Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Inactive projects

Inactive projects

 * There has been extensive discussion of this topic at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_reform, which should be reviewed by interested parties. Additionally, current policy allows Projects to be nominated to Miscellany for Deletion at any time, please go there to discuss whether a specific project which has been nominated should be deleted.  --Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Here are some of the issues identified in the earlier discussions and yet to be resolved:


 * As of today, there are 311 projects marked inactive, the category page implies that the projects can be revived by anyone, there is no mention of deletion. The Guide says that projects that die become inactive, it does not mention deletion.


 * Miscellany for Deletion says that the deletion of Projects is "rare" and "extreme", however, the record on MfD indicates that the deletion of projects is far more common than suggested.


 * MfD does not provide a specific procedure for deleting projects. There is therefore, no notice to WikiProject Council, parent or child projects, or other interested parties.  It appears from WikiProject Deletion sorting that nominations for deletion may be pushed to other parties using categories, though this only appears to be done currently for Articles.


 * Participants at MfD appear from discussions logged there to often be unaware of the effect of deletion or the overall concerns that are created by project deletion and the alternatives of deprecating and marking as historical.


 * Projects can be merged into other projects or renamed as task forces of other projects, however, a project with little activity does not facilitate discussion of this, nor are the participants at MfD always best qualified to evaluate alternatives to deletion such as merger and renaming. More importantly, there are no instructions or other information about merging projects outside of talk pages, and no mention on either WP:MERGE or WP:COUNCIL/G.


 * The use of the tags inactive and historical needs to be clarified.

--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

For the most part, agreed. Please note however that the majority of projects which have been deleted have either never been very active, other than perhaps in the creation of the project page, have often had only one active member, which by definition means it falls short of being a collaborative project, or are otherwise, effectively, "stillborn". I have never seen anyone show any real objection to the deletion of a collaborative project which never got off the ground as a collaboration. In fact, today I nominated a project for deletion which has only had two directly project-related edits to its main page since it was created over a year ago. The general rule is that any project which has been proposed for deletion, for whatever reason, and found to not qualify on the basis of at least some previous activity is tagged as "historical". Projects which have only been noted to be inactive, and not nominated for deletion, tend to be tagged "inactive". At least, that's what I've seen to be the case. John Carter 17:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * That sounds fine in theory, but nowhere does it tell anyone that this is the way things are done. Also, is it possible to merge a single-member Project with the sole-member's user page - assuming the single member is actually active?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There are lots of places in wikipedia where things are never expressed clearly and officially, because, frankly, such rules tend to create bureaucracies to enforce them, which we in general try to avoid. If there is good reason to keep a single-member project, for instance, the inclusion of a template used in other articles there, that tends to be sufficient cause to not delete the project, but rather mark it as inactive, and is generally mentioned by one or more parties in the discussion for deletion if there is one. Regarding merger, generally, there is nothing of substance to merge into some other project. A list of categories, for example, is not sufficient cause to keep an inactive project page, so there is no real indicated purpose in keeping it. Templates, if they exist, generally get deleted at the same time as the project. To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't yet been a case where a single member project had content in it which was sufficient to keep it on that basis alone, and, given the nature of things here, it really isn't likely that that situation will ever arise. John Carter 18:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Types of non-active WikiProjects
In general, I think it's a bad idea in general to delete previously active WikiProjects. However, it's clear that "some types" of WikiProjects should be deleted. I think we should at least somewhat clarify what such "types" are in order to reduce confusion and possible drama. The following are just a few thoughts, I welcome anyone else's insight into this. - jc37 10:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * An active WikiProject (However that is defined - minimum active membership over a 2 month roll call period?)


 * An inactive WikiProject that was active for a "long period of time" (tbd) - historical
 * An inactive WikiProject that was active for a short period of time. - possibly historical; possibly inactive.
 * An inactive WikiProject that had too few participants to actually become a WikiProject, but which was "active" for a long period of time. - typically userfied.
 * An inactive WikiProject that had too few participants to actually become a WikiProject, and which was "active" for a short period of time. - typically up for deletion.


 * A previous WikiProject which has been usurped by a task force. - depends on which of the above 4 it falls under.

Thoughts? - jc37 10:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Personally, I would say that an active project was one which had multiple members and at least seemed to make some headway toward article improvement, and had at least some changes to the page, generally discussion of the articles. John Carter 14:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with that. Do the rest sound about right to you? - jc37 09:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I tend to think that if the a project had any activity and was at all serious, it should be userfied rather than deleted, regardless of how tiny the membership or the scope. Sure, if it is nothing but a couple of templates and a statement of purpose that's different, especially if no one responds to a suggestion of deletion or if an inactive tag stays on it for a long time with no comments, but even a one member project that hasn't gotten anywhere for a period of time shouldn't be deleted if the one member is around and is working on the project, it should be userfied.  If the project ever was actually active: had members and meaningful editorial discussion, it should not be deleted. The term "usurped" as used above in ambiguous and I'm not really sure what you mean.  I think the above categorization is overly complex.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:12, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So, for instance, if I were to create a WikiProject Italian saints, a WikiProject British saints, a WikiProject Australian Anglican saints, a WikiProject Jain philosophers, and various other projects, being the only member of any of them, you would argue that each and every one of them should remain, even if no one else joined any of them. I should note that I have myself contributed at least one article that has made the DYK section for each subject area above. I say this to point out that following the idea you put forward the existing project directory would almost immediately be overrun by individuals who seek to add too many userboxes to their userpages. We do have several other editors who seem to go out of their way to collect userboxes, and by following the rules above there would be no way to prevent certain parties, who will go unnamed, would simply create projects for the purpose of having more userboxes. This is unfortunately a real problem, particularly with a small group of editors, and overburdening the project directory with these "I wanna 'nuther userbox" projects is something I think of all us would want to avoid. And, yes, if you want to point fingers at me for too many userboxes, go ahead. Just note that in several cases, even if I'm not particularly active in the project, I created the pages for the projects once they had sufficient interest to have them started up in earnest. John Carter 19:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Absolutely not, depending on the circumstances: userfy, merge and userfy, or in maybe consult WP:SAINT re the first three to see if there is any interest and scope for task forces for these topics. Since the redirect can be speedy deleted, this is not a problem. See my other comments below.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think of Doug's comments above the first sentence was the most telling:
 * "I tend to think that if the a project had any activity and was at all serious, it should be userfied rather than deleted, regardless of how tiny the membership or the scope."

Well, the "scope" would seem to (these days) be what divides WikiProjects from Task forces. The membership... Well, I'm not sure there is a "minimum", but I think there should be at least 4 to make it a "project". (And that's 4 people doing more than just adding their names and some sort of wish list to the WikiProject.)

But besides that, I think we all agree, depending on how you define "was all that serious". I think that's what John Carter's concerns are. There are too many "WikiProjects", that exists in name only, for some purpose other than actual collaboration (such as bumper stickering of userboxes).

