leads to an essay....would love members here to chime in pls see Wikipedia talk:Research help . -- Moxy (talk) 05:21, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Please check my WikiProject proposal

Hello, I am BOTFIGHTER I gave a proposal for making WikiProject Statues. So I request Wikipedia Council to check it!RegardsBOTFIGHTER (talk) 16:49, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I need for more support please get your username on WikiProject Statues,in the support section please I need more support!BOTFIGHTER (talk) 09:36, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 7

Newsletter • February 2016

This month:

One database for Wikipedia requests

Development of the extension for setting up WikiProjects, as described in the last issue of this newsletter, is currently underway. No terribly exciting news on this front.

In the meantime, we are working on a prototype for a new service we hope to announce soon. The problem: there are requests scattered all across Wikipedia, including requests for new articles and requests for improvements to existing articles. We Wikipedians are very good at coming up with lists of things to do. But once we write these lists, where do they end up? How can we make them useful for all editors—even those who do not browse the missing articles lists, or the particular WikiProjects that have lists?

Introducing Wikipedia Requests, a new tool to centralize the various lists of requests around Wikipedia. Requests will be tagged by category and WikiProject, making it easier to find requests based on what your interests are. Accompanying this service will be a bot that will let you generate reports from this database on any wiki page, including WikiProjects. This means that once a request is filed centrally, it can syndicated all throughout Wikipedia, and once it is fulfilled, it will be marked as "complete" throughout Wikipedia. The idea for this service came about when I saw that it was easy to put together to-do lists based on database queries, but it was harder to do this for human-generated requests when those requests are scattered throughout the wiki, siloed throughout several pages. This should especially be useful for WikiProjects that have overlapping interests.

The newsletter this month is fairly brief; not a lot of news, just checking in to say that we are hard at work and hope to have more for you soon.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 01:43, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Question: where to place Directory listing for WikiProject Invention?

Greetings, Wondering if WikiProject Invention is listed in the directory? Not able to find. If it is missing, could another editor, more experienced, please add? Regards,  JoeHebda (talk)  03:37, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

1. ω Awaiting – Hello! Should I bring this question to Teahouse or the Help Desk? It's been almost a month & I am wondering: "Is anybody here?" Cheers!  JoeHebda (talk)  19:31, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
2. ω Awaiting help — JoeHebda • (talk) 16:10, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Australia Directory listing needed

Greetings, At Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Geographical#Australia I created a section heading with a temporary link to Portal:Australia/WikiProjects that contains many Australia-related WikiProjects. It is way beyond anything I that I know how to do, so I'm asking for help from another more experienced editor to create another directory page for Australia directory. Regards,  JoeHebda (talk)  21:26, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

1. ω Awaiting – Hello! Anybody here? Just wondering...  JoeHebda (talk)  19:35, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
2. ω Awaiting help — JoeHebda • (talk) 16:11, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

What do you need done? -- Moxy (talk) 18:06, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Please add Directory entries for Australia (Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/WikiProject) at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Geographical#Australia with content from this Australia Portal subpage. — JoeHebda • (talk) 18:57, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Epicatalysis: Two different Wikiprojects

Is it possible to tag an article as needed attention from TWO different Wikiprojects instead of just one? (Please reply on my Talk Page) Come to me... Ravenheart 20:18, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject Under Construction

I recently started a new WikiProject for Hampshire County, West Virginia topics at Wikipedia:WikiProject Hampshire County, West Virginia. I will be providing workshops to Hampshire County Wikipedia editors, and wanted to use this as a structured framework for rating Hampshire County articles, recognizing featured content, etc. I have no experience in this realm, and may need to even make this a task force within the West Virginia WikiProject. If the latter is the case, I'll need some assistance converting the WikiProject to task force. I've been a Wikipedian for over ten years, but I am admittedly new to this aspect of Wikipedia. Any assistance you could provide would be of the greatest help! -- West Virginian (talk) 15:18, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Hello, West Virginian! My project WikiProject X offers a toolkit to make it easier to start up WikiProjects and to generate to-do lists. You can see as an example Wikipedia:WikiProject Ghana. If you would like to proceed with this, let me know and I can set up the project. (Unfortunately it takes a good deal of work now to set up, but we're working on making that easier.) Harej (talk) 19:36, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Harej, you've just made my day. I would indeed like to proceed with setting up the Hampshire County WikiProject. Just let me know how to proceed. Have you seen what I've created this far? Thank you so much for your assistance and guidance! -- West Virginian (talk) 00:20, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I have moved the discussion over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hampshire County, West Virginia#New WikiProject layout. Harej (talk) 20:15, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Benzodiazepines & appetite

All journals articles say Benzodiazepines increases appetite but patients sites say opposite which one is correct? example:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666380800055

http://www.drugs.com/clonazepam.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by M-G (talk • contribs) 22:39, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

M-G, this question might be more appropriate for WikiProject Pharmacology or WikiProject Medicine, but I would stick with citing journal articles, specifically review articles and meta-analyses. Harej (talk) 00:01, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Comments subpages

Just to let you all know, that I am finally moving ahead with the plan to deprecate all the /Comments subpages. This decision was made by the community in 2009 but was never enacted. Please see WP:DCS for more details, and if you have any comments/questions, please post at WT:DCS. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:47, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Towards a wikipedia for kids/children/youth - making the wikipedia more attractive to kids/children/youth?

Hi, I'm from the OLPC one laptopschool per child community. I hope this is the place to ask this. Is here any project to make the wikipedia more attractive to kids? Like, a special entry page per age group, or a compendium/table of contents with articles that are typically interesting to kids from a certain age group, maybe some lay-over to some pages, like the wikipedia page about the earth, but then making it attractive for say 9 year olds and if they really start digging, they then end up to the general wikipedia page on the earth? Thy --SvenAERTS (talk) 20:42, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Greetings SvenAERTS – While your question is somewhat outside of my area of expertise (computers) this website for kids may be helpful, and the Simple Wikipedia Schools frontend page. Regards, — JoeHebda • (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi JoeHebda that's some very interesting links. OMG yes - your spot on, I just had a look on the wikipedia, in the navigation pane on the left, under the section "Languages" , there is a "language" / category mentioned that is not a language and intended for a specific public. What is the name of that "language"?

Answer: "Languages" Simple English https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page exactly for the groups we intend to focus upon!

OMG and indeed you point to that Simple English page having a starting page for schools! That's brilliant! Joe, thy, you made me even more brilliant with your contribution ! :)

PS what the heck is that code JoeHebda – ?! How on earth did you find that out? :) Amazing place the wikipedia. Thy again ! --SvenAERTS (talk) 10:36, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

SvenAERTS, the Simple English Wikipedia isn't "for kids" in the sense of having only age-appropriate information. It's really intended for people who are learning English. A few years ago, there was a project to make an age-appropriate Wikipedia (e.g., no articles about porn stars) a while ago; you might be able to find it at meta:. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:33, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

No one receives the wikiproject proposals

I have a complaint, I had made an proposal of making WikiProject Statues in somewhere December or January, still the council members have not checked it! I request to check this WikiProject, it as really a very important project! Regards BOTFIGHTER (talk) 07:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

BOTFIGHTER, my personal recommendation: if you have a group of people ready to start the WikiProject, just go ahead and do it. Harej (talk) 08:03, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

BOTFIGHTER does not have a group. There is one supporter in addition to himself. He should probably

We don't have a deadline for proposals, but it seems likely that these two editors should join an existing related project instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:36, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Portal worthwhile?

WikiProject Disability has an associated portal at Portal:Disability, which has not been updated or maintained for several years. We need some help to decide whether it is worth keeping, and thus commit to putting in the effort to maintain it, or if it will simply be a waste of effort and editor time, thus either delete it or keep the status quo and leave it as a static page? How does one determine the value of a portal page? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:54, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

It would be nice to have at least some response within a month of the first post.... Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:34, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

My two cents: Look at the portal's page views, and ask people's opinions in the project talk and talk pages of the major articles included in the project. See if there's a consensus for removal. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 18:52, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Best way to prioritize BYU library Wikipedia activity?

Hi, I'm BYU's new coordinator of Wikipedia initiatives at the Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL). My job is to help improve articles related to holdings in the HBLL, especially our special collections. I was wondering if a WikiProject would be an appropriate way to categorize articles for me and my future two students to work on. I wouldn't mind just making a task force, since there will only be three of us actively editing, but I'd like to assess pages based on the general importance of the article and also our holdings at the library. For example, even though Brigham Young is a notable figure within the LDS movement, we don't have a large collection of his in special collections, so I'd classify his page as low importance. On the other hand, we have a considerable Cecil B. Demille collection so his page would be high importance for us (although his article is already good). Having articles classified by their time period would also help me involve special collections curators--even if they don't personally edit, they'd at least be able to easily see the what pages related to their material. However there would be significant overlap with the existing LDS, BYU, and Utah Wikiprojects.

Having written that, I guess my real question is: is it possible to make a task force but still assess articles? And is it possible to have a sub-category within assessments (i.e., BYU library - 19th century Americana)? Would it be better for Wikipedia if I just keep track of all of this on a spreadsheet somewhere on my own?

Thanks for your help. Rwelean (talk) 17:54, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I've thought about this a little, and I think it might be best for me to make a set of spreadsheets with the data I need/want. Rwelean (talk) 17:38, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Rwelean, yes, task forces can have their own assessments and priorities. WP:MEDTF does that for priority (some of them); WP:MILHIST's task forces might do so as well.

Have you found WP:GLAM and the folks at WP:The Wikipedia Library yet? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:25, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I changed my username to be more official since this last post. With the help of other kind users I was able to make a GLAM page (Wikipedia:GLAM/Harold_B_Lee_Library) and an assessment table. I was familiar with the WP:GLAM site but I hadn't thought of using WP:The Wikipedia Library as a resource yet, so I will look into that! Thank you for your reply. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:09, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Best practice for meetup page naming convention

Hi there, I'm with WP:WikiProject Women in Red. We are running our 10th virtual online editathon: Wikipedia:Meetup/Women in Red/10. What is the best practice for naming a WikiProject's meetup pages? Should we be doing this instead: [[Wikipedia:Women in Red/Meetup/10]]? Thank you, --Rosiestep (talk) 14:13, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Rosiestep, I am not sure what a best practice is, since I don't know many WikiProjects that hold meetups. As I understand the "Wikipedia:Meetup" space is mostly for in-person meetups. If these are online collaborations they may be better suited as subpages of WikiProject Women in Red. Harej (talk) 15:04, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Harej, that makes sense. Thanks. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:15, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 8

Newsletter • March / April 2016

This month:

Transclude article requests anywhere on Wikipedia

In the last issue of the WikiProject X Newsletter, I discussed the upcoming Wikipedia Requests system: a central database for outstanding work on Wikipedia. I am pleased to announce Wikipedia Requests is live! Its purpose is to supplement automatically generated lists, such as those from SuggestBot, Reports bot, or Wikidata. It is currently being demonstrated on WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health (which I work on as part of my NIOSH duties) and WikiProject Women scientists.

Adding a request is as simple as filling out a form. Just go to the Add form to add your request. Adding sources will help ensure that your request is fulfilled more quickly. And when a request is fulfilled, simply click "mark as complete" and it will be removed from all the lists it's on. All at the click of a button! (If anyone is concerned, all actions are logged.)

With this new service is a template to transclude these requests: {{Wikipedia Requests}}. It's simple to use: add the template to a page, specifying article=, category=, or wikiproject=, and the list will be transcluded. For example, for requests having to do with all living people, just do {{Wikipedia Requests|category=Living people}}. Use these lists on WikiProjects but also for edit-a-thons where you want a convenient list of things to do on hand. Give it a shot!

Help us build our list!

The value of Wikipedia Requests comes from being a centralized database. The long work to migrating individual lists into this combined list is slowly underway. As of writing, we have 883 open tasks logged in Wikipedia Requests. We need your help building this list.

If you know of a list of missing articles, or of outstanding tasks for existing articles, that you would like to migrate to this new system, head on over to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Requests#Transition project and help out. Doing this will help put your list in front of more eyes—more than just your own WikiProject.

An open database means new tools

WikiProject X maintains a database that associates article talk pages (and draft talk pages) with WikiProjects. This database powers many of the reports that Reports bot generates. However, until very recently, this database was not made available to others who might find its data useful. It's only common sense to open up the database and let others build tools with it.

And indeed: Citation Hunt, the game to add citations to Wikipedia, now lets you filter by WikiProject, using the data from our database.

Are you a tool developer interested in using this? Here are some details: the database resides on Tool Labs with the name s52475__wpx_p. The table that associates WikiProjects with articles and drafts is called projectindex. Pages are stored by talk page title but in the future this should change. Have fun!

