Wikipedia talk:Requested articles/Archive-subpages

Farming Articles Out to Other Request Lists
I'd just like to express my extreme disapproval for farming articles out to sublists. It makes it amazingly hard to keep track of what is actually requested. I don't really mind if this page particularly long, but I'd much rather have all the requests in one place. I can understand the need to do it in the case of Requested articles/mathematics and Requested articles/music, which are both huge. However, I see no reason to have Requested articles/media or Requested articles/military, both of which are tiny and just serve to make maintaining this list harder. I don't see them ever getting significantly longer. Unless someone objects, I'm going to revert. &rarr;Raul654 11:29, Jan 12, 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree -- subpages are a siberia. When you come right down to it - the only real subpages we need is Requested articles/biographies or Requested articles/people] for the tons of names he have in every category. Davodd 18:25, Jan 12, 2004 (UTC)


 * Agreed. If people feel the page is too long, they should write some of the articles. Bmills 08:50, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I got in touch with Maio, the guy who was farming them out, and he agreed that it was a bad idea. I spent a couple hours today incorperating all the subpages except math, sports, and music. All 3 of those are huge. Maybe at some future date I'll consider folding them in, but for now, I think this page is good as is. While I was doing the major revision, I reformatted this page to make it more friendly. &rarr;Raul654 08:59, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * To make a point of order, it was *I* would "farmed out" the categories, not Maio. I have been helping maintain this page for almost a year now. I created the subpages because the metapage was approaching 100K. Now that Geography is back in the main metapage, the metapage is at 39K. In my opinion, geography should be re-made into its own category. The subpages are perfectly easy to keep up to date. I was busy this week, so I was not updating them.


 * I will not move the geography parts again, until we have more dialog about this issue. I want you to know the reason the segments were moved, and the reason is size.


 * Do NOT "fold in" the other pages. The main metapage needs to be parsed down to under 32K. And in response to the idea of "If people feel the page is too long, they should write some of the articles," I completely disagree. The articles should be written by people who have a specific interest, knowledge or desire - NOT solely because the metapage is too long. Kingturtle 05:28, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I disagree - as someone pointed out, area-specific request pages are siberia - the articles there never get written. In three weeks, maybe a half dozen of the math articles have been written out of hundreds. Yes, this page is long, but not unduly so. I don't think it would be a good idea to fold in any of the three outstanding pages, because that would make this one enormously longer. &rarr;Raul654 16:15, Jan 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * It may be that there are less people who know enough about the math subjects at hand to actually write about them. People with a desire to make new math articles learn to go back to the correct request articles page. It isn't rocket science. In any case, it is important to keep the pages under 32K. Kingturtle 20:21, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * 1) "It may be that there are less people who know enough about the math subjects at hand to actually write about them." First, many of the requested articles are not on math topics per se, but on mathematicians themselves. Biographical articles like that require no special technical knowledge to write. It would seem then that there is something else at work. In this case (and someone else said above) - no one knows or cares to look at the subpages. (Mostly the latter).
 * 2) (As a computer engineer:) 32k isn't some magical number. It'd work almost as well at 34k. The village pump sometimes gets up to twice this size (or more), with no noticable problems besides long page-load times. What should be more important is getting the articles written. &rarr;Raul654 22:08, Jan 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * I would like to say that I think Wikipedia needs more orangizational teamwork. Many of us specialize in certain topics. I specialize in computers and electronics. I figure that if Wikipedia were to create a section for people who specialize in electronics with the requests put into that page things would get done a lot faster. People who specialize in things should have sections of their owns that way many people can gang up on requests and get them done faster. Example Electronic Request Workers--Cyberman 05:06, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

naming of categories
Please see the above conversation regarding how to name the categories on this metapage. It is very important to keep the alphabetization true, and to have it align left. I am making some slight adjustments today to put the alphabetization back to the way it was before. Kingturtle 20:13, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

If you have a subheadings (IE, a === ), then you have to have a heading ( == ), or else the page doesn't render correctly. The left alignment is important, but not for the TOC. &rarr;Raul654 16:15, Jan 18, 2004 (UTC)

geography...
A good number of requests under the Geography do not have to do with geography, per se. Geography implies physical features (rivers, cities). As I recall, before I created the Geography subpage, these were listed as Countries, Afghanistan rather than Geography, Afghanistan. I suggest we change it to Countries, (name of country). Kingturtle 21:34, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

A valid point. I agree. Do you also want to change the heading geography, or just the subheadings? (I'm inclined to keep it under the "Geography" heading) &rarr;Raul654 22:08, Jan 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * I think we should change Geography/Country Specific to Countries and then have the subheadings read Countries, Afghanistan, Countries, Canada etc etc. Kingturtle 22:26, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

SIZE
The size of this page is getting large again. I recommend we move part of it to Wikipedia:Requested articles/geography. Kingturtle 03:59, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * What do you mean? Should part of the talk page be archived?  Or should part of the actual Requested articles page be moved to the talk page? Acegikmo1 04:13, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Oops. i made a typo....I mean, we should make a subpage like Requested articles/sports. Kingturtle 04:18, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. The geography section comprises too large a part of the main page and should be separated.  But, now that I think about it, this talk page is pretty huge too...