I don't think any of us would like to see an previous WikiProject that was actually/sincerely active in the past, to become deleted in the present. That just sounds like an incredibly bad idea to me. - jc37 06:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I think JC is right and maybe we have a disconnect. I'm not suggesting that a one person or even a fifty person project gets to stay a project just because it has a page.  But userfication, merger, and renaming as a task force are all viable alternatives that should be considered.  A one person project (or task force) that actually does work in an area that isn't a complete joke, should be userfied if it can't gain support after some reasonable time.  Maybe it should be immediately userfied and the editor/founder given suggestions on posting on WP:COUNCIL/P, correct me if I'm wrong, but the editor could even link there to his or her user subpage for the project.  That wouldn't be a bad place for very small one, two, three, four person projects to locate themselves while they are building up, though I don't think we suggest that in the Guide and I'm not sure why.  I just don't like the idea of deleting somebody's project just because they didn't follow the Guide and therefore never got anyone else interested in their project, just userfy it and let them keep playing around with it.  That's what userfication is for.  Yes, you go through the deletion process, but you don't delete.  If it is truly worthless for editorial purposes, it should can be userfied and marked PROD in accordance with WP:BITE


 * Additionally, the concerns which brought me here in the first place were suggestions on previously active Maintenance Projects (which are mostly rather small even when active). Some had very little activity ever, but even the discussion of why the project was being established was of value.  I saw discussion by editors that these projects should be "deleted", "closed down" and other references that suggested to me that they didn't know the alternatives.  I believe the best thing to do with some of these projects is to merge them with existing projects or rename them as task forces of existing projects, in some cases with the WP:COUNCIL (e.g. the, apparently now historical, WikiProject reform, which was the impetus for my cent tag).


 * So copying and commenting inline reference JC's list:


 * An active WikiProject (However that is defined - minimum active membership over a 2 month roll call period?)


 * We shouldn't be setting numbers and time periods


 * An inactive WikiProject that was active for a "long period of time" (tbd) - historical
 * An inactive WikiProject that was active for a short period of time. - possibly historical; possibly inactive.


 * What does "possibly inactive" mean? All of these projects are "inactive" or at least someone thought to tag them as such.
 * I don't see a difference between these two categories


 * An inactive WikiProject that had too few participants to actually become a WikiProject, but which was "active" for a long period of time. - typically userfied.
 * An inactive WikiProject that had too few participants to actually become a WikiProject, and which was "active" for a short period of time. - typically up for deletion.


 * Why differentiate from the preceding? Why not userfy


 * A previous WikiProject which has been usurped by a task force. - depends on which of the above 4 it falls under.


 * I think what you mean here is that a new project or task force now does the same thing - I don't think in these cases you can really have even a general rule - the circumstances are too varied, the new project or task force would need to be involved.


 * There is yet another consideration: where a now inactive project, no matter how long or how many people or how active it once was, logically is a child of another project - then that project should be consulted as to whether the project should be merged or renamed as a task force, or made historical as a stand alone project. I'm not talking about deletion cases, those should be both rare and easy.  --Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Regarding the wikipedia "maintainance" projects, particularly those which have a clear and specific purpose, I tend to agree with you. I don't remember any of the more thought through ones being nominated for deletion (Esperanza and the like, which were problematic for other reasons, excepted). But then I don't watch MfD as much as some others when I'm not actively hacking away at the undergrowth myself. Personally, I could stand to see many of the projects listed on the WikiProject Council/Directory/Wikipedia page, where possible, actively made directly related projects to the Council itself. Maybe we could even go so far as to "encourage" anyone who wants to join the Council to become actively involved in one or the other of those groups. I would hope that many of those who wish to be members of the Council are somewhat familiar with page layout and wikipedia in general, and if they are dedicated to their own projects they might be more likely to be interested in helping the larger wikipedia as well. Maybe some of the more necessary ones could even be listed on the Council project sidebar. How to go about setting such a system up is something I wouldn't have a clue about, though. Sorry. John Carter 00:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