On the horizon

• The work on the CollaborationKit extension continues. The extension will initially focus on reducing template and Lua bloat on WikiProjects (especially our WPX UI demonstration projects), and will from there create custom interfaces for creating and maintaining WikiProjects.
• The WikiCite meeting will be in Berlin in May. The goal of the meeting is to figure out how to build a bibliographic database for use on the Wikimedia projects. This fits in quite nicely with WikiProject X's work: we want to make it easier for people to find things to work on, and with a powerful, open bibliographic database, we can build recommendations for sources. This feature was requested by the Wikipedia Library back in September, and this meeting is a major next step. We look forward to seeing what comes out of this meeting.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 01:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Discussion on auto-assessment of articles

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_131#Auto-assessment, which suggests a bot task that would auto-assess some articles for WikiProjects based on other WikiProject templates on the page. ~ Rob^Talk 05:59, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Meghan Trainor

Needs to be deleted. User:MaranoFan has created a WP:FANCRUFT, 'one man band' wikiproject for her favourite singer without submitting a proposal to gather consensus from a council of editors a to whether or not it should be created. MaranoFan is the only editor who has signed up to the Wikiproject. Meghan Trainor does not have enough articles to warrant a Wikiproject, and has not even released a second album. The rules on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals quite clearly state that Wikiproject's are for groups of people, and a proposal is supposed to be advertised first before submitting. I'd like to reiterate the following policy, which everyone on WP should adhere to.

"If you do not have a group of people, then you do not have a WikiProject, even if you have created a page that is supposedly the place where that group discusses its work. A WikiProject is the people, not the page."  — Calvin999 10:19, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

• I have to agree with this: it's amateurish fancruft. Maybe when the subject (i.e. the singer and her career) have developed a little more there may be cause to have such a project, but not yet. - SchroCat (talk) 11:05, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
• Jaguar just joined! giving us a second user. Please give us some time. I promise this project will be very useful to the 'pedia and trainor's articles in general. The project's scope has been expanded to include associated acts, collaborations and stuff. And as for the "amateurish fan cruft" accusation, that's BS. As the projects layout is completely like other ones.--MaranoFan (talk) 14:40, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
  • It's nothing to do with "looking like others". It's to do with content. All projects are supposed to be submitted to the council for gather consensus. You don't create a project with limited scope then try scouting for editors afterwards. You don't need a project for a singer with one album. It's completely redundant.  — Calvin999 17:16, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
    • There's no such rule, Calvin. It's okay to create a project without submitting it here. WikiProject Council doesn't approve or endorse the creation of projects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Two things:

• There is no mandatory process for creating a WikiProject. The proposals page is for getting advice and advertisements, but it's technically optional.
• We don't usually delete WikiProject pages. It's far more likely that we'd merge to an existing project, like WP:WikiProject Pop music. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
• We should not discourage WikiProject creation or delete project pages. Let's encourage editors to be bold and create spaces for collaboration. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 17:02, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
  • There's no scope! You need to have a certain amount of editors to have a project. I'm shocked that editors who claim to be experienced etc. are ignoring the rules so much.  — Calvin999 17:16, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
    • Someone wants to create a WikiProject. So what? Let them. If you don't want to join the project, then don't. There is no arm twisting here. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:01, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
    • Besides, there are now 4 participants, so this discussion is over. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:02, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
      • Discussion isn't over. The guideline says "If you want to start a page before you have 6–12 active Wikipedians, consider setting up the page on a subpage of your user page until it is active, while leaving the posting here with a link to the user page." There isn't enough scope either. One of the editors who joined has only done so out of spite and as far as I know, never even touched a Trainor article. Too many people are creating Wikiproject's when they aren't needed and it's just fancruft. How does a singer with one album need (or supposed to have) 6-12 members to look after a handful of articles? Seriously, one set of rules for some editors, another set for everyone else.  — Calvin999 18:07, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Calvin999 WikiProject rules and this WikiProject Council have never at any point been viable for creating a system that promises community participation in WikiProjects, if participation is imagined as forum presence and contribution. If I had to guess, I would say 90% of WikiProjects do not have any engagement on the project page in a given month. I know that the rules say that WikiProjects need participants to be founded, and maybe that has been required in the past, but this is hardly a sensible rule because signing on to found a project is not supporting evidence that the project will have continued participation.

See

• Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes
• Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProject watchers
• Somewhere there is a "WikiProjects by active participants" list - does anyone know where that is?

I interpret the available evidence to mean that active participation and community engagement is not something that most WikiProjects offer, and it has never been the case that WikiProjects offer this. The WikiProject system could use reform and having a little chaos in allowing anyone to establish WikiProjects even without participants might not hurt. My biggest regret and sympathy is for people who start WikiProjects hoping to attract a community. This never happens. If I were to propose a change, it would be to be more clear in stating that "You are free to found a WikiProject, but of all the things you do on Wikipedia, this is one of the most time-intensive ways to volunteer and one of the least likely to give any positive or useful outcome. Please be warned that you are advised to not do this unless you have had multiple on-wiki, email, and voice conversations with people in active WikiProjects." Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:22, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

The first step to attracting a community is creating the space. We can have many people interested in a subject, but if they don't have a common meeting place, they may not find each other. (Many groups emerge organically out of things like discussion pages, for what it's worth.) The current practice of encouraging people to propose WikiProjects is well intended but works more to provide rules rather than tools. This is a discussion I would like to have. Much of WikiProject X's work to date has been making it easier to run WikiProjects by automating the work that needs to be done by hand. The next step is to make it easier to build these communities. I am currently drafting a new WikiProject directory. It has a long way to go, but one thing it has is information on who is editing in a given subject area. Once I refine the formula for generating these lists so that the false positives are filtered out, should we generate similar reports on demand for potential WikiProjects so that people can more easily find each other? Harej (talk) 15:54, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

"should we generate similar reports on demand for potential WikiProjects so that people can more easily find each other" I am not sure. If the problem to address is "if they don't have a common meeting place, they may not find each other", then the solution I would propose is to allow any content to be on the front page, but to have the back page (talk page) push up to the lowest viable project level. WikiProjects should be hierarchical, and if someone creates a WikiProject for a musician for example, then there should be some default which disallows that person to have a talk page and forces them to talk at "WikiProject Music" or some higher level. Like you say - if WikiProject setup can provide the tools, then many concepts would benefit from having a WikiProject, even if there were no committed community for that concept on Wikipedia. To get a community, one can always go up to a higher-level concept and make the more specific concept a subproject or task force of that. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:14, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

My point still stands: a WP is not needed for a singer with one album and a few articles. It's fancruft. It's nothing that WP Pop, WP Songs, WP R&B can't cover and doesn't already cover. Wikiprojects for people like Mariah, Madonna, Michael Jackson yes because of the huge scope. Wikiprojects for new artists with one album, no. Some of the people joined don't even edit the subject's articles.  — Calvin999 08:27, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it's "needed". It doesn't matter if it's "fancruft". It simply does not matter. Either they'll succeed or fail. If they fail – no matter when, why, or how they fail – then we'll clean up afterwards, probably by merging the "WikiProject" into either WikiProject Pop or WikiProject R&B as a task force. Leave them alone and let them see whether they can do something useful. If nobody's active there next year, then come back and talk to us about how to clean it up. In the meantime, their desire to work together is not your problem, so find something else to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

What's the point of having guidelines, policies and rules if they don't apply? Such a farce.  — Calvin999 08:20, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Calvin999 Which policy is not being followed? See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. There is a lot of room for criticism here but an appeal to bureaucracy is probably not useful because the bureaucracy is in order. Your original complaint was lack of people and 8 have signed on. There are maybe 30 WikiProjects in all of Wikipedia that have have 8 people post to them in the last week, so this is one of the most active WikiProjects that Wikipedia has to offer right now. They even have five WP:GAs.

If you want to criticize, then here are some arguments which I think would be more useful to you:

1. The rules are hard to understand
2. The rules guide people to establish WikiProjects which are likely to fail at their advertised purpose
3. The rules have not been updated in 5 years and were ill-founded even then
4. Lots of people can propose simple ideas to do things in a better way, so why not change
5. Somehow volunteer time is being wasted here by some volunteers, somewhere

I have sympathy for your frustration but the path forward is in discussing the issues and not creating barriers for other users. I would appreciate your participation in reform of WikiProject rules. Some rules need to be cut, some need to be more clear, and especially, there ought to be some guidance on when WikiProjects should and should not be created. You are right to be worried but I wish you could find a way to make peace with this particular WikiProject at this time. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:04, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Then they need to be updated. Otherwise people just ignore. The WP has such a tiny scope, I don't see why 6-12 editors are needed for 10 or less articles. Some of them have never even edited any of the scope before. There's something bigger going on that you're not aware anyway. There are just so many fancruft WP's being created for projects with such tiny scopes, it's nothing that larger projects such as Songs, Pop and R&B don't already cover. We don't need a load of splinter projects. The whole point of the council is to propose a project and determine if it needs to be created by seeking out potential members and assessing the scope. I just don't see the point of having rules if no one adheres to them, and people say they are outdated. The rules are not hard to understand at all.  — Calvin999 17:08, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

You are still not getting it. "What's the point of having guidelines, policies and rules if they don't apply?" There are absolutely no guidelines, policies or rules that require a proposal. There are absolutely no guidelines, policies or rules that require six to eight editors. The thing that you thought was "a rule" is not actually a rule of any sort.

So I'm asking you: What's the point of you complaining that they somehow "broke the rules" when there are no such rules? Perhaps there should be rules against what they did, but, at this time, there are no such rules. Everything they did is 100% "legal" and 100% compliant with every existing requirement in all "guidelines, policies, and rules". You were confused about the actual requirements. Now that (I hope) you understand that there is no guideline, policy, rule, or any other sort of requirement that prevents them from doing exactly what they did, I hope that you can stop complaining about them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Don't call me confused when I'm not. I'm reading the same text as you are. They are quite clearly guidelines and policies on the link in my initial comment. Why is there a proposal system in place then? Why is there a council? What's the point of having this talk page if editors can't voice opinions or concerns. Seriously. Think we will have to agree to disagree on this.  — Calvin999 21:12, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I think you are, if not confused, at least operating on a misconception. It is not now, and never has been, really, one of the functions of this group to tell others what to do. That would be entirely against the spirit of wikipedia, where anyone is free to do pretty much anything they want to as long as they follow the policies. The guidelines for developing WikiProjects have been, honestly, ignored as often as not when new WikiProjects are made, and there is no mechanism to demand that they be followed. So far as I can see, this topic has at least a few good articles already, and there is a long-standing precedent with Wikipedia:WikiProject The KLF for there to be rather closely focused groups, which are fine if they generate content at that quality. It certainly would be possible, and reasonable, to propose merging the WikiProject into some other WikiProject if and when it becomes inactive or comparatively inactive. There is rather abundant precedent for that. But, as long as the WikiProject is involved in good article creation and development, and this one seems to be, there is no overriding reason to think that we must try to do something to eliminate it. I might suggest that rather than posting here with such comments you contact the group on its WikiProject talk page and express your concerns there. John Carter (talk) 22:17, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

The project creator won't let me post there, hence why I'm posting here. Thanks.  — Calvin999 08:19, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Calvin999 You say, "Why is there a proposal system in place then? Why is there a council? What's the point of having this talk page if editors can't voice opinions or concerns."

The proposal system is here for the benefit of the person making the WikiProject. It is to stop them and say, "Most people who make WikiProjects are unhappy with the result. They spend huge amounts of time setting it up in the hope of attracting a community, and they do not get this result."

There has never been a WikiProject Council. The WikiProject Council is itself a WikiProject which does not meet any criteria for being a WikiProject, and it has never been viable.

