Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Water

2019 discussion
Hello. I happen to stumble across some articles relating to water supply, and wanted to see what WikiProjects they come under, and needless to say I am confused...
 * 1) WikiProject Water (this page) was created on 14 June 2005, by 68.110.237.166. - "to improve understanding of the underlying significance of water to geography and resulting distribution of life"
 * 2) WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country was created on 24 November 2007, by User:Mschiffler. - "to improve and expand articles related to water supply and sanitation"
 * 3) WikiProject Sanitation was created on 3 December 2014, by User:Doc James. - "to manage and help in curation of Wikipedia's article that touch on sanitation-related topics"

In view of all three projects being rather inactive (based on their respective talkpages), may I suggest 2 and 3 be merged into 1? To preserve page history, "Water supply" and "Sanitation" could be directly moved and made as two 'taskforce' under WikiProject Water. Leaving these three in the current state discourages folks from joining. Comments? Tagging those that seems to be involved in this topic previously: User:EMsmile, User:WhatamIdoing, User:Bobrayner, User:Thewellman, User:Andy Dingley. Thanks, Reh  man  12:51, 22 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Support although I've had negligible involvement in them so far. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:57, 22 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I was involved in setting up wikiproject sanitation.  Its scope goes far beyond just water. There is solid waste, drainage, reuse, feces, medical aspects, worms etc. I think merging the 3 under a new name could be possible but would be a lot of work and I doubt that it would attract any additional contributers. EMsmile (talk) 13:36, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation. Then perhaps we need to exclude water-related subjects (i.e. drainage) from that WikiProject, and move it under WikiProject Water? And maybe also update the Sanitation project's scope? Comments from others? My goal here is to clearly differentiate the projects; as you can see there currently seems to be a significant overlap and confusion. Reh  man  13:57, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Also, what are your views on #2 and #3? You do see the overlap there, right? Reh  man  13:59, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * "WikiProject" means "group of people". If the same group of people are working on all of these, then they might find it more convenient to have one page to check, rather than three.  IMO there is no need to worry about different groups having overlapping interests.  But if people did want to merge, then I think a title such as "WikiProject Water and sanitation" might be a clearer way of expressing the resulting group's areas of interest. Finally, if you want to find people who are currently working on articles tagged by each of these groups, then you might be interested in the automated lists at WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Water, WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Sanitation, and WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country.   WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 22 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Hmm I'd also advocate we merge the three projects to the title WikiProject Water and sanitation or WikiProject Sanitation per the second half of 's comment above. This is assuming that folks interested in sanitation topics would likely have some interest in water topics and vice versa. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country and this talk page seem fairly dormant, so hopefully merging the projects would increase the chances that interested editors find each other, and that editors looking for assistance with one of these topics find a live human editor to respond. Happy to help with the merging if that's what folks want to do. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 00:14, 23 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Neutral I perceive differences in project foci which seem of greater significance than the commonality of the single substance water.
 * -- WikiProject Water focuses on when and where rain falls and water flows in response to atmospheric circulation and geography, and how that distribution regulates populations of the various species which depend upon water within specific ranges of temperature and salinity with various tolerance for periods of deprivation. This Wikiproject seems a potential cover project for WikiProject Rivers and WikiProject Lakes.
 * -- WikiProject Sanitation focuses on how the health of our single species of great apes is influenced by our waste disposal practices. There is heavy emphasis on water because our dependence on water makes us vulnerable to contamination of our water supply by our wastes.  This WikiProject seems a potential sub-project of WikiProject Chemical and Bio Engineering.
 * -- WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country focuses on how the water circulation pattern within specific geographic areas has been modified to meet human needs with minimal consideration for needs of other species. This WikiProject seems a potential sub-project of WikiProject History.
