Wikipedia talk:WikiProject California/Southern California task force/Archive 3

Responses from other WikiProjects to 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)

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)


 * 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)


 * 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)


 * Yes, it is POV, as I intended--which has nothing to do with Wikipedia and the various projects. Southern California cities may be worked on by people from the California project, because they are California cities, and they may be included topically in many articles in the California project (the black walnut grove in urban Los Angeles), and the state is not wholely divided.  KP Botany 23:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Summary of Tag Removal Discussions
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!

Any responses, please. Spamreporter1 19:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Responses
To the extent that the two projects involved different editors, the existence of both tags will likely foster communication, since an editor in one project may be curious about the interest of the other project in an article. Other than the fact that project tags are often large and obtrusive (and both of these are relatively neither), I see no harm in multiple tags. It's nice to know that so many editors are interested in an article.--Curtis Clark 04:56, 11 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)

I think that articles such as Imperial Land Company and Imperial Irrigation District should remain local articles; it is hard to see them as state-wide issues. (They don't even have a link to California on them; just Southern California and San Diego County, California.) I will agree that all incorporated cities should remain DUAL-TAG, and thinking about it, all freeways/highways should remain DUAL-TAG. &mdash;ScouterSig 17:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Just use and add all the templates you need. Considering excess talk page clutter can be consolidated under banners, there should be no problem. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 00:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The argument for the migration from California to Southern California banners for SoCal articles
There is very clear Wikipedia precedent for this division of articles between the two WikiProjects. For Stubs and for Categories, it has always been that if there is a very clear hierachy, then an article is almost always only in the most specific category. The same should be true for WikiProjects.

All 10,335 articles that are currently in the California WikiProject shouldn't also be in WikiProject United States. All of the articles that are tagged for WikiProject Poetry shouldn't also be in WikiProject Literature.

Take a look at WikiProject Council/Directory and you will see numerous hierachies of WikiProjects, such as all the WikiProjects that are descendents of WikiProject Film or WikiProject Television. Look at the layers of descendents under WikiProject Canada. Should all of the articles in a descendent project also be in its parent projects. No.

The same should also be true for the California WikiProjects. All of the articles that should belong to the Southern California WikiProject do not need to be, and should not be in the California WikiProject. It should only be the most important articles, and those articles that overlap regions, that should have the banners for both WikiProjects.  Blank Verse  16:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I absolutely agree; too much overlap is pointless. Anyone who is concerned with both can easily find the link to either project from the other's page. &mdash;ScouterSig 18:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Well stated, BlankVerse. And to expand on Scoutersig's comment, overlap may be worse than pointless&mdash;it may be counterproductive.  If an article was tagged with both projects, should they both be rated with their respective rating scales?  For instance, Riverside, California might warrant a high importance from WP:SOCAL.  However, the city might only warrant a mid importance rating from WP:CAL.  If every corporated city in Southern California were dual-tagged, this issue would occur often.  Would it really be worth the time to evaluate so many articles twice?  Brien Clark 20:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * As logical as this seems (and it seems very logical to me), it misses the issue of editor interest. IMO the point of a project is to induce editors to work on the project area and provide some community guidance in prioritization. Lets say that there was 100% overlap in the editors of the two projects: Your proposal would obviously be the right response. But if there were 0% overlap, editors in each project might not have articles brought to their attention that they could profitably edit. Obviously communication between the projects will ameliorate or eliminate the problem, but I think that's a key part of making this work.--Curtis Clark 04:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * WikiProjects serve a number of different purposes, but their most basic raison d'etre is to facilitate the collaboration of editors with interests in similar topics. One of the problems for WP:CAL is that the state is a very large, very diverse state, and by most measures is larger than most countries in the world. There are currently 10,335 articles with the WP:CAL project banner (roughly 1.8% of all Wikipedia articles with WikiProject banners&mdash;see v.1.0 WvW). Comparing WP:CAL with another US State WikiProject (haphazardly picked), WikiProject Pennsylvania currently only has 2,002 articles with their WP banner. Looking at a haphazardly picked country, WikiProject Denmark has 1,952 articles.


 * Part of the reason for the Southern California WikiProject (as well as the new WikiProject San Francisco Bay Area), is to cut that quantity and complexity down to a more manageable size. WP:SOCAL currently has 729 articles that have been all been added to the project by hand. If we can get a bot owner to help with adding the SOCAL WP banner to articles, I expect that at least 1/3rd of the WP:CAL articles will be WP:SOCAL articles.


 * To me, it just makes things much simpler if most articles are attached exclusively to a particular geographic WikiProject. There is no need, for example, to have Temple City, California cluttering up the list of California articles. So which cities should be tagged with both projects. In my opinion, only the very largest, most important cities. I'd only include cities with more than 1/3rd million population, plus county seats (e.g. Orange, California), plus a few cities whose importance or renown is larger than their population (possibly Oceanside and Newport Beach, as two examples).


 * As for communication between project, that is one of the reasons that WikiProjects always list parent projects, descendent projects, and similar projects. In many cases, editors will end up participating in related projects (even when they haven't listed themselves as members of the different projects). On the other hand, there are editors who want to keep a very narrow focus on their editing, and that's okay too.  Blank Verse  07:26, 13 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. Spamreporter1 07:33, 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 18:52, 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 Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject and/or on this Talk page. Spamreporter1 15:46, 17 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 17:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * P.S. Originally posted on the WP:CAL page; let's try (again) to have all the discussion on this 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? I don't have this page on my watch list as lots of members of WP California won't--it makes no sense to discuss an issue potentially of concern to all members of WP California on a subproject page.  KP Botany 18:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Although not all WP:SOCAL members are WP:CAL members, it makes sense to hold the discussion at WP:CAL since we are trying to reconcile with WP:CAL members and as a show of good faith. Let's continue the thread there.  Brien Clark 20:45, 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  14:23, 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 22:15, 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  14:23, 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)

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 15:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)