This talk page is a place to voice opinions and concerns. Your original concern was that a particular WikiProject did not meet some criteria. I said the criteria never were valid or accepted, and you said "Then they need to be updated. Otherwise people just ignore." I agree - feel free to update them. I think that if anyone tried to update them or asked for them to be confirmed or deleted, then community support would become more clear. You say, "The whole point of the council ..." I do think you misunderstand. There is no council, and a lot of what you say presumes that there is. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:39, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

• I think it's a poor idea for a project but so was creating Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema/Tamil cinema task force when the Indian films taskforce overall wasn't very significant. That went through a fairly benign MFD since the page creator took it there, but the templates and links were all reverted and we moved on. First, I think someone should discuss this at the project talk page. The creator there probably doesn't even know what's going on and I think a fair discussion about whether this project is overkill or not can be helpful. I'd prefer the Council to be a location where discussions about WikiProjects overall should be discussed, including the possibility of taking a project to MFD and deleting it if there's a need. Otherwise, I don't see where "approval" should be required for WikiProjects. There's no other real process like that except stub sorting and even that is at least on the mainspace facing out to readers versus projects. If say her fan club is driving people to join a project, editors who have little or no other interests, then let it go as long as it's not harming anyone at the moment. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:01, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

I think you have been hacked in Uruguay

Hi, I live in URUGUAY and I think your page has been hacked. I dont know how to contact yo, so it was the way I found. This mesage is shown in wikipedia s page,:

Estimado lector: Iremos directo al grano. Hoy, te pedimos que ayudes a Wikipedia. Para proteger nuestra independencia, nunca verás avisos publicitarios. Nos sostenemos gracias a donaciones de poco menos de $U 300. Solo una ínfima porción de nuestros lectores dona. Si todos los que están leyendo esto ahora donaran $U 100, nuestra campaña de recaudación de fondos finalizaría en una hora. Somos una pequeña organización sin ánimo de lucro con los costos de un gran sitio web: servidores, personal y programas. Creemos que todos deberían tener acceso al conocimiento: gratis, sin restricciones, sin limitaciones. Si Wikipedia te resulta útil, por favor, tómate un minuto para mantenerla en línea y que siga creciendo. Muchas gracias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.40.34.105 (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

New WikiProject jargon?

I see the term Wikipedia WikiProjects‎ being used to mean (I think?) Wikipedia assistance and tasks(WikiProjects). The use of Wikipedia WikiProjects‎ is new to me. Just wondering how common this term is and whether it has been defined somewhere?. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:43, 10 June 2016 (UTC)small|please ping me}}

Ottawahitech, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject.—Wavelength (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

The category appears to have existed since 2006. I definitely agree it should be renamed; I was planning on doing so as part of a re-organization of WikiProjects not about specific content areas. Harej (talk) 16:08, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposed new project on importing/exporting material

I have started a project proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Universal Exports and Imports regarding the possibility of importing content from other websites or wikis here, and, possibly, exporting useful material unsuitable here to other websites, where it can be developed or, at least, kept available for use by later editors. I think this is, at least potentially, this might be a possible way, even if not necessarily the best way, to do something along the lines of a question @Liz: recently asked about keeping academics active here. Anyway, any input would be welcome. John Carter (talk) 18:10, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Citizendium Porting.—Wavelength (talk) 20:35, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Have you looked into Wikidata? Depending upon the kind of content you're looking at, that might be a good fit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

joining a project

Hello. I am trying to set up Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipack Africa and am having issues with the "join the project" button. When I click on it... nothing happens. What am I missing ? Can anyone help ? Anthere (talk)

Anthere, did you get this sorted? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, thank you User:WhatamIdoing. Harej fixed it ! Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipack Africa

Disputes over a project's banner settings - covered under WP:PROJSCOPE?

Let's say a regular editor of an article but not a member of an associated project insists on a particular assessment grade or importance setting for that project, while a clear project member/participant disagrees. Does WP:PROJSCOPE come into play for that? Shouldn't the non-member have to let the member have their way (within reason of course)? And if that non-member disagrees, they can discuss it on the project's talk page to get a consensus that decides the matter. This guideline clearly applies to placement of banners, but what about the banner's settings? I just today ran into an example where someone who had never even touched the article or its talk page before disputed my changing of importance settings for projects I've belonged to for a very long time, but he didn't belong to. Thoughts? Should we revise the guideline to include banner settings? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 19:07, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Usually such issues can be fixed locally by pointing to the assessment subpage of the project and asking the user in question how his assessment meets the project guidelines established there. --Izno (talk) 20:10, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm, the assessment guidelines may need to be firmed up for the projects in the example I ran into today. And that's useful. But my question is about how do we apply a guideline that isn't clear on who controls (for loss of a better word) project banner settings. Does the project-specific assessment guidelines work as the guideline? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 20:17, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

For use in dispute, I would say so. I suppose I would generally agree that the project members should decide the assessment of the items in their project... but OTOH, the user in question can become a member quite quickly. Best to invite the WikiProject members to the talk page to settle the dispute, if the project assessment guidelines are unhelpful (and probably a separate action is needed to discuss the project assessment guidelines). :) --Izno (talk) 21:24, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Were you able to resolve this dispute?

Generally, WikiProjects are expected to loosely conform to the usual "quality" rating unless they have written their own. "Priority" or "importance" ratings are 100% up to members. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

I haven't taken any steps yet toward attempting such. It's not a terribly high priority. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 23:20, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Notice to participants at this page about adminship

Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the considerations at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and maybe even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:04, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Help needed cleaning up after WikiProject renaming/moving

Hi, WikiProject Canoeing and Kayaking changed from Kayaking to Canoeing and Kayaking. Whilst the main page now works as expected, i.e. WikiProject Kayaking and WikiProject Canoeing etc redirect to WikiProject Canoeing and Kayaking the Categories and probably other stuff that I'm not even aware of hasn't been changed. Firstly I'm not sure that this is a problem, except for the confusion possibly caused, I would welcome thoughts. Secondly could someone fix/change/redirect anything that's been missed to bring the project all into line with the new name. Many thanks Jamesmcmahon0 (talk) 10:49, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

James, this list of pages that link to the old name will probably show you what's left to do. Fixing the "Wikipedia ads" template will clean up a lot of links automatically, so you might focus on that as a starting point. Someone at WP:VPT should be able to help, if you get stuck. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:25, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing Thanks, that's a long list! Also what do you mean by the "Wikipedia ads" template? Jamesmcmahon0 (talk) 18:05, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

It looks like you found it just a few minutes after posting this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:31, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject Jazz R.I.P.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Jazz is apparently defunct. I just clicked on its sole external link and deleted it: it was

*Wikiproject Watchlist - WikiProject Jazz

and leads to a page with the browser bar title "404— Not Found", saying

Leaving Wikimedia

Wikimedia Labs requires notification of when leaving the Foundation's sphere of influence. (BTW, they're total hypocrites)

Don't show this warning again

Proceed

Before that, its last edit was on 8 September 2015‎.

--Thnidu (talk) 02:52, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

As that text implies, the target page has moved, and is now at:

http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/transcluded_changes.py?page=Template:WikiProject_Jazz

-- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:34, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject directory X2

Was working on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory to make this directory like the other directories.... did it mainly because the template there was simply to hard to read on mobile devices and I wanted to add a search option (prefix = Wikipedia:WikiProject ). So all good i think the page looks good having a search option and more readable. All that self-praise said...was going to make a new shortcut called WP:WPDIR but to my surprise it was taken redirected to Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory. So basically we have 2 directories. User:Harej did a great job on the new directory as it seems to be automated (much better the the old system I think). However Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory is not viewed very often because Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory has all the incoming links from nav template etc... What should we do here? merger? keep both a manual index and an auto-updating index? I do think the title Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory is better. So???? This would also bring up what to do with {{WikiProject Footer}} as of now it links to all sub page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory not the sub pages of Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory. -- Moxy (talk) 18:45, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work on this, Moxy. I agree that Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory is probably the better title (provided that the first letter of "directory" is uncapitalized). Having an automated directory makes a lot more sense given how infrequently this one is updated, but if we are wanting to get rid of the Council one (which I think would be the best choice), I would prefer that a couple features be moved over:

1. Indication of weather the WikiProject is listed as inactive: I imagine this could be done fairly easily by using Category:Inactive WikiProjects (which is added to WikiProject pages through {{WikiProject status}}). We could also potentially indicate which WikiProjects are semi-active (though that might be overkill) and perhaps exclude those WikiProjects that are defunct.
2. Clear marking of task forces and work groups: We could detect task forces and work groups by using categories with a standard naming pattern (either "WikiProject Tulips task forces" or "WikiProject Tulips work groups"). They could be marked in the directory simply by listing them immediately after the parent project(s), indenting the title, and removing the prefix "WikiProject Tulips/".

Any thoughts? Graham (talk) 20:07, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

While ideally the automated directory would be best, Harej is not sure we can replace the Council one yet, and looking at the number of missing WikiProjects in that page, I can't say I disagree. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:54, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

@Titoxd: While of course it can't be done overnight (and I don't think Moxy or I meant to suggest otherwise), it's certainly something we can work towards. Including the missing projects and changing the heading structures in the topic sub-directories is simply a matter of categorization. James, is it set up to automatically change the headings if subcategories are added or removed from the topic categories (e.g, Category:Art and culture WikiProjects)? And what do you think about the two items I raised above? Graham (talk) 21:00, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Graham11, the headings (and even the subpages) are all automatic based on the category tree. So getting WikiProjects to show up in the right section/subsection/subpage is a matter of sorting into categories. Re. associating task forces with projects, my plan was to do that with Wikidata, since that is the "cleanest" approach (page titles do not easily distinguish between what is a task force and what is just a plain old subpage). Here is the entry for the World War II task force as an example. For marking WikiProjects as inactive, I would rather go with an objective measurement, since I do not think the active/inactive templates are used consistently. Would fewer than three active project participants (in the last 30 days) be a useful indicator of inactivity?

On a more general note, I was not planning to propose to the Council to replace the manually updated directory with the new one until the new one could do the same things as the manually updated directory; basically the reasons Titoxd brought up. Admittedly, I have not had time to work on the directory. I hope to find more time soon, but in the meantime, a simple way to help is by adding WikiProjects to categories; I would recommend checking against Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. Hopefully we can make progress on this sooner rather than later! Harej (talk) 20:16, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Overhaul of article assessments

I think we should overhaul the way that article quality is assessed. I believe the current system is outdated and flawed for several reasons. Some ideas to explore would be:

1. Implement a Wikipedia-wide assessment criteria, rather than each WikiProject using their own scale. This would mean that WikiProjects would have to agree on an article's quality, although in 99% of cases they do agree now anyway.
2. Separate type from quality. The current interplay between the type of a page (e.g. article, file, template, list, portal, etc.) and its quality (e.g. start, c, b, a, featured, etc.) is confusing and does not allow for many valid quality assessments. For example why shouldn't we have a C-class list, an A-class portal or a beta-rated module?
3. Move quality assessments out of WikiProject banners. If there is one quality assessment for the article, it would make more sense to put it in a redesigned {{article history}} template and remove it from the project banners.

I propose that each project should continue to tag articles within their scope and assess the article's importance to their project (but that we use the superior term of "priority"). I realise this is a massive task and this is my first post on the issue, but any initial comments would be helpful. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:40, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

You might want to consider pinging the active WikiProjects to this discussion. (Re-numbered bullets for ease of reference.)

1. In 99% of cases, this would be fine. I suspect however that there will be some projects who want their own control, or where the WikiProjects will differ on rating, or where some projects have deprecated certain quality rating (A-class being a prime example). What exception do they have in such a world?
2. Yes, please. Edge case question: are drafts a quality or a type?
3. What does an implementation of this look like given the present category scheme of "WP:VG B-class articles"?
4. Is some of this superfluous to the WP:FLOW work (yet to begin) which was to help with workflows (and not just the infamous talk page refactor)?

--Izno (talk) 12:10, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments.

1. In the proposed world there would be one common assessment framework (which would be arrived at by detailed discussion and consensus). A starting point would likely be Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Grades. I imagine that for articles, Stub/Start/C/B/GA/FA would be uncontentious. Whether A-class (traditionally a WikiProject specific process) and the B-class checklist would be used is less certain. There would be nothing to stop WikiProjects maintaining guidelines on how the assessment criteria should be interpreted for articles in their scope, but in the event of disagreement, grading would be determined by discussion among any involved editors on the article's talk page.
2. Interesting question, to be determined later. (My instinct would be that drafts are a type, because you can have all sorts of quality of draft article.)
3. To preserve the current category tree it would probably be necessary to keep the parameter, but the display could be suppressed. (It's just not necessary for 13 separate banners to proclaim that Barack Obama is FA-class. Alternatively we could probably replicate the functionality by using category intersection tools.
4. Sorry I am not familiar with much of the Flow work. Will do some reading.

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:31, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

1. I think keeping the B-class checklist would be a good thing (it's referenced at #Grades). A seems less valuable, but maybe the articles where an A-class assessment has been arrived at are under only a few domains (maybe we should sample the A-class list to see if there are any which are not already FA-quality, which is clearly the superior ranking; GA's relation to A-class is a bit more murky, as it has always been).
2. Certainly something that can be sorted later.
3. How does one keep the parameter and also keep the page-wide assessment? Category intersection is the answer I expected, but I can see people calling foul...
4. Sure. It may be the case that this is a stepping stone to a workFlow world, since I suspect we would need to make many of the same changes for Flow.

