Wikipedia:WikiProject Reference works

Welcome to WikiProject Reference works. Several Wikipedians have formed this collaboration resource and group dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of reference works and the organization of information and articles on this topic. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions and various resources; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians interested in the topic. If you would like to help, please add yourself as a participant in the project, inquire on the talk page, and see the to-do list, below.

Goals
Our goal is to improve Wikipedias' coverage of reference works. In order to do that we intend to:


 * Create a central location where interested readers may find information on Wikipedias' coverage of reference works (ergo, this page).
 * Bring together Wikipedians who wish to work on improving coverage of reference works, communicate with each other, share experiences, ask for and receive feedback etc.
 * Create a system to rate and monitor the progress of articles, categories and other material related to reference works. Somewhat like this.
 * Add WikiProject banners to the talk pages of relevant articles, so interested readers may be directed to pertinent information on reference works

What are reference works?
For our purposes reference works include: and others.
 * encyclopedias
 * dictionaries
 * lexicons
 * almanacs
 * glossaries
 * thesauri

Dictionaries include both narrowly linguistic works (ergo the Oxford English Dictionary) as well as topical works (ergo Oxford Classical Dictionary). Same goes for works labelled thesaurus, lexicon or glossary.

Encyclopedias include both general works (for instance, the Encyclopædia Britannica) and specialized encyclopedias (The Encyclopedia of New York City).

In addition, there are also reference genres which are specialized to particular topics. For instance, florae are reference works which illustrate and describe plant life, usually in specific locations ergo, Flora Novae-Zelandiae. Others include pharmacopoeias, herbals, armorials, atlases, film and music guides.

WikiProject banner

 * Create a WikiProject banner


 * OK, I think I have correctly created a rudimentary banner.


 * If I did anything wrong, anyone is welcome to correct it.


 * I still haven't figured out how to create the proper functions for rendering article status, ergo, stub, start class, list class. Perhaps someone who is more experienced in created templates could help.


 * Could you expand the template functions for this banner? I can't really figure it out.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Tagging talk pages

 * Add banner to relevant talk pages


 * Banner added to most overall category talk pages in Category:Reference works, and Category:Encyclopedias. Still far from done though.


 * Banner added to all the encyclopedias I could find under continent, language and date, though it is likely I have missed some. Have not added banner to individual encyclopedists. Have also added banner for fictional, childrens and encyclopedism.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 19:35, 7 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Finished adding banners to all the pages under Category:Encyclopedias with the exception of individual encyclopedists, the sub cats under Category:Wikis about geography and Urena lobata. I didn't think the banner was appropriate for those.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 20:33, 15 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Finished adding banners to all the pages under following categories Category:Film guides, Category:Music guides, Category:Nautical reference works, Category:Numismatic catalogs, Category:Road user guides, Category:Sports reference works, Category:Stamp catalogs, Category:Star Trek reference books, with the exception of Star Trek Magazine, Star Trek: The Magazine and Star Trek spin-off fiction, which I didn't think counted. User:Ringbang did Category:Herbals.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 21:14, 15 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Finished tagging for Category:Bodies of knowledge. Under Category:Bibliographies I only tagged the ones under Category:Published bibliographies. The other bibliographies are mostly wikiarticles like Edgar Rice Burroughs bibliography, not actual reference works. There is currently a dispute about this cat.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 17:50, 16 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Under Category:Guinness World Records I only tagged the category, the main page and the Gamer's Edition as those only seemed relevant--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 20:59, 21 July 2016 (UTC).


 * Finished Category:Dictionaries.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 17:59, 25 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Finished Category:Yearbooks, Category:World record databases, Category:Trivia books, Category:Thesauri, Category:Style guides, Category:Books of quotations, Category:Glossaries, Category:Pharmacopoeias, Category:Florae (publication), Category:Gazetteers and maybe others.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 21:55, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Finding members

 * Alert other wikipedians to the existence of the project and see who wishes to join


 * Pinged several Wikipedians who expressed interest in the project

Other tasks

 * Create table of articles and other content included in project and their current quality and importance✅


 * Finish overall project page.

Participants
Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest.


 * 1)  I'm interested in working on reference works for visual arts, cultural anthropology, queer studies, African studies, and Asian studies. 04:21, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * 2)  My main interest in reference works are encyclopedias, both general and specialized, but am willing to work on other reference genres as well.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 17:03, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * 3)  I'm primarily interested in working on Chinese and Japanese reference works, but glad to help with ones in other languages too. 21:18, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * 4) John Carter (talk) 15:52, 28 November 2016 (UTC) Primary interests are expanding the Bibliography of encyclopedias and Bibliography of reference works pages and, maybe, finding sources in journals and suchlike to provide a basis for separate articles on works.
 * 5)  reference works, almanacs, year books, and obscure topic encyclopedias - including australian items JarrahTree 01:50, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * 6)  I rewrote Encyclopedism and nominated it as a good article.
 * 7) SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  – style guides, dictionaries, and their editors.  I actually rewrote Style guide and associated list articles, then lost them in a system crash before I'd saved them.  Whole day's work.  Will do it again some day.
 * 8)  (I am interested in working on the copyright infringements of reference works) 03:40, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

New articles
Please feel free to list your new Reference works-related articles here (newer articles at the top, please). Any new articles that have an interesting or unusual fact in them, are at least over 1,500 characters, don't have any dispute templates on them, and cite their sources, should be suggested for the Did you know? box on the Wikipedia Main Page. Fictitious Entry Lawi Encyclopedia of Law

Assessment
Fictitious Entry
 * Assessment

Peer review

 * Peer review

DYKs

 * Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX - 6 June 2008
 * Idiom dictionary - 29 May 2013
 * Papias (lexicographer) - 5 March 2010
 * Zhonghua Zihai - 25 April 2009

Resources

 * WikiProject Council/Proposals/Encyclopedias and/or Reference Works

Sister project links

 * WikiProject Books
 * WikiProject Wikipedia
 * WikiProject Libraries
 * WikiProject Education
 * WikiProject Bibliographies