Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cooperatives/Archive 1

Co-operative Difference
Not really a Wiki thing, but anybody with an interest in co-operatives might want to take a look at this from Cooperatives Europe. JonStrines (talk) 15:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

User Lists in two different places?
Why do you have both a Participant List and a Participants Category?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Cooperative (Law) Article?
On the Task List Cooperative Corporations Law is listed. I've raised the issue on Cooperative and Project Law that maybe we should have such an article under the alternative title Cooperative (Law) to address Cooperatives from a legal perspective rather than trying to tell people how they are structured in Cooperative (which currently has numerous factual inaccuracies in that regard). Please see my comments on Cooperative and Project Law and leave comments here or there. It would be helpful to know how we want to do this before I try to clean up the US legal info on Cooperative.

--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Doug: my recommendation is that you take it and run with it.  Structural issues can be dealt with later.  Good luck!Brett epic 05:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Pauline Green
I've done a substantial reworking of this article, and I think I've put in everything I can find: I'd really appreciate a second pair of eyes going over it to check for errors, uncited statements and general compliance with wiki guidelines. I've also asked the biography people to take a look. Cheers Terrypin 10:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Categories
Hi, me again. Can anyone help me understand why we have a Category:Co-operative Party politicians (UK) with Category:Labour Co-operative MPs (UK) as a subset? I thought all Co-operative Party politicians were under a joint Labour/Coop Party banner? Or is the difference that some are MPs, whilst other are polirticians? Cheers Terrypin 15:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Close. That is one difference. The other is that while many Labour politicians are card-carrying members of the Co-op Party, only a handful are officially endorsed.  This is explained a little more at Labour Co-operative.  For homework, figure out what category Gordon Brown should be in.  --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 22:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Dividend
Until yesterday, Dividend relegated coops to a brief sentence near the end. Some parts of the movement give the dividend other names, such as patronage refund. I have endeavoured to make the coop divi more clear, with a few edits to emphasize that the original article was unconsciously written about the joint stock company. I assessed it as B Class for this project. The coop and mutual sections are still weak, so please pitch in. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 22:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Akhtar Hameed Khan for WP:FAC
The article has been put as Featured Article Candidate at Featured article candidates/Akhtar Hameed Khan for opinions and comments. -- Isles CapeTalk 19:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

John Lewis Partnership?
''cross posted from Talk:British co-operative movement

I was surprised to see the John Lewis Partnership listed at British co-operative movement as a worker co-operative, though I knew it is owned by its employees. So I did some reading, then asked about it at Reference desk/Humanities. No responses yet, so if you have any suggestions, please post. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:51, 14 May 2008 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2008_May_13#Why_.28and_when.29_did_Britain.27s_John_Lewis_Partnership_start_calling_itself_a_co-operative.3F


 * ''some discussion is archived at Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2008_May_13

Faster, further !
I just thought that with the summer coming up people might want to consider speeding up and deepening the cooperative section of Wikipedia. There are currently 429 articles in WikiProject Cooperatives, of which 1 is a Featured Article, 2 are Good Articles, 19 are B articles, and the rest fall below B (start or stub). For comparisons sake, the WikiProject for Nova Scotia, one of Canada's smallest provinces, has 653 articles including 38 rated B and above. Wikiproject Taxation (there's an exciting one!) has 782 articles, of which 47 are rated B and above. (And why would people have collected 1,711 articles for WikiProject: Dead Malls?  OK, enough comparisons...)

Anyway, in the past couple of months I've tagged quite a few articles to WikiProject Cooperatives, and there seems to be a lot of 'low-hanging fruit' out there. About 25 or so Canadian credit unions with entries (often already claimed by WikiProject: Business and Economics) weren't tagged here. And how about Verghese Kurien, the founder of AMUL, one of the largest and most successful cooperatives in the developing world? Or Luigi Luzzatti, a former Prime Minister of Italy and founder of the Italian credit union system? Or Leone Wollemborg, the founder of rural credit cooperatives in Italy? Or Ian MacPherson (historian) one of the most prolific of cooperative historians? None tagged to WikiProject Cooperatives when I stumbled across them. With a concerted effort, we could probably get up to 1,000 by the end of August. I suspect there are easily that many on Wikipedia; we'd just have to find them!

Then there's the matter of quality. How hard would it be to push the number of B class and higher articles from 22 to 50? I can't speak about how hard it is to get articles moved up from 'start' to 'B', though I think that's basically our own group assessment. In any case, if we reached a total count of 1,000, we would probably have 50 rated B or over without anything moving up a grade. And that would offer some great raw material to get more to Good Article and Featured Article level.

Any comments?Brett epic (talk) 18:32, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Associated Press was not tagged. That is a B class article for free.  More importantly, it looks like it is close to WP:good article standard if someone is willing to put in the effort. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 17:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Main page
I put Lothian, Borders & Angus Co-operative Society in the Did You Know queue (so it should be on the main page for a few hours, in 4 or 5 days time). It could do with some brightening up before then, perhaps a photo of a shop. If you chip in with some interesting facts or engaging prose, I will be delighted. (Template talk:Did you know: oldest co-op in Scotland) --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 17:05, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Do any of you have access to a list of the 19th century co-operatives that eventually merged into The Co-operative Group? I ask because I want to double-check that Lothian, Borders & Angus Co-operative Society is the oldest in Scotland (1839). --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:57, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

On the Main Page for a few hours today. Here if you missed it. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 14:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Oldest co-operative

