Wikipedia talk:WikiProject California/Archive 4

Oops - small newcomer goof
It appears that User:Brien Clark has been doing a good deed, and deleting a large number of tags from cities in Southern California, and adding  tags instead.

I've left a polite note on his talk page, explaining about WikiProjects, and explaining that cities can easily be part of two or more projects. I've asked if he would be kind enough to replace all the tags that he deleted. (See Please do not bite the newcomers.) Spamreporter1 22:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This was discussed in WikiProject Southern California, where BlankVerse suggested the switch:


 * If this is not the general consensus, let's discuss this now before any more tags get added or changed. Also note that I left any prominent, well-edited cities, like Los Angeles, California and Cerritos, California with the dual tags.  Brien Clark 00:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Conversion of to {{WikiProject Southern California} for most SoCal articles
To focus the discussion: Operating in good faith, members of the descendant WikiProject Southern California reached consensus that a large number of California cities should have the tag removed, and instead, only a  tag would be in place. In fact, operating in good faith, this deletion/substitution process has been well under way.

However, it doesn't appear that this deletion/substitution process was discussed on this parent project page first.

Hence, reactions are now being sought, please, from the members of this project.
 * Do you agree that the tag should be removed from a large number of California cities which are in Southern California?
 * Alternatively, do you agree that both and  tags should appear on Southern California city articles?

Responses, please! Spamreporter1 02:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Many articles have multiple WikiProject templates on their talk pages. talk:Drum Barracks, has three, for example, and I've seen as many as five. Note, however, that the WikiProjects on the Drum Barracks article are all very different WikiProjects: WikiProject Southern California, the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject, and the American Civil War task force of the Military history WikiProject.


 * My personal opinion is that when there is a clear hierarchy of WikiProjects, then in almost all cases an article should ONLY be in the most specific WikiProject. Bell, California. for example, should only be in the Southern California WikiProject, and does not need to be in either the California WikiProject or WikiProject United States. In fact, most members of the latter two projects probably care not one whit about Bell, California, so the city would just clutter up their lists unnecessarily.


 * Only those cities and topics that are very important, such as Los Angeles, California or Death Valley, or that cross the boundaries between Northern and Southern California should get tagged with both the Calif and SoCal WikiProject templates.  Blank Verse  06:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Southern California Articles should still bear the WP:CAL tag. WikiProject Pittsburgh and WikiProject Philadelpia leave articles tagged with WikiProject Pennsylvania tags. This is the common, accepted way to do this on Wikipedia. --Chris Griswold (  ☎  ☓  ) 08:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with BlankVerse. Most of these things should not have been tagged with WP:CAL in the first place and it was not done with individual consideration to each article. It was an expediency thing done by a bot going through a bunch of general California-related categories. Changing the tags for the ones that aren't actually relevant to California as a whole is simply a move to divide and conquer the work of overseeing the massive number of articles. The City/State case is not really comparable because Southern California's scope as a region covers more than most states and certainly more than any individual city WikiProject. The more telling comparison is WP:US v. a state WikiProject; it would be silly to suggest that all the things tagged with WP:CAL should be also tagged with WP:US just because they are "in" the scope. Mike Dillon 15:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with BlankVerse et al. The purpose of WikiProjects is to help coordinate and organize article writing.  Having every minutia that refers to California tagged with  is not helpful.  That is why the project has 10,321 articles, and with only 38 participants, seems like an overwhelming task.  It seems if that number could be broken up to smaller, more confined groupings, then more articles could be paid attention to.  Brien Clark 20:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with BlankVerse and Brien Clark; I should, since I'm the guy we seem to be talking about (check my edit history). Some of my points: The SOCAL project was created before the CAL project (see here and here), so quote—"parantage"—endquote is a matter of how you want to define that word; I understand reasons for both. I think that the HUGE discrepancy between so many articles and so few members, smaller chunks is useful. Compare to (rough numbers) for the projects Acdixon mentions:
 * WikiProject Louisville: 40 members; 1400 pages
 * WikiProject Bluegrass Region: 10 members; 180 pages
 * WikiProject KYOVA Region: 11 members; 90 pages
 * WikiProject Kentucky: 35 members; 2000 pages
 * I generally like the India solution; only one tag needs to be used for many projects. However, there are 16 Indian sub-projects, and only two here; also, ALL of the sub-projects are more-or-less decidedly also related to the parent project. For the California projects, a single high school doesn't have to be linked to WP:CAL :how important is this to the entire state? ANY user REMOTELY familiar with geography will recognise that Southern California implies the rest of California. And I think that any of those articles, particularly ones on small cities, will have a link to California in them. I agree that both tags should be on certain "big" articles, though J.smith's idea to use both tags can become unmanagable in a few iterations: imagine if everything was tagged with everything possible (see WP:NOTAG, as short as it is). Talk pages would quickly be overrun by tags; categories too could quickly send the bottom of the page sprawling on for screens endless as far as your monitor can display (a bit of poetic license there). I just see the separate projects as needing to be just that, seperate. If projects are continually nested, then why have smaller projects?  Smaller projects imply that there will be greater focus on improving articles: there are about 8000 unassessed California articles! How can they possibly get the attention they deserve from less than 40 participants?! KPBotany, I'm sorry you felt that what I did was "hostile," "without logic," and not "helpful in the least bit" because I was trying for just the opposite: supportive, thoughtful, and helpful.&mdash;ScouterSig 06:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the tags should BOTH remain. Since members of WP:CAL will be inevitably working on WP:SoCal articles, I don't think it proper to remove the parent project tag.  There is no reason there can't be two tags.  I'm not sure why they need to be removed... AnthonyWS

