User talk:Astatine-210/Archives/2009/July

Dear Mentor,
Thank you for the note. Sorry for the late reply - I took the whole weekend off from Wikipedia; something I haven't done in a long while.

Today I found myself at war with an editor named Dbachmann. He's been waging a campaign based on misstatements and rhetoric to do everything he can to move the set of outlines to portal space. None of his reasons make any sense, but he's relentless. He's using a somewhat backhanded approach, as he ignores the points raised against him and simply repeats his arguments somewhere else. He venue shopped WP:AN previously, and today he venue shopped WP:ANI. Presumably it was to pick up supporters for his cause. There doesn't appear to be a trick in the book he isn't willing to try.

He tried to intimidate/recruit one of WP:WPOOK's younger members (Highfields) today to help him in his move effort. Practically demoralized the guy. See the discussion at User talk:Dbachmann.

Dbachmann hit a couple related guidelines (WP:OUTLINE and WP:STAND).

He also moved the article on outline and redirected the original page to a disambig! I put in a request to have it moved back until the attainment of a new consensus (there was no consensus for the move), but the request hasn't been granted yet.

I've added the various threads to the end of WP:OOKDISC. It's not pretty.

I'm not sure what to do.

Since you are my mentor, I figured you'd be the best person to get feedback from on this.

I look forward to your reply on my talk page.

The Transhumanist 03:46, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

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Outline Update - Exhausted - 07/10/2009
I'm sorry that I haven't been available to assign tasks lately. For the past 3 days (not including today) I've been almost totally consumed in discussions concerning the location and very existence of outlines. Today I finally broke free and got back to work on outlines. Felt good.

A great deal has been happening with outlines and behind the scenes. I just don't have time to tell you all about it this time around. Here's the best I can do...


 * How to watch what's going on with outlines

If you'd like a bird's eye view of everything that's happening with respect to outlines, see this page:


 * WP:OOKWL - watchlist for copying and pasting into your raw watchlist.

Or go to these pages (and click on "Related changes" in the sidebar's toolbox menu):


 * WP:OOKRC - a version of the above watchlist for use with "Related changes".
 * WP:OOKDIR - a list of key pages related to the OOK, along with their shortcuts.
 * WP:OOKDISC - list of discussions pertaining to outlines.
 * Recently converted to outlines

These outline articles, which were named "List of...", have been converted to an OOK format:


 * Outline of martial arts (was "List of martial arts-related topics")
 * Outline of wine - converted by Stefan (was called "List of wine-related topics")
 * Outline of the creation-evolution controversy (was "List of topics in the creation-evolution controversy")
 * Outline of actuarial science (was "Actuarial topics")
 * Outline of industrial organization (was "List of topics in industrial organization")
 * Recently merged into outlines

There are a lot of "List of" articles that are outlines. Some of them are on the same subjects as the "Outline of" articles. The following one have been recently merged:


 * List of finance topics into Outline of finance

The Transhumanist 01:14, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you
Posting at ANI is exactly what I did. Not sure if it helped, but he seems to have stopped.

Either his hoopla or the increased exposure to the outlines (from the links we've continued to place in the encyclopedia), stirred up a few more opposers to the project. Fortunately, supporters rose to the occasion to address each concern raised. They did a fantastic job.

As the weeks roll by, WP:OOK is attaining more and more credibility. People are starting to get it, and those supporting it are articulating themselves and OOK's purposes better.

The discussions concerning OOK can be found at WP:OOKDISC.

I took about a week off from WP, which gave me time to think about how to proceed.

The project breaks down easily into 4 areas of effort:
 * 1) Outline integration - placing links in 8 namespaces, leading to the outlines
 * 2) Outline development - working on the outlines themselves, including completing existing "outline of" articles, converting "List of" articles to OOK format, merging redundant ("list of") outlines into existing outlines, and creating new outlines
 * 3) Outline administration - improving guidelines pertaining to outlines, coordinating WP:WPOOK
 * 4) Outline interface development - new technology applied to Wikipedia (including outliner parsing, displaying, and editing features)

There's lots of work to be done, and we still only have handful of people working on them.

So recruiting is still the highest priority.

Within the span of a month or less, I'd like to recruit several hundred editors to develop outlines.

How can I accomplish this?

The Transhumanist 22:51, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Outline Update - Basking in the light of knowledge - 07/28/2009
Phase two of outline integration (de-orphanizing outlines by adding links leading to them into article see also sections) is nearly complete. The better that outlines are integrated into the encyclopedia, the more use they will be to readers.

Due to greater exposure through outline integration, and with most of the OOK team on school summer vacation, development activity on outlines has increased a lot...


 * New members


 * Be sure to welcome our newest members to the team:
 * Tiamut
 * Mandsford


 * News : Outline of Palestine survives AfD


 * The outline was nominated for deletion for being too general in scope. The consensus was overwhelmingly for keeping it.