 * Congratulations, Hroðulf! It would be good if we could get our story straight though.  In the article on the Rochdale Pioneers (which is still looking as meagre as the contents of their first shop) the first line says it "is usually considered the first successful co-operative enterprise".  Elsewhere it is referred to as the first 'modern' cooperative, which may or may not be an inconsistency.  I've taken the liberty of up-dating cooperative history by inserting a link to this LBA in the appropriate place.  But this generates an awkward inconsistency in the text, which I will leave it to a better informed head than mine to resolve!Brett epic (talk) 16:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

This has been puzzling me since I wrote the Lothian Co-op article. I have seen other sources that call Rochdale Pioneers the first really successful co-operative (not just Wikipedia!) The only hypothesis I have to reconcile the two is that Galashiels and Hawick were not doing too well, and they adopted the Rochdale Principles a few years later, and became successful. This hypothesis seems highly unlikely. The documentation of the foundation dates, though from secondary and tertiary sources, seems absolutely firm. Since Lothian Co-op is large and profitable (though not paying a divi) I think that trumps the sources that say Rochdale Pioneers was the first successful co-op, but I guess they still get the credit for the eight Rochdale Rules. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 17:43, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * So, Lothian may be the first successful cooperative in Scotland or simply another cooperative that helped consolidate the gains made at Rochdale by spreading them abroad? And there is the unstated implication hanging over your article:  if Lothian was the first in Scotland and it was before Rochdale, was it the first in the world?  In cooperative history there are organization cited as precursors to cooperatives going back to the 1400s.  It is stated that cooperatives differed from early mutual organizations because they successfully fused informal principles of cooperation with practices of the modern enterprise.  Where's the bright line, and where did it all start?  Surely there must be a cooperative expert somewhere who can weigh in on this?Brett epic (talk) 04:51, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * (Waving hands wildly to attract attention of expert). Good question, Brett.  Rochdale (1844) is not even the oldest consumer co-operative in England.  Heart of England (Coventry) claims to have been founded in 1832  (7 years before Hawick and Galashiels.) --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 07:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't class myself as an expert, but I know that identifying the first co-operative is a tricky business. Partly it's down to identifying what a co-operative is: the UK has no specific co-operative legislation (the IPS Act is the closest, but many co-operatives are set up as companies because the Companies Act is so regularly updated) and the ICA's definition is based on the Rochdale Principles and so can only really identify co-ops established since 1840. You've got organisations that say they are co-operatives but don't meet even a vague definition - Quidco, for example - and you've got co-operatives that meet most definitions but don't style themselves as co-operatives - stand up John Lewis Partnership. I don't think it will be possible to claim with any accuracy who was first chronologically without a universally agreed definition - if we find a couple of guys in 1310 who pooled their resources to buy a fishing boat and shared the profits, are they the first co-op or just an early partnership? Unfortunately, that definition just doesn't exist. JonStrines (talk) 08:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think Brett and I are looking for the first co-operative, but for the oldest co-operative (still in business today).

For the articles I am interested in today, I want to narrow the definition further and say oldest consumer co-operative in the UK.

Being a corporate member of the Co-operative Group is prima facie evidence of being a consumer co-operative. As far as I know, Lothian Co-op doesn't subscribe to the Rochdale Principles in full, and doesn't pay a dividend (maybe it did in the past.) So, in my opinion, all I need to find the oldest consumer co-op in Scotland is the list of co-ops that amalgamated with CWS.

To get another opinion on the Rochdale Pioneers article, I looked at another encyclopedia (library card needed) today. John K. Walton says "The Co-operative movement ... foundation (is) ascribed to the ‘ Rochdale Pioneers’ who set up the first store to pay dividends to members on the basis of how much they had purchased from the society." I will change that article now, as I don't think 'first successful' holds water, but please contribute secondary sources to back that up. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Please read the following 2 articles if you haven't already: Sadly neither is peer reviewed, but both are accessible to casual readers. It would be nice we could capture some of the colour of the 1830s and 1840s in Wikipedia, while of course doing our best to attribute the origins of the co-operatives that are still trading today.
 * http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/co-op03.htm
 * http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/index.php?id=158

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:34, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd say in terms of trying to find a definitive oldest co-operative anywhere, you're on dangerous ground: like I said, there is no one source that identifies co-ops in the UK - you can say that Lothian and Borders is probably the oldest consumer co-op in Scotland, but to make it definite (and Wikified) you've got to be able to say for certain that there isn't an older one in existence. Not all consumer co-operatives are part of the CRTG, not all of them sell produce (look at the Phone Co-op) and so far not all of them have been properly catalogued.
 * That said, if the Rochdale article states that they were the first or the most successful, then it should be changed: the Pioneers are inaccurately named in some respects, and they do take a lot of the credit away from other important early co-operators. JonStrines (talk) 20:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Lockhurst Lane
If any of you has access to Blackwell-Synergy (university students?), then this might be useful:

Paul Hibberd (1968) THE ROCHDALE TRADITION IN CO-OPERATIVE HISTORY IS IT JUSTIFIED?1 Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 39 (4), 531–557 doi:10.1111/j.1467-8292.1968.tb00715.x http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8292.1968.tb00715.x

According to Google Scholar, it mentions Lockhurst Lane.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 08:49, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

F.W. Raiffeisen
Does anyone know of a resource in English that talks about Raiffeisen's personal life? I would love to expand the wiki article on him. I have more than adequate material on his work, but nothing on his life, and I don't read German! Thanks.Brett epic (talk) 03:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Broken portal
Please see Portal talk:Cooperatives --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Northern Co-operative Society
I started an article yesterday. As usual, no photos, and only 2 sources, but I haven't mined those fully yet (so you are welcome to.) It seems that investors funds were expected to be safe, despite the receivership, but I haven't seen confirmation of that. Help of all kinds welcomed. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I submitted the article to the "Did you know?" queue. With any luck, it will share a few hours of the main page spotlight in the next day or two. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 20:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It has been on the main page for a couple of hours now. Blink and you will miss it. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
 * The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
 * A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot  ( Disable )  22:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

