Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 5

Meta Project Template
The topic of a catchall project template seems to come up again and again, but obviously the task is too daunting for anybody to take on. I think that it is going to be very difficult both to create and mantain, but a simple solution to the project boxes cluttering the talk pages might be to enclose them in a box using the show/hide functionality: it would be fairly quick to code, and the same amount of time to implement. The only disadvantage I see is that anybody adding a project banner needs either to use the code to add it in the show/hide box (if it is the first project banner) or make sure they add their banner between the tags (id it is a subsequent addition). Thoughts? Yomangani talk 10:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem with that is that Project banners act as a way of promoting the WikiProject and so a template that hides them all will only result in a loss of advertising for at least one, if not several WikiProjects. Your average newbie user will typically not notice the show button, and if they do it is unlikely they will click on it. I would imagine a template like that would have a devastating effect on "passing trade". Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 10:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's one issue to consider; could we set up the show/hide block such that the contents are shown by default.
 * (Another possibility that's been brought up a few times is coding all the WikiProject banners to use some particular CSS class that users could then hide via their own CSS settings. It's the established users you see complaining about them, after all, not the random passerby.) Kirill Lokshin 12:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Properly coded I'm sure it could list the projects that are hidden inside, still giving some "advertising" without dominating the page. Newbies perhaps don't complain because they are newbies, I'm not sure we can say that they like the big boxes just because we hear more complaints from established users who know where to complain and aren't nervous of charging in. Yomangani talk 12:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The WikiProject banners do a good job of 'advertising' the involvement of different WikiProjects in a particular article. I know that when a bot went through and tagged all the California articles for the California WikiProject, there was a big jump in project members. This was probably just from the editors seeing the banner's addition to the talk pages of articles on their watch lists.


 * On the other hand, I have no doubt that the verbiage in many of the WikiProjects banners can be condensed down to their absolute essentials. Especially for the article assessments, all that may be necessary is the boxes noting the article's class and importance, and none of the extra explanations. BlankVerse 13:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * One possibility. It might, emphasis might, be possible to create a single banner which includes a lot of options, which could then be "selected" for a given article. That banner might then display "This article is (phrasing of choice: part of, supported by, fanatically observed by, whatever) the following projects: (list). Such a single banner, if it were extant, would take up a lot less space. The problems would lie in that it would seemingly have to be changed every time a new project is called into existence. But, possibly, maybe making a group of banners, one for say every page of the WikiProject Council/Directory, or perhaps by a more specific main subject range, might be sufficient to prevent overburdening the servers every time the banner is changed. Badbilltucker 14:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Not practical at all. The main issue still remains: each project has an arbitrary number of subsidiary options which must be supported.  (See, for example, WPMILHIST, which has ~50 parameters of various sorts, many of which tie into fairly complex conditional logic.)  A single template that supported all the things each project needs for any significant number of projects will be an utter nightmare to maintain. Kirill Lokshin 14:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If we do create a separate banner for assessments only, like the potential AAA banner, does anyone think it might be possible or practicable to change things such that the assessment that appears on that banner classifies articles for all the other banners that appear on the page? It would save space to have the assessment listed only once, and I do think that assessments should probably be uniform anyway. Also, it would make it easier to change an assessment grade if only one banner had to be changed, and probably make it easier for projects who don't have people with the time or inclination to do assessments. Badbilltucker 22:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * How would that work? Templates can't see other templates' parameters; the only way I could see something like that working would be to have the assessment grade placed on a subpage, which would probably be even messier an approach.
 * (The question of consistency among ratings is somewhat more complicated than one might guess. Some projects are more demanding than others in terms of requiring specific things for specific levels.  If everyone is forced to have the same rating, which criteria would be used for it: the strictest set or the laxest one?) Kirill Lokshin 22:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I have no idea how it would work, which was why I bolded the if. And I was hoping, actually, if it came to that, the strictest criteria would be used, as I think it would probably result in fewer disappointed GA or FA nominators. But I see your point. Badbilltucker 22:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The difference in ratings between projects is not a healthy situation. I would be strongly supportive of any function which consolidates assessments, so long as said function also supports article quality categories for relevant projects.--cj | talk 01:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Quality assessments should converge, but importance ones logically can't. A topic can inherently be more important to one project than another.  Will Eisner is more important to understanding comics than to biography, for example. Hiding Talk 11:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This is what I meant (in case anybody missed it and would like to comment). Yomangani talk 09:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Derbyshire
I proposed that a WikiProject for the county of Derbyshire, [] should be created. I couple of people have put their names down for it. Im just wondering what happens now? JFBurton 17:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Organizations and Wikipedians by WikiProject listing
Hello everyone! I've just begun overhauling the Organizations WikiProject, and I can't seem to figure out how to get our members list to work with the Wikipedians by WikiProject category properly. Any concise help and direction here would be appreciated. Cheers! Oldsoul 22:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject banners, cleaning up the clutter
Template talk:WikiProjectBanners, thoughts? -- Ned Scott 05:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Comments should be made directly there, ideally. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 05:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is ideal at all. The result of moving the discussion in the Template talk pages, plus the way various projects have been informed about it, makes it very hard to see whether projects have been in agreement and what arguments were given by each. Instead, there is a feeling (speaking of WP Films) that "decisions have been taken" somehwere "above" us. I quote the latest comment on a poll we are taking in Films: "but I guess there was consensus in the past for this to be implemented". Where has this consensus taken place? Are projects represented in the consensus or is it mostly between WikiProject Banners members? Hoverfish Talk 08:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Missing articles lists for projects?
Hello. I'm new here, and apologize if you aren't the right people to bring this to. I'm from the WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, which doesn't seem to have been doing a lot lately. Do you here think that maybe it might be more productive to create project-specific missing article lists for the various projects, as opposed to trying to keep the missing articles project itself as a completely separate entity? I personally think that doing so might possibly be more effective and result in better quality articles faster than the current method. Thanks for any responses, and my apologies again if you aren't the right people to bring this to. John Carter 21:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good idea to me. If you contact a WikiProject on Fish and say, "These fish articles are in EB, but not in Wikipedia" that will certainly spur people into action.  You should be sure that those fish aren't already in Wikipedia, of course, because the lists you are working from are (probably) mostly out of date.  I suspect when that project was active there were far fewer specialised WikiProjects, so it made sense to work that way.  In 2007, it seems we have a WikiProject for almost everything (this is good, I'm not complaining!), so now we have access to people who will care a lot about writing an article about a small fish or a suburb of Dallas.  That energy should be used to help achieve the very laudable goal of your project.  Walkerma 22:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Any ideas which projects should be contacted in this way first? I'm also a member of the Mythology and Saints projects (I've done a few articles there) and noticed all the Religion and Philosophy projects. Would it be best to try to contact the projects that relate to the more general topics, say Mythology or Religion, and ask them to diffuse out the relevant articles to the other various projects in their fields, or to try to break up the lists to each individual project? Or, if it isn't best, as I don't think I would be qualified to do the specific individual project lists in all cases, would it be possibly at least acceptable? John Carter 23:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I would think it best to compile lists of missing articles over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, then perhaps use WP:AWB to sort these via categories into topics. Then use listings from WikiProject Council/Directory to locate active projects you could contact for help.  I'd try to go for active projects first.  I found at WP:WVWP that sometimes broad topics could be quite dead, but more narrow projects were very active.  Record your activity - contacts and responses (perhaps like we did at WVWP) - and hopefully see some redlinks turning blue!  I think you may find other people will start to work with you once you start making progress.  Are there other suggestions out there?  Walkerma 06:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * As far as WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/List of notable films is concerned, we have developed the WikiProject Films/List of films without article department in WP Films which runs parallel to it, although the scope of our department is much broader and needs help to define what exactly is a missing article out of all the films without articles. Recently there have been some developments in Notability (films), which may help us somehow, but I personally don't find any simple and practical lines to work on. I am not sure if a project merge would be the best solution, but at least a closer cooperation between our department and WP Missing encyclopedic articles would be very helpful. Hoverfish Talk 14:00, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesting disussion at WikiProject Cities about inter-project relations
There is an interesting discussion going on at WikiProject Cities (discussion here) about inter-project relationships. In particular, what project tags should appear in which articles where there is a parent/descendant relationship between projects.

For example, if there were a WikiProject New York and a WikiProject Upstate New York, what should be the general guideline between the two of them:


 * Full "dual-tagging": The New York tag should be on all New York-related articles, with the Upstate tag appearing in addition on articles of interest to the Upstate project.
 * Limited "dual-tagging": The "New York" tag should be dual-tagged on only a few articles in the Upstate area, and only the Upstate tag appearing on almost all Upstate articles.
 * Example of limited dual-tagging: almost all Upstate cities would have just one tag (the Upstate tag only), and only the most important cities in the Upstate area (like Albany) would have both tags.

I suggest that this discussion raises larger issues of inter-project cooperation and relationship, that are going to arise routinely as WikiProject continue to grow:
 * Who decides which tag appears on which article (the parent? the descendant?)
 * What are the costs/benefits of "full dual-tagging" versus "limited dual-tagging"?
 * Does one method or the other promote cooperation/Balkanization?
 * Are there alternatives to the parent/descendant separate WikiProject model which might work better?