Please see The argument for the migration from California to Southern California banners for SoCal articles on the SoCal WikiProject's talk page.  Blank Verse  15:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Response(s) from Other WikiProject pages regarding removing WikiProject California tag
To make for easier reading, I will copy and paste questions and responses from other projects here:

Because I am curious how others might have addressed this situation, I have also posed this interesting question at the WikiProject page, here and WikiProject City page, to see if there is a broader consensus on this issue. Spamreporter1 06:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Responses thus far: 1. Broadly speaking, the consensus (or gentleman's agreement among WikiProjects, really) has been:
 * Properly-placed WikiProject tags are never removed; the only time they get taken off is if the article is deleted/merged/redirected/etc., or if it's not in scope of the project in the first place.
 * It's perfectly normal for articles to have multiple WikiProject tags.
 * The real answer here would have been to set up something like WP India, with the child project's tag absorbed into the parent's. (Quite honestly, I don't understand what the point of having a Southern California project completely separate from the main California one is to begin with; but that's a broader issue.) Kirill Lokshin 06:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Kirill is commenting on the Southern California v. California WikiProject split without knowing the history. WP:SOCAL was created first and WP:CAL was only created later to serve as a parent for WP:SOCAL and cover the rest of the state that nobody else had been covering as a project up to that time. BlankVerse started both projects and, in my opinion, this project is woefully dormant for a state of California's size and prominence. Hopefully that will change, but it's not up to WP:COUNCIL what WikiProjects make sense or not. Mike Dillon 15:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

2. Sounds like some kind of odd gaming going on. Any article can be under the auspices of a number of different projects; it's not an exclusivity thing! The yanked tags should be restored, and the offending people should be gently chided. Is there anything on the talk pages of either project? -- Orange Mike 15:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

3. If the article falls under the scope of both WikiProjects, then it should have both WikiProject banners. They should be restored.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 16:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

4. Unless WP SouthernCal is a sub-project of this one (and I speak from ignorance here) then I don't see the issue with having both tags. Many projects have overlapping "territory" and since no project can own an article, thats not realy a problem. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

5. We had a similar situation at WikiProject Kentucky, which spawned several child projects, including WikiProject Louisville, WikiProject Bluegrass Region, and WikiProject KYOVA Region. In particular, the Louisville (perhaps more appropriately, the Louisville Metro) project began changing WPKentucky tags to WPLouisville tags. At first, I also resented that change, but I came to realize that it does help get the best editors for a particular topic on those articles. We list good and featured articles from the child projects on the WPKentucky page and generally try to work in partnership with the child projects. And, in cases of significant overlap, we leave both banners. For example, Frankfort, Kentucky is located in the Bluegrass Region, but is also the state capital. Acdixon 16:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

