Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Folklore

Meaning of Folklore?
I am seeking resolution on a dispute on Talk:Nordic folklore; the conversation is on whether coverage of Nordic architecture, cuisine etc are appropriate to a folklore article. It has turned into something of an edit war so I would appreciate outside voices please. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arhtech (talk • contribs) 20:04, 25 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I am the person they are discussing this with on the talk page. I had begun editing the Nordic Folklore page and had started the process of laying out the sections of Nordic Folklore, which to me naturally included Architecture, traditions, cuisine, dances, etc when this user came in and wiped everything away (including valuable sources).. @Arhtech believes that none of this is considered Folklore. ShaveKongo (talk) 20:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

The article currently says "Folklore is a concept encompassing expressive traditions of a particular culture or group." On that basis, architecture, traditions, cuisine, dances, etc would be relevant if they are expressive traditions of a particular culture or group, but if I was reading the article I would not expect to find a broad discussion of (for example) just any architecture or cuisine I might encounter in Nordic countries. I would expect it to relate to a particular culture or group. If a culture X expresses its cultural distinctiveness through cuisine, then I would expect to see that in the article. If numerous members of X happen to eat a lot of pizza, I would not expect to see that mentioned. Cregneash (Isle of Man) gives an example of folk architecture. Napier, New Zealand discusses the Art Deco architecture to be found there, but it doesn't treat it as folklore. --Northernhenge (talk) 00:38, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Lake monster and related articles
WP:Folklore members will find this discussion interesting. Additionally, there's a discussion to be had here about how we're dividing up out articles like lake monster, sea monster, and river monster. What do you think we should do? &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 16:33, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Slender Man listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Slender Man to be moved to Slenderman. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 02:16, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.

Portal:Folklore
I've just discovered that Portal:Folklore exists. While I'm not sure if the ultimate fate of portals has been decided yet (there was some discussion about deleting them all recently), the portal is of historical interest given Wikipedia's spotty handling of folklore as a topic to date. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 22:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

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

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Muhuru (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

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

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

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

The discussion about this can be found here.

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

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

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

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

So far, 84 editors have joined.

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

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

Thank you. &mdash; The Transhumanist  07:38, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Monitoring
I've attempted to add a monitoring section, but we'll see if the bot actually fills in the page tomorrow, and there are a few other elements to tweak/add. --tronvillain (talk) 14:43, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I've also started adapting a Navbox, at WP:WikiProject_Folklore/Nav --tronvillain (talk) 22:23, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox folk song
Template:Infobox folk song has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Tamtam90 (talk) 22:48, 2 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The discussion was closed April 20, 2018 (see Templates for discussion/Log/2018 March 17). A second attempt was closed July 2, 2018 (Templates for discussion/Log/2018 July 2. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:02, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Navbox
I've added a Navbox. Some of the pages still need to be created, or the links possibly removed from the Navbox depending on whether we think they're worth it. The Cleanup link should be available after Tuesday. --tronvillain (talk) 19:39, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Category:European folklore
It may be out of scope for an Americano-centric WikiProject, but could someone take a look at Category:European folklore? It seems to be somewhat underpopulated and excludes Category:European mythology. Dimadick (talk) 11:22, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I tagged it "attention=yes", since I've managed to work out how to make that work. --tronvillain (talk) 17:01, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Utah Mother Goose tradition
hi, an ip has questioned whether the above should be included in the Mother Goose article, i would welcome some input there, thanks Coolabahapple (talk) 06:54, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Article for Deletion: Goatman: Flesh or Folklore?
I've just submitted this: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Goatman: Flesh or Folklore?. Comments welcome. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 23:38, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Merge proposal: Mythology > Myth
Just a heads up that I've proposed that we merge mythology into myth. Please feel free to comment. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 21:33, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Fallout 76 Release and Traffic Increase
Just as a heads up, the November 14 release of Fallout 76 is likely to produce a significant increase in traffic for West Virginia folklore-related articles, such as Mothman and Flatwoods monster (For example). During this time, we might want to be extra vigilant about drive-by edits. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 22:28, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Merge discussion- List of Cryptids to Lists of Legendary Creatures
This may be of note to members [].Slatersteven (talk) 10:58, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Folk art, Folk arts and Concepts in folk art
There has been a lot of new material added to these articles by User:Smithriedel, who over recent years has done most of Folklore (currently 88% of the text, Family folklore, Folklore studies and perhaps others. I have been discussing these with him, currently mainly on Talk:Folk art. I see many of the same issues I have were raised before on Talk:Folklore studies.  I come at this from an art history perspective myself, but other views and comments would be welcome.  My main concern is to keep the relatively highly-viewed main article at Folk art neutral, coherent and a readable introduction - it was short and pretty poor before Smithriedel came along, but still has a long way to go, imo. Johnbod (talk) 14:50, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * —Sorry, I'm only just now seeing this. Yikes. I'll bump up slating these articles for a total rewrite. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 23:42, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed - I can chip in, but am not the person to do a big rewrite/expansion. Once he dropped it, I did too, but I have been mulling it over. I think at least the article is now better than before. I got him to move the most theoretical stuff to Concepts in folk art. Does anyone else want to start? Specific stuff (with lots of links) is one crying need - sections for global regions? Johnbod (talk) 01:02, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Highgate Vampire
Article recently survived an assault by one of the principals involved in the drama. Upon review, it leans toward the WP:SENSATIONAL. It could use a revamp by someone who has access to quality academic sources and folklorists. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:20, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!
A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.
 * – Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Alexander the Great in the Quran
Your feedback would be appreciated at this request for comment on Talk:Alexander the Great in the Quran. Mathglot (talk) 19:24, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Folklore for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Folklore is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Folklore until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 08:14, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Creepy Wikipedia
Maybe this WikiProject should be renamed? ;-) Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:50, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Somehow just seeing this! Very interesting article, thanks for bringing it up here. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 18:33, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
 * This started years ago, albeit informally. Teens would share lists of "creepy" WP articles on bulletin boards. A few attempted to edit existing articles to make them "creepier", but were mostly thwarted in the act. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:26, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

