User:Slambo/WPTrains task forces

There are a number of editors who are interested in topics related to rail transport. Many of these editors are members of one of several WikiProjects that have been formed to coordinate efforts to improve the collection of information on rail transport or one of its many subtopics.

WikiProjects
A few WikiProjects have already been formed on various subtopics of rail transport. These are (in alphabetical order):
 * WikiProject New York City Subway
 * WikiProject Stations
 * Wikiproject Streetcars
 * WikiProject Thomas
 * WikiProject Trains in Japan
 * WikiProject UK Railways
 * WikiProject Washington Metro

Although some have chosen to specify themselves as subprojects of WikiProject Trains, others have not. Some articles overlap two or more of these WikiProjects.

The biggest problem with a proliferation of WikiProjects is a potential for duplication of efforts. Both the Trains in Japan and the Washington Metro projects have created project banners that are specific to their projects while the others have not. In July 2006, the Trains WikiProject began rating articles on a quality scale in association with the efforts of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team. Articles that have been assessed are given a rating and added to one of several categories based on their quality ratings; if each of the subprojects begins rating articles along these lines as well, the duplication of efforts becomes even more apparent


 * Advantages
 * Collects editors and tasks specific to rail transport subtopics
 * Provides a convenient place for announcements and discussion relating to the subtopic


 * Disadvantages
 * Potentially less coordination with the Trains WikiProject
 * A potential for duplication of efforts in tasks and tools

Task forces
Task forces are informal groupings of editors who specialize in subtopics of WikiProject Trains. The idea is modeled after the Task force structure of WikiProject Military history where groups of editors specialize in writing, updating and maintaining a collection of articles, images and categories that pertain to certain broad topics.

For WikiProject Trains, a potential initial task force structure could be broken down into task forces similar to the way Category:Rail transport stubs is broken down: based on region (continents, countries, subnational regions), rail transport company (companies that may or may not cross diplomatic borders) or equipment type (locomotives, freight or passenger equipment, maintenance of way, infrastructure) or other topics that may come up (rail transport in philately has been suggested as one possible topic, rail transport in fiction is another possible topic).

Following the model of WikiProject Military history, each task force gets a subpage of the main WikiProject Trains page on which to collect lists of participants, collaborations, tasks to be done, associated templates, categories, resources, common references (which could be templates) and any other information deemed necessary by the task force members. Also, a task force parameter is added to TrainsWikiProject, the main project banner for WikiProject Trains, to identify articles as being maintained by the appropriate task forces.


 * Advantages
 * Collects editors and tasks specific to rail transport subtopics
 * Provides a convenient place for announcements and discussion relating to the subtopic
 * Reduces the potential for duplication of tools and tasks as the templates are more centralized with appropriate parameters for task force specifics
 * Editors who want to specialize in certain subtopics don't need to go through the steps to create another WikiProject and all of the associated tools and tasks


 * Disadvantages
 * There will still be some duplication of tasks as articles overlap two or more subtopics

Suggested initial task force list
Of the tasks required by WikiProject Trains and the articles that are included, the following is a possible initial list of Trains task forces:


 * Locomotives: Standardize and coordinate edits to articles about locomotives, regardless of their power sources. Associated categories and articles are those listed under Category:Locomotives; templates include Infobox Locomotive and the various navigation boxes by railroad, configuration and manufacturer; stub categories include those listed under Category:Locomotive stubs (which contains nearly 600 stub articles in three subcategories).
 * Operations: Reexamine current operational topics (e.g., railway signalling and its related articles) with particular attention to organization and inter-system generalization.
 * Passenger trains: Standardize and coordinate edits to articles about passenger train services. Associated articles include those listed on List of named passenger trains (and the North America-specific sublists) and in Category:Named passenger trains.  This task force would also be charged with identifying and expanding information on passenger train service worldwide.  Templates and infoboxes exist for some associated services, such as those run by Amtrak. Editors associated with WikiProject Stations may be interested in participating in this task force or may decide to amend the scope of WikiProject Stations to include passenger trains.
 * Article maintenance: Perform the more mundane tasks involved in maintaining WikiProject Trains articles to as high a level as possible, including tasks listed under WikiProject Trains/Todo such as bypassing disambiguation pages or keeping track of article topics that still need to be researched and written. This task force would also be responsible for identifying common references used in rail transport articles and providing appropriate templates for citations to them.  This could include the article assessment tasks as well.
 * Maps: Create and maintain system maps for railroad company and service routes. An overwhelming number of rail transport related articles would be enhanced by the inclusion of a system or route map, and only a very limited number of articles currently include good and freely licensed maps.  This task force would be charged with creating a standard system and route map appearance and adding or updating maps as appropriate.
 * "By country" series articles: Write and maintain the articles in the Rail transport by country and History of rail transport by country series and develop a standard appearance and set of information to be included in each article. The former series of articles presents a broad overview of rail transport in each country while the latter series presents an overview of the history of rail transport in each country.  A very large number of articles is still yet to be written in each series.
 * Trains Portal: Although the edits to the portal are all coordinated by a single editor right now, a few other editors are now stepping up to help with suggestions for content. Assigning a task force to the portal could also be helpful in case the current lead editor is unavailable or steps down.
 * Rail transport modelling: Standardize and coordinate edits to articles about rail transport modelling. Associated categories and articles include those listed under Category:Rail transport modelling and would also be expanded to include biographies of prominent model manufacturers and hobbyists, such as those listed on the Model Railroad Industry Association Hall Of Fame (such as those listed on WikiProject Trains/Todo/Write).
 * Categories: Bring the morass and overabundance of rail transport related Wikipedia categories under control. Develop a system of categories that will enable editors and readers to quickly and intuitively find articles that they are interested in (for comparison, see the efforts of the Military history WikiProject).

Conclusions
The Trains WikiProject should adopt a task force structure modeled on that of WikiProject Military History for future topic specializations of rail transport. Existing WikiProjects that have been identified above can decide for themselves if they want to continue as separate WikiProjects or become task forces within WikiProject Trains.