 * These foci seem sufficiently divergent to limit effective coordination of the limited number of individuals working on these project; and I wonder what other goals might be realized by the proposed combination? Thewellman (talk) 06:50, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Your description seems to contradict with the project description. On WikiProject water, it states "For the wikiproject about water in weather and the atmosphere, see WP:WikiProject Meteorology". Reh  man  07:38, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I perceive a difference between WikiProject Meteorology's focus on the thermodynamic properties of atmospheric water and WikiProject Water's focus on the flow patterns of water after it has left the atmosphere. Thewellman (talk) 08:24, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The current (i.e., changeable) descriptions on the various pages are ultimately unimportant. What actually matters is:  Which editors are in these groups, and do those editors want to all work together, or not?  This fact cannot be over-emphasized:  WikiProject is a group of people.  It is not a subject area.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Just some more inputs on the background: the WikiProject "Water supply and sanitation by country" ran for a distinct project because it had funding by World Bank some years ago. During those times, a small dedicated group of (paid) consultants created those country pages. Each page was called "Water supply and sanitation in XXX". There was a strict template that was used. When the funding ended, some more work was done here and there (unpaid) but in general the energy levels dropped off. Those pages are still useful even though they are now in need of updating. I think it's better to keep it as a separate project because you won't gain anything by merging it (i.e. I don't think it would re-awaken those editors who worked on it originally). The WikiProject Water is a bit dormant as far as I can tell. The WikiProject Sanitation was created by User:Doc James. Would be good to hear his views. How many pages are tagged with WikiProject Water? We have 630 tagged with WikiProject Sanitation. I would not necessarily oppose a merger under a new title of "Sanitation and water" (sanitation should go first) but I think it's a fair bit of work for someone with probably very little benefit. Note that all articles tagged by WikiProject Sanitation are also inluded in the offline version of Wikipedia health articles, see here. EMsmile (talk) 13:45, 24 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info about the World Bank funded project. I did not know that, and I'm sure it's the same with most others. IMHO, such a project, although very valuable, should not have been the sole reason for creating a separate single-use WikiProject. It could have easily fit within the existing projects, as a special project or taskforce. The intention of merging is not really to re-awaken old editors, but rather to have a clear and understandable platform for existing and future editors. I was a potential new contributor in this area, and boy was I confused.
 * "WikiProject Sanitation and Water" seems like a fine title, as long as the other terms are redirected to this. With regards to finding people to do the task, I'll agree it may not be done overnight, but it definitely will be done if there is consensus. Ajpolino offered to help (above), and I would be happy to work on it too. This is a wiki after all, someone will join in from somewhere. :) Reh  man  14:31, 24 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose or merge to "Sanitation and water" but not sure it is worth the work. Based on position of User:EMsmile who is the leading force behind Wikiproject Sanitation. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:06, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Doc James: If the two, or possibly even three, existing WikiProjects would be merged into a newly titled WikiProject Sanitation and water, then all their tagged pages would automatically be added to the offline version of Wikipedia's health content, right? Would you see this as a positive or a negative? As a starting point, could someone please add the table of current articles tagged with WikiProject Water? How many are there? Hundreds or thousands? I haven't seen this yet and don't know how to do it. For WikiProject Sanitation it looks like this: . EMsmile (talk) 04:23, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I'm interrupting. Just want to mention that changing template usage is a very simple task. It could be done with a few edits (by redirecting the template altogether), updating usages via bot, or by altering the most used template. All of which doesn't take much human effort. Reh  man  04:36, 25 February 2019 (UTC)


 * If someone can do the merge into a "Sanitation and water" project with breaking anything sure... Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:42, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Rehman which template did you mean? I still haven't seen an answer to how many projects are currently tagged with WikiProject Water? I don't know how to find that out. EMsmile (talk) 08:09, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm referring to templates such as Template:WikiProject Sanitation. Are you referring to something else? Reh  man  11:40, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Consensus to merge
Hi all. It seems to me that the current consensus is Merge all three WikiProjects to "Sanitation and water" for the purpose of creating "a clear and understandable platform for existing and future editors". Even though both and  wrote "oppose", they have indicated they are okay with this merger. Water supply and sanitation by country should have been created as a task force instead of its own WikiProject (and, I will note, has a very awkward title), and can be recreated as a task force in order to bring all of the "Water supply and sanitation in XX" articles up to date. The only significant step toward merging the three WikiProjects is updating all of the relevant templates, which and  have offered to do. I can request assistance with these technical tasks from the WikiProject Council if needed.