How are things making the list?
John: Again, I have to ask - how are Projects added to the main page? If I mark a Project inactive right now, how will it make it on to the main page if I don't add it? Does it rely on you noticing the addition?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:05, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Which main page are we talking about here? If you mean this page, I'm adding all the projects by hand. It might be possible to change the inactive to automatically add such pages to the Category:Inactive WikiProjects, but I'm not sure I know enough about such things to do that myself. John Carter 21:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, this page. OK, I just wanted to understand how things are getting here.  I'm wondering if we created subcategories of Category:Inactive WikiProjects and coordinated them with your sections on this page, would we be able to add them automatically.  It seems to me that if we did anything to make them add automatically at this point there would still have to be a manual action to put them into the sections, since there'd be no way for any automated process to figure out where to put them.  Thoughts?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I know virtually nothing about automation of that kind. I think you're probably right though. John Carter 00:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Clarification requested
"Participants at MfD appear from discussions logged there to often be unaware of the effect of deletion or the overall concerns that are created by project deletion." Sorry for the igornance, but what is the "effect of deletion" and what are the "overall concerns" that are created by deleting dead wikiprojects? Thanks! /Blaxthos 12:02, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The effect of deletion is that the WikiProject or other page concerned, including all discussion, is no longer available for historical reference. You can't go back and see what someone said.  Although they are archived temporarily in case it is determined that the deletion was in error, they are not maintained long term.  There is no history, no archive, no edit trail, no going back and checking to see what someone said last year.  This is particularly relevant I have noticed with "maintenance projects" where there is often a small group having a rather serious discussion for a while and then things die out.  Just because the editors got bored and decided to work on articles for a while or became involved with a different issue, doesn't mean the discussion isn't important and shouldn't be preserved.  If a project dies, unless it has never had any activity at all, it is much better to archive it in order to preserve discussions between editors there.  In some cases, it can be merged with a likely parent or newer similar project, or made a subpage of such a project.  If a project has never gotten off the ground but still has one or two people trying to get it going, it may be better to userfy it and see if it eventually turns into something, or again, see if a parent project wants it as a task force or other subpage.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The only response I would make would be that, in general, many of the projects which have been nominated for deletion, like WikiProject Sindh, for example, which has recently been nominated for deletion by me, don't actually contain much beyond a statement of objective. Those really aren't that big a deal. While I agree that the majority of those projects which do have substantive discussion should be tagged as inactive rather than deleted, I think that is primarily what happens anyway. And the individual ruminations of the single editor who creates a project which is basically ignored from them on are generally not so important as to demand that they be kept in wikipedia space. Also, please note that most of these projects which have been deleted are basically cut from the WikiProject, sometimes with only the most minimal development. Again, there isn't much in those instances which indicate that the project should be saved for that reason. Also, the templates and other things which are sometimes created for projects are generally not very useful without the project itself, and can be removed without much, if any, real loss. After all, another template can be created just as easily, and possibly be done better, later, particularly if the template being used to create it has been improved in the interim. John Carter 15:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * John I joined you with respect to WikiProject Sindh and WikiProject Pakistan History, and I asked for clarification as to WikiProject Deletion sorting/Classical Tamil, but had concerns about the Deletion of WikiProject Lake Macquarie. Yet again, there is a comment that deleted articles can just be undeleted later if needed, which is just plain wrong - also the argument is used there and in the other two that a project should be deleted because it's inactive.  That's my point here, "inactive" is not grounds for deletion, "inactive" is grounds for review which may include nomination for deletion if for no other reason then that is the only review we have when no one responds to merge/rename suggestions and no one is willing to be bold.  I see this as a battle to educate and to some extent adopt procedures.  I could care less whether any of the four projects above live or die.  --Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Test case
WikiProject Off/Off-Off Broadway hasn't had an edit to it since January of last year. The project page has a list of articles, but except for the three articles missing in the WikiProject Off/Off-Off Broadway section the lists are basically redundant to other lists and categories elsewhere, and the templates are already all separate pages. Technically, this could be made a subproject of WikiProject New York Theatre, but frankly I'm not sure there's enough content to really think that this page would be a good basis for a subproject. Personally, I would tend to, in this case, lean toward deletion, without prejudice for recreation later, regardless of any activity the project may have had during its peiod of activity, based primarily on the comparatively poor format of the existing project page. What do the rest of you think? John Carter 00:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that the page is poorly formatted, there is no discussion to speak of (is that all vandalism? It's very confusing and pointless and should be undone in any case - that editor seems to show up on all the pages that we are talking about). There is little of substance here.  My concerns are 1) is there any other place you can get to the templates or any discussion, etc. of the templates on any other related project so one can see what the thought process was that went into creating them (I have to admit, I didn't go look at the template pages) and 2) there was some sort of a scheme here, the fact that there are other projects covering this stuff is not necessarily grounds for deletion.  I need more information to give an informed opinion.  I'd like to see the matter discussed by WikiProject New York Theatre or some other group of editors knowledgeable in the subject matter before being asked to cast a vote (which I know I'm not being asked for here).--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with you in that the woeful inadequacy of this page is not "necessarily grounds for deletion", as there are no necessary grounds for deletion. That is the purpose of the discussion, to see if the page is one which the editors in the discussion think deserves to stay. In cases like this, it will be pointed out that the page has little if any activity, no particular guidelines for use in related articles, and a few templates in use in various places. Generally, in the discussion, someone would do as you have and point out the existence of the templates, and that they should, perhaps, be placed on the New York Theatre project page. I also note that you once again are indicating a mindset which in effect says that any page once created must remain forever. This isn't even true in articles, where AfD is much more active. In a sense, projects themselves have "notability" requirements, and the discussion at MfD is to see whether the projects have been notable or noted enough to be preserved. The argument that once someone has put a lot of work into something, it must be preserved, doesn't work at AfD, where the idea pointed to is WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. In theory, a project has to be a collaborative effort of multiple editors to create, improve, or maintain articles. So, basically, if the project page is not actively meeting that standard, there is a school of thought, which I to a degree subscribe to, that it does not meet project "notability" standards, and can qualify for deletion on that basis. No one would assert that the biography of Mark Eilers, who was on my high school football team and went out with the class cute redhead, would necessarily meet notability standards, even if in terms of quality his biography were one of the best articles in wikipedia, as it in a sense doesn't "contribute" to the encyclopedic nature of wikipedia. The inactive projects which are proposed for deletion can be reasonably thought to have to achieve standards of "notability", as well. John Carter 19:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's another, in perusing WikiProject reform I found reference to WikiProject_The_Flaming_Lips. Noting the link was blue and having no idea what it was, but assuming it must be entertainment related, I clicked and learned. In any case, the project has been previously nominated for deletion back in the Spring when it was brand new and had only one member. It survived and eventually obtained 8 members. There has been no discussion and no changes to the main project page, save a category addition, since May. Four of the members have recent edits, though I couldn't tell you whether they relate to this project or not. I tagged the project as inactive. If it doesn't "wake up", I suppose it should be marked historical or(and?) renamed as a task force of WikiProject Alternative music - but before we do the latter that project should be consulted for input. Thoughts?