Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy of Mechanicians


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result of the debate was Userfy to User:Zhigangsuo/Genealogy of Mechanicians. &Euml;vilphoenix Burn! 00:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Genealogy of Mechanicians
I think the originator has misunderstood what WikiProjects are for. It seems to be a response to this link, which calls for the establishment of a "wiki" to trace the genealogy of applied mechanicians the way that the Mathematics Genealogy Project does for mathematicians. Sounds like a fine goal, but not what Wikipedia is for. --Trovatore 08:27, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Userfy This is inappropriate for a project, but I think userfication is in order so the confused good-faith editor doesn't lose his idea, in case he wishes to salvage it for his own purposes. Xoloz 16:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Userfy per above. Eninem 19:39, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment seems resonable to me, but maybe it would go better as a task at WikiProject Mechanics? The latter I'm afraid is pretty moribund (only one participant, no nontrivial activity since December) but would seem the natural place for the legitimate, encyclopedia-building part of the idea (that is, get academic genealogies correct for people who ought to have bios, but not attempt to use WP to host a clone of the Mathematics Genealogy Project). --Trovatore 20:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Just to prevent confusion, this is Zhigangsuo's project. I only migrated it to a WikiProject from the mainspace for him. &#126;MDD4696 16:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Do not userfy, this would be inappropriate use of User space. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment please clarify if that should be read as a "delete" vote. --Trovatore 01:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a "whatever you do, don't userfy" vote. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

This is Zhigangsuo, who originated this Genealogy od Mechanicians Project. I have discussed the idea in Applied Mechanics News.

I'm not sure about the arguement to delete the project. The discipline of Applied Mechanics has a large number of pepople. The ASME Applied Mechanics Division alone has more than 5000 members, not to mention mechanicians in other countries and in other organizations.

About user space. When harddrive is as cheap as 50 cents per gigabyte, I'm not sure why we have to be so stingy about space. Why not let all worthwhile projects start and let better ones survive, rather than making arbitrary administrative decision at the beginning?


 * It's not really about how much hard drive space you use, per se. The Wikimedia Foundation provides the resources—space, processing power, bandwidth—for the specific purpose of creating an encyclopedia. While some latitude is permitted in user space, a precedent can't really be set to allow an unrelated project to use WP as free webhosting.
 * On the other hand, as I say, the part of the project that's part of encyclopedia-building, namely getting correct academic genealogies for people who would otherwise have WP bios, seems reasonable. I suggest you raise the issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mechanics. According to WikiProject, a WikiProject should coordinate the efforts of at least 5–10 people. Counting you, I think you'd bring that wikiproject to 3. That's somewhat less bad than starting a whole new project with just you. --Trovatore 03:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with a wikibook on that topic instead of a wikiproject? 70.231.136.114 17:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I haven't hung around wikibooks enough to have a sense of whether such an undertaking would be accepted there. My gut reaction, though, is that it doesn't sound much like what I think of as a "book". --Trovatore 00:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

''This MfD is being relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that a decision may usefully be reached. Please add new discussion below this notice. Thanks!'' &Euml;vilphoenix Burn! 21:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete. Sounds like a good project in itself; salvageable portions could be acquired by WikiProject Mechanics. For the other content, there's Wikia for hosting Wikis, and the MediaWiki software is easy to install if you have a server. Consider moving offsite. -- Tangot a ngo 08:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete per Tangotango. John Reid 16:22, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems appropriate for userfication. BD2412  T 20:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.