These issues may well arise in many contexts - for example (hypothetically) WikiProject American Folk Dancing versus WikiProject American Square Dancing. I suggest these issues are worthy of a closer look before conflicts develop. Spamreporter1 18:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Another area is where the topic is interdisciplinary and is claimed by two Projects. One example is that many articles on Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics have both the Chemistry Project tags and the Physics Project tags. This does not cause any problems but it points to the need for collaboration between the two groups and that is not always happening. --Bduke 22:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

A great many WikiProjects are started by topic rather than by "work needing to be done" or some other logical scoping of articles. It's not always a good idea (nor is it a bad idea, just inefficient) to make so many specific groups or even non-specific but "already covered" scopes. The ones that are a good idea for better focus within a scope are usually best done via task forces, which is an idea that has great potential and is already being seen as a good organization method. -- Ned Scott 00:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * In fact, promoting the idea of task forces seems like the easiest way to deal with the bulk of this problem. Not only that, but from the Proposals page you can see that a lot of people are suggesting projects before they know if they should or even if a project already exists. Maybe we could have something like "please read this FAQ before suggesting a new project" to help with this? -- Ned Scott 00:06, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The basic problem with task forces/work groups is that is assumes a strict hierarchical relationship (almost ownership like) between two WikiProjects, when things are often more of a web of connections. Why is WikiProject Indian cinema a "work group" of WikiProject India, but a descendent of WikiProject Films?  Blank Verse  14:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Because Films hasn't adopted a task force structure from its end, I'd guess; compare WikiProject Korea/Military history. Kirill Lokshin 16:25, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have likely neglected some arguments (probably your favorite argument) pro and con - but the intent here is to summarize briefly the points of view that have been expressed thus far. Responses are being collected at WT:SOCAL and/or Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject. Spamreporter1 15:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * 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)


 * Thanks, Agathoclea. In order that others may also see your suggestion, I have copied your comment to the pages where this conversation is taking place.  Thanks again.Spamreporter1 15:15, 21 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  14:37, 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 22:18, 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  14:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:WikiProjectBanners
Template:WikiProjectBanners has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. -- Ned Scott 08:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This is pretty important. WikiProjectBanners is a dreadful idea. The entire point of it is to hide WikiProject talk page banners completely, unless someone goes intentionally looking for them, which of course will never happen. It effectively removes ratings and assessments, /Comments, sub-project/task force labels and all other features intended for editor eyes, unless the editor happens to be a WikiProject supergeek and goes manually looking for the information.  This template doesn't even bother to briefly name what the projects are!  Ick.  &mdash;  SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 21:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * There is no need to debate this here, there is plenty of that on the TFD. I, for one, am for it.↔NMajdan &bull;talk &bull;EditorReview 21:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I do think that this is a red-flag to all of us in this project, that WikiProjects need stronger guidelines. Frustrated Wikipedians can be very scary. We need to make simple, easy to use, helpful, and more aggressive guidelines on WikiProjects and things like their banners. We have some good stuff now in the guide, but a lot of people haven't even seen the guide. I also think we should have a more simplistic guide that covers the main issues and most common stuff, with a second page for the more advanced stuff. We should also move the guide out of our sub-pages, giving it more presence. -- Ned Scott 04:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I commented above about discussion being diverted to Template talk pages. I am not a frustrated Wikipedian, I certainly don't want to be scarry, and my only wish is to make it clear that projects have not got any idea what this guide is, or even where it. Instead we were given links to various template talk pages and we were faced with lots of technical details, which may well go above our heads. Hoverfish Talk 08:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProjects Noticeboard
I created a noticeboard for WikiProjects so that mass-messages for WikiProjects are no longer needed. Enjoy! How do you suggest I increase awareness of this board? &mdash;Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 12:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * A good start would be notes on WP:VP and WP:AN. Perhaps a note in the instructions for starting a new project too... Slambo (Speak)  12:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Also Community Portal. Walkerma 15:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Why do we have a notice board when we have this talk page that is hardly used, as well as Wikipedia talk:WikiProject? -- Ned Scott 20:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd imagine that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject is a talk page for WikiProjects in general, and this talk page is for the council. The noticeboard is blatantly for announcements relevant to all WikiProjects. &mdash;Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 20:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I understand that, but given the lack of activity on the first two talk pages it just seems it might just spread out discussion in an undesired way (people not noticing the notice board). But I guess it's worth a shot. -- Ned Scott 02:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought one of the purposes of this talk page was also to serve as a de-facto WikiProject noticeboard? Tito xd (?!?) 03:04, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * For those who may be wondering what happened, this noticeboard was deleted on 24 March. EdJohnston 17:34, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject's Collaberation of the Month/Week
Some Wikiproject's COTM have banners added to the article space. (See The Maltese Falcon (1941 film), Mormon pioneers, Tax, Muhammad Ali for examples.) GameKeeper has brought this up as a general point here Wikipedia talk:Avoid self-references. He would much prefer them to be added to the talk, rather than the article space. Since such a policy would affect all WikiProjects, with about half of the projects using the talk space and about half using the article space, I thought the council should weigh in on the discussion. Morphh  (talk) 01:21, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Assuming the banners serve to promote the collaboration and advertise the project, than it makes sense that they would go on the talk page along with the project templates, which serve a similar purpose. - Mocko13 03:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Announcements for All WikiProjects box
Someone -- I think it was Phil Boswell -- had an idea for a collapsable box that could be placed on every WikiProject page that would have announcements relevant to all WikiProjects. I suppose this would work in tandem with the noticeboard; discussion could take place on the noticeboard and the template could be used for short announcements. Who has more ideas about this announcement box? &mdash;Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 03:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Are there really enough cross-project announcements to make this worthwhile? I've seen maybe three in the last year or so. Kirill Lokshin 03:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * As many as three? I've seen Badbilltucker's announcement about Wikipedia week and nothing else. If an announcement was broad enough to warrent alerting every single wikiproject, why wouldn't it be put on the Community Portal? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

"WikiProject Banners"
If anyone is interested I have proposed "WikiProject Banners", a WikiProject to set standards for, and help projects with, WikiProject banners at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals.— miketm - Queen WikiProject - 10:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Banners
I note that there are now talk page templates which a new project without having to create their own separate template. For newer projects, this might save a lot of time and effort involved in creating a new template. Does anyone think it might be a good idea to encourage newer projects to use this template (User:Kirill Lokshin/Sandbox/Template14) and simply "plug in" their own project data, rather than going through the effort of creating one. That also might prevent cases where people create templates for projects before they create the project itself, as was done with Template:WikiProject Alabama. John Carter 17:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject reform
I've put together an embryonic proposal for some general reforms of how WikiProjects are set up; comments and suggestions would be very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 20:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * IMHO, basic principles are sound, Wikipedia would benefit from better definitions between overlapping WPs. Some comments:


 * First, whether the junior projects are going to be known as "task forces," "sub-projects," or some other name is, I think, a fair topic of discussion. How many current WPs will be prepared to give up "WP status" to become mere "task forces" is I think a topic of legitimate administrative concern.  Marketing the new structure with appealing terminology will be important I suggest.


 * Second, on geographically-based WPs, I suggest that for most countries, having the country WP be the main WP makes sense (having a WP France with a "Normandy Task Force," for example). However, for (at least) the United States, having State WPs be the main WP structure appeals to me - hence, have a "WP Texas" with a "Southeast Texas Task Force" (rather than having the whole state of Texas be a task force of WP USA).


 * Finally, how would "sub-task forces" work? Would a "Houston Task Force" be a subpart of the "Southeast Texas Task Force" or a subpart of WP Texas?


 * Overall, an important step in the right direction! Spamreporter1 22:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The specifics are largely open to discussion; the main distinction between a fully independent project and a whatever we call this new thing is the removal of independent infrastructure (in particular, the change to a merged project tag), not the name (or even the subpage issue).
 * As far as your last point: the difference isn't a substantial one. They would both use the WP Texas banner/processes/etc.; what their exact relationship beyond that would be is entirely up to them. Kirill Lokshin 23:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * One thing we should definitely try to do is not make task forces seem like "downgrades". WikiProjects in general are just groupings of things that already exist (the editors, the ideas, many of the guidelines, discussions). How we portray this image is very important and will determine how smoothly this process will go. -- Ned Scott 00:07, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Kirill, given your current interest, it would be interesting to have your input on the reorganisation currently going on here, regards sbandrews 23:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Although I do not have a problem with the general concept, I do have a problem with the logistics of your proposal. This may be best described with an example.


 * I am a member of WP:SOCAL but not a member of the parent wikiproject WP:CAL. The following are the statistics for the two projects:


 * WP:CAL


 * WP:SOCAL


 * Say you combine the two projects with single banner. Now if I want to assess articles with no importance rating for the Southern California Region, I would have to sift through 9171 articles instead of 435. A large majority of these articles would be from Northern California, of which I could not fairly assess since I have little expertise of that region.


 * Unless the single banner proposal can subcategorize articles, you might find it hard for editors to support this proposal.