Please respond if you think this assessment is inaccurate. Otherwise, I will assume you are go to merge. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 06:18, 13 March 2019 (UTC)


 * User:Qzekrom, how would you go about it in practical terms? My assessment is that the WikiProject Sanitation page is the best out of the three. Therefore, when merging the three projects, I would say the other two are merged INTO WikiProject Sanitation. Afterwards you just have to rename that project to WikiProject "Sanitation and Water". Is that also how you were planning to tackle this? You'd also have to modify the project's tag and ensure that the tools related to click rates still work afterwards, for example this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation/Popular_pages EMsmile (talk) 08:17, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * We need a clearly idea of how this will work before the merge occurs. We do not merge just for the sake of merging if problems are going to be created. How many articles are in the other projects? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 11:25, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Category:WikiProject Water articles currently has 568 pages and no subcategories (it currently lacks a rating system). Category:WikiProject Water supply and sanitation has at least 318 articles across its subcategories. Category:WikiProject Sanitation articles has 643 articles. I have marked Category:WikiProject water supply and sanitation for speedy deletion. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 16:00, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Content from "WikiProject Sanitation" can be prioritised, yes. It depends on what exactly is needed (by you and other members of the projects), while cutting down on unnecessary/duplicate content, if any at all. Reh  man  11:40, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not involved in this proposal, just here to tie up loose ends and get things moving. Though I'm willing to help, you call the shots.
 * Sidenote: WikiProject Water's scope is confusing, as it's mostly about ecological and social aspects of water use but not hydrology. The rat's nest of hatnotes at the top of the project page is a testament to its convolutedness. If a new water-related WikiProject were to be created in the future, I would recommend that its scope include both hydrology and water ecology. Perhaps "Sanitation and water use" would be a clearer name for the new WikiProject? Qzekrom 💬 theythem 15:38, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Update: WikiProject Limnology and Oceanography covers water ecosystems broadly, so I guess that base is covered. We can keep the Water page but replace it with a hub for all water-related WikiProjects instead of its own project. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 15:51, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I assume we need to: Am I missing anything obvious? If folks don't have any major misgivings, and are happy with "WikiProject Sanitation and water" or just "WikiProject Sanitation" as the final title, then I can start doing those things. Alternatively, if folks want more discussion or to hold off on this, I'm certainly in no rush. Thoughts? Ajpolino (talk) 16:30, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) Tweak the talk page template so it says "Sanitation and water" or whatever we want to call it.
 * 2) Redirect the title to  (or we can just move the old template to the new name. Or make a new  template. Or whatever. Either way the effect will be the same).
 * 3) Replace all instances of and  with  (unless a Sanitation tag is already on the page). That way editors who are interested in a page will be directed to the correct project from the talk page (that's how I initially learned about WikiProjects when I got here). We can file a bot request to handle that.
 * 4) Mark the old WikiProject Water and WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country as historical (since they would then only be linked from folks' user pages or old talk pages).
 * 5) Move the actual WikiProject Sanitation page to whatever name we like.
 * 6) Make sure whatever tools currently work with the WikiProject Sanitation pages work with the new page set (per 's concern above).
 * Looks like you got everything. As I said above, just "water" is ambiguous, so it might be a good idea to rename to "Sanitation and water supply" or "Sanitation and water use" instead of just "Sanitation and water". We can then recreate "WikiProject Water" as a separate project with the broader scope I described above, so it's less confusing to future participants. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 17:07, 13 March 2019 (UTC)