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You did know that you really can't (or at least shouldn't) transform a project into a task force without first at least posting a suggestion merge on the pages of the two projects to be merged, I'm assuming. If there were to be no response within a fairly liberal timespan, say 30 days, and/or within the first one week the few responses approved of the merger, that would be enough. But to answer part of the question we aren't necessarily obliged to wait for responses, particularly if, as may be possible, the members have lost interest in the project. Were that the case, they wouldn't respond, as they might no longer be watching it. Again, because the other individuals involved aren't necessarily following any rules of conduct, we can't enforce similar rules on those who are acting. In cases where the creator or member of a project page hasn't had an edit in 3 months or more, leaving a message on their talk page isn't necessarily required, because there is no reason to think that they'd see it anyway. And the point you were possibly trying to make, that perhaps I and others should try to contact them first, is perhaps not well illustrated by this particular example. User:Ned Scott nominated WikiProject Heroes for deletion while the TV series it deals with is on hiatus. In that case, I indicated that the project should be kept, given its activity during the first-run part of the year. Also, as you said, you didn't check their contribution records, but, for what it's worth, none of the members bothered to vote in the CFD on the Category:The Flaming lips in June, which isn't the best indicator of continuing interest on their part. John Carter 20:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, I think I said "the latter project should be consulted", you can't really consult the former project, meaning the inactive one, if they are truly inactive but I certainly agree the proposal should be posted on their project page at the very least. I'm not entirely convinced that this page justifies staying around at all (yes, I'm suggesting that maybe it deserves nomination again, maybe).  I may put a few courtesy posts out there and see if anyone comments.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There will be cases when the projects don't agree to it. There seems to have been some disagreement from one side whether WikiProject Terrorism and WikiProject Terrorism and counter-terrorism should merge, which is why they haven't. Also, like at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject intelligent design, there will be cases when the active side says it doesn't want the inactive side. In cases like that, I think deletion might be called for as well, although it might help to tag it as inactive first. John Carter 21:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * ahem, I took a look and it appears there are significant POV issues at both places and at least at WikiProject_Origin_of_life_and_related_debates they've put a lot of talk on their main page. What a mess.  Projects are not exempt from POV rules, it looks like someday somebody is going to have to address that with one (or both).  Looking further, it really looks like the merger proposal was poorly thought out.  Is it possible it was done purposefully to incite?
 * But back to the point, I think that when POV is not an issue, a parent or logical parent should take over a child or logical child when it becomes inactive, or should at least take a position on it becoming historical--Doug.(talk • contribs) 22:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Projects for Review/Deletion Page
I think one of the most important things to come out all of these discussions, this one and the preceding one on the Council's main talk page plus the one at WikiProject reform is that MfD is not suited to reviewing Projects for Deletion and properly considering the alternatives, at least not with current participation or lack thereof, by Council members and the like.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Why didn't you just merge?
John, I'm confused, you nominated WikiProject Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for deletion and in the text proposed merger. Was this to bring the matter to someone's attention? There was no opposition at either Project, you could have just merged and not taken it to MfD, which would seem to be a lot more efficient. I am doubtful that anyone from either Project is on MfD very often.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I ask this here, so that we can consider it procedurally. I think the matter deserves discussion.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Creator notification
I notice that in some of your nominations you have notified the creator, in others you have not. I think we should be always trying to notify creators of nominations for deletion/userfication. Though not necessarily merger or renaming as a task force. Thoughts?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Once again, you seem to be trying to set up a set of standards which "must" be followed, which requires the creation of a beareaucracy to enforce it. I notify creators when the creator has been active in the past few months. Otherwise, posting a notice to someone who hasn't edited recently is more or less pointless. John Carter 13:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * NOT, I am not suggesting a rule and I didn't even mean to challenge the way you are doing things, I was intending merely to solicit your theory of notification and maybe discuss when notification is and isn't important as a matter of etiquette, fairness, and the need to avoid editors coming back after the fact whining that their project has been axed.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Fundamentally flawed reasoning
I have noted that at least one participant in this discussion seems to be operating one a misstaken assumption. That party has repeatedly stated that once a page is deleted, it is, in effect, gone forever. This is not true, based on the information which I have received. Any and every edit to wikipedia is always preserved in the memory of the system, including deleted projects. They are simply not available for any editor to see at will. However, any admin can, and probably would, pull up the deleted content on reasonable request. I am aware that the legal profession, particularly regarding intellectual property, abhors loss of records on principle. However, as any editor is told on the edit page, any contribution to wikipedia is the property of wikipedia to at least some degree, and can be edited at will. I believe on that basis the intellectual property rights which might exist elsewhere explicitly do not exist here. On that basis, it is reasonable for us to not be primarily concerned with preserving in the publicly accessible part of wikipedia each and every contribution ever made, but only those which can, in effect, be seen as contributing to the improvement of the encyclopedia. If I am wrong in any of these particulars, of course, I would welcome being informed of as much. John Carter 13:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Deletion means Deletion
Deletion Review is great, but see comments of brion (19 January 2007) at Village pump (technical). --Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I've moved this section down here, so the two parts are together, I may be all wet, so please review the linked text and tell me what you think. I'm relatively new but it strikes me that brion's statements about what "delete" means are the last word.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:43, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Subject to deletion at anytime is the specific wording used. Please note it does not say that that deletion ever necessarily takes place however. Certainly, in the event of deletion review, the deleted content is kept until at least after the end of the discussion. To summarily say that "they are deleted" is in fact not indicated in the quote referenced above, just that they are subject to such deletion. Also, for what little we know, that was the policy at that time. Whether it is still the policy is another matter entirely. If one's concern would be to ensure that such pages are never lost, it would probably be a better idea to address those concerns at the policy level there, rather than try to ensure that an essentially chaotic system, which wikipedia is, uniformly conforms to some particular way of thinking, because, unfortunately, that won't happen without a specific policy proposal in place. To date, I have seen no such proposal. John Carter 18:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * My point is the idea that it is OK to delete something because it can always be undeleted is not a valid argument for two reasons, one it's patently false and 2) it's an argument to delete anything. That argument, however, gets used over and over again on MfD right next to the argument that we should delete because the project is "inactive".  If we deleted every "inactive" project we would be subject to losing all of that history AND even if undeletion is available it isn't always a simple task and is accomplished only by admins normally after deletion review.  The arguments on MfD are not for deletion review shortly after the MfD process if there is a mistake, they are for undeletion "some day" which implies "any day", which I do not believe is supportable.  You are correct, it doesn't say they will be deleted. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree: ARGUMENT is the word to use here. I note once again you return to your "argument" without ever directly answering the points made against your position. You have a position which many other people disagree with, including me, and you are trying to persuade them that they are wrong, without providing really a lot of evidence. Personally, I am aware of no-one else who shares your overriding concern that anything in wikipedia space must always be preserved. Again, if you honestly believe that, then you would be best served writing a policy proposal to that effect, rather than effectively taking up the time of other editors with an essentially one-sided, nonresponsive, discussion. I acknowledge that you have an opinion on this matter, and you have every right to have that opinion. Everyone else has the right to have an opinion on the matter as well, as policy does not currently cover the subject. Argumentative attempts at persuasion rarely work. I honestly think you would be best served by actively making a policy proposal, which you have yet to do. Personally, although the discussion is slightly interesting, I am actively engaged in trying to put together an updated list of all the extant projects, including those which were created recently. I personally think that responding to these comments of yours is perhaps not the most effective use of my time right now. I also note that little if any of this discussion actually directly addresses the subject of the page itself, and on that basis think that you might get more responses from a wider variety of editors if in fact, you did what I indicated above, and wrote some policy proposal which directly addresses your concerns. John Carter 18:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Re John's comment: "I am aware of no-one else who shares your overriding concern that anything in wikipedia space must always be preserved." I must have miscommunicated my thoughts.  Please note that I have voted "delete" on several of John's nominations, voted "keep" on one (which I would now change to "userfy") and actually opposed John's suggestion that he withdraw a nomination.  If I have degraded what I saw as a valuable procedural discussion to fighting for my own position, then I was wrong.  John is doing a magnificent job identifying and nominating projects for deletion and I would never want to take his valuable time from that to "argue".  --Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