--Izno (talk) 14:44, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

• Support Yes, this is useful. The current grading system was introduced in 2003 and has not been developed since 2008. See Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team for context. This entire awful system was only intended to be used as a tool for selecting Wikipedia articles to burn to physical CDs, and not for community management as quickly became its use. English Wikipedia has suffered from the legacy of the founding proposal ever since. There was never any time when this system was thoughtfully proposed to be used as it is now. It would be worthwhile to draft a proposal for change then seek support for implementing it. Any WikiProject which wanted to opt-in to the change could, and any WikiProject which wanted to continue with the old ways might. Overall, I think that one grading system for all WikiProjects is best. There has never been sufficient labor from enough WikiProjects to justify maintaining so many independent grading systems, and the current system has never worked as it was designed.

Yes, any sort of page could be graded in the same way, or not graded. Yes, importance and priority could be similarly reassessed.

There needs to be a new grading system. "stub, start, C, B, A (never use A!), GA, and FA" is nonsense jargon. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:04, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

My general feeling is that any attempt at radical overhaul is just going to be met with opposition, it might be more productive to try some smaller, piecemeal reforms. I do agree that there's a lot of room for improvement in the current system, though. To address the points you raise:

1. As you already note, we more or less have this already with Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Grades. Very few WikiProjects deviate from this scale in practice.
2. Yes and no. Yes in the sense that all of this non-article, namespace-based crap that's latched itself onto the assessment scale (Category-Class, etc) really ought to go. But I don't think it needs to be replaced with anything, the idea of giving quality ratings to portals and templates just seems like it would be a waste of everyones time.
3. Agree in principle, when you see half a dozen or more banners lined up each with the same assessment, you have to wonder if this is really the best way of doing things. I don't use {{article history}} much but it doesn't seem at all user friendly and is probably not ideal for this purpose. Perhaps displaying an assessment in {{WikiProject banner shell}} would be an idea? The point Izno raised about the current "X-Class Foo article" category scheme is probably the best argument for maintaining the status quo. Category intersection looks like a feature request that isn't going to happen anytime soon, so I'm not sure what the best solution would be.

--PC78 (talk) 11:01, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

PC78 I could be mistaken but I do not anticipate resistance. Just so long as a new grading system was only optional and was rolled out to individual WikiProjects, I think many WikiProjects would voluntarily adopt it. There used to be info about the number of active participants at any given WikiProject but for privacy reasons, it is no longer available. Still, a general rule is that any WikiProject has not more than 10% of the number of watchers as listed at Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProject watchers (usually closer to 5%). I think many WikiProjects actually could have a thoughtful discussion and choose a change. Also, I do not anticipate many people having loyalty to the old system. So far as I know, most users think it fails to communicate clearly. I have heard lots of complaints but never heard anyone talk about it being clever, easy to understand, and easy to use. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:33, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, I think you underestimate the degree of resistance—not to the idea of improving the assessment system, which is something that I think everyone can get behind (although people will doubtless have their own ideas about what that looks like), but to the proposal to remove individual WikiProjects' ability to customize the system to meet their particular needs.

So that we have a specific example to consider, WP:MILHIST has implemented a number of "unique" assessment features over the years, including:

1. A dual assessment hierarchy, with parallel tracks for lists versus "prose" articles (WP:MHA#SCALE).
2. Automatic assignment of all assessments between Start-Class to B-Class based on a checklist in the template (WP:MHA#CRIT).
3. Automatic tracking of articles based on improvement needs identified in the assessment checklist (Category:Military history articles needing attention).
4. A formal review process for A-Class status, complete with assessment tags and bot support (WP:MHR).
5. Automatic inheritance of both assessments and task tracking across 50+ task forces (Category:Military history articles by task force).

All of these are potentially open to discussion and improvement, but we're certainly going to object to a proposal that simply gets rid of our entire assessment system in favor of a one-size-fits-all shared rating. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 12:06, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin I fail to recognize a proposal here to forbid customization, so I think I agree with you. I must have made myself misunderstood. I am not imagining a future in which any WikiProject is compelled to use any system. I just want another system on the table for any WikiProject to have another option. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:01, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, my interpretation of the original proposal ("Implement a Wikipedia-wide assessment criteria, rather than each WikiProject using their own scale", "Move quality assessments out of WikiProject banners") was that we were indeed talking about prohibiting WikiProjects from using customized/project-specific assessment systems, not just offering an alternative to the current model. MSGJ, is that what you have in mind, or am I misunderstanding? Kirill Lokshin (talk) 13:43, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

@Kirill Lokshin: I think you're right, at least that's how I read Martin's proposal. I don't think the basic idea is too problematic though, WP:MILHIST is very much the exception rather than the rule, and even you guys don't appear to be doing anything radically different. There should be enough common ground for some constructive debate, at the very least. PC78 (talk) 00:19, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

With reference to the proposal regarding assessment. There is definitely an appetite for universal assessment - see User:BU RoBOT/autoassess. The bot is taking requests from Wikiprojects and then bringing their unassesed articles in line with other wikiprojects. Personally I don't see difference between doing that and pulling out all assessments from opted-in wikiprojects into a universal rating, whether that's part of {{article history}} or otherwise. Jamesmcmahon0 (talk) 11:31, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

@Kirill Lokshin and PC78: MSGJ still has not commented but I see the base concept as usable for a proposal making things optional. I agree that nothing can be forced on WikiProjects, and if everyone agrees on that point, then let's drop forced changes as a potential direction for development.

Most or all of the criteria at WP:MHA#CRIT have nothing to do with military, and it has always been the case that any WikiProject could adapt that or any other assessment criteria for their own needs. The way that I interpret the proposal is to strip a criteria sheet like the military one into something with no WikiProject focus. Then, those criteria are presented as a recommendation for a default for any WikiProject without specialized needs. I would like to reconsider the scale of grading and the nature of criteria, because I think it is already well known that grading and interpreting grades is very difficult for non-Wikipedians. Also I would like for bot projects like the one Jamesmcmahon0 mentioned to be able to do automatic grading in the same scheme. I do not immediately see potential for conflict because I do not anticipate much love for the current system. Making other schemes optional seems like a reasonable thing to discuss now or soon. The controversial part of this is that multiple grading systems would circulate simultaneously, and in the longer term, they would compete for broader uptake. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:05, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, I believe that {{WPBannerMeta}}, which virtually all projects use, already provides a "common" set of criteria; see, for example, {{WPBannerMeta/hooks/bchecklist}}. As far as changing the actual grading system (by which I assume you mean the assessment "classes") is concerned, I'm open to discussion, but please keep in mind the significant amount of volunteer time that would be required to switch to a different system; any entirely new system would need to offer enough benefits to justify that implementation cost. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 15:04, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

I am open-minded to assessment improvements coming from a fairly reached consensus. However, I don't think we should be telling projects whether to use 'importance' or 'priority', as 1) I think it's unnecessarily butting in; and 2) these terms can have different meanings within a project (e.g., 'importance' meaning how key the article/subject is to the larger subject the project covers, and 'priority' implying some kind of near-term workflow that could be based on importance and other factors). As for quality assessments, I generally concur that in most cases, this determination should be consistent, and that the type of a page isn't a quality. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:21, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

1. Support I think that would be a good idea (maybe there need to be some exceptions). Also all WikiProjects using the same quality-scale allows for better analysis of Wikipedia's overall content. Note that the participants of WikiProjects need to be actively made aware of the scale instead of it being hidden away in some obscure Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Grades (e.g. a description of the quality should display when hovering over the quality-class in the WikiProject banner with the mouse and the WikiProject pages should all feature this table).
2. Support (with reservations: some types simply can't be properly rated by quality) Very much agree! Even categories could be rated by the state of their completion. It's most evident for list-class articles: those can also have differing qualities (e.g. by state of completion or e.g. the content in the "description" columns of tables etc) - I intend to make a separate post about that later if this discussion doesn't resolve it.
3. Oppose An article could have differing quality ratings per WikiProject e.g. if it's perfectly informing about one aspect but missing crucial information about another the WikiProject of the first aspect could have a B rating while the second just has a start rating. This is useful so that members of the 2nd WikiProject can become aware of the state of the article's info on their subject and improve it etc.

--Fixuture (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• BHG's thoughts, if this discussion hasn't already gone stale. (And congrats to [[User:MSGJ|MSGJ] for starting this discussion).

1. Support a project-wide grading scale. Different projects will bring their own tests for each level of grading, depending on the needs of the subject matter, but the principle of a common scale is sound, and long overdue.
2. Limited support for extending the quality rating to other content types. I agree with Fixuture that quality-rating is much needed for lists, but I am not sure that it would be helpful for templates, and I think that it would be next-to-useless for categories. That's because the two main quality issues with categories are a) the selection of articles in them, and b) their parenting in other categories. The selection of articles will constantly vary as new articles are created and then diffused to sub-cats, and all of that happens without any edit to the category page, so watching categories for such changes would be a maintenance headache. As to parenting of categories, that again depends on the state of other categories, so a static assessment is useless. If anyone wants to pursue this idea of quality-rating categories, please start a discussion at WT:CAT.
3. Support (in principle) taking quality assessments out of project banners (maybe with projects free to decide to retain their own rating, but I'd prefer not). I broadly support the idea of a single quality assessment, and am unpersuaded by the objections. Where projects disagree on the grading (e.g. a biography of someone with a notable career in more than one discipline), the article should simply be given the lowest relevant grade. A single grading which works this way will force more collaboration and create an incentive to build well-rounded articles.
   My caveat is a technical one. AFAICS, projects are the main users of the quality assessments, and there are bots which compile very valuable lists and counts of articles by quality and by quality-vs-priority. If the quality assessments are no longer in the project banners, this must be done in such a way that these bots can still create these listings. Other tools may depend on the current setup, and those tools must not just be broken by the changes.

--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:30, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Why would {{article history}} be "not ideal"? It already indicates whether an article is a GA or an FA, so why not extend it to the other classes if we're replacing the class parameter on WikiProject banners? Graham (talk) 05:29, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Some relevant technical changes in the pipeline

I've been following this discussion because I'd like to see how potential changes to the assessment would align with planned improvements to the software. For starters, there is the upcoming PageAssessments database table, which will store WikiProject–article pairings in a database table so that they can be queried through the API (and through the database replicas on Labs). Note that the table is designed to work with whatever assessment setup we have—it's very flexible and not designed to change editorial workflows. But I am also planning on including a new feature as part of a MediaWiki extension to allow WikiProjects to define their scopes directly through the WikiProject page, rather than use the current banner/category system. (They can continue to use those if they want, but they won't have to.) And in the long term, I would like to get assessments off of the talk page and into the aforementioned PageAssessments table, with a special page assessment interface.

In terms of how soon all this will happen: the PageAssessments database table will happen soon, but with no visible changes to the interface (Kaldari could speak more to this), the MediaWiki extension will be ready in a few months but will be optional, and the idea to take assessments off of talk pages and into an assessment interface is a very long-term idea that is not even close to started yet.

If people are talking about changes to article assessments, I am interested in hearing what people want to change and what people want to see kept the same. I think there is general agreement that non-articles should not have to be assessed like articles, and we should differentiate page type from page quality. I think while people generally support the idea of a "universal" article rating, there are also particular projects that take their own assessment process very seriously. So I think WikiProjects should be able to either (a) inherit a universal rating or (b) use their own system. This way, projects don't have to be burdened with the chore of assessment if they don't want to, while projects that do want their own assessments would be able to choose so.

What do people think of this approach? Kirill, would this be satisfactory to the military history project, in your opinion? Harej (talk) 20:44, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Oooh, I like it. Great news.

The next phase would ideally be to get rid of Project Banners, and allow some central table technique for recording whether a page is within a project's scope. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:34, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

What if some projects don't agree to getting rid of project banners with nothing to replace them? What if these projects want to maintain this "connective tissue" (cynically speaking, advertising) to their projects? My thought is even if we got rid of banners, projects would still need some form of communications outpost on the pages in their scope -- and I would prefer something that shows on the article page rather than talk, similar to how we show links to an article in other languages. Perhaps it could work out similarly to how "Related pages" (beta) is being done: Have an optional "In scope for these WikiProjects" section somewhere. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 19:06, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

@Stevietheman: I would oppose getting rid of project banners with nothing to replace them. I suggested an alternative. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:47, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

If being in a central table means some kind of reflection that a reader can see on the article page, that would be an acceptable alternative. If it just means its in the table and there's no connection from the article to the project, then it wouldn't be, IMHO. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 05:17, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Stevietheman, BrownHairedGirl, having a central table automatically output WikiProject affiliations is doable. But without delving too much into the politics of talk page banners, at the very least I would like to get the ratings/project affiliations out of the banners and into a central table for the purposes of storage. This way, even if we keep the banners the way they are, they would simply broadcast what is stored in the central database. Harej (talk) 19:40, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

@Harej: thanks for the clarification. That's just the sort of approach I hoped for. If the banners aren't needed for recording assessment, then the community is free to consider a range of possibilities for advertising the relationship between project and article. My own preference would be for some sort of single list of relevant projects, conceptually similar to the banners collapsed inside {{WPBS}}, tho in a less bulky and repetitive format, but others may have other preferences.