 * For anyone interested, this debate has been ongoing here, taking up most of the sub-conversations. Brien Clark 04:49, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * As concisely as possible: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 04:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I have a hard time figuring out why people would look for articles to edit / assess based on it being in Southern California rather than just California. It's only one of many possible ways to group articles, and not necessarily the best. You could make the same argument for SOCAL as one could for ANY topic or region. It's not always best to break things down in that way, especially considering pre-existing projects and so on. Unless it's to divide a massive amount of work, that I might be able to see, but how many of these articles keep being tagged with both banners? Notice that when WP:ANIME tags an article you don't also see WP:TV, because there it makes sense to divide the work rather than share the work.


 * That being said, Kirill has yet again found the best of both worlds. -- Ned Scott 05:38, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Why would we be only interested in Southern California articles? For the same reason anyone would be interested in Louisville rather than Kentucky, or New York Public Transportation rather than New York or Public transportation: it's just what we like. I live in SoCal, and am likweise more interested in it; I also know much more, and so can contribute more and better to those articles. &mdash;ScouterSig 15:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I consider 10,000 articles of WP:CAL a lot of work. And the both banner issue is primarily the issue driving the debate between the two projects.  Brien Clark 05:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Look at how WikiProject Germany handles for example Munich. One banner - seperate importance rating. Agathoclea 09:43, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep. It's not difficult to set up a single banner to provide each task force with the needed statistics. Kirill Lokshin 13:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We've had separate importance ratings for some rail transport subprojects through TrainsWikiProject for some time now. There are separate importance ratings for WP:NYPT, WP:RTPJ and WP:LT integrated into the one banner.  As importance ratings are established for subprojects, I add them to the template. Slambo (Speak)  14:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Nomenclature suggestion
Since one of the concerns expressed above is that some local WPs may resist feeling "downgraded" to "task forces" or some other title, how about the following: Leave "WikiProject" as the title of local projects, and come up with a new title instead for the Parent-level collections of editors. This gets over the resistance of local projects, and avoids the wholesale re-naming of many hundreds of existing communities.

Instead, we'll come up with a new title that would affect a much smaller number of Parent-level WPs, which would more cheerfully be accepted by them as an "upgrade." Hence, WikiProject France would now become "Wiki____ France" (whatever new title we come up with), and contained within it would be descendent WikiProjects Paris, Normandy and Provence (to use hypothetical examples).

If anyone likes this nomenclature idea, any bright suggestions of a new title for Parent-level collections of editors? Spamreporter1 15:17, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe "WikiDepartment" as the name of a parent group? Alternately, maybe we could make the name WikiProject apply only to those specific projects which are responsible for the creation of infoboxes. Thus, we would probably limit the number of WikiProjects to maybe 20 or 30, including some of the smaller projects, like WikiProject Cities. Then, all the other working groups, task forces, or whatever they're called wouldn't feel "downgraded". I know the Saints Project I work with probably only uses infoboxes which are properly under the domain of Biography. The others that come to mind as making infoboxes are Philosophy, Religion, Countries, Highways, Military History, History, Tree of Life and maybe a few more of the sciences, Video Games, Media, Music, and a few others. And, of course, if any of the smaller projects ever do go dormant, they could comparatively easily be absorbed into the WikiProject which creates their infoboxes. John Carter 15:44, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Bleh. The problem with that idea is that it requires pagemoves for the larger groups rather than the smaller ones, which is somewhat counterintuitive, and will make this into a lot more work than was intended.
 * Perhaps a better idea would be to have an explicit gradation of WikiProjects? For example, you'd have Tier 1 WikiProjects, Tier 2 WikiProject, Tier 3 WikiProjects, etc., each of which would have a somewhat different structural form.  This would work best with some variant of the accreditation proposal, which could determine which tier the project qualified for; but it could be done even without that. Kirill Lokshin 15:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Making the "Tiers" explicit is a good idea. Are you thinking that the Tier would be part of the name itself, or simply some type of internal structural element? Spamreporter1 17:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Some sort of internal (or external) metadata, to remove the need for mass page moves. If we decide to actually use the tiers for something, we could have, say, an official "List of WikiProjects by tier" that people could use as a reference, and presumably the projects themselves would have notes to the effect of being certain-tier projects; but I envision it more of a shorthand notation for projects that are supposed to be doing something in particular (e.g. Tier 1 = project uses integrated field in parent project's tags; Tier 2 = project tags talk pages with own tags; etc.). Kirill Lokshin 17:46, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Some level of feeling downgraded might be unavoidable for some, but it's only a temporary and superficial feeling. We need to do our best in showing that this is not a downgrade, but a reorganization. Many people have the same misconception from articles being merged, that one topic is being "downgraded" rather than being reorganized information. One way I think we can do this is conveying the idea that the WikiProject participants are still just as important (and are able to be more helpful) in being a task force. Remind them that it helps their efforts and goals, which is the whole reason we are here, and they will be able to do more by being set up as a task force. -- Ned Scott 07:46, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Why not work with the current parent/descendent/similar project organization?
No matter how you word this proposal and what names you choose, and no matter how you might try to explain things, this proposed 'nomenclature' change will make many current wikiprojects feel like they are being relegated to a subordinate status with less control over their wikiproject. Don't forget it is usually those low level projects that are the most active. The most likely response for many of those projects will be "only on a cold day in hell".

Reading through the discussion, I do not see any real justification for making the proposed changes. You should also consider that what has worked for WP:MILHIST and WikiProject Trains is not necessarily what will work for every wikiproject.

I also think that you have not thought through the logistics involved. For just one example, WP:Anime has four parents and six descendants (as well as five active similar wikiprojects). Should it become a "task force" of all four parents, similar to WP:MILAIR (with all of WP:Anime's articles also added to all four parents)? Does each descendant then become a task force of a task force? Many, if not most wikiprojects have multiple parents, and many have multiple descendants. I think that the task force approach can be useful for some simple hierarchies but is not appropriate for wikiprojects where there are more complex relationships involved.

This proposal, along with suggestions for creating wikiproject accreditation (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject reform and other sections on that page), just looks like unnecessary bureaucracy. Both proposals also look very un-wiki-like.

Instead of trying to change things to the way you think they should work, you should instead work with the existing structure to facilitate more cooperation, coordination, and communication between parent and descendant projects. Communication between similar wikiprojects is something that could also improve. AsylumInmate 12:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Obviously we would use our heads here. For example, WP:ANIME would not be merged or become a task force for a few reasons, one of which is that it's one of the more successful WikiProjects. The grouping of articles as "anime and manga" isn't just an area of interest, they are also logical groupings with technical reasons (templates with japanese text, common "english-licensing" situations, translations, terminology), and it makes sense to break up the work load like that. Just because a project has a parent project does not mean it will or should become a task force.


 * No one is being forced here, rather, groups will only become task forces when it makes sense and yields better results for all. We are not going after active and healthy projects, no matter how small they are. We are going after the inactive and / or needlessly confusing (guideline forking, spreading out centralized discussion, etc) ones. We're also trying to fight the idea that WikiProjects are for categorization or fanclubs.


 * In some cases, even an active project might find improvement with some form of restructuring similar to task forces. The reform proposals are powerful tools to help us improve the way we collaborate, and you are right, they are not for everyone. You do not need to worry about that. -- Ned Scott 10:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

biggest projects by members.
Is there a way of working out a ranking of the largest projects by members? Of not, can we start one? A table with the date the projects started and membership would be useful to look at. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 16:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * SatyrTN put this together recently: User:SatyrTN/test.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 16:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That's all assessment related, not by membership. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 16:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow, sorry, my apologies. I read it wrong. Is there any correlation between number of articles in a WikiProject and the number of users?↔NMajdan &bull;talk 16:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * None, so far as I know. WP:INDIA has roughly the same number of users as WP:LGBT but four times as many articles. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 16:58, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I can see how having such a list could possibly be detrimental to some projects, although I could see a definite advantage to having some stat regarding the number of articles within a project relative to the number of members. Using the data given above, the ratio of members to articles for the LGBT project would be four times as high as that for the India project. On that basis, it might become clearer to some editors that one project had a greater need than another, and possibly more in need of additional members. Also, of course, I note that some projects, like WikiProject Saints, list everybody who has ever joined as a member, while other projects have particular sections for inactive or retired members. Unless there were significant standardization in that regard, I can see how any such list would be a very likely cause of controversy. John Carter 18:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * There is a somewhat inaccurate list that may be found here. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Here now, after archiving. &mdash;Moondyne 14:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Proliferation
Moved to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_reform. --kingboyk 19:08, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Declaration of Independence
I left this note on the WP:SPORTS talk page, requesting that WP:OLYMPICS can remove the "Sports" part from its project name:
 * When in the course of Editing, it becomes necessary for one WikiProject to dissolve the Links which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of Wikipedia, the separate and equal Project Page to which the Policies of Wikipedia entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Wikipedians requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.


 * In other words, some of the members of WikiProject Sports Olympics have expressed that we should remove the name "Sports" from our project. At the time it was created, it was only meant to be a sub-project of the Sports project, but Olympic-related articles have enumerated and thus have a whole different set of policies. Since you are our parent WikiProject, I figured that I'd let you know before we declare a Revolution. 