6. Just leave the WikiProject California tags alone, and restore the ones you've removed. Until you secede you're part of the state, and you'll never secede because you'll go thirsty--which is what this is beginning to seem like. There is nothing whatsoever that prevents members of WP SouthernCal from attaching tags to their cities without removing those cities from WikiProject California. Southern California is NOT a bona fide political entity, completely separate from the rest of the state, it is, in fact, politically highly dependent upon resources from the north for its population, to make it at Wikipedia something it is not, is inappropriate. You never should have removed the WP California tags without first discussing it with WP California. KP Botany 17:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Your hostility is not helpful. Mike Dillon 19:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This argument is full of non sequiturs. This tagging issue has nothing to do with Southern California's dependence on resources or seceding from the state.  The issue is grouping tags relevantly, in a manner that will spur concise article writing.  Brien Clark 20:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's why I said this is what it seems like in my post, because it is a non sequitur, there is no reason or logic to pull California cities out of California and make them only Southern California just because they're in Southern California. Adding WP Southern Cal tags doesn't change the geography or politics of these cities, neither does adding WP California tags.  I don't think the original hostility of removing the tags without consulting Wikiproject California was helpful in the least bit.  In general, acting without consulting those concerned is hostile.  KP Botany 02:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This all seems like a tempest in a teapot. I'm not sure why it required canvassing for so much response. Changing the project to a more specific one makes sense on the face of it. We don't include articles in both parent and child categories. A well-intentioned editor could easily have assumed that the same would be true for projects. Let's move on. -Will Beback · † · 02:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

7. I agree that the WikiProject California tags should never have been removed, and should be restored. That said, the rest of KP Botany's post is rather POV.--Curtis Clark 16:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

8. I was going to say the same thing, basically, but Acdixon beat me to it. WPLou and WPKY get along quite well, and oftentimes in the few cases where we have a jurisdictional question, we just keep both project banners on the talk page. It's all good. There's normally no need for dual city/region and state project coverage. Stevie is the man! Talk &bull; Work 20:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)  (copied from WP:CITY by Brien Clark 23:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC))

9. I agree with BlankVerse. The Southern California wikiproject did the right thing technically, but apparently they should have provided better courtesy to the state-level project. Stevie is the man! Talk &bull; Work 20:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)  (copied from WP:CITY by Brien Clark 23:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC))

Please see The argument for the migration from California to Southern California banners for SoCal articles on the SoCal WikiProject's talk page.  Blank Verse  15:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Summary of Discussions about Tag Removal Issues
I am posting this as a new section for sake of easy reading. The following is intended as my summary of the views expressed thus far:


 * There are a group of editors who have the good faith, well-intended belief that where there is a larger regional WikiProject and a more local WikiProject, it is appropriate and practical that the tag of the local WikiProject be the only tag that appears on articles of local interest. Further, they have the good faith, well-intended belief that if the tag of the larger, regional WikiProject is already on a local article, the regional tag may be removed, and the local tag put in its place.


 * This group of editors also have the good faith, well-intended belief that articles about cities in Southern California are of sufficiently local interest only, such that the tag of WikiProject California may be removed, and the tag of WikiProject Southern California only be put in its place.


 * There are other editors who have different views. These other editors subscribe to the good faith, well-intended belief that, at least for cities, it is appropriate for both the regional and the local tag to appear.


 * Indeed some editors report feelings of resentment and anger (even if inartfully expressed) that the regional tags were removed from the city articles, and the local tags only were put in place.


 * There is a separate, but related, set of questions related to procedural issues about when and how WikiProject tags may be removed at all.
 * In particular, one set of editors undertook a large scale removal of tags of another WikiProject without prior discussion on the pages of the targeted WikiProject.
 * There were mitigating circumstances because of history and overlapping editors between the two projects.


 * After a call for discussion, a large number of editors affiliated with the local project weighed in (including a significant number of senior-level editors) explaining their points of view.


 * One person from the regional project and one person from the local project weighed in to object to the removal of the larger regional project's tags.


 * A significant number of outside observers weighed in to express their concerns about the removal of the regional WikiProject's tags, and to express their concerns about some of the procedural issues.

If I may offer the following observations to help move this forward.
 * 1) It is easy to agree that purely local articles may safely have only the local project's tag.  For example, Los Angeles's Griffith Park or San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter can probably have only the local project's tag. (Although curiously, Talk:Griffith Park has only the California tag, and Talk:Gaslamp Quarter has both tags.)
 * 2) In my view, the more difficult question is where to draw the line on the spectrum between "local" and "regional" articles.  There is perhaps the perception among at least some of the editors who weighed in that cities properly belong to both projects, and that the line was drawn "too high" on the regional/local spectrum.

On a going-forward basis, is the following a workable solution? ♦ That California tags not be removed from city articles, but that they may be removed from articles of more local interest. ♦ That, in any event, no more California tags be removed at all, without express discussion and consensus on that project's talk pages.