Re-reading my earlier msg, I see that it was a bit clumsily worded, and appeared more sweeping than I intended. I think that the current banners are too crude and fragile a way of storing the metadata they contain. I also think that they are too visually intrusive, and that we can do much better. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

As someone who was here when we started this talk page tagging mess: The entire reason we are using WikiProject templates for tagging is that it originally was the closest we could get to creating an assessment database without creating a table / assessment UI on the MediaWiki side of things. (Robchurch looked at how to get the assessments and other maintenance categories out of the talk pages an eternity ago but nothing came out of it.) Category memberships were used because they were easy to traverse, and acted as poor-man's key-value pairs. The {{Template-Class}}, {{NA-importance}} and other non-article siblings came out of the desire to tag pages with WikiProject templates without having the unassessed pages increase, but otherwise have no real reason to exist.

As for per-Wikiproject ratings: If I were to code this up, I would store multiple assessments for each assessed article. In each row of the table, I would store a tuple with the article, WikiProject, quality assessment, importance assessment, and a foreign key to a log id entry containing the current revision and username of the assessor. You could have multiple rows per article: a "default" row (with the WikiProject being set to blank or some sentinel value) and rows for unique WikiProjects. The WikiProject rows would have the quality/importance columns empty unless the WikiProject wants to override the default value (so that WP:MILHIST, WP:WPTC and the like can keep their A-Class assessments running if desired). We would then have three scenarios:

1. The user would set the default quality/importance assessments (create the default row for the article, and populate the quality and importance fields in this row) and create WikiProject rows for each banner on the talk page. The WikiProject rows would only have the project field populated initially. This action would be logged as an initial assessment.
2. A WikiProject participant would set the quality, importance or both assessments for the article (modify the WikiProject row for that particular WikiProject by setting the quality and/or importance field to a non-blank value.) This action would be logged as a WikiProject assessment
3. A user could override all the quality assessments for an article in the case an article gets promoted at WP:GAC or WP:FAC. So the default row's quality column would be modified, and the quality column in the WikiProject rows would be emptied. This action would be logged as an assessment override. (Technically, you could/should also provide a way of overriding all WikiProject importance assessments, but I don't see a use case for this.)

The only part I'm not sure how to store would be things like B-Class checklists; those could be put in a binary blob field or a searchable JSON field. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:45, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Why was this project’s page changed?

This project’s page has been changed recently with no discussion (I think?). I can’t find my way there anymore. Anyone? Ottawahitech (talk) 14:56, 13 September 2016 (UTC)please ping me

I was wondering the same thing, although the result of the restructuring/cleanup looked satisfying, so i kept mum. What info is hard to find? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:27, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Was just a code change so people on mobile devices could see it (no real content change). What is the problem...what cant be found?-- Moxy (talk) 19:46, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

@Moxy: You have made 13 edits to the page between 5-12 September. Clearly more than "a code change so people on mobile devices could see it'. Would you please elaborate on your changes. Thanks. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:01, 18 September 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Uh, those changes are simply to the order of stuff on the page — so yeah they're pretty minor. What can't be found? Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 14:06, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I removed column codes ( as they dont work on MB properly) - removed 2 dead links....added a link to FAQs and to Wikipedia:Orphaned articles by WikiProject. i also removed a parent cat that was not needed. I am done with the updates to the council pages ...as in all related pages pls fell free and review. When we get the automated directory up and running i will take the time to fix all that is needed. -- Moxy (talk)

WikiProject class dispute

If there is a dispute about the class of a particular article, how can I get advice and assistance? Another editor says that an article should be class=disambig, and I made it class=C. Now it is a matter of dispute on my talk page.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 15:18, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Usually, with any question about assessment where there is not immediate and obvious consensus, it's good to request comment from the users at the WikiProjects's talk pages to have a discussion on the talk page of the affected article. I have commented at your talk page about this specific matter. --Izno (talk) 15:40, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Afghanistan

Afghanistan should be in South Asia according to this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PratyushSinha101 (talk • contribs) 14:46, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Banner weirdness

When I look at Talk:Maryam Monsef I see the banner for WikiProject Canada appear on the right side of other project banners. Am I the only one? Ottawahitech (talk) 16:37, 1 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Fixed. WP Canada's banner was using small=yes. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:03, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject banner tags or stub templates?

As this subsection is currently written (first line = "WikiProject assessment banner tags and stub templates often seem to serve the same purpose, yet they have distinct functions.") it gives the impression that their differences are more nuanced than they are, and doesn't explicitly state that the presence of one shouldn't exclude the addition of the other. This subsection also shouldn't be the very first subsection in the section on article tagging. I'd like to go ahead and propose the following:

• 1. Move this subsection to the bottom of the article section, making the "Purpose of WikiProject banner tags" subsection the first one.
• 2. Add a WP:PROJSTUB short cut.
• 3. Rewrite the text to the following:

WikiProject banner tags and stub templates

WikiProject banner tags and stub templates serve different functions, so the presence of one does not exclude the inclusion of the other. WikiProject banner tags typically remain on an article's talkpage indefinitely, and perform many functions for the relevant WikiProject. Stub templates, however, seek to categorize all small articles across Wikipedia (including those without any relevant WikiProject), and are removed once the article is expanded. As such, there is a large effort to coordinate stub usage across both articles that fall under the scope of a relevant WikiProject and those that don't (this is the main reason why there is a semi-formal proposal process for stub templates and categories). For more information see: Stub types, WikiProjects, and assessment templates.

Thoughts? M. A. Bruhn (talk) 03:44, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Your proposal seems reasonable to me. It does seem odd that it currently immediately jumps into the stub vs. banner discussion without first talking about the purpose of banners. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 14:25, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

@M. A. Bruhn and Stevie is the man!: Just wanted to thank you for bringing Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide to my attention. I don't think it is linked from Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council, but I may be wrong. Ottawahitech (talk) 20:04, 3 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 9

Newsletter • May / June 2016

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, featuring the first screenshot of our new CollaborationKit software!

Harej (talk) 00:23, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

@Harej: It is not clear from your newletter(Technical improvements to Reports Bot) which reports are accurate and which ones are work-in-progress. For example: Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes? please ping me — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ottawahitech (talk • contribs) 16:06, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Ottawahitech, all the reports should be accurate. Are there reports that are not accurate? Harej (talk) 18:55, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

@Harej: The numbers just do not seem plausible. Take for example wp: WikiProject Canada, a project with 130,878 articles which shows only 719 edits for the last 365 days in Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes. Ottawahitech (talk) 00:54, 12 July 2016 (UTC)please ping me

@Ottawahitech: Based on the report code, it is counting changes to the WikiProjects main and sub pages, for example Article alerts, and not changes to the WikiProjects articles. --Bamyers99 (talk) 02:53, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

@Bamyers99: Thanks for digging up this information. So I guess what you are saying is that Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes does not track edits to the articles belonging to a w-project but merely edits to the w-project pages themselves? Even so I still believe the # of edits to wp: WikiProject Canada seems too low. If you check Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/List of Canadian WikiProjects, portals and main articles you will see how large this w-project is. Just the Article alerts of all the child w-projects should generate thousands of edits every year (wp:Article alerts are updated daily)? Ottawahitech (talk) 14:34, 15 July 2016 (UTC)please ping me

@Ottawahitech: It doesn't count sub-project edits, only edits to pages prefixed with WikiProject Canada/. Sub-projects have their own edit counts if the project name is prefixed with WikiProject. --Bamyers99 (talk) 14:49, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

@Bamyers99: I guess it also does not count the number of edits to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canada? Thank in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 09:23, 6 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me

@Ottawahitech: It counts both namespaces Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk for page names that start with WikiProject. The WikiProject Canada talk page is a redirect to Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board. It doesn't follow redirects. --Bamyers99 (talk) 14:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Reviving old wikiprojects (Ottawa)

I am trying to revive wp:WikiProject Ottawa which was created in April 2005 by user:Earl Andrew. I have no idea how to improve the assessment table which is now in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ottawa#Scope. I would appreciate help from editors willing to lend a hand. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:18, 2 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me

this what your looking for?--Moxy (talk) 18:50, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

@Moxy: Yes, thank you, exactly what I was looking for. Would you happen to know where this is documented, I would like to understand what Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Ottawa articles by \quality statistics surrounded by brackets does. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 09:11, 6 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Not sure what your asking for .....does Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Assessment FAQ or Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot help?--Moxy (talk) 16:43, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Yelling

Hi, just wondering if the name could be changed into Yelling (village), because confusing and also in order to create a categegory within Yelling. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 04:18, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Advice page vs content guideline

WP:ADVICEPAGE warns that sometimes projects treat advice pages dealing with style issues as if they were enforceable content guidelines: However, in a few cases, projects have wrongly used these pages as a means of asserting ownership over articles within their scope,... This has been, in my opinion, a longstanding problem with Wikipedia:WikiProject Firearms#Criminal use. It dogmatically states that certain material "must" meet arbitrary standards in order to be included, standards which don't apply to anything else on Wikipedia. What's the best way of addressing this issue? Members of the project are averse to any changes. Felsic2 (talk) 21:07, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

While projects have been given some deference over true style issues, my understanding is that no project can override WP policy. A project cannot have their own WP:RS and WP:WEIGHT policies. If they try to, they are going to run up against problems with the rest of the Wikipedia community. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 21:21, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Key phrase: "The good advice pages do not conflict with the site-wide pages". Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 21:28, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Makes sense. What's the best way of dealing with a problem like this? Felsic2 (talk) 21:43, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Probably a community-wide discussion (in WP:RFC format) somewhere in the most neutral venue related to the core issue at hand, with "advertising" in the Policy section at WP:Village pump. Maybe that best place is right here, or on the talk page of the most apparently violated policy. Of course, the affected project would have to be notified as well. And if the RfC is set up appropriately, random notifications would go out to various Wikipedians signed up to receive them. This is pretty obvious, but this is bound to be highly politically charged, so I would advise making the RfC question as narrow and technical as possible, without anything to suggest a bias. You have to be magnanimous and leave it up to the community to decide. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:08, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that advice. Felsic2 (talk) 22:10, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'm not sure of the best wording for the RfC, but it's about asking the community whether the project's advice is overriding site policy or just explaining it in terms related to their subject. When put into a form of suggested actions, either the community would have the project 1) Remove or modify the advice to fit site policy, along with no longer "enforcing" the former advice; or 2) Leave the advice as is. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:20, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate that input. I was already scratching my head wondering how to frame the question. Felsic2 (talk) 22:25, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject banner shell

When using Template:WikiProject banner shell, is the "1=" still necessary? The template seems to work just fine without it. Does the template documentation need to updated? Jweiss11 (talk) 01:42, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Human resources wikiproject?

Does a Human resources wikiproject exist? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 15:24, 26 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Reviving wikiprojects that never got beyond...

At WP:WikiProject Ageing and culture was created, and there was no facility for assessment of articles in the talk page project tag - I used to call on a few favours of editors who had sufficient skill to code the appropriate parts of template and other things for other stalled projects. However they have since retired or gone away for lengthy absences. Is there anyone who watches this page who is prepared to help with resurrecting the project tag so assessment can begin? The project was started and all involved have been gone. I would like to resurrect it as the tagging of age related categories is an atrocious mishmash.

Thanks to anyone who even replies to this let alone helps! JarrahTree 06:52, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

I am not prepared to do that work. However, if you are prepared to do it, then you can include in your edit summaries (of that work) the following code: [[WP:WikiProject Ageing and culture|You can help!]]. Editors who see your contributions might be motivated to help.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:51, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Aging articles (version of 18:39, 8 October 2016).

—Wavelength (talk) 18:47, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you - as I said, even just a reply helps, even if you cannot dont want to do the hard stuff :( - problem is I was under the impression that coding in templates is either admin only or specifically attributed rights status to tinkle with JarrahTree 00:40, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I can help if you are specific about what you want. Let's move the conversation to Template talk:WikiProject Ageing and culture, which I am now watching. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:03, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Just wondering out loud: Isn't Ageing and culture too specific? I don't think there are any Wikiprojects for Ageing / senior isssues? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:29, 26 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Thinking about a new wiki project.