A navigation template for UK consumer cooperatives?
There are a couple of proposals under discussion at Talk:The_Co-operative_Group. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 19:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Societies of The Co-operative Group
Please see talk page at British co-operative movement. Richard ( T 14:58, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Cooperatives
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Opportunities for writers: the 10 biggest cooperatives
Inspired by the v0.7 project (above), I browsed through the top 10 of the ICA Global 300. I was surprised to see that 8 of them are below B class. No doubt a couple of the assessments could be tweaked, but basically there are at least 8 opportunities here for people who like researching and writing new material about globally significant businesses. Table follows: enjoy! --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you could add several or all of these 10 to your watchlist, to avoid errors creeping in. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 08:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Great news: today's featured article
I just read the announcement that Akhtar Hameed Khan "will appear on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on 9 October 2008."

Congratulations to all involved.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:46, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

America's oldest cooperative?
Tagging a few articles for the project this weekend, I noticed that Philadelphia Contributionship is a stub of just two sentences.

This is probably way more important than the top 10 I mentioned above (assuming that mutual insurance is within the scope of the wikiproject), so whoever digs in and makes it a real article will earn my great admiration :)

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:40, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

New types of co-op?
Jon Strines pointed out to me a list from co-operative development experts in the UK: at page 5 of http://www.cooperatives-uk.coop/live/images/cme_resources/Public/ots/Starting-a-Co-operative.pdf

3 of the 5 terms listed are fairly new to me: I wonder if the terms have become established in the business studies, economics or political science literature. If so, we should look at a way of usefully explaining them in Wikipedia.
 * Community cooperative
 * Cooperative consortium
 * Multi-stakeholder cooperative.

I am not familiar with the term cooperative consortium, though the definition encompasses a huge part of the worldwide cooperative sector (retailers and most agricultural cooperatives).

We have a couple of examples of community cooperative articles at Wikipedia: Baywind Energy Co-operative, supporters' trusts, and Shared Interest. Perhaps there are other articles. Are these rare outside the UK?

I get the impression that multi-stakeholder co-operatives form a very new type. Perhaps it also emerged in the UK. I think that those NHS foundation trusts that call themselves co-ops are of this type, and perhaps also the UK's co-operative trust schools (no article yet.)

(As the UK is unusual in not having a co-ops statute, perhaps that is why these unusual types of co-op form there.)

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 22:38, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I noticed a US example: Nebraska Rural Radio Association seems to meet the Co-operatives UK definition of a community cooperative. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 03:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Of the three types mentioned, it seems to me that only Multi-stakeholder cooperative is a genuinely new type that deserves further examination. This is an interesting concept that needs further study. As to the other two, community cooperative as treated on pp. 3 and 6 of "Starting a Co-operative" seems to be a variant or a sub-category of consumer cooperative and should be dealt with as such. "Cooperative consortia", from the two brief mentions in the document, seem to be a "consortium of cooperatives", i.e., a kind of a second- or third-level cooperative created for the usual reasons by a number of primary cooperatives. This does not look like a new type of coop to me. My personal impressions, of course: have not searched the literature yet. --Zlerman (talk) 04:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that the first 2 are not types of new cooperative, but a new taxonomy for existing cooperatives. My question is: are the new terms important enough to mention in the Cooperative article or elsewhere?
 * Further, I will be especially interested to see what you find in a literature search for multi-stakeholder cooperative.
 * --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 05:09, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I think certainly the "co-operative consortium" definition is just a rephrasing of co-operative federation or its synonyms co-operative union or secondary co-operative. If we're going to take the C-UK document as a reliable source (and I can't see any reason why not), then the existing federation article probably just needs updating to add the variant name. I've not come across multi-stakeholder co-operative as a definition before either, but I think you're right in thinking its an attempt to define the new form of co-operatives where everyone from the local government to the service users are considered members.
 * I don't consider that community co-operative is a sub-grouping of consumer co-operative, though (this is the original discussion I was having that brought the PDF up): it's a distinct type of co-operative based on a different group of membership. If a worker co-operative is defined by the members having an employment relationship with the co-op and a consumer co-operative is based on the members having a purchasing relationship with the co-op, a community co-operative defines a co-op where the members don't necessarily have to have either of those relationships. I think I'd be right in saying, for exanmple, that members of Baywind don't have to purchase from the co-op or work for it to qualify: in that sense, it can't be either a worker or a consumer co-op but something else. JonStrines (talk) 10:00, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. &mdash; Delievered by §hepBot  ( Disable )  on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts
This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the  parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 08:59, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I just subscribed on behalf of the project.  I expect links to appear at WP:COOP at the bottom of the project page.  --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 06:03, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for signing us up Hroðulf. The alerts helped me save about 10 articles from deletion last week. Gobonobo  T C 18:46, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh dear. Someone went on a PROD spree of credit union articles so thanks for saving and improving them.  It seems to me that a chartered CU that has been around a few decades should be automatically notable.  I don't know if there is a problem with the notability guidelines or merely a lack of knowledge about searching local or archived news sources.  --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Expanding World Council of Credit Unions Page
While reviewing this page I noticed that it lacked information about this organizations many activities as well as links to other pages about cooperative financial institutions. I would like to work with other editors to thoroughly & accurately represent WOCCU in this article. Please contact me if you are interested in collaberating or feel free to make additions. There should be ample information about World Council availible on the internet and through credit union trade publications. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! Unespecialista (talk) 22:06, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I tried to spruce this article up a bit, but it's still in horrible shape. The bullet points need to be replaced by prose, the history section needs to be expanded, and it might be nice if it had an infobox.  The introduction could use a little finesse as well. I had some difficulty finding reliable sources that weren't credit union journals on the internet. Gobonobo  T C 10:49, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Help to merge short article into Oberlin Student Cooperative Association
There is a consensus at Talk:Oberlin Student Cooperative Association to merge Fairchild Co-op into the parent article. Could someone help with this please, as I do not have time? --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:56, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure thing. I'm on it. Gobonobo  T C 18:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