Obviously, as a proposed solution, it is subject to tweaking and improvement!

I am posting this here and on the Southern California talk page. May I request that any responses please be placed on the Southern California talk page, so as to condense the discussion. Having said that, responses please! Spamreporter1 19:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Project standards
Somebody just moved my followup to the above to the other project page and added a hidden warning in upper case. However, I put it here on purpose, because I'm not really interested in the tagging controversy and I was addressing the members of this project, so I'm pasting it back in.--Hjal 06:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it's been about 90 years since LA passed SF in population, and it's likely that us Northern Californians will get used to Southern California dominating the State in no more than another 90 years. Good luck.


 * OT, I don't see any problem with treating WP:SoCal the same as we treat sub-categories--put everything below the Tehachapis in SoCal and drop them from Cal. If people are interested in articles in both categories, they can edit anyway, or they can join both projects. Same with WP:SF, etc. However, I think that it would be good to set statewide standards here, so everything ends up looking like it was coordinated.--Hjal 02:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Tag replacement discussion continued
The reason that I brought this issue (of tag replacement) to the attention of this Project and other Projects is that I think that what is happening here is really a microcosm, perhaps a test case, of what are good relationships between regional and local WikiProjects. I'm not sure that a consensus has yet developed in the discussions on this page.

You may be interested to know that there are some innovative approaches being currently discussed on a more general basis on this WikiProject page about this issue. The members of this Project may find this other discussion useful in assisting their thinking here. (As before, I am requesting that any comments be posted on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Southern_California in order to condense the conversation.) Spamreporter1 07:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Australia and India suggested as model
There has been a suggestion that rather than use the "parent/descendant" model to structure the WikiProject California/Southern California relationship, instead use a "project/sub-project" model - as is currently being used at WikiProject Australia and WikiProject India. The main difference is that while each sub-project has its own project page, talk page, tasks, COTWs, etc., it does not have a separate tag. If you are interested in seeing if this project/sub-project model might work for California, you are invited to those project pages for your review. Spamreporter1 18:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Responses from WikiProject Australia and WikiProject India
At the suggestion of a more senior editor, I made inquiry of WikiProject Australia and WikiProject India about their structure. It appears they avoid this "dual-tagging/single-tagging" issue altogether by using a "project/sub-project structure" rather than a "parent/descendant" structure.

I have received the following responses to my inquiries to WikiProject Australia and WikiProject India about their "sub-project" structure:

Your question to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australia

 * In reality, subprojects of WikiProject Australia are their own autonomous group with their own sense of community. Sub-projects of WP:AUS generally maintain themselves, however fall under the parent WikiProject Australia for WP:1.0 assessment purposes. Some Australian sub-projects fall outside of the parent project and have decided to assess their own aticles (an example is WikiProject Football (soccer) in Australia, leading to the situation where a talk page becomes cluttered with many unneccessary templates. We're about to combine assessments for sub-projects into the master WP Australia template so that sub-projects need not create their own assessment scheme. The benefit of this is that sub-projects can assess their own articles, and their assessments contribute to provide an overall look at the state of Australia-related articles without fragmenting the results. You may want to look at WP:INDIA which has already adapted what we require. -- Longhair\talk 19:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * We're try to change to adapt to editor's needs. Check back often, you never know what we've been up to until you take a look ;) -- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Longhair (talk • contribs) 04:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

Your question to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject India

 * Our response will be similar to the Australian one above. I had initially copied their template and improved upon it.


 * 1) Sub-projects work autonomously and have their own community. They have seperate project pages and discussion pages. See WP:KERALA.


 * 2) COTW still works at the parent level since participation is low.


 * 3) All sub-projects use the same project banner. For example, for an article that falls under the scope of India and Kerala.


 * 4) The project banner creates assessment categories at individual project level as well as at the parent. Class tag is shared across projects. Since Importance could differ between sub-projects, we have separate importance tags for each project. For example, will put the article under Top importance for Kerala project and High for the India project.


 * 5) Sub-projects are identified as workgroups on the talk page banner. For a few of our projects (Indian cinema), banner displays the sub-project in a separate box. For example, will generate two boxes, one for India and one for Cinema. This way, the sub-project gets more ad-space. See Talk:Aishwarya Rai. This is needed for topical projects that loosely integrate into the national project. Indian cinema has both India and Films as parents.


 * 6) The parent project's menu bar is displayed on all sub-project pages. This will give visibility and help invite more participants into various sub-projects. In topical projects such as Indian cinema, the menu bar is trimmed down to a small box. The menu bar displays assessment statistics table of the project currently displayed. See WP:KERALA and WP:INCINE.