 * User:Qzekrom: thanks for supplying the number of articles currently tagged with WikiProject Water. Can you please also provide a link to WHICH articles are tagged with that project? I think this would help us to see what the scope of the project really is/was. Because looking at the goal description, it is very, very vague but then later it focuses on water supply. I have the suspicion that the real or former title of this project was WikiProject Water Supply and that most of the tagged articles deal with water supply in actual fact. Personally, I prefer short Wikiproject titles, which is why I think I'd favour "WikiProject sanitation and water". I think this would imply that it's about water supply and usage, not about water in the atmosphere and oceans etc. (because it comes after "sanitation" which already provides a focus). If you insist that the project title needs to be more precise then we could discuss whether "use" or "supply" is the right term. I'd say in the literature the term "water supply" is more common and would probably imply also its use. Do we think it should be limited to drinking water? In that case it could be "WikiProject Sanitation and Drinking Water" - but then it wouldn't include all the topics around irrigation. Is that what we want? I am not sure. That's why it would help to have a list of the 600 or so tagged articles so that we can grasp what the original intention was of those people who tagged articles with WikiProject Water. EMsmile (talk) 01:42, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The project was created as "WikiProject Water purification". It was subsequently moved to "WikiProject Water and sanitation" and then to just "Water". At the time of that move its scope was "water supply, sanitation, and water purification." Also, I did link to the project category – here. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 01:58, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Qzekrom, oh surry I didn't realise that such a list could be generated via a category list. I had a quick look and it's a complete mess. What I can offer is that I go through those tagged articles and remove the tags from articles where they don't belong. This is provided we have agreed that for this new project called "Sanitation and water", we mean the water part to focus on water supply (which would include water purification) and water use but not things from the natural atmosphere, i.e. all those things that are listed in the hatnotes, e.g. For wikiprojects for natural bodies of water, see WP:WikiProject Rivers, WP:WikiProject Lakes, WP:WikiProject Glaciers, WP:WikiProject Oceans, and WP:WikiProject Waterfalls. When the projects are merged, then the part that is currently under "goals" needs to be completely rewritten.EMsmile (talk) 02:26, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to lodge my opinion here: I also prefer the short project title WikiProject Sanitation and water (though I'm equally fine with merging everything to WikiProject Sanitation, which we can clarify on the project page includes all things related to water use as well). If folks get confused and start adding all kinds of pages on oceans, et al. we can split the project. Otherwise I don't think we need to bend over too much to avoid potential confusion. keep us updated on your progress through Category:WikiProject Water articles. I'll try to help out over the next few days as well. Once we're happy with the list, I can request a bot flip the tags (bonus points if we've decided on a final name by then). Thanks all! Ajpolino (talk) 06:00, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Which project should be the base of the merger?