Being a music lover, many times I need the lyrics of my favourite songs. So I always search them in web or app. But maximum of the websites and apps are not attractive, they are full of advertisements and not well looking. I've talked with other people about it. Many of them are having the same problem. So I'm thinking to make something new. Why don't we make a new project named 'Wikilyric' where people would be able to find their required lyrics and learn the lyrics of the songs, which would be fully well decorated and ad-free? Trust me, people are badly in need of this and they are going to love it a lot as the other projects of wiki. Please think about it. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atiq Zawad (talk • contribs) 18:15, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

WP:Copyright policy. --Izno (talk) 18:52, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Looking for some advice for a multi Mediawiki project Wikiproject

Hi all

I'm working on Wikiproject UNESCO as my role as Wikimedian in Residence at UNESCO. The project covers several different Wikimedia projects so I originally started it on Meta, however this means that very few people are aware of it. I would like to break it up so that some pages exist on relevant Wikimedia projects e.g the Data page goes on Wikidata, the Media page goes on Commons and many of the other pages on en.wiki. The rules on English Wikipedia are much more developed but I can't find anything about moving a Wikiproject (I assume because this doesn't ever really happen). Can someone tell me:

1. If there are any other Wikiproject that operate over several Wikimedia sites
2. Do I just copy the pages across to English Wikipedia?
3. How do I get technical help in making all the templates etc to tag the different articles? Is this possible to do by generating a list from Wikidata (I've imported a lot of data into Wikidata from UNESCO).

My best estimate would be there are about 3000 articles that would fall under the project initially however because the scope of UNESCO is very wide this may increase, additionally I'm trialing copying open license text from UNESCO publications into Wikipedia so this would increase the number of relevant articles much further.

Thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 09:59, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

@John Cummings: I don't know the answer to your first question. You can copy the pages across. Be sure to provide attribution when you do so by using an edit summary like Copied from [[:meta:Example page]], see the history of that page for attribution. I would then turn those into soft redirects to the new location. Someone may be able to help you here or at Template talk:WPBannerMeta with creating a banner. There are various ways to get lists of pages, including Wikidata and categories. You can ask at WP:VPT for a list of pages, specifying the requirements (e.g. have Wikidata property P123='example'), and someone will usually be kind enough to supply you with a list or a link to one. After you have a list, you can request a bot to tag them. — JJMC89 (T·C) 16:43, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much JJMC89, really helpful. --John Cummings (talk) 14:10, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject-related proposals at the Community Wishlist Survey

Feel free to vote on the WikiProject-related proposals at the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey (or any proposals for that matter). Kaldari (talk) 23:39, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Adding proj banners to Draft articles

Why are wiki-proj banners not added to Draft articles, please have your say at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Canada/The_10,000_Challenge#Drafts. Ottawahitech (talk) 18:17, 11 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me

I've been going through Category:Draft articles and tagging drafts with WP banners. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:54, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

January 2017 at Women in Red

January 2017
	Women Philosophers & Women in Education online editathons Faciliated by Women in Red

(To subscribe, Women in Red/Invite list. Unsubscribe, Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Ipigott (talk) 17:17, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Assessment issue

Hello

I have noticed an issue with the table of assessment of the Wiki Loves Women project Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Loves Women/Assessment.

In the table, there are about 100 articles listed as "unassessed". When I click on links, I get to a tool lab page (for example [1]) where I see a list of articles supposingly unassessed. Except that if I click on those articles and check the talk page... they ARE assessed. For example, first article listed: Talk:Amal Bishara is actually assessed both in importance and quality since Nov 25.

Any idea what's going on ? Anthere (talk) 16:06, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Anthere: I see that there are only 10 unassessed articles now. Has the problem been resolved and if so how? Just being nosy. Ottawahitech (talk) 19:51, 31 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me

@Ottawahitech:. So I waited for some time, made several reassessments again to see if it would restart the system. But nothing happened.

I then wondered if it was only for this project. I have another project with an assessement system. I realized the same was going on on that second project. So I made some reassessment at that second project and I observed the same thing (no log). This suggested the issue was not only related to Wiki Loves Women.

Next, I checked if the two projects were still known from the bot, and yes, in both cases, they were on the bot list.

So here is what I did... I went to [2] and did a manual update for both projects (forced the reassessment). It worked and seems to have done so ever since. So ... I have no idea why the bot was not running for those two projects for a while... but once I forced the running... it ran again. Very odd. So in short... problem resolved... no idea why it was not working.... no idea why it started working again.

If anyone run into the same situation... force the reassessment would be my suggestion. Anthere (talk)

Community Wishlist Survey - popular pages report

FYI A proposal for reviving the popular pages report: See: m:2016_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Categories/WikiProjects#Fix_and_improve_Mr.Z-bot.27s_popular_pages_report Ottawahitech (talk) 23:35, 16 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Looks like this is one of the lucky proposals that made it into the top 10 (which I believe means it will be implemented?). Ottawahitech (talk) 19:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Advertising a WikiProject?

Am I allowed to advertise a WikiProject here? UNSC Luke 1021 (talk) 19:35, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

@UNSC Luke 1021: Good question! Anyone? Ottawahitech (talk) 20:04, 31 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Backlog

I just made a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals, but see there is nearly a four year backlog there. I am reasonably patient, but am not going to wait that long. To be honest I am not entirely sure what the purpose of that page is as I came to it via Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot#Setting up for the bot. Is there anything stopping me just starting the Wikiproject I had in mind, because if the wait is going to years then I would rather not worry about the bot. AIRcorn (talk) 21:23, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

@Aircorn: I believe that anyone is allowed to start a new project, approved or not. However it will probably take some effort on your part to get the project known and goIng. Just my $.02. Ottawahitech (talk) 20:02, 31 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me

@Ottawahitech:. Thanks for the reply. I ended up just starting it. If it ends up being nothing more than a way to organise articles and I am the only main contributor to it then I still feel it will have value. AIRcorn (talk) 23:29, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Looking for editors to test a new editing mode

I need some editors to test a new editing mode. I'd like to find both people who mostly use the visual editor and people who mostly use one of the old wikitext editors for this. I'm not looking for admins or technical people – just ordinary editors, and new people are fine. Probably most of the people who read this will qualify, but I'm particularly posting here in the hope that some of you will think of both yourself and a new editor that you recently ran across, who might be interested.

Users who want to participate in this testing project must:

• be able to speak English,
• have access to Google Hangouts (for screensharing and talking),
  • You don't have to be videotaped yourself, but you must be able to share your screen via Hangouts, so we can see what you're doing.
  • You must have access to a working microphone (either external or built-in is fine), so you can tell us what you think.
• have access to quiet place for 30-45 minute research session,
• be willing to sign a standard research release form (I can get you a copy), and
• have access to Chrome, Firefox or Safari (I believe this must be on a desktop system, not on a smartphone).

If you're interested, or if you think you might know someone who is interested, then please click here to leave a note on my talk page. Thanks for considering it! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Do you have enough volunteers? If not how about posting this message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention? Ottawahitech (talk) 20:08, 31 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Thanks, we got just enough people in the end. (Finding newer editors is always a problem.) Anyone who is interested in future projects can go to mw:Wikimedia Research/Design Research#Discover with us! and sign up. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

An MFD to consider

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/File talk:Nexstar Logo.jpg - more of a metaquestion on project tags on files moved to commons. Agathoclea (talk) 12:47, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Request to delete older versions of Women in Red barnstar designs

The WikiProject Women in Red team were working on a barnstar, and decided on final versions of a plain barnstar, and a barnstar with laurels. We would like to have the older versions deleted from Commons so they are not used by mistake. I don't know the process for deleting files from Commons. If you know of an admin on Commons that could please delete the files listed below, that would be terrific. Or if you could point me in the right direction (with directions) to do so myself, I will. These are the files that need deleting:

WIR Barnstar5.jpg (uploaded by Netherzone at 16:400, 8 February 2017) WIR Barnstar4.jpg (uploaded by Netherzone at 15:50, 8 February 2017) WIR Barnstar3.jpg (uploaded by Netherzone at 15:40, 8 February 2017) WIR Barnstar2.jpg (uploaded by Netherzone at 04:48, 7 February 2017)

Many thanks in advance. Netherzone (talk) 15:44, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Help for WikiProject Sia?

Is someone familiar with setting up WikiProjects (specifically, quality assessment and WikiProject banners) able to take a look at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Sia#Coding_help and see if the assessment categories are correct. There is also a discrepancy between the "Sia"-related and "Sia-Furler"-related categories. Thanks in advance to anyone who may be able to take a look. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 01:05, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 10

Issue 10 of the WikiProject X newsletter is here!

This month, we discuss the new CollaborationKit extension. Here's an image as a teaser:

23:59, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia Movement Strategy

Hi all. I'd like to invite you to participate in the Wikimedia Movement Strategy discussions, about our movement's overall goals, "What do we want to build or achieve together over the next 15 years?". It's currently in the first stage, of broad discussion. There are further details in the related Metawiki pages (FAQ, lists of other simultaneous communities' discussions, etc).

I've posted at a few of the largest WikiProjects, but please do direct anyone you think might be interested, to the discussion. (Also, if you're interested in helping facilitate and summarize the discussions here, and to bring back here the summaries of what the other communities are discussing, over the weeks ahead, please let me know. Thanks. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:03, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Pages that are NOT yet in a WikiProject?

Hello all - Please forgive me if this has been addressed elsewhere, but does anyone know if there is a link that identifies all articles, categories, etc., that are NOT yet part of a WikiProject? Thanks KConWiki (talk) 03:10, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@KConWiki: I don't think we currently have an automatic tracking system for that. Though the database scanner in AWB may be of use to you in finding those pages. You can do database scans without registering, but to edit the encyclopedia with AWB, you have to be registered. To qualify to register to use AWB on Wikipedia, you have to have 500 main space edits. If you do, then go to Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/AutoWikiBrowser, and an admin will add you to the checkpage. The Transhumanist 19:29, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

There should be a way to assess quality for articles that do not fall under any WikiProject's purview. (Perhaps the WPBS should hold quality ratings and all talk pages should hold a WPBS) -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 06:57, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Default parameters in WP banners?

Should WikiProject Banners have defaults for class and importance settings?

I noticed a particular project default sets its importance to "mid" if you don't explicitly set it. This seems to make a hash of importance settings, rendering them useless.

-- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 03:51, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

No. Null is a useful value, in that it tells us that an assessment has not yet been made, which may prompt a user to make one. Automatically filling in default values would mass produce false assessments, and that's bad. Now, if you created a deep learning AI that assessed articles' quality and improved its ability via training, then that's another matter. The Transhumanist 09:58, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I've opened a discussion at Template talk:WikiProject Highways about the Default Importance rating (default=MID); -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 06:58, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages bot

We're happy to announce that the popular pages bot is back up-and-running! The bot posts a monthly list of the 1,000 most read pages within a WikiProject and their assessment, for example: Wikipedia:WikiProject Spiders/Popular pages. The bot began posting March 2017 data on April 2 to the 700+ WikiProjects that have already subscribed. Any new WikiProjects can opt-in here. It may take a few weeks to post all updates to all projects.

We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:

• The page-view data includes both desktop and mobile data
• Redirect page-views are now combined with the canonical page (e.g. views to Obama are added to Barack_Obama)
• The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.

We're grateful to Mr.Z-man for his original Mr.Z-bot, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement.