category discussion
There is a category renaming discussion relevant to this WikiProject at Categories for discussion/Log/2009 November 26. Hiding T 12:35, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Revamp main page for WikiProject Cooperatives
Our front page is hard to navigate and cumbersome. I think we need a new layout, maybe something along the same line as wikiproject philosophy's set up. Also should probably archive this page since its getting lengthly. Gobonobo T C 07:15, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes - a briefer front page should help.


 * The experiment at archiving didn't seem to work well, as most of the requests for help that were archived from 2008 have not really been addressed, and there is no link to the archives.


 * --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:05, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. The archive should be up there now. Almost done with the revamp. Gobonobo  T C 06:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Pageview stats
After a recent request, I added WikiProject Cooperatives to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at WikiProject Cooperatives/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 02:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

First Co-operative Congress
While researching something else I found reference to a possible First Owenite Co-operative Congress in 1827, earlier than the accepted First Owenite Congress. I am considering whether to make reference to it in the article Co-operative Congress, but it's not really my subject and I'm unsure about the validity of the source and whether there has been any subsequent confirmation that's part of the accepted history of co-operation. I've posted details and a link at Talk:Co-operative Congress and would welcome any thoughts. Ka renjc 16:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

This project is dying for input (but not dying - I don't want that to be misread)....
I just added "Food for Thought Books" to the worker collective page. I know there are a lot more collectives in the world than that, esp. in Venezuela and Cuba. I'm not an expert though. If anyone knows of any collectives, then they should add them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Burneatgodfeartv (talk • contribs) 23:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised there isn't information about all the worker collectives that were in the United States in the 1970s. Is that considered off-limits, or is it just that there is a dearth of material on that on the web? Most of the people involved in them are still alive today. MargaretBartley (talk) 18:29, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's certainly not off limits. Some of the worker collectives may not meet basic notability requirements, but as long as there are reliable sources (from the internet or otherwise) to support an article, there's no reason that someone couldn't create it. Check out Category:Worker cooperatives to see what currently has articles. I'm not very familiar with worker collectives from the 70s though. Hoedads Reforestation Cooperative is the only one that comes to mind. Were there other specific collectives that you had in mind? Gobonobo T C 03:58, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup listing
The cleanup listing for this project has been updated. Gobonobo T C 14:03, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot
Okip  01:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I opted us in.  --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:07, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that. Looks like we're doing pretty good on the unreferenced BLP front. I added a link to the listing from the main page. Gobonobo T C 06:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am really glad your project is taking care of this, thank you for your dedication to the project Gonobo! Okip  01:12, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Breezy Point, Queens
The Breezy Point, Queens page has undergone siginificant vandalism mixed in with good edits over the last dozen or so edits. Sorting through the mess to fix it will take a not insignificant amount of effort. Any chance someone here can go in and separate the wheat from the chaff and fix the vandalism that's been going on over there? &mdash; Eric Herboso 02:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks good now I think. Gobonobo T C 03:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

MMCCU Page Needs Help Soon
The Masters of Management: Cooperative and Credit Unions (my first attempt at a page) sounds too much like an advertisement. I've tried to clean it up, but don't have a good ear for what sounds like an ad. Can people help? I think that this page deserves to live. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Management:_Co-operatives_and_Credit_UnionsJohnthecoopdude (talk) 15:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry it took so long to get there. It looks better now, but probably requires more references to assert its notability. The Rural Cooperatives article is a good start, but it should have 1 or 2 more reliable third-party sources to ensure its permanence. Gobonobo T C 12:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Cooking co-ops
Should anyone care to cut their teeth on a new article, cooking cooperative has yet to be created. There are plenty of sources available to flesh out an article - here are some news pieces from New York Times, Country Woman Magazine and Pittsburgh Post. Gobonobo T C 12:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Three new featured articles this year
Those who follow the article assessments will know that David Lewis (politician) was promoted to Featured Article status in June. I offer my personal congratulations, for what they are worth, to the editors who worked on Lewis's biography.

Two existing featured articles were tagged as co-op articles, Eric A. Havelock and Mutual Broadcasting System, bringing the total count to six. All three new articles are interesting reads.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Enumclaw Insurance Group was deleted
The article on a Washington state mutual insurance company, Enumclaw Insurance Group, was deleted last week for lack of notability. Here is some background: with a little more here, However a Google News search from 1990 to 2010 turned up merely a few dozen court reports, which presumably relate to insurance claims so I don't think are useful for building an article, as well as a few passing references to the company's use of Linux.
 * http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=4717003
 * http://enumclawexpocenter.com/history.html (scroll down to the section on cooperatives)

If you are interested in restoring the article, you may need to search regional newspaper archives for significant coverage.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Diamond Foods logo add-in?
Can someone please add Diamond Food's logo to the page in the company overview box? The logo can be found here: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1440&bih=715&q=diamond+foods+logo&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Thank you! Claudia.pesce (talk) 00:29, 29 October 2010 (UTC)Claudia
 * Sure thing. Should be up now. <font face="Verdana" color="333300">Gobonobo  T C 02:11, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing
I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Cooperatives articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Cooperatives articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 22:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Only eight of our top-importance articles, out of a total of nearly 39, made the cut for this offline release. In my mind, Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers is the most disappointing of several notable topics that didn't reach the required standards.  It only scored 785 points, and requires quite a bit of work to move it from Start class to C or B class.