MfD process - how's it working?
Hi, John (and others)!

Just curious - I've noticed several WikiProjects going through the MfD process. Is that process working for them? Does MfD seem to be handling merges, etc, well?

My main reason for asking is that I was heavily involved in WikiProject Reform (back several months ago). I wasn't (and am not currently) convinced that MfD would know what to do with inactive WikiProjects, and that a different process was needed. If the MfD process is working, then so be it. If not, maybe I'll find the time (ugh) to work on creating WPfD instead.

Thanks! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 19:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Merging as a guideline?
Merging as a solution has come up on this page several times now. Perhaps merging a given WikiProject with a parent project in case of inactivity is indeed the best solution. For example, WikiProject Golfers to WP:GOLF. I think that this should be made the guideline on the subject, as to at least provide a clear cut suggestion on what to do, instead of leaving inactive tags indefinitely. Article talk page templates should be removed - to continue the example, just replace with, maybe with a nice switch to check for redundancy. The project page of the inactive project would contain a soft redirect shortly explaining what happened.

There are two main negative aspects to leaving inactive projects around. One, it makes it unclear whether policies and guidelines written by that project still enjoy consensus. Two, it makes it harder to seek collaboration with like minded people. User:Krator (t c) 22:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree wholeheartedly with the above, when there is a "parent" project to merge with. When there isn't, maybe one can be created, or the existing inactive project be suggested to change its scope to include other possible subprojects. With any luck, come the end of the completion of the new directory, we'll have a bit more discussion on the main page here regarding mergers. And, for what it's worth, the geography and geography related ones tend to be most numerous, which is why so many are listed in that section right now. When the new directory is done, all the projects will be listed in all the groupings they lie in on the project directory pages.
 * One other question, which I was contemplating asking later, when the directory is done, is whether inactive projects should be listed on it at all, or just listed here as inactives. I would tend to favor that, so that (1) the incentive to not create a project which will go inactive is increased, (2) it reduces the overcrowding of the directory, which with about 1000+ projects is a problem, and (3) it would help make the final directory a bit easier to understand, if all the projects listed were acitve.
 * Anyway, if anyone knows how to write such a guideline, I'd be more than happy to see ti. :) John Carter 22:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Generally, I agree that they should only be listed here. The only concern I would have is that people may try to create a project very similar to an inactive project because it's not in the directory, when in fact it's inactive and they could have just revived it, which then has to be addressed.  But that may be better than having a directory clogged up with inactive projects AND unless they are marked as inactive in the directory, it avoids having people go to inactive projects thinking they'll actually find something meaningful or useful.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In cases like this, what I was thinking about might be more like turning an existing project on, say, the Indianapolis Indians into a project on the greater International League, so that the "expanded" project covers not only the old scope, but, maybe, has enough scope afterwards to get enough editors involved. Bad example, I know, considering the baseball project covers all these ideas anyway, but I hope you can get the idea. John Carter 16:58, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understand and I think it is a very good idea to consider turning inactive projects into active ones by "rescoping" them. But, of course, expanding the scope doesn't always make a project active.  WikiProject Transport has ten members and it would I think be what WikiProject reform would have called a Tier 0 Project - sort of the primary level below simply Wikipedia - if I understand the system used on that site, but it's over-broad and the members' interests are not common enough to be useful.  --Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting case you raise, Krator. It looks like User:Grovermj suggested merger into the then nonexistent WikiProject Golf but got dead air. So the editor then went and created WP:GOLF and several months later noted in discussion at Golfers that it was inactive and suggested a task force should be at WP:GOLF. This was months before John tagged it as inactive. The editor could have simply renamed the project, but may have wanted to start fresh, felt lack of comment did not mean consensus for the proposition, or maybe the editor simply didn't know how, or just wasn't willing to Be Bold, which is what this calls for.

At first look I'd say Golfers needs to be preserved and ought to merged (or more correctly renamed as a task force). What do others think? This seems like it's really a clean up job for WP:GOLF, but maybe we should post something on their talk page saying "hey, what do you think about doing x and if you need help, we're here for that".

On to your real point though, would such a guideline be part of WP:COUNCIL/G? We may need a guideline, probably not a policy, that covers merger, task force-ization, userfication, and deletion of projects. I'm also not convinced that we don't need what User:SatyrTN suggests above - WPfD, though that's going to be a lot of work. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The biggest problem to the Projects for deletion being entirely separate is the rather rare number of requests for deletion of projects. Frankly, there might be, on average, one or two a week. I personally think maybe expanding the current page to include some discussion of deletion of inactive projects, and maybe going to MfD if the consensus here is in support of that, might be the best way to go. That's why I phrased the introduction like I did. John Carter 17:58, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Adding it to the council guidelines would be a good idea. Also, if there is no clear "parent" WikiProject to merge with (note that merge can also include being made a taskforce of another project), look further. In our example, WP:WPSPORT. User:Krator (t c) 15:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I only mean that making it a task force is normally a WP:MOVE rather than a WP:MERGE function, because it becomes a subpage. John has a point, if you're going to merge or rename you don't need an independent admin to make the call and take the action, as long as there is consensus you just do it - maybe userfication as well. On the other hand it is useful to have all options on the table in one place.


 * John what do you think of expanding the scope of your column on merging so that other suggestions such as conversion to a task force, userfication, or deletion would be possible to post there?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

WPfD suggestion
In response to some of the above posts, I wonder if interested editors here would take a look at User:SatyrTN/WPfD and tell me what you think? Combined with the inactive projects listing that John Carter has put together, I think we could make great strides in cleaning up WikiProject space. Thoughts, concerns, suggestions all welcome at the talk page. Thanks! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 21:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks like a good idea. The only question I would have would be whether anyone would actually check it very often, given that there generally aren't going to be that many projects listed at any given time. John Carter 23:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You may be right, on the other hand, the idea of "for Discussion" vs. "for Deletion" may be the key. Paired with your listing of inactive projects, any of them are fair game for "discussion" at any time.  A talk page like this would not have the necessary organization - even if we'd never started this line of discussion here.  But if we set something like SatyrTN is proposing up, we could just start nominating, essentially saying "hey, what do we all want to do with this one" and the record would be organized by Project name from the get go.  With links from the various deletion pages plus the Council's main page, I think there'd be interest.  If things were slow we could always extend the discussion period for a reasonable time.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe it could be linked to from the Council sidebar. But I do think that five days might not be enough, as that's less than a week, and people might not check it more frequently than that. Maybe 10 days-2 weeks might be better. John Carter 23:57, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds fine, I don't see any requirement in policy that it be 5 days. TfD uses 7.  Even these are only minimums and they aren't supposed to be closed while discussion is ongoing - we just have to interpret "ongoing" a little broader, or write a different policy.  If the consensus is clear for a non-deletion action though, I think we should just do it.  At MfD we currently have WP:MFD With 5 straight Merge votes including John's nomination, yet MfD policy doesn't give very strong support to closing nominations early to Merge - that seems silly where anyone could legitimately go there right now and execute the merger based on the merge tag having been there forever.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see, SatyrTN has "five days" actually stated on the main page. Sorry, I didn't see that.  Yeah, either change that to " at least x days" or just say it will stay until we have a consensus.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right. I copied this directly from the MfD page and changed where I saw things that needed changing.  But I didn't think about that timeframe.  I'm going to change that to "at least 10 days".  If I add "or until consensus is reached" does that mean someone can stall the process by adding "I don't agree" every day?
 * Deletion policies seem to all say that "consensus" means rough consensus. But I think what you've got is fine now.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:40, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