 * If anyone has any objections, then, against moving our Wikiproject to WikiProject Olympics, off with your heads! (or just drop us a note on the project talk page, or my talk page). └Jared ┘┌talk ┐&ensp; 21:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

If there's a process I need to run this through, please point this out. Otherwise, I'll do the move of the page and all subpages myself (or someone who can do it fast can do it for me!). └Jared ┘┌<font color="#009E49">talk ┐&ensp; 21:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It doesn't seem like much of an issue, but you really shouldn't think of it as something like.. respect or even something that is entitled. That's a bad way to think about WikiProjects. Other than that, if it makes sense to change the name then do so, but don't remove connections when you don't need to. Related WikiProjects should still have connections. -- Ned Scott 11:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry; I didn't mean it the way it sounded. I just wanted to take the name "Sports" out of the project. I wasn't thinking to break ties with them. I just wanted to assert that we are capable of having our own named project! └<font color="#0084C9">Jared ┘┌<font color="#009E49">talk ┐&ensp; 20:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Mediation
Hi guys. Is there anyone who would be interested in helping sort out the issue going on at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Awards? --  FayssalF  - Wiki me up ®  18:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:AWARDS - taskforce?
It's been suggested that the awards wikiproject be made a taskforce of the council, owing to the fact that it guides the process for wikiproject awards and in light of the proposed wikiproject reforms. I think this is a good idea, as it would ensure turnout for new proposals, something that is lacking at the moment. So, to feel out the waters, would the council be agreeable to taking on wikiproject awards? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 21:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not so keen on the idea. The Council is more a centralised discussion place than an actual active WikiProject, so having a taskforce would seem somewhat incongruous. Why not attach it to WP:KC instead in some way?--cj | talk 04:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:KC is basically a page with a list of members and some suggestions on how to be nice. I am loathe to do anything whatsoever to it that results in it having "programs". I'm sure you can see where I'm going here. Given that the council is now moving into discussions that are resulting in Wikipedia wide changes (ie, the templates), it seems logical that this be the next step. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 07:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I just don't see that there's a logical connection between the purpose of the Council and that of WikiProject Awards. If it can't stand alone, and isn't relevant to some other project or process, then perhaps it'd be best to do away with it.--cj | talk 09:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * As the one who first proposed the idea, my reasoning was that many of the awards are at this point tied to specific projects. The members of this group, being from so many scattered areas of interest as they are, probably represent the most active, largest cross-section of wikipedia, and on that basis might be among the best people to solicit for opinions on new awards, particularly as many of the existing awards which have already passed muster have been ones in whose creation they were involved. I agree that the connection between the two groups directly could be seen as being rather tenuous, but the members of this group might also be among the most useful contributors to the discussions for the Awards project. John Carter 15:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Have to agree with cj. Our business is WikiProjects, no more no less. --kingboyk 15:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * We need help to organize film related awards. Right now we have a WP for Academy Awards, which states WP Flms as parent. The project was left mostly unmanned for a while and last time I heard from it had only one active member. But there are many more awards connected with film and with other entertainment media and arts. Lately several more awards and film festivals have started moving and it may be a good time to decide how to contain the various efforts. Is it best to create a film specific project, or task force for film awards/festivals, or to have a wider WP for art and entertainment (or culture) awards? Hoverfish Talk 14:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Propose creation of project
Would the rest of you think a WikiProject Music groups would be a good idea or not? We already have several band-specific projects, with calls for the rest to set up as task forces, and I personally think this might be the best name for the umbrella group. John Carter 19:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Flextech & WikiProject Groups
Please advise as to what if anything should be done with these pages. John Carter 15:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * WP:MFD is the best place for them, I suspect; neither one seems to have any content worth preserving, and it's not clear that either is a good scope for a project, in any case. Kirill Lokshin 19:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Mess at WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture
Something weird has happened to the above page. I don't know exactly what is wrong, though, so I mention it here. On a side note, I've gone through and compiled a list of all the different projects which can be found at the Quick index page starting with WikiProject, Wikiproject, etc., and find a lot of names which aren't on the directory as is. I don't think I quite understand the layout of the directory, so I'll add in those projects whose placement I can be relatively sure I understand (primarily geographical and other fairly definite topics) and probably will list them here when I'm done for the rest of you to sort out. John Carter 14:07, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject advertising
I think almost everyone here would agree that advertising your Wikiproject in articlespace is a bad idea. However, as far as I can see, there is nowhere in wikipedia that says you cannot. You'd think WP:SELF would cover it, but it actually states that "selfreferences in stubs" are common. And that's exactly where I found this. See older versions of buffyverse-stub and DoctorWho-stub. Now I removed these references to WikiProjects keeping in mind the "spirit" of WP:SELF, but perhaps it would be a good idea to state this somewhere more clearly ? --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 20:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


 * There was some discussion of this practice at WP:WSS some time ago (it should be in the project talk page archives). It was generally agreed there that we shouldn't link to WikiProjects in the stub notice text. Slambo <small style="color:black;">(Speak)  15:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It was the talk page of WP:STUB around the 13th of Feb 2006, and discussion was moved to the village pump here.
 * It seems "no concensus" was the result. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Come on, it's a horrible self reference and commonsense says "no". Main space contains articles, not advertisements for project infrastructure. --kingboyk 16:06, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Found another discussion about it on WSS, although it didn't really go anywhere: --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 16:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Graphics Lab
This is not a WikiProject proposal so much as a request for input. There is a new Graphics Lab project that is trying to find a place in the English Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia talk:Graphic Lab for a discussion on how it could be integrated into existing projects to avoid conflicts and confusion. Thanks! MithrandirMage 01:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

New version 1.0 project banner
Anyone here know how to add the requested specs to the new 1.0 project banner as requested here? John Carter 17:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Check your wikiproject's categories for deletions!
Apparently User:Voice of All has taken it upon him/herself to do a mass-deletion of categories, including at least one from WP:ETHNIC. I'm trying to establish whether or not he/she notified anyone of this action (it doesn't seem so... but I'm not certain...). Meanwhile, check your cats. Perhaps some of yours were deleted as well... --Ling.Nut 19:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Is it perhaps among those listed at User:Betacommand/Datadump/To be Deleted, as VoA is indicating in the deletion logs? If so, this is a clearing of empty categories per WP:CSD C1, though I'm not sure why assessment categories (like Category:A-Class Bangladesh articles) need to be deleted. Also Category:Ethnic groups articles needing merge action has been restored, if that's the one you meant. Gimmetrow 22:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. Many many assessments categories got deleted (I've restored a dozen or so). However, the folks concerned have been given an ear bashing already; it's yesterday's news and I'm sure it won't happen again. If anybody (non admin) finds a category red which should be blue and if they're not an admin, they can either recreate it or ask me or the original deleter to restore it. --kingboyk 22:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * There are a ton of categories here! I've already undeleted over 200, and I only got to FA-Class before my wrist started hurting. Can someone else help here? Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 23:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm worried this will happen again. It happened earlier this month and I let a few admins know and apparently it happened again.↔<span style="font-size:11px; font-weight:bold; font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font-size:9px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; color:#000000;">talk 14:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe "a ton" = 3700. I wish I could help, but have schoolwork &amp; have done too much Wiki lately already. Sorry. --Ling.Nut 23:14, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No, at most it is another... 500. Sigh. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 23:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Did they delete them manually or with a bot? I'd send them the list and say you deleted them, now you can restore them :) Harsh but fair methinks. --kingboyk 23:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I think manually, or at least, with Firefox tabs or something similar. Still... it's a lot. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 23:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Gotcha. Was irritated. OK now. --Ling.Nut 22:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah so was I, and I complained loudly. I think they've heard enough :) --kingboyk 22:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, a lot of priority/importance categories were deleted. Check your category trees, everyone. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 23:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * There's still ~ 110 GA categories still to undelete, but I'm out of time. If anyone wants to have a look at those, then that would be very much appreciated. By the way, I did not undelete Disambig-Class, List-Class, Template-Class, Category-Class and Needed-Class categories either, and I didn't check if there were Low-Importance, Mid-Importance and High-Importance / Priority categories buried there. Also, please, if you have redundant categories, or if your project has switched category names in the past, please double-check that those categories are deleted, and if they are not, send them to CFD, or tag them for speedy deletion with a clear edit summary (you have no idea how valuable those were while checking what to undelete and what to keep deleted.) Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 00:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Some of our categories are indeed deleted: WikiProject Television/Assessment (See the red links half way trough). I'd like them back. We aren't even fully active yet, and simply because that takes long, the cat's get deleted. I don't like that at all. Good work on catching this major screwup from the people involved. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 03:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there or can there be some rule to notify a WikiProject before CfD'ing a category (and other important templates and articles, like lists) that bears its talk-page WP template? It often happens that we find a closed CfD or AfD with no one in WP Films having been notified to participate. Hoverfish Talk 14:30, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed template for talk pages of articles
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject. &mdash;Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 09:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