 * 7) The automation department at the parent level supports all sub-projects. They help with automated talk page tagging.


 * This type of integration avoids redundancy and helps sub-projects concentrate on the article improvement than worry about templates and technical stuff.


 * Hope that helps. Regards, Ganeshk  ( talk ) 03:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Summary of Inter-WikiProject Discussion thus far
The question: Where there is a parent/descendent relationship between two WikiProjects (WPs), when should the descendant WP tag be the only tag that appears, and when should articles have both the parent and descendent tags?

The following is my (hopefully very brief) summary of the discussion thus far on the issue of when and whether WP tags should be removed, or whether articles should have two WP tags ("dual-tagged"). To use a (hypothetical) example, when should the WP:OHIO tag be "dual-tagged" on all Ohio city articles, and when should the WP:WEST OHIO tag be the only tag that appears on Ohio city articles?

Option 1 - "Very limited dual-tagging." Just a few, the "most important," local articles are dual-tagged; all other local articles have only the descendent WP tag.
 * Pro - promotes clarity, focus for the descendent WP; analogize to category structure: only the most local cat appears in the cat hierarchy; reduces conflict in assessment scales
 * Con - parent WP is harmed by not being able to recruit or offer standards; analogy to category structure not valid, because senior cat is not harmed; no harm to local WP by dual-tagging

Option 2 - "Full dual-tagging." All articles within a relevant area have both parent and descendent tags.
 * Pro - promotes cooperation between WPs, allows both WPs to recruit, does not harm descendent, avoids "tag revert wars" (no WP tags should be removed without consent of that WP)
 * Con - creates tag-clutter and confusion; encourages inter-WP conflict; reduces ability of local WP to recruit

Option 3 - "Some dual-tagging." Middle-ground between Option 1 and Option 2 - a significant number (but not all) are dual-tagged.
 * Pro - "best of both worlds"? Allows parent access to a significant number of articles, while giving descendent focus and clarity; "where to draw the line" is subject to express agreement between the WPs
 * Con - needlessly complex; will lead to endless debates about "where to draw the line"

Option 4 - "Project/Sub-project" structure. Avoids tagging controversy altogether by having local project be a "sub-project" (that is, it has its own page, COTW, etc., but not a separate tag) - see WP:AUSTRALIA and WP:INDIA as examples.
 * Pro - this is the best of both worlds; both projects are able to have their own identity, community and tasks, without having to argue about tags; WPs are able to interact without worrying about "turf wars"
 * Con - this makes it too difficult for the local WP to maintain its identity, and the local will wither into the parent

I have likely neglected some arguments (probably your favorite argument) pro and con - but the intent here is to summarize briefly the points of view that have been expressed thus far. Responses are being collected at WT:SOCAL and/or Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject. Spamreporter1 15:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of issues, as people have stated. First of all, it should have been discussed first--this stops the knee-jerk reaction: don't do that. Second, one of the examples given Imperial Valley Irrigation District, or whatever, is one of the few water projects in California that don't pillage the whole state, although this gets into complex issues down the line. Third, there are just too many tags on too many talk pages. I hope others will reconsider on this, and let the SoCal project go ahead, carefully replacing California WP tags with SoCal ones where there is no controversy. KP Botany 05:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Skip it, the SoCal people are working too hard to make sure that random members of the California Project don't have a voice, first by just changing the tags without discussing it first, and now by making sure the discussion can't be followed by folks monitoring project California.  KP Botany 19:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you're jumping to conclusions. Not all members of WP:SOCAL are members of WP:CAL (I'm not, for instance). I do think you're right that WP:CAL had a knee-jerk reaction because they were not aware of WP:SOCAL's discussion and execution of retagging.  I admit WP:SOCAL should have done a better job with communication on this issue. However, I think here WP:SOCAL members are just trying to keep a thread going in one place, and not trying to be dicks.    Brien Clark 19:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * But SoCal has already discussed and decided to do it and members of WP:CA objected. So, you've made a decision already, and now you're seeking input from whom?  From members of SOCAL on what you've already decided?  No, from members of WP:CA on the discussion you made.  I didn't realize this when it was first decided to keep the conversation on SOCAL, until I missed the conversations because I don't describe.  You made a decision on one project board that impacted members of two projects, without discussing it with the other project.  It's now time to discuss it with the other project--the discussion belongs on the WP:CA board.   If you admit the kneejerk reaction was caused by the failure of WP:SOCAL to make WP:CAL aware of what was going on, why continue to act in this manner?  KP Botany 19:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This was probably an oversight, or a different thought process. The discussion is on SoCal retagging Cal tags, so the editor may have thought it more relevant on the SoCal page.  However, you do make a point, the discussion should continue here since we're trying to reconcile with WP:CAL.  Brien Clark 20:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Those 4 options are kind-of self-evident, and the only options aside from the complete revamping of both wikiprojects to be like India's or Australia's (which no one seems to be seriously suggesting). All the recent discussion has been in favor of minimal-to-medium dual-tagging. I contacted many members of both projects, and even those I did not contact could/should still be participating in the discussion if they so wanted.