 * As for visibility, I was thinking we could add this WPfD process to Deletiondebates which would make it visible to anyone that peruses deletion debates, though I don't expect very many people wandering through. But having this process does centralize discussion on particular projects somewhere visible, so it's not happening on a Council page (where not many people seem to go) or on the talk page of an inactive project (which would be kinda silly :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs)  01:18, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, they should definitely be posted both in the template and at WP:XFD. We'd also want to post at some point on the Village Pump, maybe WP:VPP since the top of the WPfD page would include some guidelines.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:40, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Not sure about some speedy deletion
On the 12 Sept 07 two WikiProjects were speedy deleted based on "Creator Request". I can't see them now but based on the small amount of discussion, they probably deserved it. However, I think we need to use caution in this area. WikiProjects don't "belong" to the creator. Creator requests to get rid of Project may be valid, particularly when the most likely consensus decision would have been userfy (or where under WP:SNOW they get deleted either way); but simply stating "Speedy Delete - Creator request" suggests too much power by the creator to request deletion of projects which may have some history. Thoughts? --Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:26, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * To my understanding, the only times such can happen is when the project page was created by one person and modified only by that same person, so that in effect the only history those pages have is from that one individual's edits. In such cases, they clearly do belong only to that individual, as, basically, no one else ever modified them. As it were, the community has no right to demand that someone not be allowed to delete a page he created. So far as I remember, it has happened actually occasionally, when, for instance, someone creates a project and then decides to remove it after several months of lack of interest, either because it is badly put together, it duplicates an existing project, or they find that there is no particular interest in it. I think WikiProject Indiana Jones might have been one such. While I can and to an extent do understand your apparently profound interest in ensuring that no projects that have any viability are ever deleted, I think in this particular case you may well be going a bit overboard in that regard. John Carter 15:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * My understanding of WP:SPEEDY is that where the page was essentially a mistake, or the creator started an article and then later decided it wasn't a reasonable start or shouldn't even be an article, a request by the creator to delete would be appropriate. But that merely because the creator no longer likes what he or she wrote - even if no one else has edited - would constitute Revocation and that isn't allowed, under the GFDL the creator gave up all rights to everything he or she wrote upon saving the page and I believe the community absolutely has a right to demand that it not be deleted.  Of course, many pages may deserve deletion to begin with, and if that's the case then a creator request is in good faith and speedy deletion is fine.  I guess my only concern is that when the admin puts in the edit summary "speedy delete - creator request" there is no way to determine if this was correctly done without requesting undeletion - it would be much better to just give the community a few days to look at it or at least include an edit summary that briefly says why the request is appropriate.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 16:01, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Feel free to email or talkpage the details to me, I can look at them and see what the go is on them. If they were deleted as creator request it's probably OK, but just want to ensure it's not something malicious that's accidentally got through the system. Orderinchaos 00:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Another view
I have been working withing WikiProject Australia almost since I started editing. That large project, with many subprojects, is an interesting microcosm of the situation more generally in Wikipedia:


 * We have a few projects which should never have been created as they were "stillborn", either through a chronically narrow scope to begin with, or being founded by users who were unable to inspire collaboration and ended up long-term banned.
 * We have a few projects which were once active but have since died. You could post a talk page message on several of these and hear your own echo. However they contain several hundred articles.
 * We have a number which were created more for administrative purposes than any other, and while they might appear "inactive" to the outside observer, are used without being used and in at least one case contains 3000 articles. In effect they create manageable-sized chunks of content on a related subject and are a great aid to both editing and assessment, and when FAs are attained they can be correctly linked with the appropriate project.
 * A tiny minority thrive on an ongoing basis and maintain their own momentum, even while going idle for short periods when the majority of their contributors are busy elsewhere.

The problem with the first two is that their articles don't take long to enter a state of decay. A recent project I surveyed which had been inactive since creation two years ago had another problem - there was no article development for two years. After talking to others I found out why - everyone assumed the local WikiProject would deal with it. As such, the WP's existence, even as inactive-tagged, was actually compromising the quality of about 100 articles. The only article growth was oddness like 49-image image galleries and pure cruft and spam. I managed to fix it all over about two months, but I realised that my actions alone were proof that the WikiProject had died and someone outside needed to come in and rescue the articles. They were since adopted by another project where I believe 5 members have watchlisted most of them.

I think the problem is that a WikiProject can be created by any user at any time for any reason, but we don't have the flexibility to deal with that situation at the other end - when the thing needs to be deleted or merged. Also, are projects meant to have an indefinite life span? Some are formed quickly, do a lot of very good work, and then their work is perceived to be complete and the members move on. For example, projects related to specific events which, once over and once the post-mortems are complete, really have no raison d'etre any more. As long as the articles are correctly classified into categories, the collaboration space ceases to have a function even as simply a binder to hold the articles together. I'm not in favour of deleting hard work. Orderinchaos 00:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Really good points. I'm not sure the answers will be anywhere near as good, however.
 * From what I understand, Australis's "descendant" WikiProjects might not have to be "deleted" to be removed., and deleted at will. Not sure, because of the naming of the various Australian Projects, but the same rule might apply there.
 * Geek that I am, I read your statement as "Task forces are literally made by the parent object..." :) Either way you read it, you've stated my understanding as well - Task-forces are "sub" projects, and are separate entities, but subject to the "super" project as well. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs)  03:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Certainly, I don't think anyone would object if the banner were altered in such a way as to take articles out of the categories for an inactive descendant and placed in those of the active parent. That is, after all, the exclusive "property" of the project itself. If that would help, by all means go ahead and do so.
 * Also, the suggestions call for, get this :), reassessing every article more or less twice a year. I know in a project the size of yours, that is a pipe dream. However, if you could have perhaps a special group of editors who could engage in, as it were, ensuring that all the articles of one descendant were at least reviewed at around the same time and somewhat regularly, that might be a way to deal with the problem of article degredation.
 * I know a lot of people would like to see a specific group of editors who make a point of assessing articles regularly. I would love to see such a group myself. There would clearly be problems, as an assessor who deals largely with religion and biography (like me) is out of his element in, say, architecture and songs, but it could be tried.
 * I know Military history is having an assessment drive now, and that Biography just recently concluded one. Maybe you could arrange something like that with Australia.
 * Not much help, I know, but the best I can think of. But, if the project is officially designated a "task force", I do think that at least officially they survive at the express will of the parent. Not sure if that might help, but it is an option. John Carter 01:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

"voting"
After seeing the result of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Health (2nd nomination), I'd like some suggestions as to how to frame a discussion to assuage deletion fears. We sort of have a framework higher on this page discussing when to userfy vs deletion. I wonder if MfD is the appropriate place to discuss userfication of a WikiProject.

I wonder if the WikiProject council should just be a bit more "forceful" enforcing the WikiProject request page? Something to the effect of boldly userfying any WikiProject that hasn't had more than one or a few users active, and now has been inactive for some length of time. (There have now been several examples of WikiProjects where the creator said something about starting but not finishing due to being distracted.)

And for now, only proposing for deletion those projects which are obvious vanity projects, malformed projects, or even lack of completion (such as a non-completed WikiProject page).

