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Archiving of proposals

Is there any process for archiving proposals. I've moved several subpage links to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Archive 5 but it looks like in the past there was either no subpages, or they were substituted onto the page. I was thinking it might be helpful to retain the subpages with archive tags similar to RFA (or something to that effect), but before I run AWB against all those pages there I wanted to get some feedback on the idea. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:27, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see any real benefit to more formal archiving—the proposal process is commonly ignored to the point where most of the subpages don't contain anything particularly useful—but I suppose there's no harm in doing it. Kirill [talk] [pf] 11:48, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I've done a run on them and added . My only concern was someone finding one of those subpages and adding more after the fact without noticing the date. There may be issues with someone wanting to propose a project of the same name as something in the past, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I'm trying to preload the proposal page similar to how {{RfAsubst}} preloads RFAs. I just think the parameters should be named so I'll try to do that today or some point this week, unless someone else wants to do it.-Optigan13 (talk) 23:07, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I've created Template:WikiProject Proposalsubst to preload new proposal pages and updated the wording on the instructions. It should simplify the process slightly. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Class → class

I have made a proposal to change Class to lowercase, so that an article would be A-class rather than A-Class. This would be more in line with standard capitalisation conventions and make it consistent with the importance/priority ratings which have always been lowercase. To be clear, I am not proposing we rename all the categories (this would be a huge job!) but just to change the text in WikiProject banners. As this change would affect many project's banners and talk pages (albeit in a very trivial way) I am posting here to draw attention to the discussion here. (Please comment there, not here, thanks.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:44, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I have a new version of the randomlink.js tool that can be configured to pick a random article from a specified WikiProject. This may be useful to some editors who wish to unbiasedly pick a new article to work on. It can be configured to choose based on a set of categories or based on the "What links here" of the WikiProject template. See the examples. —GregU (talk) 17:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Does the tool redirect to the article itself if the category contents are talk pages, or does it link to the actual located talk page? Kirill [talk] [pf] 00:22, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
It knows about this special case and takes you to the article itself. —GregU (talk) 05:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

WP templates on redirect talk pages

If I re-direct an article (e.g. an unattributed microstub) to another page, should I remove the WikiProject template(s) from the talk page? I had figured I should leave it in order that someone involved in the project might see the redirect (and that it was no longer an article). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 21:14, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

If it were me, I'd add the banner to the new talk page, if appropriate, and keep the banner on the old talk page, maybe changing the class rating to "Redirect" or "NA". That way, in the event the project uses article alerts, they can still keep track of whether the page is up for deletion, merger, or whatever, and that is one of the things a lot of projects use the banners for. John Carter (talk) 21:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
When I come across one, because the banner has |importance= rather than |priority= or no value for |listas=, I delete all the banners and redirect the page to the new article's talk page. JimCubb (talk) 04:20, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
I think this is fine for the {{WPBiography}} template, because they don't keep track of redirects. But quite a few projects do like to keep track of redirects within their scope, so they probably wouldn't thank you for removing their banners from these pages! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Depends on the talk page in question. If the page has any discussion and/or at least on banner supports Redirect-Class, then I'd leave it as it is -- redirects can have talk pages too! But if it was an empty talk page and none of the banner support Redirect-Class, then I think a redirect is appropriate (or even requesting speedy deletion). PC78 (talk) 18:29, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanx! -- Gyrofrog (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Discussion on /comments pages on VPR

I have started a discussion with direct relevance for this project on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Talk page Comments subpage, since it involves talk page subpages created through and shown by wikiproject banners. Please discuss this over at the VPR, not here, to keep the discussion in one place. If you know of any other projects or pages where this discussion should be mentioned, feel free to do so or to drop me a note. Fram (talk) 12:07, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Creating one

The Dams proposals back in March failed because there were no instructions on how to actually create an official wikiproject. Is it legal to just create it, without any special project; i.e. just create Wikipedia:WikiProject Dams and all those templates and banners outright? Shannontalk contribs sign!:) 00:54, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's fine. Kirill [talk] [pf] 03:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
The instructions are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/WikiProject, which is linked in the navbox on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject District of Columbia