— The Community Tech Team (via TBolliger (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC))

Certainly wonderful news. Note though that Z-bot combined redirect page views, so that part is not new. Thanks everyone for their work on this. I'm awaiting pages for projects I'm involved with to fill in. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 23:16, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Proposal add quality criteria to WikiProject templates

Proposal adding a [show] link to the project templates.........see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Add quality criteria to WikiProject templates--Moxy (talk) 17:09, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

User:MartinZ

FYI, we're discussion MartinZ (talk · contribs) recategorizing WikiProjects unilaterally without discussion at WT:ASTRONOMY and I've opened a discussion at WT:COSMOLOGY as well -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 04:56, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Recent edits

To editors EditSafe and StarryGrandma: in regard to our recent edits to Wikipedia:WikiProject, EditSafe, you need to explain how your edits are improvements to that page. Two editors, myself and StarryGrandma have disagreed with your changes. Please leave the status quo in place for now and tell us why you think your changes are better than the status quo.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  05:53, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Idea: Add select talk page section to watchlist

I have another idea, most likely one that's been thought of before, but I want to write this out just to make sure. What if, instead of only having the ability to watchlist talk pages, you could add a talk page section to your watchlist? I'm sure this would be challenging to implement technically speaking, but this sure could be helpful. There are many times I post a message to an article's (or other type of Wikipedia page's) talk page, and I'm invested in a particular discussion, but not the page in its entirety, so I don't add the page to my watchlist. It's possible the discussion could continue without my knowing, if I forget to revisit the page. Is someone aware of this discussion taking place before, or have any thoughts? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 04:52, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

This is a perennial request. The likelihood of this being worked on is low given the WMF's provision of the Flow extension. An extension not enabled at en.WP, but you can see it at many of the sister wikis. --Izno (talk) 12:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Ah, ok, thanks! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:35, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Consensus to remove banner for inactive WIkiProjects

I just wonder if there was consensus to remove banners for inactive WikiProjects? See Christian75 (talk) 20:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

That seems a bad idea, since the banner already says "inactive", and if it ever became active again, people would need to go through and retag all the articles -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 02:56, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

It's also problematic because the banners (and associated categories) are important infrastructure for WikiProjects to determine what's in their "scope." It would only make sense to remove the banners if the WikiProject as a whole was being decommissioned.

I don't think the problem is inactive projects having banners per se. It's the banners themselves: they're noisy and obtrusive. I hope in the long term we build off of the work of the PageAssessments extension and build a specialized tool for tracking WIkiProject assessments. Harej (talk) 00:07, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Christian75: Thanks for staring this discussion. I was wondering the same thing. I don't like disappearing project banners. I've still been adding "WikiProject Sculpture" to talk pages even though the banner does not display. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 01:25, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Another issue is, what constitutes an inactive project. I personally use the bot output of a number of "inactive" projects for editing ideas. So while there is no chatter there is activity. Removing the assessment markers would be a detriment. Agathoclea (talk) 07:43, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Christian75, Another Believer, Harej, and Agathoclea: I agree with Agathoclea. There is also decentralized WikiProject activity. Quality assessment gets updated on each article's talk page. So if assessment is active, then by extension so is the WikiProject that set it up. And as Agathoclea mentioned, the same can be said for any WikiProject with automation. Many WikiProjects have an an automatic alert system (for announcing AfD's, etc.). The Tip of the Day project automatically posts its content day after day all over the 'pedia, and it can be months between posts on its talk page. Proofreaders have a template with which they can monitor the tip for the next day, and they can edit the tip directly before it goes live, without ever posting to the project's talk page. I believe WikiProjects with assessments or automated functions should never be tagged with "inactive". The Transhumanist 19:46, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this is a good point. And if I'm still adding "WikiProject Sculpture" banners to talk pages as often as I deem appropriate, is WikiProject Sculpture really dead? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 02:17, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I think the scope argument is the strongest for keeping the WikiProject banners in place. They provide meta-data. The banners serve as broad subject tagging for articles, which can be very useful for automated processes. They are more encompassing than the narrower subject-based category links. Please keep them in place. The Transhumanist 09:40, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Agree with The Transhumanist, in every respect. Interest waxes and wanes, then waxes again on most projects. Keeping the framework in place is helpful. Jusdafax 19:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

An invitation to participate in the next cycle of Wikimedia movement strategy discussions (underway until June 12)

Hi Wikiproject users! I wanted to let you know that the Wikimedia movement strategy core team and working groups have completed reviewing the more than 1800 thematic statements we received from the first discussion. They have identified 5 themes that were consistent across all the conversations - each with their own set of sub-themes. These are not the final themes, just an initial working draft of the core concepts.

You are invited to join the discussions taking place on these 5 themes here on Wikipedia (you can also use the Meta Strategy portal to locate and participate in discussions outside of English Wikipedia). This round of discussions will end on June 12th. You can discuss as many themes as you like; we ask you to participate in the ones that are most (or least) important to you.

Here are the five themes and links to their information/discussion pages here on English Wikipedia. Each also has a page on Meta-Wiki (follow the link in the previous paragraph!) with more information about the theme and how to participate in that theme's discussion:

• Healthy, Inclusive Communities
• The Augmented Age
• A Truly Global Movement
• The Most Respected Source of Knowledge
• Engaging in the Knowledge Ecosystem

On the movement strategy portal on Meta-Wiki, you can find more information about each of these themes, see the locations of discussions about them across numerous projects and languages, and learn how to participate.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you there! Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 17:05, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Opinions on task forces? (Signpost request)

The Signpost is looking to publish an article on the state of task forces (or subprojects of other projects) and issues they face in 2017. Would anyone here be interested in giving us their thoughts/opinions, to be included in the piece? (It doesn't need to be long – just a paragraph or two will be fine, unless you want to write more.) If so, can you please leave a link to your submission at WP:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions § The state of taskforces in 2017. Thank you, - Evad37 [talk] 03:04, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia Movement Strategy

Hi. I'd like to invite you to Cycle 3 of the Wikimedia Movement Strategy discussions. This cycle is focused on the challenges identified by the research that was conducted in collaboration with experts, current/potential partners, and current/potential readers of the Wikimedia projects. Every week until the end of July, one challenge will be discussed, so if you're not interested in - say - challenge 1, don't forget to have a look on the page later this month.

If you want to ask a question, ping me or read the FAQ. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:03, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Assessment grid for taskforces

Hi all, I remember asking this some time ago but wondered about updates - is it possible for a Task Force to have an assessment grid (like Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds/Assessment#Statistics) containing only the task force articles? (Such as for (for instance) Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy/Constellations Task Force)? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:20, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

...anybody? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:39, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Casliber, compare the chart on WP:USRD/MI with the one for the overall project at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/U.S. road transport articles by quality statistics. In this case, {{WikiProject U.S. Roads}} puts articles in separate state-based assessment categories, such as Category:FA-Class Michigan road transport articles as well as the national Category:FA-Class U.S. road transport articles. This allows the bots involved to classify the same article's assessment for task force and project. Imzadi 1979 → 23:04, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: I'll try it out and ping if I can't get it to work. Thanks! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:11, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: Ummm, I have [3] this, but why is it not appearing at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Constellations articles by quality statistics? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:25, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposed WikiProject for paid editors

The proposal to create a WikiProject for paid editors is made at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), where comments are welcome there. --George Ho (talk) 21:38, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Help revamping a WikiProject

I don't know if this is the right place for this but I was wondering if anyone in the WikiProject Council or community would be willing to help me revamp the Cold War WikiProject. I'm really new to WikiProjects in general but I'm eager to learn. Right now the project is semi-active but I really do want to change that. Please let me know where I could find volunteers or if this is not the right place to put this request. Thanks. Karthanitesh (talk) 16:59, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Namespace

I think WikiProject: should be its own namespace. – Nixinova ⟨T|C⟩ 23:59, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to convert task force to WikiProject (or create new WP)

Hello, there is currently a proposal and related discussion regarding converting the Women's football task force (currently a task force of WP:FOOTBALL) to its own WikiProject. Input from editors is welcome: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Women's football task force/Archives/2017/September#Task_force_vs_WikiProject Hmlarson (talk) 14:07, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

MfD of WikiProject YouTube

I am not sure if this is the best place to reach out to members of WikiProject Council? WikiProject YouTube has been nominated for deletion based on the use of a brand name in its title. I cannot find any guideline about the naming of a project, so I would be greatful if members would review the MfD at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject YouTube. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 11:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Update: The MfD has been closed as speedy keep so no further action needed. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 14:01, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I cannot believe that there isn't even a task force for this major subject!

Unbelievably, there is no WikiProject or task force that primarily covers Tornadoes. How is that possible? I know there is a WikiProject Severe weather and a WikiProject Meteorology, but neither of them have a task force focused on Tornadoes. Don't you guys agree there should be at least a task force that covers this if not a full WikiProject? — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  21:26, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

You could poll the talk pages of WikiProject Severe weather and/or WikiProject Meteorology to see if anyone is interested in participating in a task force. I assume those would be the editors most interested in the topic. If there were enough editors who wanted to start a task force, it would seem weird to me if the participants of WikiProject Council would have any reason to oppose? -Furicorn (talk) 02:59, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Also, I've been pointed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces before -Furicorn (talk) 03:19, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

In a lot of cases the work of such potential task forces is already done in a more general wikiproject and don't necessarily need a task force. Task forces really only make sense when the chatter from them on talk pages is drowning out the talk of other subjects in the more broad project. -DJSasso (talk) 11:50, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Decision-making Impacting Inactive and Semi-Active wikiprojects

Hi there. As part of some interest I have in trying to update {{WikiProject United States}} to include additional states, I have been visiting the Wikiprojects for various US states because I know this has been a contentious template before. However, what I am finding is that many of them appear to be semi-active or inactive (I have tagged them as such as I have visited them). I don't know if there is some precedent or existing policy to deal with template changes that would affect semi-active or inactive wikiprojects, but if there isn't I would like to initiate a discussion on what sort of decision making process takes place for changes to templates or tools that impact semi-active and inactive wikiprojects. -Furicorn (talk) 19:30, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

To be honest it was quite clear the last time someone tried to do this, that trying to throw all the US state projects etc into one Wikiproject was not really workable. Other than tagging a whole bunch of stuff what benefit is there really to any states to be sucked into one large project so that talk of different states drowns out the talk of the state they focus on. It was a lets build my edit count really high by tagging project the last time this was attempted, what will be the difference this time? -DJSasso (talk) 11:56, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Help on assessment set up

I feel frustrated. I have already set up assessment systems twice (successfully), but this time, there is a problem with my set up and I can't find out what is wrong. It is probably an obvious mistake somewhere but I already spend a couple of hours on that and still can't figure out what the issue is.

Here is an exemple... Talk:Khayelitsha. As you can see... it displays the importance but not the quality... why ? My template is here : Template:WikiProject WikiAfrica Schools and the assessment page there : Wikipedia:WikiProject WikiAfrica Schools/Assessment. Why would not the quality appear ?

Thanks for your help ! Anthere (talk) 20:43, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I tried previewing the template using Talk:Khayelitsha and all looked good. Hit purge on the talk page and all was good. Just templates being templates and keeping you waiting. Cabayi (talk) 22:06, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Now... that is weird... ok.. (mind boggling). I agree the template on the article talk page looks good. Wow. You have a magic touch.

But the assessment page still does not show any quality assessment report. I just changed the quality/importance of Khayelitsha to force a reassessment in the next few hours and see if the issue is magically fixed. I'll check tomorrow. Thanks Anthere (talk) 14:20, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Question regarding a point in Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide

Heya. Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Purpose of WikiProject banner tags mentions that one can use tags to make a project-specific version of Recent changes by using Special:RecentChangesLinked. I'm a bit unsure how to do this though. Let's say I want to make a watchlist configured for WikiProject Politics, my first thought was that I would enter Template:WikiProject Politics into the search bar and check "Show changes to pages linked to the given page instead" or entering one of the quality categories like Category:B-Class politics articles (although that would require separate requests for each category). Doing so only returns the talk pages however, not the actual articles. I thought selecting "Talk" in the Namespace-dropdown and checking "associated namespace" would fix this, but it doesn't. Any advice or links to help pages? It seems like a really useful tool for projects. Respectfully, InsaneHacker (💬) 16:23, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Automatic suggestion of topics to new drafts based on WikiProjects

Hi! I have submitted a proposal for a Wikimedia Foundation Project Grant to "automatically suggest WikiProject topics to new drafts". The proposal is called Automatic suggestion of topics to new drafts. View the proposal here and feel free to leave comments there! --Sumit.iitp (talk) 17:50, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Sculpture

Just an FYI, a handful of editors have watchlisted the WikiProject Sculpture page, and I changed the project's status from inactive to semi-active. I invite editors to help make improvements to this revived WikiProject. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:54, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Advice Pages inclusion criteria must be met

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

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• Could these words be added to the sentence below: "or criteria for information must be met to be included in articles".

• "However, in a few cases, projects have wrongly used these pages as a means of asserting ownership over articles within their scope, such as insisting that all articles that interest the project must contain a criticism section or must not contain an infobox, or that a specific type of article can't be linked in navigation templates, "or criteria must be met for information to be included in articles"...