What do you think? - jc37 04:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this is part of my answer to your question posted at User_talk:SatyrTN/WPfD which I have yet to answer. I agree, we need to be more forceful in this and other respects.  It seems to me that at MfD there is a tendency to count 2 keeps, 2 deletes, and 2 userfies, and a merge (yes, I know it's not a vote count, but you get the picture) and say, "no consensus - keep", when the consensus is clearly for anything but keep.  Obviously you don't have to convince me to aggressively userfy nor John to aggressively delete - but where we disagree on which it definitely doesn't mean "keep".  I think we need to move this (deletion/userfication/merger of WikiProjects) to a more WikiProject focused discussion (i.e. WPfD).  We can then tie this in to a guideline on WikiProjects, whether WP:COUNCIL/G or a stand-alone guideline that says exactly what you suggest AND that when you create a project you should post on WP:COUNCIL/P and if you want to stand it up, do so on your user page, unless you have what amounts to a "consensus for creation".  I'm trying to put together a model based on a project I have proposed.


 * BTW - if I were clear on how to close out a discussion or had time to figure it out right now, I'd merge that darned Hitchhiker's Guide even tho' I participated in discussion and am not an admin on the basis of WP:SNOW, WP:IAR and the fact that nothing requires mergers to go to MfD in the first place. I would however, like to discuss further my comments about non-ownership of "project space".--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Honestly that feels like you're suggesting getting out the sledghammer to kill flies : )
 * Plus it's another layer of bureaucracy that's likely to be opposed merely on those grounds.
 * What I was suggesting was to have the council deal with malformed/undermanned/nonstarter/vanity WikiProjects themselves. One needn't be an admin to userfy a WikiProject, it's merely making certain all the associated pages are moved.
 * And that's something that could easily be determined by the WikiProject council. (Perhaps some basic guidelines and requirements for such a move could be posted somewhere.) This would free up MfD from discussions that needn't even be there. And would sate your want to have those "in the know" about WikiProjects involved in the discussions. However, I've got to side with John Carter about deletions. Unless there is some speedy criteria for this somewhere, WikiProjects should go through MfD for requested deletion. - jc37 02:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I understand the concern regarding deletions. I think we're looking for the same thing.  User:SatyrTN has set it us as "for Discussion" rather than "for Deletion" and I think that is significant.  You don't need to be an admin to userfy, merge, rename as a task force, or tag as historical - all dispositions we have discussed here.  At such a site we could discuss in an organized form what to do about individual projects as has been done on a couple of example bases above.  I think MfD is getting crowded with a lot of discussions that turn into merge or userfy.  This could be similar to Project deletion sorting discussing closing deletion sorting pages before they get nominated for deletion.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Experimental table revisions for discussion
I've made two sets of experimental revisions for your consideration. The first one I began implementing a week or so ago; this was the addition of a User-page reference with the title "tagged by" aside the "listing date". The reason why I did this is that it appears that a some WikiProjects have been tagged as inactive by bots. The second revision I just completed, the expansion of the two top tables to include the Parent WikiProject reference (if available) and an indicator of whether the inactive-tagged WikiProject has any Child WikiProjects. My gut feeling is that >90% of the time, an inactive WikiProject will have no child WikiProjects ... but I'm not sure of that; so this column might be found to be superfluous pretty quickly. I also revised the "merger" column name from "Proposed merger projects" to "Proposed merge to" as well as revising the "Date of listing" column name to "Tag date". The "merger" name change was meant to change the implication of merger to one where the default anticipation is for an inactive WikiProject to be merged to a single other Project (my gut feeling). The "date" column name change was done because the relevant date is that of when a WikiProject was tagged as Inactive, not when it was listed on this page ... the implication might have been "listing as inactive" in the inactive category, but the typical American English interpretation of the former name implies listing on this page.

If the revisions are seen as too disruptive, please revert them -- the permalink for the page as it stands with the revision = relevant permalink.
 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 01:00, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I came across the inactive-tagged WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics; the associated section on the Inactive Projects page did not have a table, so I expanded the experimental table format to this section as well (3 sections now). --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 01:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I like this John, I did question somewhere above though the column for "merger" without any other options to place there. What if the proposed disposition is something other than merger or deletion (in which case I suppose you're sending it straight to MfD rather than putting the proposal here?), such as userfication or "task forcization".--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Merger and making something a task force are substantively identical for these purposes. Userification on the initiative of the project creator is something which is beyond our control, so I didn't see any need to include it as an option. We would have no say in such a process anyway. Tagging as historical, "suggested" userification, and deletion all seem to be primarily handled at MfD anyway, and it didn't seem necessary to me to indicate that nominating a project for deletion necessarily implied that that would be the only potential outcome. John Carter 14:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely that MfD doesn't preclude other options besides deletion. It just seems that we should have the option of other choices here.  Maybe I don't understand the purpose of that column in the table or how you plan for it to be used.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 14:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Disconnect between related page sets
It appears that there is a disconnect in listings between WikiProject Council/Inactive projects and the colorations indicating inactivity in the tables found on child pages of WikiProject Council/Directory (at least by my casual inspection). Any thoughts on this? Manual synchronization is difficult, of course, but useful. Perhaps there would be some way to merge the two information sets so that only a single page set need be maintained. I am bringing up the question without offering a solution yet. Apologies to those that such behavior disturbs. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 01:06, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There's probably a big disconnect, probably because this page is being created as I'm creating an updated version of the directory in userspace. The updated version when completed will conform to the existing main categories used elsewhere in wikipedia, like by WP:1.0 and WP:GA. The projects are being added by me to this page as I find them to be inactive while preparing the new directory. If you want to look at the work in progress (and it's not pretty yet - be warned) the new directory is at User:Warlordjohncarter/Directory. John Carter 16:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Just what are we trying to achieve here?
What exactly are we discussing here? The main point seems to be how to organise inactive projects etc, but is there anything else?--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 23:58, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * This talk page isn't actually as closely tied to the main page as it should be. I brought discussions here from several other locations.  It tried to revive some of the discussion that had been occurring at WikiProject reform, thus some of the discussion is about how to prevent inactive projects from occurring and when a project is suitable for deletion, merger (and a subtype of merger - task forcization (my word)), userfication, etc.  It was also an attempt to bring some of the discussion that seems to occur in a lot of MfD's (e.g. "inactive ergo delete" is that an appropriate argument?) and some discussion from the Talk page for MfD together here.  What is the meaning to tagging something "inactive" vs "historical" and when should we do each?  And even some of the discussion related to whether we should have a Projects for Discussion/Deletion to take Projects off the hands of MfD.  But then, you can see that all above. ;)  --Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Manual of bot updated
Is the page updated manually or by bot? I want to add WikiProject Narnia and I have tagged it with the template. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Updated manually. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 01:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Project banners of inactive WikiProjects
A proposal on the village pump to hide or nearly hide the project banners of inactive WikiProjects is currently underway. Any comments are welcome over there. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:32, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley is back open !!WikiProject Elvis Presley....... Buzzzsherman (talk) 00:57, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council
WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country is no longer active.

