Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palestine/Archive 1

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Al Zaghab
Our discussion at Articles for deletion/Al Zaghab could use some help from experts. --Kevin Murray 22:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Incident report filed for United States military aid to Israel
Administrators' noticeboard

Here is the incident report and replies so far:

Some editors are trying to delete the weapon systems list from this article. It is the main part of this article. Here is the last revision of the intact article:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_military_aid_to_Israel&oldid=127900153

This article already survived a recent AFD, a recent incident report, and a recent DRV.

. See: Articles for deletion/United States military aid to Israel. The original closing admin (Doc) wrote: "The result was KEEP - merging is of course an editorial decision to be worked out on the talk pages." Another admin deleted that closing improperly, and changed the closing admin comment to "The result was Delete - with a strong suggestion to merge." See: Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive235. During the DRV, Deletion review/Log/2007 April 26, the original closing admin (Doc) clarified his closing comment and changed it to, "The result was No Consensus = default KEEP - merging is of course an editorial decision to be worked out on the talk pages". The DRV closing admin wrote: "After examining the comments carefully (and ignoring the boldfaces here, which were often confused), there is a ~75% consensus in support of Doc's original closure. Relisting is at editorial option; merge discussions belong on the appropriate talk pages." There are overall articles called United States military aid and Israel-United States military relations. The list of U.S.-supplied weapons systems in the article in question here, United States military aid to Israel, is already too long to merge with those 2 articles. It is also too long to merge with Israel-United States relations. WP:NPOV help is needed to maintain and to fill out this spinout article more. --Timeshifter 08:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Surviving an AfD or DRV doesn't mean the article can't be edited as normal. If you disagree with the edits, you're probably better to discuss them on the talk page, or seek dispute resolution if agreement can't be reached that way. Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Discussion has already been tried and failed. Dispute resolution suggests protecting the page while further discussion continues. I am also asking other editors and admins who are reading this to come to the talk page. I am also asking those MANY editors and admins who commented on the AFD, DRV, and PREVIOUS incident report to also come to the talk page. I also am asking those who understand better the dispute resolution processes, and incident boards, to take the appropriate actions. I do not know all of them. I have used many of the dispute resolution processes in the past, but I have found that until some admins get involved, genuine discussion frequently does not occur on the talk pages dealing with Arab and/or Israeli articles. But the bottom line is that an attempt to delete the main part of the article is happening YET AGAIN. The weapon systems list is the reason this article can not be merged with other articles, and should not be merged. It is another roundabout deletion without having to go through AFD. I am requesting that the last intact revision be protected, so as not to allow this roundabout deletion to stand. Here is the last revision with the intact article:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_military_aid_to_Israel&oldid=127900153 --Timeshifter 08:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I now support the merge. This has been favorably resolved. So far. Please go to the talk page, Talk:Israel-United States military relations, for more info. The new condensed format for the list of U.S.-supplied weapon systems greatly reduced its length without deleting any of the list. That allowed the list to be added to the merged article, and there is no longer a need for the spinout article. An editor, though, is already trying to delete some items from the list. --Timeshifter 17:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Invitation Template
What do people think? Tiamut 16:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

For project members wishing to be bold and just edit the template page with their suggestions, go to Template:Palestine Project Invitation. Typing those words between these kinds of brackets will make the template appear on the user pages of those you might wish to invite to join. Have fun. Tiamut 16:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * What does Ahlan wa Sahlan! mean? I fixed a misspelling in the banner. Here is the link to the template page: Template:Palestine Project Invitation. Here is the code for the link:


 * Template:Palestine Project Invitation


 * And here is the code to get the banner:


 * --Timeshifter 18:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It's Arabic for "Welcome". We can take it out or translate it, whatever you guys decide to do. Just thought I'd add local flavor. Tiamut 18:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Translation sounds good to me.--Timeshifter 20:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Done. Other suggestions, thoughts? I would like to begin using this invitation if possible. Tiamut 10:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me. It can always be revised further later. --Timeshifter 14:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * As it should. I'm hoping it and other related articles and activities here will just get better and better once more and more people can get involved. Tiamut 16:12, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Urgent: Need for proper "WikiProject Palestine" template
I have placed the standard WikiProject Palestine template-based notice on +250 talk pages of Palestine-related articles, see here. I hope that helps raise awareness. I tagged most of the highest profile pages dealing with this topic on Wikipedia, but I am sure that I didn't tag them all. --70.51.232.124 00:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Eventually a pretty WikiProject Palestine template should be created similar to the existing Israeli one. Then someone can ask a bot operator to run a search and replace on the old standard template in order to replace them all with the new pretty one (which would save us a lot of manual labor.)  --70.51.232.124 00:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