 * Just to share my views. I'm fully with the above proposal. Just a quick question to Ajpolino, User:Qzekrom, and whoever is leading the merge, is it possible to update the scope of WikiProject Water (this page) instead, while marking the other two historical? There is barely a visible difference, other than that we would then continue to use the original project (created 14 June 2005), rather than a spinoff (if you want to call it). It's just for historical purposes. If it's too much trouble, then you may let it go, but I just want to know if you're willing to take that route instead? Thank you for your help. Reh  man  09:05, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It's certainly not too much work. I have no strong feeling on which project should be left standing. None of them are particularly active (I think when I had looked earlier, none of the talk pages have ever needed archiving? Could be misremembering). I think the rationale for Sanitation as the home of the merged project was that it is currently somewhat more active than the others (thanks largely to EMsmile's efforts I believe). That said, whatever makes folks happy is fine with me. Anyone else have a problem with having this page be the final one (we would just move the project page to WikiProject Sanitation and water and update it from there. The other two would be marked historical)? Ajpolino (talk) 22:31, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Ajpolino, having the oldest page standing seems like a sensible way to go and is what I support in this case, considering that all 3 are similarly inactive. Any needed changes could be made over that. Reh  man  01:25, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * oppose. I strongly oppose using WikiProject Water as the base (which only User:Rehman is pushing for strongly at this point). Like I said above it makes more sense to use WikiProject Sanitation as the base. Just for "historical" reasons is not a good argument for favoring WikiProject Water in my opinion. Also I disagree that "all projects are similarly inactive". The WikiProject Sanitation is far more active than WikiProject Water (thanks mostly to me, but still). We haven't heard from any of the members of WikiProject Water, have we? Also there are at least two tools that we set up for WikiProject Sanitation and that work but don't have for WikiProject Water (namely this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation/Popular_pages and also this one: https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Sanitation&namespace=&pagename=&quality=&importance=&score=&limit=250&offset=1&sorta=Importance&sortb=Quality ). Let's not create more work than necessary just for "historical" reasons. Furthermore, keep in mind that the WikiProject Water was already renamed 3 times in the past. So it is obviously "ill fated". The WikiProject Sanitation has never been renamed and was better thought out from the start (I think). It is also included in the offline version of WikiProject Medicine (see here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med/App). This is another sign that WikiProject Sanitation is the more important one at the moment and this should be recognised by making it the base of the merger. EMsmile (talk) 02:47, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Um, could you please elaborate as to why you oppose this other than because of the project being "ill fated"? It was created in 2005 - much earlier than the others; there would obviously be more history in that. The is no additional work as you claim, as one of them needs to be moved anyway. At the end of the day, you still get exactly what you wanted. Like I said, the action does not have a visible result. Reh  man  02:57, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I gave several reasons above. Like I said above, the fact that at least two of the tools not working for "WikiProject Water" is important as it will create extra work for someone to make them work. Why waste that person's time. I call it ill-fated because like someone said above the project started as "water purification" then was changed to "water supply and sanitation" then "water". That last move was perhaps the silliest one as "water" is so broad and it would overlap with all the other water wiki projects (hence the long list of hatnotes what this project is NOT about). You really wonder what this project WAS meant to be about exactly (the goal description is completely warped in my opinion). It is also ill-fated because all its original members seem to have gone silent, or have you seen any of them write here? Actually, looking at that short list under "sign me up" I see one user name that I recognise. I wonder if he/she has been following this discussion. If not, let me ping User:Thewellman. Your only reason for wanting WikiProject Water to be the base of the merger is that it's older. How does that make it more important? And I think it IS important which one the base is, as it makes a difference for the amount of work involved (like getting those above mentioned tools to work) and merging the project descriptions into one. - Anyhow, none of the history from 2005 onwards would get lost, as probably all the talk pages would also be merged, right? EMsmile (talk) 15:32, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for soliciting my opinion. I favor a broader focus on water; but there seem to be few others who share my view, and even fewer actively involved with the project, so I suggest conforming to the preferences of more actively involved editors is the best way of encouraging continuing effort from those editors. I'm uncertain what will be gained by merging these projects, and I see nothing to be gained by expanding project scope beyond the interest of active project members. Thewellman (talk) 21:24, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Tidying up the tags
Further to what I just wrote before, I have now gone through the letter A and removed tags from articles where they no longer fit under the new definition of the WikiProject Water. Take a look at my user contributions and you'll see where I have removed them. We have agreed that articles on water resources do not belong with WikiProject Water anymore, right? Check here to see if those that now remain under A are correct: Category:WikiProject Water articles. If folks agree with my approach then I will continue through the alphabet. By the way, Ajpolino, I don't understand why I couldn't use this tool as well?: wmflabs tool. If I put in WikiProject Water then nothing comes up. Is it because it's been renamed a few times? It works for WikiProject Sanitation.EMsmile (talk) 02:39, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * LGTM. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 04:03, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * You can't use the tool for WikiProject Water because it's not in the list of participating projects. I'm not sure how to add a project to the tool, though I suspect the answer is somewhere in this guide? As for where we draw the line on reservoirs, water regions, and other things only peripherally associated with the drinking water supply, I have no strong opinion. Thanks for taking the time to go through those articles. Ajpolino (talk) 06:00, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I have removed some more tags, I am now up to the letter E. You can see here what I removed today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist?hidepreviousrevisions=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1&limit=250&days=30&damaging__likelybad_color=c4&damaging__verylikelybad_color=c5&urlversion=2 But it's rather tricky. My approach is that all reservoirs and canals stay in. When it comes to lakes, I am thinking if the lake doubles up as a reservoir for drinking water supply then it should keep the tag. If it just a natural water body then not (?). How about rivers? I have removed articles about particular waterfalls and also "Blizzard". I am undecided about the water resources type topics and the hydrology type topics. Ultimately it's all part of the water cycle so everything is related to drinking water supply in one way or another but I thought we had narrowed down the scope of this project so it's no longer about all water topics. Please correct me if I am wrong. EMsmile (talk) 15:57, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I am slowly and carefully continuing with this task and am now up to the letter H (see here). I am leaving all the iffy ones and only removing the clear-cut ones. So I have left the water resources pages tagged for now. EMsmile (talk) 13:16, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I have finished with tidying up the tags now. There are 538 articles remaining that are tagged with WikiProject Water (see here). EMsmile (talk) 03:53, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Confusion around new scope of Wikiproject
Hi all, I noticed that tags were removed fAlaska water resource region and  Arkansas–White–Red water resource region,  due to the project scope change. Water resource regions are hydrological mapping datasets produced by USGS. To the best of my understanding, this data is used for a variety of water use planning purposes, santitation among them (see here and here. Does the new project see itself as covering this mission statement to improve understanding of the underlying significance of water to geography and resulting distribution of life (in addition to the two others discussed above)? If so, I would think this project still covers water resource regions, but regardless, I'm definitely interested in a succinct presentation of the new, merged project's scope. -Furicorn (talk) 07:23, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not an expert on water use, but I think it's useful to keep these articles in scope, even if they should be also part of a "WikiProject Hydrology" or . Qzekrom 💬 theythem 03:17, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Qzekrom what do you mean by "to keep these articles in scope"? And in answer to Furicorn above, no the new project would not be there to improve understanding of the underlying significance of water to geography and resulting distribution of life; it is more narrow than that, which I thought we had agreed on above. It's basically about water supply and use.EMsmile (talk) 15:35, 16 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Is there any objection to holding off on reverting the wikiproject taggings until a succinct mission statement is created? It seems like there might still be some clarification needed for everyone to get to consensus. I have a slight argument that water has to come from somewhere, an,d at least in the US, and these maps are part of that system of figuring out water supply, however at the end of the day I'm perfectly happy with whatever consensus you all come to. -Furicorn (talk) 21:26, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

