Wikipedia:WikiProject Piracy

WikiProject Piracy is dedicated to improving and maintaining articles about Pirates and Piracy here on Wikipedia. We aim to improve the quality and general coverage of waterborne piracy articles, develop guidelines and recommendations to support a comprehensive coverage of the topic, and serve as a central location for discussion of issues related to piracy and pirate pages.

This WikiProject was originally proposed by MadMax in March 2006 and merged with a project begun by Piratedan (as requested by Awiseman) in May 2007. The present-day project supports multiple highly popular pages alongside a small but treasured collection of Featured and Good articles.

Wikiprojects related to this one include WikiProject Crime, WikiProject British crime and WikiProject History.

Scope
The current scope of WikiProject Piracy is anything relating to piracy at sea or on major waterways.

Categorization
Piracy related topics can be placed in a range of categories, ranging from specific (individual privateers, buccaneers, corsairs, etc.), to broad (regions and historical periods). The subjects include, but are not limited to:


 * Historical periods:
 * Piracy in the Ancient World (pre–1000)
 * Piracy in the Middle Ages (1000–1500)
 * Piracy on the Barbary Coast (1492–1595)
 * The Spanish Main (1570–1650)
 * The Buccaneering Era (1640–1690)
 * The Golden Age of Piracy (1690–1730)
 * Decline of Piracy (1730–1900)
 * Modern (1900–present)
 * Individual pirates (captains, sailors, victims, etc.)
 * Pirate vessels (boats, ships)
 * Pirate havens (Port Royal, Tortuga, etc.)
 * Pirate culture (organizations, laws, customs, songs, etc.)
 * Piracy in popular culture:
 * Piracy in the Film and TV
 * Piracy in Games
 * Piracy in Literature

Privateers
Inevitably there will be some overlap between piracy and privateering. We fully expect to cover many privateers in our articles. However, for a given privateer to be included in the project, he should have been at risk for execution or other punishment as a pirate if captured, whether because his targets' government did not recognize his letter of marque, or because he exceeded his commission and crossed the line into piracy.

Thus, for example, Henry Morgan and his crew would be within our purview, because their attack on Panama was not authorized by Morgan's letter of marque. The project probably also covers John Paul Jones, because Britain did not recognize the Continental Congress's right to grant letters of marque, and thus Jones would likely have faced trial and execution as a pirate had the British caught him. On the other hand, any Saint-Malo or Dunkirk corsair whose sole claim to fame is legally plundering Britain’s commerce during the Wars of the Grand Alliance or Spanish Succession would not be considered a pirate here, because Britain did not treat such privateers as pirates.

Intellectual property piracy
Copyright and trademark piracy is not part of this project. That topic is best covered by WikiProject Law.

Participants
See: List of Participants

Featured articles

 * Edward Low
 * Stede Bonnet
 * Jack Sparrow
 * Woodes Rogers
 * Woodes Rogers

Good articles

 * Roberto Cofresí
 * Roberto Cofresí

Requested articles
See: Requested articles

Article assessment and re-assessment
See: Assessment

Templates
A list of all the WikiProject's templates can be found in Category:WikiProject Piracy templates.

Project banners

 * WikiProject Piracy – Our project banner
 * – A welcome message to invite new users to join WikiProject Piracy

Userboxes

 * User Pirate – A project member userbox

Article pages

 * Pirate-stub – A stub template for individual pirates
 * Piracy-stub – A stub template for any article that falls under our scope
 * Piracy – A portal box
 * Pirates – A navigational box
 * Piracy in Somalia – A navigational box

Infoboxes

 * Infobox Pirate – An individual pirate infobox