New WikiProjects
This is a list of the projects which I have just recently added to the directory. I haven't quite figured out how that thing is actually supposed to work, so if you see any which should be added to other sections please feel free to do so. I should note that each of these new projects is currently in at least one place in the directory, but, as I put them there, maybe not the right place. John Carter 21:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:Tulips nominated for deletion
See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Tulips. Slambo <small style="color:black;">(Speak) 10:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * We have a wikiproject on tulips? --tjstrf talk 11:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * We're not supposed to, really. (I suspect that someone created it after seen the examples in the project guide, which I had constructed on the—apparently mistaken—assumption that nobody would actually want a WikiProject for tulips, and hence that the example could be a purely hypothetical one.) Kirill Lokshin 11:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Lol! That's great. --kingboyk 11:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposals page
Hello, all. There are still over 150 proposed projects over at WikiProject Council/Proposals. I dunno, but I think that's kinda a lot. If any of you think that those that already have over 5 members (there are a few of them) should be started, please feel free to do so. John Carter 19:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Phrasing on assessment page
It has recently come to my attention that some people can construe some of the phrasing in some of the importance parameters (particularly the phrase "generally notable" outside the field of the project) as the basis for challenging the existing less-than-top importance ranking of some articles. Suggest that anyone who has such phrasing intact on the assessment page maybe change it to "particularly generally notable" or something else to help reduce the possibility of such challenges arising again. John Carter 15:27, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Question about WikiProject
I want to create a WikiProject on the Tudors. There don't seem to be a lot of history wikiprojects and those there are are very broad (ie, all of antiquity, or the entire Aztec civilisation). There is a WikiProject European history, but it was only set up two months ago and exists in a very rudimentary form. So, should I set this up as a separate project, or try and form a taskforce of EUROHIST, even though it will probably overshadow the main project? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 02:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you mean something like WP:BROY, or a more general project on the entire Tudor period? Kirill Lokshin 02:59, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The entire Tudor period, from Henry VIII to Elizabeth. I'm not talking fashions and stuff, but things like Kett's Rebellion and the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. History. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 03:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest a task force of WP:ENGLAND, then. The "Tudor period" really only makes sense as a topic in the context of British history; going all the way up to European history doesn't seem helpful (particularly given the fact that that project is entirely catatonic).  Kirill Lokshin 03:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, but WP:ENGLAND has only been around three months and seems equally inactive. Same problem, really. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 03:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I would presume that starting an active task force would kick some life into it, then. There's no need to set up an entire project and all the necessary (and boring) structuring and so on - it's a waste of time for you and confers no special privileges. Girolamo Savonarola 18:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Multiple Banner discussion
I've recently been working a lot on article talk pages that have multiple WikiProject banners - specifically with the three "multi" templates: WikiProjectBanners, WikiProjectBannerShell, and Hidden infoboxes. While there's been quite a bit of discussion on the talk pages for those templates, I (and others) haven't seen any wiki-wide discussion. The issue seems to be whether or not (and how) to handle articles that are a part of several WikiProjects. (See also here and here.) My sense in those discussions is that there are some editors that object to an article's talk page having multiple banners and having to scroll through them all to get to the "content". But those discussions have had fairly limited exposure.

So my questions are: Thanks, -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:03, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) If an article's talk page has multiple project banners, is that a problem?
 * 2) Should this question be brought up in a more general forum - say at the Village Pump or on a Request for Comments?
 * I favor this banner:


 * and I'm extremely active in WP:NBA, but talk pages aren't billboards for WikiProjects. There are a lot of people who don't like the clutter, or the outmoded small option.Quadzilla99 14:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I would agree that the banner clutter is a problem (with WikiProjectBannerShell being the most reasonable proposal thus far, IMO). If we are to discuss this in a wider forum, I would suggest RFC might be the most appropriate.--cj | talk 14:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment: I'm not really asking which multi-banner option is better. I'm asking if there's an issue.  Though I take it from both comments that it is :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs)  15:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Whereas clutter is an obvious problem in the article pages, particularly in footer templates, I do not see why it is considered a problem in talk pages of film articles. I have been in discussion pages with so many active sections that I had a problem to find where a specific issue was. But scrolling a bit down, away from some WP templates has never been a practical consideration, just move the scrollbar down and it's all gone! I will not talk of other articles but only of film articles. In some more developed articles (a small minority out of 22.000) there are some discussions and in very rare cases they get long enough to have an archive subpage. Most film talk pages have no discussion and are used mostly to make obvious how many WP's claim the article, plus how they evaluate it, and there are many templates that display the special needs of this article (needs image, needs synopsis, needs infobox, whatever). Recently we also created film-specific upgrading info that appears only when an articled is assigned class stub. For many of us, especially new members, all these banners and info are of some use, I have never heard anyone say the slightest thing about WP templates being a problem in film articles until we were told it has been decided (has it?) that it is a problem (in film articles?) and we were given some choices to chose from as to how we prefer them hidden. Certainly there has to be a discussion before this starts being applied or enforced, as some non-WP Films users have already started applying it in films, and we can't monitor this easily in 22.000 articles, and then maybe another idea will catch, or this will fail, and I don't think that those who applied it will come back to cleanup their banner-shells and finally some of us will have to do the cleanup, as if we don't have enough in our hands already. Also the banners are meant to encourage newcomers by being obvious. I doubt newcomers know that they must press on "show" because there is usefull information for them waiting hidden there. So, whereas I have heard no one complain about them being as they are, I do hear several active members of our project saying that they like it as it has been. I also resent the "the dice has been cast"-way we were brought before it. "The way things are going on Wikipedia", your choice is between A and B. We are also part of what is going on in Wikipedia. Hoverfish Talk 16:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally, if there's only, say, two WikiProjects and no other banners, I don't see a problem with leaving them alone. The issue is when 3 or more WikiProjects are involved, or when there are other tags and banners. A user, even at a screen resolution of 800x600, should be able to see at least the beginning of, and arguably even most of, the Table of Contents without scrolling. If they can't, that's when I think the multi-templates are needed. Ral315 » 18:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally I think the rule of thumb is 3 or more WikiProjects and the banner is added this is discussed on the banner talk page. Quadzilla99 18:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * So far I haven't personally dealt w/ many pages with egregious banner overload, but I have noticed some redundancy; many composer bio pages, for example, have both Composers and WPBiography (w/ "musician-work-group=yes") on them...that's a little cluttered as well as a bit confusing for us newbies. It does sound like there's some overzealous banner-transcluding going on in some areas, so yes some discussion may be needed...I would say the rules of thumb mentioned above make general sense – ie keep the TOC visible on the first screen and/or more than 2 banners, though I think probably, and almost certainly BLP (or  ) should be exempt from the count.
 * On remedies, though, let me point out, per the Template talk pages, that the banner shell templates mentioned above don't work well with old browsers; WikiProjectBanners actually makes the clutter worse on my machine. The small=yes parameter is, I think, a valid solution.  In any case, I think any eventual policy should leave things at least somewhat to the discretion of the users active on a particular talk page, rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all approach, esp. one that has technical accessability issues.  &mdash;<font face="georgia" color="darkgreen">Turangalila  talk 03:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Composers should be a workgroup of WPBio Arts & Entertainment, there's the simple answer :) At WPBio we've done all we can to promote template sharing (or, rather, I have and User:Plange did when she was active) but there's only so far we can push it. Totally agree with you about over-zealous tagging. --kingboyk 11:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It's difficult to stop members of your project from tagging wildly. It results in articles being tagged that have little or NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with our purview that we almost certainly never actually edit. I find it stupid, but hey, what can you do? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 12:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello. While they use a similar method, Hidden infoboxes is not equivalent to WikiProjectBanners or WikiProjectBannerShell. The latter nest WikiProject banners in a single WikiProject banner, whereas the hidden infoboxes template hides all messages of lesser importance (including WikiProject banners, 'in the news' boxes, quality indicators, et cetera). For example, see Talk:Jane Fonda; note that only two out of nine templates would be merged into one of the WikiProjectBanner templates, instead of eight out of nine. (Separately, it is also easier to use; one needs only click on [show] once to see all hidden information). — {admin} Pathoschild 03:16:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm confused - two out of nine? Eight out of nine? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs)  03:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm also confused. The GA marking should hit the eye easily, so one knows what he's dealing with and treats it accordingly. At least FA appears on the main page, but in the Jane Fonda one wouldn't guess it unless he knows he has to go looking for it. And what about all the maintenance templates. I thought they were not part of the deal. I think we have to put a stop to this until we know what we are doing and who wants it and who not. To me it seems like some put work into things, run checks and apply proper maintenance templates and others put work into making it ineffective. Hoverfish Talk 13:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * As I said, is not equivalent to the WikiProject templates. The vast majority of templates are only relevant to experienced editors; if a casual reader wants to discuss a mistake, he doesn't care that it is in a "good article" that was praised in the Sunday Times and is part of "WikiProject Georgia (U.S. state)". Thus, the important messages and warnings—those that are meant for the causual talk page viewer— are shown at the top of the page, while trivial messages are hidden with a prominent "more information" box. Thus, a new user isn't confused by two pages of yellow warning-like boxes, and a more experienced editor can easily review all the information and then tuck it back out of the way.