 * We should take this as encouragement to improve the quality of our most important articles. Volunteers please start researching and writing!


 * --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:38, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Notability guidelines for cooperatives
I feel that a notability guideline for cooperatives should be developed. The general notability guidelines or organisation guidelines are not specific enough. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:19, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. You have recommended the deletion of the Cobb Hill Cohousing website based on notability, as I understand it.  I am not a wikipedia expert so am not adept enough to counter your arguments.  But it does seem like intentional communities serve as models and should remain a part of wikipedia. Philip W Bush (talk) 21:36, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

If anyone has time, I suggest more labelling of worker / consumer / tenant / shareholder categories of co-operative to aid the notability test. It's unclear to someone who's interested in one category why another is notable at the moment. In the UK, Ruskin House for example is a shareholder co-operative also known as a company; any interest is purely historical and political. Peoples' Press Printing Society likewise. On the other hand uk staff-owned companies listed by the employee ownwership association are pretty rare here and deserve listing in detail I think. Veganline —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.177.114.0 (talk) 09:35, 31 March 2011 (UTC)


 * By listing in detail do you mean creating articles for these businesses? gobonobo  T C 21:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I think a notability guideline for cooperatives would be difficult to craft since a wide spectrum of organizations, businesses, and business models are deemed cooperatives. Factors that we might use to identify a notable agricultural cooperative, for instance, would be very different from those we would use for a worker cooperative. Is there a specific criterion not present in WP:GNG and WP:ORG that might be indicative of notability in cooperatives? gobonobo T C 21:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

UN International Year of the Cooperative 2012
Hello fellow cooperators! I propose that WikiProject Cooperatives recognize the UN declaration (see http://www.2012.coop/) and that we make it a priority to write, edit, clean and perfect the cooperative articles and entries. It is an exciting time to be a coop worker, owner and philosopher. Let's do it together. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jfricker (talk • contribs) 19:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Here are some relevant links.
 * "United Nations Declares 2012 International Year of Cooperatives" at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/dev2784.doc.htm
 * "ICA Coop" at http://www.ica.coop/al-ica/
 * "Coop Directory Service: Find A Natural Food Coop Near You" at http://www.coopdirectory.org/
 * "coop" at http://www.directory.coop/explore.htm ("The .Coop Directory")
 * "Cooperative Grocer" at http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/
 * —Wavelength (talk) 01:06, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Alaska credit union articles
I assessed Alaska USA Federal Credit Union for WP:ALASKA, which you have assessed as a stub. There appears to be at least a little improvement since it was assessed. Why I'm really writing this: you have it assessed as low importance, yet you have Credit Union 1 (Alaska) assessed as mid importance. Alaska USA is substantially larger, in terms of its assets, number of members, geographical reach, etc. Perhaps a reassessment may be necessary.RadioKAOS (talk) 19:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks RadioKAOS. I've reassessed the article. <font face="DejaVu Sans" color="333300">Gobōnobo + c 21:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Fair trade commodities
Hello all! I'm interested in editing the Fair trade article to include examples of specific commodities like coffee, cocoa, and clothing and textiles. I want to look at the differences in labor practices for these commodities and see how (or whether) fair trade companies actually promote sustainability and fair labor practices. This is important because many fair trade commodities are rooted in cooperatives, especially coffee and cocoa. I will also edit the rest of the article to correct for criticisms that the article is not neutral throughout. I will draw sources from journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, Research in Economic Anthropology, Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, and World Development. Any and all suggestions are welcome as I attempt to make the "Fair trade" page more comprehensive. I especially welcome insight on how fair trade cooperatives operate. Allisonshields (talk) 04:45, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Allisonshields. I'm glad you're using quality sources. This search also brings up some papers that reference both fair trade and cooperatives that might be useful. There's quite a broad spectrum of cooperatives involved in fair trade, with some merely paying fair trade prices for products to third parties and others actively involved in setting up cooperative arrangements in farming communities. It should be noted that not all organizations that call themselves cooperatives actually operate cooperatively. It is rather difficult to make generalizations when the business models, laws, and circumstances vary so widely from country to country. I look forward to seeing your changes. Cheers, <font face="DejaVu Sans" color="333300">Gobōnobo + c 16:51, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

The Rochdale Pioneers: New film
There's a new film, commissioned by the co-op to look out for about the Rochdale Pioneers who opened the first successful co-operative shop. Just premiered on UK Film4, so will no doubt be repeated several times. Regards, Eric:  Esowteric + Talk  19:08, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Have created a stub article: The Rochdale Pioneers (2012 film).  Esowteric + Talk  20:04, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

New WikiProject for squatting
Hello,

I've just created WikiProject Squatting to address our coverage of squatting-related topics. You would be most welcome to join. &mdash; Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   10:26, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Jessie Stephen
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Jessie Stephen. -- Trevj (talk) 09:28, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Editing Self Help Groups (finance)
I would like to make edits to the SHG (fiance) article. This article, in it’s current iteration, it that it is too brief. Self-help groups (SHGs) are part of a large-scale anti-poverty intervention in India that reaches over 30 million people or households (Shyamsukha, 2011). The self-help group model is the largest part of the microfinance movement in India. I have an outline, but I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this?