• Reason: I have encountered projects that have set guidelines/criteria to meet to include information in articles, and use the criteria to reject information, regardless of other editors or regardless of WP:NPOV. The projects may be trying to minimize what they consider "trivia" or not realize they are violating WP:NPOV or think they can override WP:NPOV with a "Local Consensus" for information the project dislikes. CuriousMind01 (talk) 20:10, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Created a request for comments new section below CuriousMind01 (talk) 00:21, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

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

Problems

The vast majority of WikiProjects are inactive. However, some WikiProjects are active, with excellent participation and collaboration.
I have examined the comparative activity of a representative sample of about 200 WikiProjects and have found that activity directly correlates with the project scope. The larger Wikiprojects have a greater chance of being sustainable in the medium to long term.
I have also found that a smaller WikiProject is more likely to maintain viability if it is a 'Task-force' within a larger WikiProject, than if it is isolated.
There are many hundreds of advice pages, incomplete to-do lists, lists of resources and other useful data which is effectively abandoned in isolated and difficult to search project space.
In some cases, people are editing in areas where there is/was a project, without any knowledge of the WikiProjects existence, this reduces the likelihood of an article having a relevant WikiProject banner applied to it, which further reduces the viability of the project.
There are currently over 2000 WikiProjects, it is estimated the average user is only aware of a fraction of them. Very few users include the full range of relevant WikiProject banners on a page when categorizing it.

• Therefore I propose:

1. All Inactive WikiProjects with limited scope are moved into larger WikiProjects to become task-forces.
2. All new WikiProjects are recommended to incorporate as a task-force where they appear to have a limited scope also covered by an existing project.
3. Various long-inactive WikiProjects are archived within larger WikiProjects where the information may be of use to existing editors.
4. WikiProject banners with very limited usage are merged with a more active banner.
5. Documentation is created to assist users in adding relevant WikiProject talk page banners to new articles.

Dysklyver 14:27, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

While this sounds like a great idea, it is probably unworkable as the drama surrounding the state WPs shows when they were transferred as taskforces into WP USA. Today WP often do show no or very little activity on the project pages, but the bot generated worklists are very frequently used. Agathoclea (talk) 07:24, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I am generally intending to keep the projects which have working bot lists as is (they are still active, even if marked otherwise), in theory we would keep most the active pages (determined by pageviews) as is, and consolidate historical guidance and discussion into simpler UX formats (With assistance from WikiProject X) where appropriate.

I see little point in worrying about geographical WikiProjects, they are relatively stable, indeed this is mainly to get opinions on the mass merging of the very small WikiProjects that never had much chance of viability. Obviously every merge will have to be discussed separately and this might take some time to work through. Dysklyver 10:47, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Strong oppose as an infrequent recoverer of projects that have been tagged - as either defunct, inactive and also as quiet and any other appellations - I believe the logic is basically flawed. In most cases projects can be recovered without merging or changing - the effort to close or force close of quiet projects is counter productive in most cases - more effort should be to recover projects - supporting processes to encourage people to become involved. Methods in ascertaining whether a project is active or inactive are highly subjective - and show that editors who get involved in this process have not in most cases ever spent the time to encourage a 'recovery' rather than close down or merge.

Also the strong oppose is when a single editor proposes such action - too much of wikipedia is changed by one editor on a mission against general practice - see the Catholicism project's current status and condition. If it is subsequently agreed by a large number of editors, similar to who attend RFA these days - different matter. JarrahTree 16:07, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

It probably wasnt obvious enough from what I wrote, but the part of the idea is actually to make semi-active projects More visible by including them prominently in active projects with an overlapping subject area. Another part of the idea is to merge several basically identical long inactive projects together in the hope that it will appear 'new' and 'interesting'. Both of these ideas are to make the projects more streamlined in preparation for WikiProject X. Anyway it seems easier to simply ask at each project rather than trying to do the whole lot at once. Dysklyver 19:31, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose As Jarrah Tree said, the logic is basically flawed. Also, the proposer tried to implement this on WP:WikiProject Espionage where it was opposed by me and one more editor as well (not JarrahTree). I am not sure how to put this in words exactly, but proposer's logic is not logical. —usernamekiran(talk) (pings not coming in, not going out) 15:34, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

• Nom Oppose After actually trying it out on a relatively obvious choice that I am reasonable knowledgeable about (WikiProject Espionage), it has become patently obvious that merging similar projects is just too difficult, indeed the only way of dealing with anything is probably to attract more editors to WikiProjects in the first place. I will continue working on what I started at WikiProject Espionage, but this idea is not otherwise going anywhere. Dysklyver 15:44, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Espionage

Hello.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Espionage has not been active for many years. It is considered semi-active since long. But this just regarding the project page, and talkpage. There are many users who refer to bot lists,vand some other means to find articles, and then work on it.

In last few days, A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver made some major changes (including page moves of project page(s), and redirects. Basically he was trying to apply his theory that he explained in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Problems. But now he has withdrawn the theory/attempt.

What I am here for is: what should we do with the proposal of "merger" of WikiProject Espionage, and WikiProject Mass surveillance? I think, "WP:ESPIONAGE" should be the name of the merger's result; as logically mass surveillance come under espionage. —usernamekiran(talk) (pings not coming in, not going out) 17:31, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

There shouldn't be a merger. Mass surveillance often has domestic implications whereas espionage is foreign-directed. If there was a merger (which I oppose) it would make more sense to call it "Government Intelligence Collection." Espionage and Mass Surveillance both fit into that concept. Still, WikiProjects exist as the consensus of editors choose to edit. We can't operate with a consensus of one editor. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:39, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Actually Government Intelligence Collection sounds pretty good, not least because this WP Espionage never included corporate espionage issues, therefore not being an entirely accurate title. We could use WP:GIC to include the scope of the (also seemingly inactive MilHist taskforce as well, bringing the whole set together. Dysklyver 18:42, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, thats what I believe. Thats why I came here in the first place. In case they were/are merged, I think adding "government" in the title would not be 100% right, as there are many privately owned groups/organisations (excluding "front companies", and companies in which agencies have steaks/investment), these organisation provide services ranging from corporate espionage, political espionage, national/international/intra-national spying on government, among many others. But these are not government owned.

Anyways, I will start working on the "project" in around 20 hours from now. Once it has been stabilised, I will start working on reviving the project after around 2-3 months. —usernamekiran(talk) 22:03, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Update: @A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver: you can find a brief/passing discussion about that at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Espionage/Archive 1#Notability criteria for spies, and Intel officers?. —usernamekiran(talk) 22:19, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Request for comment: WikiProject Advice Pages: Add criteria wording to the examples

The consensus is against including the proposed example.

Cunard (talk) 02:04, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

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

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Proposed: In WP:ADVICEPAGE add to the examples, this example: "or guidelines/criteria must be met for information to be included in an article" as displayed here:

However, in a few cases, projects have wrongly used these pages as a means of asserting ownership over articles within their scope, such as insisting that all articles that interest the project must contain a criticism section or must not contain an infobox, or that a specific type of article can't be linked in navigation templates, or guidelines/criteria must be met for information to be included in an article and that other editors of the article get no say in this because of a "consensus" within the project. An advice page written by several participants of a project is a "local consensus" that is no more binding on editors than material written by any single individual editor. Any advice page that has not been formally approved by the community through the WP:PROPOSAL process has the actual status of an optional essay.

Reasons: I have encountered projects that have set guidelines/criteria for editors to include information in articles, and editors use the guidelines/criteria to reject information, regardless of other editors and regardless of the WP:NPOV policy. The projects may be trying to minimize what they consider "trivia" or may not realize they are trying to violate WP:NPOV or may think they can override WP:NPOV with a "Local Consensus" for information the project dislikes. I think add the additional example will help educate project editors that the advice pages guidelines/criteria are not binding, as explained in the existing "However" paragraph and WP:NPOV cannot be overridden.

Additional thoughts are welcome.CuriousMind01 (talk) 00:13, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Survey

• Support I think adding the example will be useful to educate editors.CuriousMind01 (talk) 00:13, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Before we support or oppose... Could we get some examples of project advice where the type of behavior being discussed was an issue? (I'm not talking about giving these examples in the text... I'm talking about having examples here in the RFC, which we can use for discussion.) Blueboar (talk) 15:24, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

• OPPOSE CuriousMind01 is a tenacious edit warrior obsessed with adding "Criminal use" sections to firearm articles despite massive opposition. About two months ago he lost a discussion on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Firearms by a 10 to 1 margin. Unfortunately, he has a win at all cost mentality. So, now in typical fashion he's ignoring consensus, forum shopping, wikilawyering, and gaming the system. He even attempted to unilaterally make this change himself, because he believes that silence equals consensus. He will most likely accuse me of personal attacks and harassment again for daring oppose him and pointing at his questionable behavior, a normal intimidation tactic of his. I will inform my fellow Wikipedia:WikiProject Firearms members that he attempting to override consensus and make the Project meaningless. --RAF910 (talk) 16:13, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

  Please don't inject personality-based criticism and supposition/prediction; it's not helpful. See WP:ASPERSIONS. It just makes both sides look like editwarriors with an agenda.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:31, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose as redundant, and because actual guidelines do apply, and because WP:SAL and MOS:LIST instruct us to set inclusion criteria for lists, at least when there's a pattern of adding trivia and cruft to them. The wording simply isn't right, and the rationale seems suspect to begin with. Guidelines (and policies) must actually be met for information to be included in an article. Inclusion criteria (when specified) must also be met for inclusion in a list. If the above comment is correct, and the proposer is only trying to insert one kind of section into one kind of article, this is already covered by "such as insisting that all articles that interest the project must contain a criticism section or must not contain an infobox" in the same passage; these obviously work vice versa, too; so the proposed addition would be redundant even if its wording were fixed.

  However, "Criminal use" sections excluded in firearm models' articles not because of a wikiproject conspiracy, but because there's a legitimate WP:LOCALCONSENSUS at the articles, and more broadly, that such sections aren't encyclopedic, aren't WP:NPOV, and generally are WP:OR. We do not include such sections for any other kind of device (e.g. number of fatalities in auto collisions on particular car models' articles, or estimated number of kills performed in total by a particular model of military aircraft, or guesstimate of cancer deaths per tobacco company. There is no way to accurately do such stats. E.g. for a particular gun model, there isn't any reason to expect that news that happens to mention them will do so accurately or evenly; in fact we can be certain that firearms that are sometimes [mis]classified as "assault weapons" will be much more likely to be mentioned by name than common revolver, shotgun, or hunting rifle brands, because most Western news media are editorially dominated by liberals who are proponents of legislation and enforcement against "assault weapons".
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:17, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per SMcCandlish. Disclaimer - I have been involved in several of the discussions mentioned above. Springee (talk) 00:15, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose this end run around the consensus at the project. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:51, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose -- vague and redundant; not an improvement to the current text. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:47, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose redundant and irrelevant. --Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 23:04, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Articles on criminal acts regularly mention what items were used by a criminal in committing a criminal act or acts. But, the consensus has long been that unless a particular item became notorious due to the involvement in a publicized incident, the article on such particular items never mention the trivial fact that the item was used in a criminal act by happenstance. For example, white Ford Broncos are notorious due to the OJ case, but Ford Broncos are not notorious, meriting no mention for being a preferred getaway vehicle as it was just happenstance that a Ford Bronco was used by OJ. The fact that any particular firearm happened to be use in a crime is usually just happenstance, too. Only in rare cases do firearms become notorious. The consensus has been to eliminate trivia, and cruft in firearm articles with regards to criminal acts or heroic acts done with a specific firearm model. Wikipedia is not a list. Miguel Escopeta (talk) 19:04, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose This is a perfect example of forum shopping. What’s next an appeal to Jimbo? --Limpscash (talk) 04:16, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose redundant --Info-Screen::Talk 06:48, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - At least as-is without more context. Moreover, those are not set in stone and can still be updated by consensus when it makes sense. —PaleoNeonate – 10:45, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

The fix for the guns wikiproject's PROJPAGE is to reword it to state that there is a general consensus against inclusion of such sections, then cite previous discussions as evidence, rather than trying to state a "rule" against it and claim that it's a "guideline". The (pardon the pun) bulletproof approach is to host an RfC on the question at WP:VPPOL. It will be a WP:SNOWBALL against inclusion of OR-based, PoV-pushing factoids on "criminal use" and will put the matter to bed pretty much permanently, being a more solid consensus record than several previous discussions at individual articles, and much better than a WP:CONLEVEL-failing discussion at the wikiproject page which will have been dominated by pro-gun editors (I am one, so that's not a criticism, just a statement of the statistical obvious).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:31, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding User: CuriousMind01 vs User:RAF910 and issues with which editors to this discussion may have been involved. ----RAF910 (talk) 14:07, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

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

Discussion on changing the assessment scheme

People here may wish to give comments on this proposal, to merge A, B, C and Start-class into one level. Walkerma (talk) 07:44, 4 December 2017 (UTC)