FYI: New template
You can now use proj to link to a WikiProject page. For example, use to link to WikiProject Water. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 03:28, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't understand when I'd use that? There was already a shortcut, like this one WP:SANI. Isn't it the same thing? EMsmile (talk) 15:59, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I often feel like writing out the full name of a WikiProject. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 18:14, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

2020 discussion
It seems that a merger has stalled. I am new here and I looked around. Here are the pros and cons of merging that I see:
 * In favor of merging
 * There are multiple engaged communities with some highly active editors developing content on sanitation and water. Most WikiProjects have low activity, and these WikiProjects have relatively high activity.
 * New people are coming to these projects, which are for popular topics
 * These WikiProjects have a lot of overlap in the articles they tag
 * WikiProject Water especially could use the clarity, because it is a project more closely related to sanitation than to geography of water (WP:WikiProject Rivers, oceans, lakes, etc) or (WP:WikiProject Meteorology, or WP:WikiProject Water Sports. I might be in favor of the page for "WikiProject Water" being a directory to these various other WikiProjects since there are so many.
 * Against merging
 * There is little harm in waiting and letting the current WikiProjects develop as they are
 * The more time and engagement that passes, the clearer it will become how a merge should look, if we merge at all.
 * The current consensus is not solid. Doing a merge is easy but undoing is a lot of work. We should be sure before doing a merge.
 * There is a March 2019 request for a vision statement about the scope
 * "Sanitation" includes things like chemical cleaners and might include things like environmental toxicity. WikiProject Water has less of these articles in its currently tagged articles and the sanitation projects have more of these things.