--PaulaStockman (talk) 20:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC) Shyamsukha, R. Microfinance Information Exchange, Inc., (2011). India: post microfinance crisis results. Retrieved from website: http://www.themix.org/publications/mix-microfinance-world/2011/11/india-microfinance-post-crisis-results

Women's cooperatives in developing countries
Hello all! I'm working on a class project to integrate the topic of women's cooperatives in the developing world into the existing Cooperatives page on Wikipedia. I am interested in adding it to the existing Cooperatives page as this will allow it to get the most traffic. Please let me know if you feel there is a better place to put it or if it should have its own page that is linked in as much as possible. My focus will be on the development of women's cooperatives, how they differ from the status quo, and how this trend has shifted over time. I was also hoping to highlight certain cooperatives that are doing well in specific countries, but wanted to integrate this instead of listing it out as a country-by-country list (which could never be fully exhausted). I will also edit the rest of the article to correct for criticisms that the article is not neutral throughout. I will draw sources from the International Labour Organization, the United Nations year of the Cooperative (2012), journals such as Gender and Development, as well as several books I have found on the topic. Any and all suggestions are welcome as I attempt to bring some attention to the importance and development of women's only cooperatives. Emmyloumanwill (talk) 06:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Emmyloumanwill. Thank you for working on such an important topic. I left a response for you over at Talk:Cooperative. <font face="DejaVu Sans" color="333300">Gobōnobō + c 17:36, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Retailers' Cooperative
Hello Wikipedia, I am working on a school project to improve wikipedia's information on retailers' cooperatives. They are very interesting, as each member is a business rather than a person. I am currently editing the wikipedia page for retailers' cooperatives. IF anyone has anything that needs to be added/deleted from the page, or any reliable sources/information on these cooperatives, let me know. I am modeling the page after the "consumer cooperative" page, with a section each on : DEFINITION, GOVERNANCE/OPERATION, EXAMPLES (and will sort these examples by country, and include more international examples), FINANCE/APPROACH TO CAPITAL ACCUMULATION, PROBLEMS, PURSUIT OF SOCIAL GOALS. There is also the "list of retailers' cooperatives" page that is missing many notable examples and has many incorrectly placed businesses- companies labelled as co-ops that are not. If anyone has any reliable sources on retailers' co-ops, any new examples for the list, finds any mistakenly added businesses on the list of retailer cooperatives, or has any other suggestions, please let me know! Thank you Ryan.smith12 (talk) 04:22, 22 May 2013 (UTC)RandyRabbit

Template:Infobox cooperative
There is currently a discussion taking place at TfD to determine whether to merge Template:Infobox cooperative into Template:Infobox company. <font face="DejaVu Sans" color="333300">Gobōnobō + c 01:15, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Erroneous Photograph: The Normandy
The photo that is supposed to show The Normandy at this Wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Normandy, shows instead the building across the street from The Normandy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.232.53 (talk) 19:02, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Question about an organization that connects artists with file sharers
We are looking for advice on forming a group that will help artists connect with people who share their files. The possibility of creating a cooperative has come up, and we are looking at that as one option. The cooperative would be in the US, probably based in California.

There's a war going on between the record and film industries and people who are sharing files. This has lead to copyright maximalism, which serves nobody. There is a simple, obvious solution, which has been tried a number of times and works- if you give people who are sharing files a direct way to connect with and purchase from the artists, they are much more likely to do that than people that don't share files.

I'm a former professional musician who has made his living in the technology arena for the last 30 years. I have watched artists being bled from both sides. A few years ago I was involved with a very successful widget that sold Eric Clapton music video DVDs by distributing a free Eric Clapton music video, a free Carlos Santana music video, and several other things.

I have developed an early version of an app that offers many more options than the Eric Clapton widget. It allows allows artists to connect directly with people sharing files, whether the files are being shared on the P2P networks, through websites, or using cloud technology.

We are looking at ways to bring this to artists and file sharers. We are considering forming some form of cooperative group. We think that will give us more credibility with both artists and file sharers. There is even the possibility that the major labels and film studios would see this as a way to back down from their rather extreme approach.

The current fight is not doing anybody any good, and it has already started to limit free use of the internet. We're looking for ways to take things in a different direction. I would greatly appreciate your comments with regards to making this a cooperative.

Tjeffries1948 (talk) 03:13, 29 November 2013 (UTC)Tom Jeffries

Popular pages tool update
As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at ~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man ) 05:00, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Plan to revise article
As part of a class assignment, I am planning on editing the article for Social entrepreneurship. The existing article on social entrepreneurship is rated C-class, and though it is relatively well-written, I believe that a few changes will make this article even better, hopefully to a B-class article. Currently, the article has large sections on "History" and "Current practice," but those are the two only substantial sections of the article. The article would benefit from greater depth and expansion of the article with several new sections and subsections, most notably in expanding the definition of social entrepreneurship in practice, and making subsections about key figures, an online presence, and major organizations involved. A "case studies" section will serve to further develop the definition of social entrepreneurship to help see how it applies to society today. A section on public opinion can provide a view on the net impact that social entrepreneurship has had on people. One of the users, philip.desautels, mentioned that there is some debate on the definition of social entrepreneurship, and my vision is that by both helping to cement the idea of social entrepreneurship as a theory and practice, any ambiguities about the definition and the ideas it encompasses can be cleared up. Deniselee26 (talk) 22:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

National articles on cooperation?
We are a group from Poland and we want to first and foremost write/improve articles in polish wikipedia. Should we jin this WikiProject or create our own? --Movonw (talk) 16:47, 11 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi. You're welcome to join this WikiProject. This project is primarily for collaboration on the English Wikipedia, but I imagine we would enjoy working together with groups focused on other Wikipedias. On the English Wikipedia, so far, we have dedicated articles for the History of cooperatives in the United States, Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, and Cooperatives of Norway. Is your group interested in working only on the Polish Wikipedia or here on en.wikipedia.org too?  gobonobo  + c 22:56, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Cooperatives at Wikimania 2014
Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014 For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to: Project leaflets Adikhajuria (talk) 12:56, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:COOP
Hi folks. With a small team of editors, I'm building a mentorship space that we are called The Wikipedia Cooperative, or the Co-op, as a part of an Individual Engagement Grant (see here). As such, I was hoping to be able to use the redirect WP:COOP that is currently pointing here. Thanks, <font color="green" face="Candara">I, JethroBT drop me a line 17:20, 20 July 2014 (UTC)