 * But as I said above, the templates are not equivalent. Thus, a discussion about hiding WikiProject boxes is not relevant to one about hiding all trivial boxes. — {admin} Pathoschild 21:40:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * As was said in Template talk:Film when we had to chose which is our prefered option, Shell (when fully expanded) looks better than non-Shell and when not expanded is by far more helpful. Hidden was not even brought up, and I hope it stays out of it. I also said that the upgrading box should stay out of the collapsible boxes. I am not good in the coding of such things, but I guess due to some difficulty, it is now in the box and the result is IMO lousy: Talk:Paris Qui Dort. Provided that I have seen no film stub with any considerable discussion, could we at least limit the use of Shell to films above class stub? If stubs are left out of the deal (and I have more reasons than just aesthetics for this), I will be supporting shell in films. Also could someone please add a "show all" next to the "hide" (at the top level box) so we don't have to press twice on "hide" to see it all? Hoverfish Talk 00:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It would be very helpful if we settled on one, and then the technically inclined could start writing code which supports that one agreed upon solution. I also think Shell is by far the superior solution, and it should shortly be able to display the BLP warning outside itself, which is even better. --kingboyk 00:29, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

In this case I wouldn't have a problem with stubs. At the template talk (see above link) the indication was Shell (Nested with class and importance). In WP Films talk, the whole idea was opposed and no preferences were given. In both cases the participation was low, which may mean the rest wouldn't mind and which makes my and Nehram's opposition not worth insisting on. So let's say that technicalities pending, Films is for Shell. Hoverfish Talk 00:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Multiple Banner Discussion (2)
Thanks for all the input above! The discussion has now been brought up at the Village Pump. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject banners and scopes
Please see discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject reform, regarding WikiProject scopes getting off track. I think a lot of stuff can be cleared up by better work load distribution and less redundant tagging, and the WikiProject scope is in the center of that. -- Ned Scott 00:37, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Lists tagging EVERY ARTICLE that is "list of"
Special:Contributions/BetacommandBot

No, just... NO. -- Ned Scott 01:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Projects and notability
At Wikipedia talk:Notability I suggested that WikiProjects might be more involved in determining notability. I am aware that many projects already do this. For example, the Wine Project wrote Wikipedia is not a wine guide and use this a guideline for merging or even deleting articles. The Scouting Project has criteria for which Scouting organisations are notable. Troops and Groups are not. Countries, States and Counties are. Many sporting projects have similar notions of notability. Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability is showing a lack of consensus about notability with one group wanting a more bureaucratic tendency to measure notability in terms of sources. Others, including myself, think that notability and sources are different. We decide whether a topic is notable, but only write the article if sources are sufficient to verify a reasonable amount of content. I thnk WikiProjects could play a useful role, but the objection is that Projects will say "Eh, throw everything you can find in." to quote one critic. The answer is to develop ways that Projects have criteria and that these are open to debate and improvement from outside. Is this feasible? Please add your views here. I promised to add this here earlier but I have been busy and start a full wikibreak in 24 hours from now for four days. I may not be able to add anything further until the weekend. --Bduke 22:06, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The only reservations I might personally have is that several of the smaller or perhaps "more focused" projects (like, for instance, those that deal with a single video game series) might find that, in their own eyes, they might feel an obligation to create individual articles on comparative trivia to justify the continuation of the project. However, if the various projects were to perhaps "come together" and create general guidelines for notability, in such a way that perhaps all the projects are involved in all the notability requirements, it might work. Certainly, I can see how my own project WikiProject Saints, would consider virtually every saint notable. (In fact, I regret to say that I have in fact already said something to that effect. At least, every saint with an individual commemoration.) We might be able to offer valuable outside opinion on notability for statuary, however. Similarly, WikiProject Architecture might be able to provide some valuable outsider input on whether my own assertion about saints is valid. I can see difficulties with this specific approach proposed, but there are others which might not have the same problems. John Carter 00:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Help
Hi, all. I need some help in maintaining WikiProject Shannara. There are a few members, but they didn't seem to be doing anything anymore. I hope someone would be kind enough to go through the bother of checking it out and help. Thanks in advance! <font color="black" face="comic sans ms">Zachary <font color="crimson" face="comic sans ms">crimsonwol <font color="green" face="comic sans ms">f 13:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC) 13:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi all. Zach has highlighted a problem -- I can't find any easy way to tell when we decide projects are inactive!  What's the process?
 * Anyway, the problem is, WikiProject Shannara has been added to the "Inactive Projects" category, but doesn't have any banner indicating this or anything.
 * -- TimNelson 06:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)


 * By the way, I am the only active member left there, does it still count as an inactive WikiProject? <font color="black" face="comic sans ms">Zachary <font color="crimson" face="comic sans ms">crimsonwol <font color="green" face="comic sans ms">f 13:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC) 09:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * To answer my own question the definition of an inactive project is at: WikiProject Council/Directory/WikiProject. So it looks like it's not 100% inactive at the moment.  -- TimNelson 12:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Dormant Proposals?
Would any of you fine, wonderful, nay frankly awesome and inspiring, people know what to do with the various proposals on the WikiProject Council/Proposals page that don't seem to be going anywhere? John Carter 00:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * If they've been sitting for a long time (i.e. many months) with little interest, I don't see any reason why we can't just remove them. There are, quite honestly, a fair number of proposals that just aren't going to work out. Kirill Lokshin 01:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think they should be archived, so that people know not to propose them again for a while. -- TimNelson 11:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: WikiProject Powderfinger
I came across this WikiProject just now and I had some concerns about it, such as the focus being very narrow, the number of articles in the project's scope is under 15, and there are only two members. The project seems to have been launched without a proposal. Should it be deleted?--  十  八  10:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I would probably say no, as there are a lot of projects which have been started without being proposed first. Some of them do eventually take off and wind up being productive. However, if it doesn't show any activity after a while, then it could safely be proposed for deletion or maybe proposed for merger into some other project. John Carter 15:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I think also give them some time but keep an eye on it. Proposals aren't needed, but Powderfinger are not imho a hugely influential or important band and I think they might struggle to get anywhere. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt for now. --kingboyk 15:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for these comments. If, indeed, there is no progress, then a deletion may indeed by appropriate.  But not yet, hopefully. G1ggy Stalk -  Talk  -  Chalk 00:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * As "the second member" (G1ggy being the first) of the project, I'm for its continuation. The band is one of Australia's most successful bands ever, having won more ARIA Awards' album of the year than any other artist ever, along with high album sales and general recognition in general. I do, however think it's really important to have a WikiProject for Australian Music (which there isn't presently). I started a petition, but nobody signed it. :'(
 * Anyway, let's keep this thing going at least until all of the project objectives are achieved.
 * --<font size="1" face="century gothic" color="#000000">linca <font face="century gothic" size="1" color="#339922">linca 07:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The Proposals process is currently not mandatory. However, if the project becomes inactive, it may well be abducted as a task force by one of the other music-related projects.
 * If you want some sort of proposals process to be mandatory, discuss it on WikiProject reform.
 * -- TimNelson 08:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The project is picking up pace (if anyone else is still interested), so I'm hoping you will reconsider any deletion proposals. G1  gg  y  !  05:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

please help.
What can you if you think you are involved in a project that is being sabataged by people whose actions seem counter to the stated policies of wikipedia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thaddeus Slamp (talk • contribs) 04:38, 13 May 2007 (UTC).


 * Resolving disputes -- TimNelson 11:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for organizing Wikipedia Maintenence projects
The projects related to Wikipedia maintenence are horribly disorganized and often overlap. Please see my proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Directory. Fishal 21:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