I wish I knew how to manage data better to be able to compare the overlap in WikiProject Water's 915 articles versus WikiProject Sanitation's 750 articles. I think that all the WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country articles are merged into water, but that wikiproject could probably be converted to a flagship project of a final merged WikiProject. It seems like an amazing effort.

Going forward
 * 1) useful regardless of merge
 * 2) Draft a 1-3 sentence vision?
 * 3) Compile a list of current projects, like "Water supply and sanitation by country"
 * 4) useful only if planning a merge
 * 5) draft the merge plan?
 * 6) call everyone back for a vote to adopt the vision and implement the merge?

I am not in a hurry but I think it would be nice to be able to show newcomers a single clean project page if we are all in agreement about this.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  17:58, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi, I'm not a content editor in this area, so I don't have much sense of where the active communities of editors in this topic are or prefer to organize. That said, if a merge is uncontroversial, I'm happy to help out with the nuts-and-bolts of it. Thanks for bringing this back up! Ajpolino (talk) 21:03, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I just glanced over the discussion we had a year ago. Did we reach a conclusion of the title of the merged project, and which project would be the "base" that the others would be merged into? I am happy for WikiProject Sanitation to be the base, get a new name and then have the other projects merged into that (like I said in the earlier discussion). By the way, the link where we could see which projects are tagged with WikiProject Water that I had used above seems to no longer work? Oh wait, I can see there is now a new link: https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Water Again, we would probably have to untag some of the articles once we have agreed on the new scope of the merged project. EMsmile (talk) 02:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

2022 discussion
Arlo James Barnes 15:43, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Reservoirs of Azerbaijan listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Reservoirs of Azerbaijan to be moved to List of dams and reservoirs in Azerbaijan. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 14:35, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
 * To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.

Water supply and sanitation in England and Wales listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Water supply and sanitation in England and Wales to be moved to History of water supply in England and Wales. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 01:47, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
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Water supply and sanitation in England and Wales listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Water supply and sanitation in England and Wales to be moved to History of water supply in England and Wales. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 11:02, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
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Ma'ayan Harod listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Ma'ayan Harod to be moved to Ain Jalut. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 11:49, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
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Good article reassessment for Water supply and sanitation in Colombia
Water supply and sanitation in Colombia has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm Talk 20:06, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Comments or edits for Depth filter
I came across the article Depth filter which looks like it is relevant to this project. It was a bit of a referencing mess, which I think I have now cleaned up. Perhaps someone here can comment/edit the content, as that is beyond my expertise. Is it trivial, or viable? Should it be part of this project? And similar questions. Ldm1954 (talk) 22:39, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

One Water and Integrated Water Management
I have created a page for the One Water movement and management approach. We could link this to many articles, but as a named movement since 2017, I think this One Water movement deserves its own page. Please comment. Thank you. LoveElectronicLiterature (talk) 23:58, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * As written, this article may be criticized for tone perceived as promotion. There are also numerous problems associated with formatting external links. Thewellman (talk) 00:16, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Water supply and sanitation in the United States
Water supply and sanitation in the United States has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm Talk 02:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Irish Water listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Irish Water to be moved to Uisce Éireann. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 07:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
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Watergate (architecture) listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Watergate (architecture) to be moved to Water gate. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 22:04, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
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