 * your mentorship space sounds like a great new project. You waited 6 days for a response from us, which seems reasonable, despite the effort many people have put in to edit articles about co-operatives.
 * I am not sure why you call your project a co-operative. Can you explain?
 * Please suggest an alternative redirect for us to use.
 * I have fixed some of the incoming links. Please fix up any remaining.
 * --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:06, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi . I chose the term co-op for this space because the nature of mentorship is, by definition, cooperative.  Furthermore, while a small team is building the infrastructure for the space, the space will be run and maintained by the community for the benefit of Wikipedia generally speaking (i.e. editors come to learn the skills they need and can be more productive wherever their interests are).  I previously added in WP:COOPERATIVES as a redirect to this WikiProject which was not there previously.  WP:COOPS might also work.  I have to get some rest now, but I will address the remaining incoming links soon.  Thanks for bringing them to my attention. <font color="green" face="Candara">I, JethroBT  drop me a line 10:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks . I think all the remaining incoming links are unimportant.
 * As regards your project's name, almost everything we do in the Wikimedia project is co-operative (adjective), and it is great to add mentorship to that mix. However, when I say 'a co-operative' or 'the co-operative', (or 'co-op'), I usually refer to a business, or to students on classroom work experience. I encourage your team to choose a more distinctive name, which should help with your growth and publicity.
 * --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I will speak with my team in regards to renaming our space; it's still early enough that we could do so. But in fairness, we have spent a reasonable amount of time discussing our name and identity for our space; the concept of food cooperatives is one that strongly resonates with us. Images of these kinds of co-ops at work like this one where people are working together in pursuit of growth makes the concept very attractive to us.  It's true that a lot of work on Wikipedia is done cooperatively, but I do not feel that learning how to edit Wikipedia is necessarily one of them, and our project is aimed at editors who would prefer a learning experience with another person rather than on their own. <font color="green" face="Candara">I, JethroBT  drop me a line 19:00, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Need help updating Alaska USA Federal Credit Union page
Hello, I work in marketing at Alaska USA Federal Credit Union. I don't want to violate conflict of interest rules, but we've noticed that the Wikipedia page about our company has outdated information. I wonder if there's an editor who can help make sure the information about our company is correct. Could I also suggest additional topic areas that could be added?LizannB (talk) 23:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Agriculture cooperatives
Dear all, I would like to update the article on agriculture cooperatives based on my research and work with three cooperatives in Eastern India. I would particularly like to edit the section on why we need cooperatives, and add some information on how to start cooperatives (with India as an example). Do let me know if you have any thoughts. Thank you. Tanyajk (talk) 23:23, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!


Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Protection of curiosity
This section relates to the talk section of the cooperative article. More closely to a portion of the talk page where there is a request for validation of the claims in the first two paragraphs is requested amongst other topics, and where factual correctness of the article/introduction (first two paragraphs) is topic.

wiki/Talk:Cooperative - sub section 12 "Validate!"

Considering the form of the article, probably posting here is better, even though Wikipedia permits comment to be made directly on the talk page next to the cooperatives article, really neat. :)

This comment is directed towards the form of the article, although it is also directed towards -Doug, who has re-written the first two paragraphs.

The heading was set because curiosity is nice for young adults.

body of message -

The purpose of this comment is to tempt to provide constructive criticism while avoiding to promote rash changes in the form of the article.

It is curious how to figure out how to make a non-standard comment here. A general criticism would be applicable to many subjects listed at this site. Many subjects listed here are written by knowlegeable people but are also written at a come as you are mode. Contributors are encouraged or at least welcomed to contribute content with secondary regard to their language degree. Non-standard comment supposedly, as expressed here, is not necessarily applicable to other similar articles and topics available at this site, yet hopefully of value in illustrating the need to further moderate the form of this article.

It should be my aim to argue here the article is ruining the cooperative. In it's current form, the article is factual and bears the appearance of being very big. There is ample room for big articles at thie site (probably?) but the article about the cooperative should not be one of them.

In other articles purpose of introduction could be to establish factual basis and solidify respect to the subject being described. In the article in question here the purpose is not to develop the respect to the cooperatove as a serious party. Supposing the purpose is neither to achieve a smooth surfing/information gathering experienve. Neither is protection of curiosity the only priority.

This article would be more valuable on it's own provided changes are made to make it less valuable to lawyers, not for the purpose of making things more difficult for lawyers to gather information but to make the article a more productive component in the immediate availability to also children.

Claimed here, wikipedia should not be accused of hiding truth or ommitting fact were it to offer a more romantic introduction to the cooperative. Precicely what could fit inside a "romantic" introduction to the cooperative should be interesting to find out for Wikipedia. Hacking fast towrds the middle, "multi-stakeholder cooperatives" is a term which doesn't fit well in with a "smaller" introduction to the cooperative, in the first paragraph of the description.

In support of making the article less strict from the start my aim is to remove the first sentence.

A cooperative ("coop") or co-operative ("co-op") is not "an autonomous association of people who voluntarily cooperate for their mutual social, economic, and cultural benefit."

A cooperative ("coop") or co-operative ("co-op") is "the near opportunity to participate alongside other people in day to day matters."