I am looking for advice regarding Wikipedia:WikiProject District of Columbia - Several users there said that they do not wish to have the project's scope cover DC suburbs (using any definition), and one user suggested starting a parallel DC area WikiProject. I argued that having the DC project extend to NOVA and the Maryland burbs would make the project stronger; other US city projects cover suburbs (the exception I can think of is NYC, which covers a city of 8 million). Anyway, would the council recommend having parallel DC only and DC area WikiProjects? Why or why not? WhisperToMe WhisperToMe (talk) 09:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject District of Columbia#DC scope for discussion that has already occurred. SchuminWeb (Talk) 16:10, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

How to Create One

I'm thinking about making a WikiProject but the only thing is that i don't know how to Qwertyfish11 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC).

It's probably best to propose your project on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:08, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your help, but i just want to know how i go about making the page at all, when i have finished proposing it. Qwertyfish11 (talk) 14:20, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/WikiProject. --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:27, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Project to task force conversion

WikiProject New Jersey has completed the conversion of WikiProject Education in New Jersey to the Education task force. I am unsure of how to update the listings here to reflect the change. Jim Miller See me | Touch me 17:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Motto of the day

I think this project falls under hee but could people please take a look at WT:MOTD#The Future? Also see WP:MOTD. Simply south (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposals - when to add to proposal page?

The instructions on when to add a proposed project to the proposals page seem unclear - I think this could be overcome by renaming the "Succesful Proposals" section to "Current Proposals" but wanted consensus as this would change the apparent scope to reflect what appears to be current usage. For now, I've added my proposal to the page, but am unsure if I should have done so NullofWest Fill the Void 20:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm not sure why the section name was changed to "successful" in the first place, given that the entire point of making a proposal there is to see whether it will be successful. I've changed the terminology throughout the page to use "current" instead, and cleaned up the section nesting as well. Kirill [talk] [pf] 22:20, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Tech help on collapsible banners

My work would be greatly facilitated if I could add some code in my monobook.js to enable me to see by default collapsed material as un-collapsed, in particular the Talk page BannerShell. I asked here: Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell#Tech help, but haven't got an answer for over a month. I would be very grateful for any assistance. Hoverfish Talk 09:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Add the following to your .js file:
function collapseTable( tableIndex )
{
}
That will override the function responsible for automatically collapsing the talk page banners. Kirill [talk] [pf] 15:04, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Thank you Kirill Lokshin, I appreciate. Hoverfish Talk 15:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Help needed with Kingbotk plugin

Hi. Does anyone here know VB and so could help out with the Kingbotk plugin. It's not working to spec in the new builds of AWB per Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#Kingbotk plugin not assessing in SVN version. Thanks. Hiding T 17:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Order of multiple WikiProject banners

When adding a WikiProject banner to a talk page which already has one, I always place my new one beneath those that already exist, but above any other box-type templates (such as DYK, failed deletion, etc). There are, however, bots which insert at the top - see here for example. Is there a preferred order for the banners? --Redrose64 (talk) 18:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The Kingbotk plugin (which many bots including Xenobot run on) places them at the top always, but I have some custom code that ensures the WPBio banner gets top billing if living=yes.
Personally I feel the templates should be ordered in order of relevance and hierarchically (so an Xbox exclusive video game that also became an Internet culture phenomen would be WPVG->WP Xbox->WP Internet culture), but it's impossible nigh-on impossible for a bot to do stuff like this. –xenotalk 18:36, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Question from some one knowing nothing about how some templates operate. Would it be possible to have the two banner shells adjusted in such a way to automatically place the banners in descending order depending on declared importance to the individual project included? John Carter (talk) 18:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm... Neat idea! Off-the-cuff I don't think it's possible, but perhaps some higher level wizard can prove me wrong! –xenotalk 18:51, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Project to task force conversion guide added