question
Is is possible to suggest an idea for a proposal for a project, but not be involved? 147.197.215.16 17:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It certainly is. I did so for the "Methodism" proposal. But, one way or another, it would probably help to set up an account and post the addition under the account name. John Carter 17:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorting
Is there a bot which can sort things into alphabetical order? If not, should i leave a request at the bots page to do this for the proposals? Simply south 17:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Seeing as nobody has objected, i have left a suggestion at Bot requests. Simply south 13:23, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * What needs to be sorted? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 13:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Often the proposals are out of alphabetical order and i thought it would be easier to navigate that way. Simply south 15:56, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject memberships
An interesting discussion has popped up between myself and another user about WikiProjects and the authority of "members". Basically, is "membership" required for an editor to be involved in project-level tasks and decision making? See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject reform. -- Ned Scott 05:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that anyone should feel free to come and discuss stuff (and even vote if there's eg. a straw poll, but not an official vote). For example, say you have a problem with the scope of the project, I think the appropriate action is to discuss this on the project talk page, and help them refine their scope, not to start going around and removing banners.  We revised our scope at WPCalvinism with the help of a few people who wandered past, as well as disagreements between the members; we went from a scope of "articles about Calvinism" to the 8-paragraph scope we have now.
 * -- TimNelson 05:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Scope of Mexican American project
So, how broad can the scope to a project be? I ask because another user and I disagree on the scope of the above project. On the main page of the project, it states "Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to Mexican-Americans and Chicanos." This by itself is pretty vague due to the use of the term "related to." It goes on further, however, to state on its project banner "This includes but is not limited to Mexican-Americans as well as those not so affiliated, country and region-specific topics, and anything else related to Mexican-Americans." This seems profoundly broad to me... I don't think they actually mean it that way for with such a definition, I should tag the "White House" page because they have a Spanish version of the site. Likewise, I should tag Southpark because they have had episodes that mentioned Mexicans. My point is it basically will be like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon if allowed. Everything at some point is "related to." The specific case the other user and I disagree on is the article and talk page for Elvira Arellano. For reference, Ms. Arellano is an illegal immigrant in the US. The other user believes the article and talk page should fall under the Mexican Amerian project because her son by birth is an American even though she is not. I assert that she should not be listed under the project because if she were American, she would not be notable to wikipedia as she would not have problems with US immigration authorities and hence, no article. The article on her son should fall under this project as he is Mexican-American but not hers IMHO. To do so, besides being inaccurate, would make it confusing to readers unfamiliar with the article as they will wonder why a "Mexican American" has immigration problems. I would like to ask the project directly but frankly, one of its members and I have clashed in the past as he and the other user have a tendency to tag-team on the article. Thus, I do not believe I will get a fair hearing. Is there some way to have the project reviewed by a third party for too broad of a scope? Thanks! LordPathogen 04:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Resolving disputes. You've got to draw the line somewhere.  The way to look at this is as an opportunity to clarify the scope.  The way I've used tagging/scope in the past is to tag articles if it needs attention from someone in the project; in WikiProject Calvinism, we linked to some people who were major opponents of Calvinism for example (this was disagreed with, but after clarification, was stated in the revised scope).  What you need to do (in addition to using the dispute resolution process), is to talk to them about what is *not* included in the scope.  To do this, you presumably have to agree on a definition of Mexican-American for project purposes (which can be different than the Wikipedia definition).  It seems to me that you're defining "American" on a citizenship basis.  The other user is defining it as "someone who is living (or trying to live) in America".  I'd also advise that you agree on a definition of Mexican, too (eg. what about people whose parents were born in Mexico, but whose grandparents are English?  What about people whose ancestors left Mexico in 1803?), as clearing up these definitions will help.


 * Once you manage to agree on those definitions, that will help to revise the scope of the project. The Calvinism scope (linked above) started as a one-liner, but now has subheadings to deal with specific parts of the scope (it still fits on one screen, though).
 * -- TimNelson 05:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject History
This may be somewhat excessive navel-gazing, but I am curious if there is any list or otherwise collated data somewhere as to the list of the largest WikiProjects by number of participants or by various other measures of degree of activity. Just purely out of curiosity. LordAmeth 10:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * AFAIK, if we use "number of task forces" as the measurement, then the largest are WPMILHIST and WPBIO. -- TimNelson 02:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Exploring the possibility of creating Wikiproject, Child, or Task Force
Hi, I'm in an information-gathering stage to determine whether it would make sense to create some kind of Wikiproject on a set of topics. The article began as a single article, but is clearly going to branch out pretty quickly. I think that a Child Project, or even a Task Force, would be more appropriate than a full WikiProject. The question I have is, the topics in question could easily fall into 2, or even 3, larger topics. Some of the topics that branch out from this probably would be better placed in a different category entirely. The specific topic I'm referring to is "dyslexia." Depending on how you look at it, it could be categorized under neurological or psychological conditions; education; special education (a child project of Education). The articles that will branch out from this topic will range from eduation law, special education, learning disabilities and educational methods and instructional interventions, to several branches of psychology, neuropsychology, psyciatric diagnoses, brain research, neuroimaging, etc. If I were going to choose, I would probably go with neuroscience. But, the Education project is much more extensive and organized. However, I don't know if that is an advantage or disadvantage.

Would love feedback on how best to categorize topics that could easily fall into more than one. Thanks in advance! Rosmoran 19:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * There are already a few task forces/work groups which are "descendant" projects of more than one project. I would think that maybe some sort of combination of WikiProject Medicine (which I think deals with medical conditions in general, probably including dyslexia) and WikiProject Education might be the best way to go. You might want to contact both groups regarding the possible creation of such a mutual task force/work group, and maybe some others. Listing the idea as a proposed project on the WikiProject Council/Proposals page, indicating in the comments that you would be interested in determining which if any extant projects your proposal would be a task force or work group of, might be a good idea as well. John Carter 19:40, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Banner code size and complexity
As I'm adding code to TrainsWikiProject this week (testing in User:Slambo/TWP test) to add quality and importance categories for UK Railways and New Zealand Railways subprojects, I noticed the little message at the top of the page that said the template is 32k long. After trying to work out how to reduce the code and the maintenance complexity yesterday, the thought struck me of putting each subproject's code into a subtemplate so a snippet of the main template would look something like...

|- {{#ifeq:{{{UK|}}}|yes|{{TrainsWikiProject/UK|{{{small|}}}|{{{class|}}}|{{{UK-importance|}}}}} |- {{#ifeq:{{{Subway|}}}|yes|{{TrainsWikiProject/Subway|{{{small|}}}|{{{class|}}}|{{{Subway-importance|}}}}}

and so on with one <tt> {{#ifeq: </tt> line for each of the subproject identifier params. The value to continued template maintenance should be obvious, but I'm left with the question of how much this would increase the server load for affected pages. In short, is this a good strategy? Slambo <small style="color:black;">(Speak) 18:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

After reading through Wikipedia talk:Template limits, it seems that this strategy wouldn't affect rendering or size limitations as the size of the template and all transclusions are counted as one lump sum. However, that brings up another question. What can we do to avoid problems when several large projects put their banners on one talk page? For example, Great Locomotive Chase is within the scope of WP Trains (since it involved rail operations), WP MilHist (because it was an incident that occurred as part of an ongoing military conflict) and WP Georgia US (because of where the event occurred). Right now the talk page html source includes the comment:

While currently, this page is well within the expand limits, if each of these projects' banners increases by significant amounts, or other projects step in or a large discussion ensues there, one or more of the banners could be suppressed. It's starting to look like the thing to do would be for the main template to allow an expandable section for subprojects in much the same way as {{tl|start box}} and the various succession templates work. Thoughts? Slambo <small style="color:black;">(Speak) 19:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * As I was recently reminded when asking about adding a bunch of {{tl|cite web}} templates for references, Don't worry about performance. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 21:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Bad joke
I am currently in the process of trying to update the Project Directory. You really don't want to know just how many little projects are out there. Anyway, to vent a little, I created User:Warlordjohncarter/WikiProject WikiProject Proliferation. I hope no one decides to delete it. John Carter 01:34, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hahaha, I like it. -- Ned Scott 01:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Take a look at WP:REFORM - we're trying to get a handle on the situation... SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 02:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject covering years?
It seems to me that the massive number of articles we have on Art/Literature/Architecture/Culture/Nosepicking in 1492/1678/983BC, given the low content of virtually all of them, would be better off merged into their respective and equally empty year articles, possibly creating some half decent helpful articles in the process. It is however a gargantuan task taking in many hundreds of articles, and I am somewhat loathe to attempt it on my own. Is there a wikiproject that covers these articles, or a group covering such maintenence that I can call on for assistance? 62.30.56.116 23:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC) (Dev920 - it's a disease, I tell you...)

Project Sandbox
I noticed this Sandbox from a editor User:ACBest/TempSandbox appearing in all of the Australian Projects and others, should this be really placed this way, as its showing up in all the Categories and coming up with them being all FA-Class and Top Importance. This person is not with our Australian Project. Boylo 23:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Have you tried asking them to take it off as it is messing with all of the categories? <font face="Lucida Calligraphy">Greeves (talk • contribs) 23:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No as i am fairly new to Wiki and am not sure on the protocols for this type of thing.Boylo

From looking at User:ACBest/Sandbox it appears he is a template designer for WikiProjects, so will let him be, thx anyway.Boylo 00:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe this is something that admins need to decide on if its allowed or the WikiProject Council, as if everyone starts to do the same, it will become a form of Category vandalism for all the Projects in time. Thats why i had mentioned it here. Boylo 02:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think it would ever become an issue. Even if it did, we can easily make banners exclude the user namespace from being categorized. Many of the banners have "class=NA" which will remove them from any important categories. -- Ned Scott 03:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Interestingly enough, WikiProject Anime and manga already auto-excluded the page since it was a user page. -- Ned Scott 03:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Question on the "Comments" section of project banners
I've been doing assessments for the veterinary medicine wikiproject, and I've noticed that when I leave a comment following assessment, it is linked to within the banner. This is great, and I do not want to change the banner template. However, if there are banners from other projects also present, some of those may display any comments within their banners. I don't want to change the banner templates of those projects either, but when I make a comment, it is about the article from a veterinary medicine standpoint, and sometimes it looks strange to see it within a different banner. See Talk:Canine herpesvirus for a mild example of what I am talking about. My question is, can we do anything about this, or is it really not that big a deal? --Joelmills 18:26, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks fine by me. Generally, the comments page is for comments on how to expand the article. If there is anyone in the Dogs project who wants to help, and can find sources to add the content, well and good, they'll see the comments. As long as the comments aren't about something that specifically relates exclusively to a specific project (like maybe requesting a certain article layout or something similar) there shouldn't be any real problem. John Carter 18:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, and I see your point. Coincidentally, I just ran across Talk:Canine distemper, which shows a second possible drawback of comment displays in banners. May need to banner shell that one. --Joelmills 22:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Dinosaurs
This WikiProject is actively seeking recruitment and is in danger of foundering. Although there are 75 editors signed up on the participants page, there are only around six editors actively reverting vandalism, adding and refining content, and working on collaborations, and this has been the case for over a year. Real life may call some of these editors away at any time, leaving this project defunct, and hundreds of articles open to vandalism and inaccuracies.