This is so because the cooperative as an association the aim of which is to give cultural and economic benefit is confusing to understand to someone who is 35 years or younger and who does not have a law degree. Although this last claim is not entierly true there is some support for making modification to the first sentence in the article within, optimistically.

(Obeligz (talk) 20:25, 24 January 2015 (UTC)(

Sources - Cooperative article at Wikipedia

re-organizing categories
Hello, I'm pretty new to editing but I wanted to propose a different way to organize the categories section on the cooperatives portal page. Currently, they are not organized in any systematic way, just alphabetically. In the categories box, it seems that there are subcategories of types of cooperatives mixed in with broader categories of cooperative. I suggest that these could be organized by 1) worker cooperatives, 2) producer cooperatives, 3) consumer cooperatives, 4) shared services cooperatives, and 5) other . I believe this could make the cooperatives portal much more intuitive and user-friendly. Using the categories that already exist, it could work something like this (just a suggestion): Worker cooperatives subcategories: artist cooperatives, volunteer cooperatives Producer cooperatives subcategories: agricultural supply cooperatives, retailers' cooperatives Consumer cooperatives subcategories: agricultural marketing cooperatives, food cooperatives, mutual organizations Shared services cooperatives: subcategories: credit unions, Farm Credit System, housing cooperatives, rail cooperatives, utility cooperatives Other: agent-owned company, cooperative activists, cooperative federations, employee-owned companies, fan-owned sports teams, former cooperatives, mutual insurance companies, social centre (many of these deal with employee stock ownership) Credit Agricole should not be included in the main category box because it is a specific banking group. Similarly, I suggest getting rid of "cooperatives in India" from categories, as that is not a type of cooperative and belongs better under the "cooperatives by country" category page. For the purposes of my interests, I notice a lack of representation of worker cooperatives. Perhaps subcategories could be organised by job sector, such as industry and manufacturing, retail, service, media, education, health care, etc. If anyone disagrees with or has suggestions about the ways I categorized these, please provide feedback! Haiwenkit (talk) 23:53, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Discussion of proposed merger of Cooperative Stock Market into Cooperative
The discussion for the proposed merger of the Cooperative Stock Market article into the Cooperative article is at Talk:Cooperative. --Bejnar (talk) 21:43, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Rainbow flag GAR
Rainbow flag, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. sst✈ 13:11, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

AfD: Claudio Gamboa Calderón
The above article, which is within the scope of this project, is being considered for deletion. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:50, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages
Greetings Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:


 * Fix and improve Mr.Z-bot's popular pages report

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, — Delivered: 17:57, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Cooperatives in the United States
We have:


 * List of worker cooperatives
 * List of co-operative federations
 * List of cooperatives

Those seem to feeling like sprawling content overlap.

We have:


 * History of cooperatives in the United States

That doesn't have much about present times.

How about starting Cooperatives in the United States or List of cooperatives in the United States? We could consolidate all items into a table with columns. The columns could be "Location", "Type", "Number of owners", etc. We could put main templates at the top of the top three items. We could dig up some stats for charts to show if this is a growing thing.

Could we assemble a small team to put this together?

Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:45, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report
We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, will post at /Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of. We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:
 * The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
 * The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
 * The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to for his original, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Co-operative living arrangement for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Co-operative living arrangement is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Co-operative living arrangement until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 18:12, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Help with updates to New York Life
Hi, I'm working on some proposed updates to New York Life Insurance Company. Since the article is part of WikiProject Cooperatives, I wondered if editors here might be interested in giving it a look. To begin with, I've suggested some edits for the infobox to bring it up to date. In full disclosure, I'm here on behalf of New York Life Insurance Company as part of my work with Beutler Ink, which is why I'm looking for editors to review my request and not editing directly. Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 20:23, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Article sounds like a brochure.
This article is written like a travel brochure. I don't know where to begin or how to change it, but I thought I should bring it to someones attention. Thank you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunburst_(community) 47.34.170.170 (talk) 06:40, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template Transclude lead excerpt.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background
On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you. &mdash; The Transhumanist  07:33, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Writing a New Article, Social Entrepreneurship in South Asia
Social entrepreneurship has become a buzzword in the United States and represents a growing movement of businesses that can capitalize on social good. While exciting to see here, I feel like we often don’t hear about its existence in other parts of the world. South Asian countries represent a rapidly developing market, where entrepreneurship, specifically social entrepreneurship, is being adopted in wide numbers. These social entrepreneurial businesses are focused on solving social problems in a meaningful way. They are also helping to catalyze a people-centric economy, focused on developing capabilities first before making a profit. South Asia is also not a newcomer to social entrepreneurship. Unbeknownst to a larger Western audience, the pioneer of microcredit, Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is from Bangladesh. Therefore, there is a lot of history in the region, and I’d like to explore that along with the current climate and the challenges of social entrepreneurship.

Key areas of my current proposal can be found on my Sandbox page.

Please give me your feedback!

Wickersong (talk) 15:58, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

WP: SQUAT
Hiya, I am not sure if you are still active over here, but I am hoping to reinvigorate WikiProject Squatting and since this wikiproject is a parent project since 2012, i thought i would drop a message.

There’s lot of work which could be done to make the wikipedia coverage of issues related to squatting better and more global. This week I have been working to broaden the English language coverage of the Zone to Defend (ZAD) in France, the No TAV movement in Italy and Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shackdwellers movement in South Africa. The ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes is surely interesting to cooperatives because they are currently setting up over twenty cooperative projects. In any case there’s lots of crossover.

If this sounds interesting to anyone, or if you have other suggestions, feel free to pass by WikiProject Squatting. Cheers! Mujinga (talk) 20:44, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infoshops
Template:Infoshops has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Mujinga (talk) 22:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)