 * Acegikmo1 04:48, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Many new article requests listed under geography have nothing to do with geography. Davodd 11:32, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)

I agree in principle, except I think that the subpages (Requested articles/sports and Requested articles/music don't get enough attention. Practically all the requests that appear on the top bar are from the Requested articles main page. Danny 04:21, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I strongly disagree - subpages are very harmful! The current ones we have are practically siberia. I think if you averaged it out, it would come out to approximately 1.5 requested sports articles get written per day; 2-3 math articles, and 3-4 music articles. At that rate, it'd be years before they all get written. The last thing we want to do is farm out more articles to those pages. &rarr;Raul654 04:52, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * Oppose new subpages; it dooms good requests to Siberia. I think we should prune the list of articles likely to be nominated for VFD or replace long categories with pre-existing list pages. For example, maybe we could replace the very long list of African writers requested with, See: List of African writers. Davodd 11:26, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)

I support the idea of more subpages. They are far more useful than having one page which is made largely uneditable by its size. If all the current subpages were merged here, the page would be 132kb. The page is more scalable if it is kept organised by subpage rather than trying to keep too much in one place. If the subpages aren't getting enough attention, they just need to be advertised more, not merged into the main page. Angela. 00:28, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)

This page can be made obsolete by categories
Category pages can contain a list of unwritten articles. See Category:Anthropology as an example. This approach is preferable to the current one, in my opinion, because the individual lists become much more maintainable (shorter pages, single history, single discussion page) and much more exposed (directly reachable from all articles in that category).

The one thing which is a bit awkward about this approach is that the requested articles are shown before the actual articles in a category. I believe this can be easily fixed by simply changing the software to show the text of the category page below the subcategories and articles.--Eloquence* 22:53, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... We'd lose the ease of a central point of reference for requested articles, and maintaining the lists of unwritten articles would still require manual intervention on each individual category page.


 * I do generally like the idea, though - it'd be especially useful for those articles that fit multiple categories, and it would allow individual users to keep track of the new requests in their favorite categories without having to worry about other new requests. - jredmond 03:45, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure a central point where requests are stored is necessary. Generally we want people to write about what they know and what they are interested in. Aside from that, we still have the single list of "most wanted articles". I don't see how manual intervention can be avoided using human-maintained lists.--Eloquence*


 * Now that I've had a chance to think about it a bit more, my own arguments fall flat.


 * A central list is useful for telling newcomers "see, this is what we really need", or for a large single list of to-dos for bored regulars - but I hadn't thought about Special:Wantedpages, and Requested articles has its own subpages anyway, so that point is basically moot.


 * And the manual intervention bit is really just an added hassle, and then only when a new article is listed as "requested" in several categories; conscientious editors will find and edit all the relevant category pages through "What links here". Plus, hopefully, those people watching category pages will keep them somewhat tidy.


 * So, AFAIC, moving towards categories would be a good thing. Now we just have to put all these red links onto the appropriate category pages... - jredmond 15:30, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Many users know nothing about categories within wikipedia. It seems to make more sense to maintain a requested articles page, as well as add links to categories, that way it's easier to edit and find such links. Rhymeless 00:56, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It should be enabled in the software for red links to be added to a category without creating the page. Bensaccount 21:37, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

On second thought, it just requires a bit of formatting. I didn't like the format of Category:Anthropology, but if it were done like Category:Airports of Canada it would work. Bensaccount 04:42, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * With the overhaul on April 28, the several new multiple and confusing sub-request pages destroyed the original intent -- and usefulness -- of the centralized requested article page. This page should be reverted back to its original form: EXAMPLE -- or deleted. Davodd 10:45, Jun 19, 2004 (UTC)

internal links of inclusion lists
I removed the internal links of inclusion lists because they cause the user to think the link will take them to requested articles. The only active links on this page should be links that take the user to lists of requests, or other pages that involve requests. Kingturtle 00:01, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Philosophy
Which section should a request for a Philosophy article go in? Cadr 10:10, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Requested_articles/Social_Sciences_and_Philosophy