 * The most memorable comment was posted by Mandsford: I like the poetic name, anyway. [Outline of Palestine]. "Master Plan of Pakistan" and "Rough Sketch of Bangladesh" would be good too.


 * Special thanks to Tiamut for greatly improving the outline, and helping to save it from AfD.


 * To keep track of outline AfDs and other outline-related discussions, see WP:OOKDISC.


 * Who's active on Wikipedia this summer?


 * Courtesy of Rich Farmbrough, here's a list of editors by their edit counts over the previous month (8th June to 8th July).


 * It would be nice to get the most prolific Wikipedians involved with WP:WPOOK. If you can, find a good reason to contact one or more of them, and invite them to work on a relevant outline - or all 500!


 * Who's been up to what?


 * Buaidh, Highfields, and Gimme danger have been working on the government sections of the country outlines. Being that there are about 240 of these, with critical information being filled in on each, this is by far the hardest and most important chore of this WikiProject right now.
 * Penubag is working on a redesign of the top OOK page.
 * Tiamut has done an incredible job developing the Outline of Palestine.
 * And kudos also go to Eu.stefan for his work on Outline of Buddhism.

Thank you.

Here's what else has been going on...


 * New outlines


 * Recently created outlines include:


 * Outline of England - TT
 * Outline of Scotland - TT
 * Outline of Buddhism - Eu.stefan
 * Outline of ancient Greece - TT


 * Recently converted to outlines


 * These outline articles, which were named "List of...", have been converted to an OOK format and added to the OOK:


 * Outline of the Vietnam War - was "List of Vietnam War-related topics" - TT
 * Outline of combinatorics - was "List of combinatorics topics" - converted by Minnecologies
 * Outline of category theory - was "List of category theory topics" converted by Minnecologies
 * Outline of scientific method - was "List of scientific method topics" - TT
 * Outline of ancient Rome - was "List of topics related to ancient Rome" - TT


 * Recently merged into outlines


 * There are a lot of "List of" articles that are outlines. Some of them are on the same subjects as the "Outline of" articles.  The following articles have been recently merged into OOK pages:


 * List of finance topics into Outline of finance - TT
 * List of England-related topics into Outline of England - TT


 * Outlines that have been tagged
 * Tags are requests to fix a problem or improve an article in a particular way. Unless we want the tags to sit there for an extended period of time cluttering up the outlines (we don't), it is up to us to fulfill those requests or attend to underlying misassumptions (if any).


 * Outline of literature - tagged as Original research
 * Outline of ancient Greece - tagged as under construction
 * '''Outline of mathematics - tagged as in need of attention from an expert
 * Outline of arithmetic - tagged as not citing any references or sources.
 * Outline of immunology - tagged as an orphan
 * Outline of organic chemistry - tagged as an orphan
 * Outline of psychology - tagged as in need of attention from an expert on the subject
 * Outline of family and consumer science - tagged as an orphan
 * Outline of energy storage - tagged as an orphan
 * Outline of nuclear technology - tagged as  an orphan
 * Outline of ergonomics - tagged as an orphan
 * Outline of construction - tagged as an orphan
 * Outline of machines - tagged as an orphan
 * Outline of free software - tagged as an orphan
 * Outline of design - tagged as containing original research or unverified claims, and needing references or sources
 * Outline of automobiles - tagged as an orphan


 * I can't stress enough the importance of watching


 * With so many outlines (now over 500), and a growing number of support pages (guidelines, wikiproject pages, etc.), I can no longer keep up. I need your help watching over it all.


 * If you'd like to omnisciently view everything "from above", see this page:


 * WP:OOKWL - watchlist for copying and pasting into your raw watchlist.


 * Or go to these pages (and click on "Related changes" in the sidebar's toolbox menu):


 * WP:OOKRC - a version of the above watchlist for use with "Related changes".
 * WP:OOKDIR - a list of key pages related to the OOK, along with their shortcuts.
 * WP:OOKDISC - list of discussions pertaining to outlines.


 * What's next?

There are a lot of contradictions in guidelines related to outlines. I'll be turning my attention to fixing those.

The number of "Outline of" articles is rapidly catching up to portals, and will probably pass them by the end of the summer!

Keep up the excellent work.

The Transhumanist 01:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

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We're working on something special...
...to award Buaidh for all his hard work.

It's at User:Penubag/Sandbox3.

But it's not done yet. Feel free to help improve it.

I'm hoping that everyone involved with the WP:WPOOK will sign it (please sign without a timestamp).

Thank you.

The Transhumanist 22:59, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

OOK collaboration: Outline of knowledge (eom)
Delivered by – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk at 21:39, 31 July 2009 (UTC)