This is important because Wikipedia:WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country: Manual of Style is a guideline, but because the Wikipoject is inactive, there is no indication that there is wide support for the guideline.Bernolákovčina (talk) 00:35, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Categorization of inactive projects
I'm not sure if this page is still in use, it's been years since I last posted here, but does anyone know why we have two inactive project categories:  and ? (there are two other unrelated categories of similar names: (which is for project namespace pages tagged historical - most WikiProjects are not) and  for WikiProjects that are not completely inactive.  I'm not talking about either of these).--Doug.(talk • contribs) 12:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I note that we have other cats like, which together with are subcats of , all however seem redundant to the parent cat.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 12:20, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Good research! How can we rationalize the cats? I think we need to keep historical, defunct, inactive and semi-active separate and in a meaningful hierarchy. -- Klein zach  13:03, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree in principle but what exactly is defunct as distinguished from the others, it doesn't seem to be much used. More to my original issue though, why those two different cats I first mentioned:  and ?  A project tagged as inactive will categorize to the former unless you set "|wp=yes", in which case it will categorize to the latter which is a subcat of the former.  This doesn't seem to be any reason for this.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:11, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, defunct is probably superfluous. On your second point I agree, but where can we take this to get it fixed? Take to Cfd for deletion? -- Klein  zach  13:30, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec)I think that we just need to determine whether there was ever any reason for it (probably) and if that still exists (I doubt it). If not, we can simply change the code in inactive and remove the parameter altogether.  Then of course, since the template may be substituted in many cases, we'll need to empty the cat, probably a bot would be best for that but we can worry about that afterwards.  Afterwards we should nominate both  and  for deletion first.  We could do that first, but I'm not very familiar with CfD and we might get a lot of difficulty with a category that is full of stuff, better to recat first and then delete in my opinion.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:37, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm happy to go along with that. -- Klein zach  15:03, 8 July 2011 (UTC)


 * It appears that User:Rd232 added this code in April 2010 and created the cat then as well. I've asked that user to comment here.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:59, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Comment: i) Category:Wikipedia WikiProjects are a subtype of Category:WikiProjects, being defined in the category as "those defined in terms of a particular Wikipedia maintenance task or other Wikipedia-specific matter, such as stub-sorting, copy-editing, spam-fighting, template-coding, or bot-organizing, rather than a proper encyclopedic subject area, such as architecture." is therefore just keeping that subtype separate when projects go inactive. ii) "Defunct" is defined by Defunct (see also WikiProject_Council/Guide). In essence, an inactive WikiProject is one that has currently not got any active members, but is a sensible project which should be revived one day. A defunct WikiProject has either served its purpose, or was never really a good idea in the first place. Rd232 public talk 17:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)


 * hmm, I took a rather long break from this area and that must have developed in the interim. I question whether defunct is ever really appropriate but I'll have to look for some discussion on that.  As for the distinction between WikiProjects and WikiPedia WikiProjects, it seems very unintuitive, but I suppose discussion should occur on that talk page.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:09, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The distinction between Wikipedia projects and the rest (which are by and large topic-based projects focussed on different bits of the encyclopedia, I think) makes sense to me. And "inactive" status is problematic enough that some kind of tag is needed to distinguish the merely inactive from the dead and buried (for cases where dead-and-buried isn't deletable). Rd232 public talk 22:30, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought the dead-and-buried, but not deleted, projects were . The word 'defunct' implies no longer existing, so I wonder if it's really suitable in this context. -- Klein  zach  22:55, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "defunct" means "no longer in use". Historical is a much broader tag, not specific to wikiprojects. Rd232 public talk 00:17, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but I wonder if more than three people are aware of this distinction. -- Klein zach  00:44, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that defunct is a newer and more obscure usage. I suppose it's intended to serve as the historical of WikiProjects as historical is quite clearly not intended for WikiProjects and would only be used for the most important ones were they to die.  It's intended rather for proposals that fail and policies that are deprecated, we don't want to delete such things so we mark them historical.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:14, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * In my experience, the historical tag is much commoner than defunct on WikiProjects — so again practice and theory are two different things here. -- Klein zach  10:33, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely that it is. historical isn't supposed to be used on WikiProjects really at all, though it has been used a lot because a lot of MfDers don't understand the purpose.  I have been involved in dealing with inactive wikiprojects since at least the top of this list in 2007, though with a substantial slow period over the past year.  Defunct was created last year, though not very advertised that I can find.  One problem all along has been the disconnect between WP:Council and MfD.  Only a very few users are familiar with both and we aren't often around.  I can see a possible value to defunct to replace historical for wikiprojects but it needs to be advertised AND people need to understand that it is still not the default.  Very, very few WikiProjects actually need to be put in that category.  Most are inactive and subject to re-start-up at any time, or worthless and should be deleted or at least userfied.  This should be for those very few that are forever dead but actually important.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 11:05, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm a music editor. I got involved with this through janitoring the WikiProject Music which had (and still has) a large number of small, fan-based subprojects of narrow scope, typically started in 2007 or 2008 — now virtually all inactive. I didn't realize the situation at first, but then gradually realized I was in a kind of Wiki Potemkin village with signboards everywhere, but no editing going on. (Only 8 or 9 projects were going out of 100-odd.) Restructuring to make it easier for new editors to find active collaborations and contribute (through viable genre-based projects) has proved difficult (see the notes column with Mfd records here). -- Klein zach  12:40, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

How to properly decommision a wikiproject?
WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation has become defunct as it served its stated purpose. I tagged it in January, but today I realized that there still are 162 transclusions of the project banner WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation on article talk pages. Should those be removed? &mdash; Sebastian 04:53, 9 September 2015 (UTC) Any reply? Or is this page itself inactive? BTW, I also thought of including the aforementioned wikiproject on this page, but I don't see a headline it would naturally belong under. Should there be a new headline? ◅ Sebastian 11:58, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Merge information into manual WikiProject directory?
Hi all, while there are still occasional updates to this list, it seems like it has largely fallen out of use and is likely now out-dated. Perhaps we could consider marking this page as historical and merging the information in it (whether a project was merged and where to) to the manual WikiProject directory? That page also categorizes projects by topic and has a "notes" section so it seems like an easy merge. Plus it would give us a fighting chance to maintain this info (since sorting inactive projects by topic on two separate pages seems to be asking for trouble). Thoughts/objections? Ajpolino (talk) 23:58, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree. (I was tempted to tag this project as "inactive" but a merge and "historical" seems more appropriate.) --mikeu talk 15:32, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

WP Greenland
I have tried to reactivate WikiProject Greenland as I have recently seen it included on the talk pages of a number of significant articles. My attempt has apparently not been successful. (cc )--Ipigott (talk) 09:41, 22 May 2021 (UTC)