Biographies Requests
Since biographies are a large part of traditional paper encyclopedias, shouldn't it be more than a hard to find footnote category on the Requested Articles page? I don't want to mess with the page myself, as I've been away from Wikipedia for a while, but it should be more visible.

jbrave

some subtopics are linked but others are not, why?
Why are none of the subtopics of the subpages linked except for the ones under "Subdivisions" and "Other classification schemes" which are linked to articles, not the sub catagories that I assume they should be. I would just fix it, but its been that way for so long, I think there must be _some_ reason. If I don't get any response in a few days, I'll just link all the subtopics to their sections on their subpages, including those one "Subdivisions" and "Other classification schemes". I hope I get an answer... JesseW 09:51, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Splitting a section
I'd like to propose splitting the Culture and Fine Arts section into two new sections: Pop Culture and Fine Arts. Pop Culture would be for the categories like Celebrities, Movies, Television, Anime, Comic Books, etc. Fine Arts would be for Literature, Theatre, Dance, Poetry, etc. Is there support for this? MK 23:57, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. -Sean Curtin 01:56, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

In-tray
I have just added a section called "in-tray for requests" to the top of the requests page. I did this in response to a contributor who complained that the requests page was too complicated, and that it deterred people from making requests. (I assume that this isn't our intention!) My goal was to make the process easier for newbies. I thought it would be easier to make the change and then discuss it, rather than the other way around - such is the immediacy of Wikipedia :-) --Heron 12:23, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Duplication of subject categories
I've noticed that several subjects are covered by several categories, for example Military requests can be posted in either Requested_articles/Social_Sciences_and_Philosophy or Requested_articles/Applied_arts_and_sciences. It seems that Applied arts and Social sciences especially seem to overlap, especially in areas of politics. Obviously such subjects need putting in either category, but clarification needed urgently. Just wondered where others stand on this? (Don't know how many areas this affects. Perhaps something as radical as a complete redraw of request categories is required?). Grunners 03:04, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I think we can just semi-arbitrarily pick one of the overlapping categories and move the items, then leave a soft-redirect(i.e. a note and link) in the unused category. I've done this with a few of them. JesseW 04:53, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sports
I'd like to propose splitting the sports request page into sub-pages for each individual sport. I occasionally venture onto this page to see if their are any Association football or Rugby articles I can write, but soon give up as finding football or rugby players from the list of hundreds of requested sportsmen and women is an impossible task, and I'm sure many many other users are put off in the same way. Grunners 03:06, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Dividing this page by sport is a good idea, but I don't think we need separate pages. A section on this page for each sport would work just as well. - SimonP 17:50, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed, but we're still left with a mammoth task, with each article needing investigation to see where it fits. Better get cracking! Grunners 22:01, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Cleaned Up
I had some time on my hands, and noticed the very big list of uncategorized requests. I categorized them all and cleaned some blue links out of the categorized requests. Luigi30 03:44, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks!! JesseW 04:53, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

And once again, no more blue links *pant pant* Luigi30 14:47, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * And again! User:Luigi30 (&Upsilon;&sigma;&eta;&rho; &tau;&alpha;&lambda;&kappa; &#923;&#965;&#951;&#947;&#951;&#923;) 21:31, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Social Sciences and Humanities
I edited what seemed to be very odd categories out of the Social Sciences and Humanities section but they've been restored. Cam someone explain to me why these are subject areas in need of their own headings? - Lerner New York - Chivington Massacre - Atlanta Compromise - 1882 Immigration Restriction - Pope Eugenius - Critical Race Theory - Richard Rorty Surely Richard Rorty would go under Philosophy/Philosophers?

Missing categories?
The category list seems somewhat limited; I'm trying to put a request for a physics/astronomy-related topic (warm-hot intergalactic medium), but I cannot seem to find a spot for that; there's certainly nothing under Applied Arts and Sciences... Radagast 17:19, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)


 * I had to reinstate Natural Sciences and Culture and Fine Arts today after a couple of days of being missing. I have just now come to find that there has been a single edit since my reinstatement - an edit involving the removal of Natural Sciences. These are coming from different IP addresses and aren't simply removed, but are replaced with text in the form of a vague request. --Oldak Quill 22:02, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I added a category "Novelties" under the arts. That's because Wikip. does not seem to have a category for Prince Rupert's Drops. Novelties are little things like patent "magic tricks," fireworks, commemorative articles such as spoons hung on the wall with the name of a city or resort visited, and, I suppose, trophies. And there's that watch with a permanent face painted with the hands at, say, 6 o'clock. "Tells the right time twice a day." Also baseball cards and many collectibles would fit there.

Pdn 02:51, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)