We really do need a proper Template:WikiProject Palestine template as soon as possible to replace the standard WikiProjectNotice template I have been using. The new template should be modeled on Template:WikiProject Israel as closely as possible (note that there is a lot of complex code within the WikiProject Israel template and it is those types of features that we urgently need.) There are a few reasons for why a proper template is needed: it will include all articles in a WikiPRoject Palestine category, it will allow for us to properly rate the class and importance of articles (so that the best and most important get included in offline article collections), and it allows for us to include a TODO list to help publicize which articles and areas need work (expand the Israel Wikiproject template by clicking on the [show] to see what I mean.)  --70.51.232.124 02:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for spreading around the project banner. What did you mean by "it will include all articles in a WikiPRoject Palestine category". Can you give me an example of another project page with such a list. The exact URL, please. --Timeshifter 02:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
 * When you add assessment information to the Template:WikiProject Israel template, it automatically includes the article in the appropriate category.
 * Here are the class categories:
 * Category:FA-Class Israel-related articles
 * Category:GA-Class Israel-related articles
 * Category:B-Class Israel-related articles
 * Category:Start-Class Israel-related articles
 * Category:Stub-Class Israel-related articles
 * Category:Unassessed Israel-related articles
 * Here are the importance categories:
 * Category:Top-importance Israel-related articles
 * Category:High-importance Israel-related articles
 * Category:Mid-importance Israel-related articles
 * Category:Low-importance Israel-related articles
 * Category:Unknown-importance Israel-related articles
 * Also, all articles tagged with the WikiProject Israel template are included in this category:
 * Category:WikiProject Israel articles
 * You can see how it does this by looking at the underlying code for Template:WikiProject Israel. The same strategy and similar code is used by the Template:WikiProject Politics, thus I think it is a "best practice" that we should adopt. --70.51.232.124 03:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds like some good ideas there. I also like this template:



I am not familiar enough with making templates yet though to do much. Maybe some others can help us out on this too. --Timeshifter 17:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay. I gave it shot. At least it looks okay, but those with knowledge of how to make some of the hyperlinks active (like the drop-down menu and the categories link) are encouraged to tweak it. It's at Template:WikiProject Palestine. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tiamut (talk • contribs) 19:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC).


 * Nice. I have started to look for a bot operator to help us out (see here.)  --70.51.232.124 20:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I found a bot operator who gladly helped out! :-) --70.51.232.124 23:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Assessing article importance
Now that we have that snazzy WikiProject Palestine template, we can rate articles for their importance and level of development (i.e. class). Myself and a few others have started to assess articles, mostly with regards to importance. This can be done by adding the parameter "importance=???" parameter, the value of which can be either "Top", "High", "Mid", "Low" or "NA. Have a look through the following importance categories to see how we assessed things so far and feel free to assess some articles yourself: --70.51.232.124 03:04, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Category:Top-importance Palestine-related articles (26 articles)
 * Category:High-importance Palestine-related articles (27 articles)
 * Category:Mid-importance Palestine-related articles (62 articles)
 * Category:Low-importance Palestine-related articles (58 articles)
 * Category:Unknown-importance Palestine-related articles (486 articles)

Also needed: WikiProject Palestine UserBox
The other WikiProjects have user boxes, this project should probably have one as well. --70.51.232.124 06:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Project banner
Hello. Since your banner supports nesting, would you mind if I added it to the list here: Template:WikiProjectBannerShell? -- Avi 17:16, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer not to. The template is brand spanking new, it looks nice and the project needs as many newcomers as it can get. Sometimes people don't notice that those things can open. Also, when the banner is by itself on a page, its not obtrusive to let it all hang out. Perhaps suggest again in a little while after we have had a chance to enjoy it for a bit? Thanks. Tiamut 17:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Eminently reasonable, although if it is on a three-fer, things may get crowded. Good luck with the project! -- Avi 17:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks again Avi! After we have gotten settled in, I would definitely reconsider. :) Tiamut 17:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Two pages with same purpose, delete/redirect one of them?
It is my belief that having two pages for the same purpose reduces their overall effectiveness because it dilutes effect and attention. Right now we have two pages that appear to me to serve the same purpose. Can we delete or redirect one of them? I myself prefer the second one as it is more compact than the new one. --Abnn 19:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC) (formerly User:70.51.232.124).
 * WikiProject Palestine/to do (this one is included in Template:WPPalestine Sidebar creating by Ian Pitchford)
 * Portal:Palestine/Opentask (this one is included in Portal:Palestine, Template:WikiProject Palestine and Notice board for Palestine-related topics)
 * Done. Good suggestion. I've also just run the bot to populate the table . If there are any suggestions for "collaboration of the week" go here. --Ian Pitchford 19:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've inserted the assessment table into the project's main page.  I was really hoping it was a bot generated table.  --Abnn 19:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for getting rid of the redirect and for improving the sidebar. I was relieved to find the bot too! --Ian Pitchford 19:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Working on the university articles
I'm going to be working first on the university articles, just to bring up their quality to B across the board. Hopefully, I get the time to complete this project and I don't leave it half done. I'm tracking progress so far on my user page. I know there are a lot of POV conflicts going on, but someone has to raise the quality of the core Palestinian articles. Sometimes it seems that the POV conflicts prevents us from presenting the Palestinians as real people with real lives, which is something I would like to remedy. WikiProject Palestine needs all types. --Abnn 00:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)