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

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

Folktales
The Folktale page is apparently a DAB page. Relevant material appears to be covered under Folklore, which seems rather broad, since there are many types of examples of folklore (i.e., customs, crafts, sayings, etc). I would have thought the topic of the stories themselves was worthy of its own article. Just wondering. Manannan67 (talk) 14:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There seem to be multiple ones.Slatersteven (talk) 14:41, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Stub category and tags proposal
Please see: WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2020/October.

Proposed because we don't have a stub category tree for folklore, leading to lots of uncategorized stubs, and mis-categorized ones (mostly under "mythology", which is really for material with a religio-spiritual basis, but also often under "places", "people", etc., as if not folkloric/legendary). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:44, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

FAR for Kitsune
I have nominated Kitsune for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  04:48, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Folklorismus
Might somebody please visit Folklorismus and add content informing readers what the subject is? See my comment about it on the article's talk page from December 2019. Largoplazo (talk) 03:48, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

List of megafauna in mythology and folklore is a mess.
List of megafauna in mythology and folklore is a mess.

It might be possible to make a good article about this, but probably we should just delete it.

2804:14D:5C59:8693:C004:46DA:F27B:F37E (talk) 23:53, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

The Scorpion and the Frog
A discussion has been opened on the Talk page of The Scorpion and the Frog about the possible connection between Talmudic mention of a story involving a scorpion riding on a frog's back, a Persian story that came later, and Aesopic fables involving ingratitude for help rendered in which other creatures are involved. The subject requires expert knowledge and input would be welcome. Sweetpool50 (talk) 13:47, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

FAR for Green children of Woolpit
I have nominated Green children of Woolpit for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  22:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

English folklore
An article within this group's scope has recently been moved to Draft:English Folklore by Region. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:20, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources
I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like and turns it into something like
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.
 * John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from cite web, cite journal and doi.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Aarne-Thompson Grouping
For fairytales, I've recently added Category:Aarne-Thompson Grouping with subcategories for each of the groups used in Aarne and Thompson (1964). Those groupings are the same ones used by other indexes that some articles point to. There are a number of potential issues: While I was doing this, I noticed a couple of other points: I'll still be keeping an eye out for any I've missed and any I've mis-transcribed. --Northernhenge (talk) 13:53, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I took the numbers from wikidata, from the infobox, and from the text of the article. These don't always match up, so I've added more than one category to cover all the numbers mentioned (but see below re "all")
 * The numbers are not often sourced, making errors harder to spot
 * Regarding "all", I've used a number of searches to capture as many articles as possible but may very well have missed some.
 * The numbers are sometimes labelled ATU, sometimes AT, sometimes AaTh, sometimes ATU written out in full in different ways, sometimes just the number. This makes it hard to find them all, but also raises the possibility that they refer to different editions of the numbering scheme. I think that using the groups, not the specific numbers, should offset this risk, but I'm not 100% sure
 * Similarly, a few (maybe a very few) use ATU when they mean Motif, which raises the possibility of errors in coding. The motif codes begin with letters so hopefully the problems can be picked up that way
 * Quite a lot of "fairy tale" articles are tagged for notability and/or references - they'll be vulnerable to AFD unfortunately (not from me!). It's often, but not always, the ones that just tell the story without history, analysis, references to academic debate etc. (See Plot-only description of fictional works.)
 * A great many articles in fairytale categories don't have ATU numbers in the articles. It would need an expert to add them. The problem seems to apply more to some countries than others, as you can see if you go in via Category:Fairy tales by country‎
 * Some groups have less coverage than others. Maybe that's because they're scarcer "in the wild" or maybe there is scope for some focused article creation!
 * As a future project, probably for an expert, the groups could do with articles, or at least a bit of an introduction on the category pages. I've included their titles but that's the only clue what the group contains and it's necessarily vague given the group size.
 * I’ve put a list of “Fairtytales with an ATU classification, but tagged for notability as of 1 August 2022“ in the todo section. Some of them will just need detagging, where the tag is old but the article has been developed further.—Northernhenge (talk) 22:31, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Vampire
I have nominated Vampire for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 16:44, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

The misleading Adage redirect
Please see Talk:Proverb. Summary: Proverb has a very narrow scope, and that of the term adage is much wider (proverb is a traditional folkloric subset). We probably need a set-index article for such terms, either a new one at Adage itself, or develop the even more generalized bare list at Saying into a proper set-index article with encyclopedic content not just links to articles. At any rate, Adage needs a more appropriate link target than just going to Proverb. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:06, 13 December 2023 (UTC)