If you are interested in improving Wikipedia's dinosaur coverage, whether you are a professional or amateur, please consider signing up and actively participating on WP:DINO. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Certification Links
Any ideas from the rest of you of what this is supposed to be? John Carter 00:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm think the same thing as you are! <font face="Lucida Calligraphy">Greeves (talk • contribs) 01:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Can you speedy that as nonsense or no-context? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 05:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * We can try. John Carter 20:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Project directory
I have recently tried to update the project directory. If anyone knows how to break down the entries in WikiProject Council/Directory/Wikipedia, please feel free to do so. John Carter 00:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Participation Drive
I don't know what do you think?, but in my boredom I created this template (Template:ScottishWikiProjectActivity), for the Scottish WikiProject, to measure members activity, this can be transcluded in the users or Wikiproject pages, both as reminder and a motivator of the WikiProject council. You can choose any given period of time: By monthly, bimonthly or trimonthly basis, to count user contributions, project dormancy or project notability. Also it can be customized to facilitate the task of the WikiProject Editorial Team 1.0 for representing the quality status of articles at glance. Let me know your comments. Here it is how this works for now. (If you would like I can change the colors as well).

Example:

The UserTalk, WikiProject, Mainspace and Activity parameters are all optional. Use only the ones that are appropriate for the situation. Typically, the Top, Left, Bottom and Right sections will be filled in, as a minimum; to determine inactivity within a predetermined period of time. User Inactive is depicted like this A and Active with an A.

◙JMK◙ -22:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Template names
(Looking through the archives, I didn't see this discussed, which surprised me. If it was...well, this should still happen.)

I was thinking about Metadatatest.js just now, and I realized what was so frustrating about it. It arranges the project templates in alphabetical order, not necessarily by the name of the project, but by the name of the template. Compare: Classical Greece and Rome, NFLProject, NovelsWikiProject, WP_SCOTUS, WikiProject Saints. Currently, I can only guess at the name of a WikiProject template unless I specifically know it. This setup discourages people who aren't affiliated with a project from at least putting up its template. And, getting back to Metadatatest.js, even if I know the specific project I want, I need to scroll through the whole list of templates to find its.

So, though it might be a hassle, why not rename all these templates Template:WikiProject ___. Predictable, stable, consistent, self-explanatory. --zenohockey 07:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Allow me to point out that many WikiProjects have quite a number of templates. They can have one for article scope (this is the one you're talking about, I think), one for invitations, one to go on the articles themselves, a stub template, a welcome, and userboxes.  If you go to WikiProject Calvinism, you can see links to a number of these in the navigation bar.
 * My point is, we should be more specific here. It should be Template:WikiProject ___ article scope or something.  But the problem is, that's pretty long.  How would Template:WPAS ___ be?  Where WPAS = WikiProject article scope.
 * WikiProjects have been done on a fairly ad-hoc basis so far. I think if we're going to standardise this, we should consider standardising a few other page name related items (ie. the other templates I mentioned).
 * -- TimNelson 09:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Redirects are our friends; there's no reason to move hundreds of templates around if the same thing can be accomplished with much less disruption. ;-) Kirill 15:36, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Fine by me. Zenohockey, can your js be made to work with redirects?  -- TimNelson 01:27, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not "mine", it's User:Outriggr's, though it looks like he doesn't want it anymore... I'll leave a note on the script's dedicated talk page; maybe someone fluent in JS will step in. Other than that, a reasonable compromise. --zenohockey 05:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, it does work with redirects! I just tried it successfully with WikiProject Schools, a redirect to WPSchools. In that case, this problem isn't nearly as pressing as I thought. I think the redirect idea is definitely the least laborious proposal, but that doesn't matter so much now. Thanks all! --zenohockey 06:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

New bot
We may soon have a bot available for assisting in assessment and determining which articles relevant to a project have and have not been tagged. The details to date are at Bot requests. John Carter 17:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a great idea, it looks like it will be useful. Thanks to all concerned, Walkerma 19:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Article category standardization
Many WikiProjects are now using the WP:1.0 assessment scheme to categorize articles. For articles, all projects are using the same categorization scheme, as required by the bot:
 * Project articles by quality
 * FA-Class Project articles
 * A-Class Project articles
 * GA-Class Project articles
 * B-Class Project articles
 * Start-Class Project articles
 * Stub-Class Project articles

However, the problem is for non-article categories. Many projects use Cat, Dab, Image, List, NA, Portal, and Template classes. Previous discussions at WP:1.0 have resulted in letting each project to what they want with the "non-standard" grades. As such, use of these grades, and their categorization has never been standardized. If you take a look at Category:Articles by quality (which should parallel all "Project articles by quality"), in addition to the standard categories there are:
 * Category:Category-Class articles
 * Category:Disamb-Class articles
 * Category:Image-Class articles
 * Category:List-Class articles
 * Category:NA-Class articles
 * Category:Portal-Class articles
 * Category:Template-Class articles
 * Category:Unassessed-Class articles

Within each of these categories, there is great variety in what each project is calling its own category. Some of the categories are named like "X-Class Project pages", because not all of the classifications are used on articles. Additionally, there are differences in using "Disambig" vs "Disamb" vs "Dab" vs "Disambiguation", "NA-Class" vs "Non-article", and "Unassessed-Class" vs "Unassessed".

Another possible problem is having these non-article categories within a category named for containing articles ("Articles by quality"). I think it would be nice to try and come up project guidelines/conventions for classification and categorization of all pages, and not just articles rated for WP:1.0. It would be nice to have a consistent structure for finding all pages within any WikiProject. I like the structure used by several current projects where all of the categories are placed in "Project articles by quality", which is in "WikiProject Project articles." (Besides "by quality", "WikiProject Project articles" also typically contains "Project articles by importance", "Project articles needing expert attention", "Project articles with comments", and "Requests for Project peer review".) I like this organization, since all of the class categories are together in one parent category. The articles and non-articles could split up, but I think this would add an unnecessary level of categorization. Any ideas or suggestions? --Scott Alter 21:27, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiResource Center
I have set up a resource center on Wikipedia. Can this be moved onto the main Wikipedia while I still retain control over the center? Please respond on my page ASAP. I will be gone for three weeks about 12 or so hours after this message got posted.

Signed,

<font color="#ddcc00">D<font color="#bb9955">ef<font color="#884488">en<font color="#5500cc">d er 9 11 

23:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You cannot really have any control anywhere; Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. So no, you cannot have full control of it there. Also, at User talk:Defender 911/WikiResource John makes a good point; there is no real need for this page. <font face="Lucida Calligraphy">Greeves (talk • contribs) 01:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Afterthought: This is not really a WikiProject, so why are you asking here at WT:COUNCIL? <font face="Lucida Calligraphy">Greeves (talk • contribs) 01:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * After looking again, it kind of is a WikiProject of sorts. <font face="Lucida Calligraphy">Greeves (talk • contribs) 03:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposing a page for inclusion
What is the conventional, polite way to propose the inclusion of a page into a given WikiProject? Is there a template to do this? It seems like it would be presumptuous to add the tag to an article's discussion page if I'm not officially "part" of the WikiProject in question. $$\sim$$ Lenoxus " * " 22:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hunh. That's a good question.  Me personally, I'd just add the project banner.  If I had a question about it, I'd post a note on the project's talk page. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs)  00:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You could also add it to the "New Articles" section of the project page if such a section exists, or just drop a note on the project's talk page. Generally, though, the banner is fairly effective. John Carter 13:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ask at the WikiProject's talk page... there is no need to make a template for tasks that can successfully be accomplished by talking. :) Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 18:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject G-Unit Records Proposal
I think it has enough interested user, so shouldn't it be started.--Shadyaftrmathgunit 22:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like someone's done this -- TimNelson 03:51, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Task force banner?
I note that there is a separate Muslim history banner for the WikiProject Islam/Muslim history task force. Is this usual? John Carter 18:10, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't believe so. Task forces usually have their banners integrated into their project's banner. Also, you can still receive all the assessment features you would with a separate banner. <font face="Lucida Calligraphy">Greeves (talk • contribs) 02:13, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

New Template:Project header, like Template:Guideline, Template:Essay, etc.
There's a new Project header, based on Guideline, Essay, Policy, and the like, and serving the same purpose, for WikiProject's main pages. It absorbs a lot of the boilerplate WikiProject lead-section wording, so that projects can have more customized introductions more easily, without over-editing doing away with important links and information at page-top. Please deploy on your projects. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 05:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Erm, what exactly is the point? A simple link to WikiProject will take care of the people who don't know what the term is without taking up a huge block of space at the top of the page. Kirill 13:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)