 * That being said, I think that while no real consensus has been reached (with only a handful of users still participating), I will continue with retagging "Obvious" (as ephemeral as that word is) pages as only Southern California, being exceptionally cautious for incorporated cities, counties, and various regional or trans-regional pages.&mdash;ScouterSig 17:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * P.S. I will repost this on the WP:SOCAL page; let's try (again) to have all the discussion on that page.


 * How about let's try to have all the discussion on the obvious page, the one that includes members of both projects, the parent project page, rather than the one that doesn't include members of both projects? Be exceptionally cautious for water projects and irrigation districts, also.  KP Botany 18:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Note
To try to follow all discussions on this issue, you have to look at the talk pages for at least four different WikiProjects (California, SoCal, CITIES, and COUNCIL), as well as the talk page for WikiProject, because the sockpuppet Spamreporter1 has been copying different comments to the different pages without telling the different WikiProjects or the authors of those comments, and without identifying where the different comments came from.  Blank Verse  14:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The views of each of those Projects was solicited because each is affected by the topic. I have requested that any responses be condensed, and have assisted that process.  People are going to respond where they want, and I'm trying to avoid disputes over where the conversation is going to take place, by performing the clerical act of copying responses.  If anyone has a suggestion of a single place that all interested parties are comfortable watching and responding there, that would be a good solution. Spamreporter1 22:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

All done by a bot
I have to wonder if some of the extreme hostility and incivility that has been part of this discussion on this project's talk page, and some other project's talk pages is the result of some editors assuming that the SoCal WikiProject has been 'undoing' some editor's hard work. In reality, the tagging of almost all the article talk pages (on over 10,000 articles!) with the WikiProject California banner was done by a Bot, User:MetsBot. At the time, the bot's owner received quite a few complaints, and because of that quit doing any bot-tagging for WikiProjects. It really wasn't the bot's fault, but the fact that that some articles had been miscategorized (such as a couple of Oregon cities that probably some waggish vandal had categorized as California cities).  Blank Verse  14:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Another option suggested
In an effort to keep the conversation condensed, the following suggestion was copied from here:


 * There is another option currently employed by WP:GER & its subprojects. Integrated tagging. The subproject is on a switch of the main banner. Agathoclea 08:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Even simpler solution
What WikiProject Tropical cyclones and WikiProject Meteorology do is that there is no dual tagging, but all articles tagged by are fed automatically into Category:Meteorology articles by quality, as well as Category:Tropical cyclone articles by quality. If there is a need for both projects to have different assessments, that can be done by having SoCal or any other narrower project include a wpcal-class parameter in their templates, or something similar. The other template would trigger the same assessment logic in the California WikiProject banner, without the added clutter. Then, SoCal can make a quick note, like "This template was assessed as A-Class by WikiProject California" like MilHist does for their task forces. Both projects would remain independent. Tito xd (?!?) 06:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Important Inter-WikiProject discussion going on at WikiProject Council
As noted above, the above WP Cal/WP SoCal conversation is really a microcosm of a larger discussion about the best roles for WikiProjects in Wikipedia. There started out only a modest number of WPs, and there are now a large number of WPs, and more being created every day.

It makes sense to me to pause and think about a sensible Wikipedia-wide assessment of what is the best relationship between larger-scale and more local-scale WPs. The WP Cal/WP SoCal conversation is only one example of a number of such conversations going on around Wikipedia.

There is an interesting discussion taking place now at WikiProject Council (a central discussion point for conversations like this). A draft policy has been proposed there and is being discussed about what are "best practices" regarding the relationships between larger-scale and more local-scale projects.

If you are interested, you are welcome to offer your thoughts and observations. Spamreporter1 15:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)