Using WP:MED's project to task force conversion guide as a starting point, I've added a more general stepwise entry to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces on how to perform project to task force conversions. Any feedback , improvement, etc. would be appreciated. I'm trying to do it now since I'll be doing a conversion of WP:Inland Empire coming up, so it match up. -Optigan13 (talk) 02:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

That looks pretty good, overall. A few minor things, based on my experiences with turning projects into task forces:
  • In (1), the discussion may be better off being held on the future parent project's talk page, particularly if the project to be merged is inactive. Generally speaking, pointing people to a discussion on a different page gets a significantly lower number of participants than holding the discussion on a page they're already visiting.
  • In (4), the moved project page will likely require significant rearrangement, particularly if the new parent project has a standard layout for task force pages.
  • In (5), many of the pages will need to be redirected to the new parent project's corresponding pages, since part of becoming a task force is adopting the parent project's assessment/review/etc. processes rather than running one's own.
  • In (12), I've always just redirected the banner rather than tagging it as deprecated.
Kirill [talk] [prof] 05:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks,
  • I've tweaked the discussion instructions (1) to be agnostic as to which page the discussion should be on as long as it is centralized. I've been using the project being considered for conversion's talk because I'd prefer to avoid someone coming back a month after the fact and raising a stink about not enough notice.
  • I've been using some boilerplate text I found to the top of the proposed task force's main page, but I can't find what if any template it is on to recommend. diff of the boilerplate text
  • I've added steps about layout changes and redirecting redundant pages.
  • Redirect works fine, I'm just more of a stickler for keeping a consistent template call (for no real strong reason). I've changed the wording on that.
-Optigan13 (talk) 08:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

"Challenge" contests

For those who don't know, there are currently the User:ChildofMidnight/Bacon Challenge 2010 and the earlier User:Grundle2600/Doughnut Days 2009. I am disgustedly envious of both of these concepts, because, of course, they aren't my ideas. It's horrible! :) Having said that, I wonder if maybe settting up short-term "micro-projects" like these might not be an effective way of stimulating article development, particularly in areas needing a lot of help. The one problem I can foresee, of course, is the possibility that, eventually, we might get to the point of having (all examples made up on the spot, don't expect any gems here) the "Football playoffs" fighting for temporary help against "the sex line" (three guesses where I sign up here) and maybe the "Easter Parade" and "Oscar's 'And the Winner Is...'". And, of course, despite their comparative importance, "Detroit Days", "Emergency Room" (Medicine) and maybe "Brazilian Carnival" are probably going to get a lot less interest if they go head-to-head with any of the above.

Despite that, they are really good ideas, particularly if they wind up being effective. I note tht the latter is tied to the WikiCup in terms of points and the like. Would there be any other projects that would like to give something like this a chance, and, if yes, any ideas on how we don't have them fighting for involvement against each other? John Carter (talk) 19:51, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The doughnut thing was not my idea. I was asked for permission to allow it to be posted in my userspace, and I happily said yes. Grundle2600 (talk) 21:29, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Past discussions about WikiProject templates and banners in article space, cross-namespace redirects?

Have there been any past discussion about placing WikiProject banners and other material in the article space on the Council? I've recently placed {{WPbox}} up for deletion at WP:TFD, and appears that the template's creator has also been creating several cross-namespace redirects(contribs) to the WP:COUNCIL page and the list of projects. I've already seen WP:SELFREF, and a discussion in the archives here which addresses COTW templates, but I'm looking for specific discussion about banners and WikiProject specific precedence. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Glaring holes in doc (copied from Template_talk:WPBannerMeta/doc)

Having begun to use project templates recently, I read the doc page of WpBannerMeta to familiarize myself with its usage (as opposed to writing a banner with it). There are unfortunately many holes in that documentation, for example, what's a listas? For that matter what's a small? What values can they take? What's a category optout? No idea. I searched Wikipedia for such information, with no luck, not even in WikiProject Council... I found some bits of extra information here, and I would encourage you guys to integrate some of it for us, poor ordinary users...
--  Alain  R 3 4 5 
Techno-Wiki-Geek 00:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

What's a "listas"? Good question. It is a "sortkey for the article talk page (for example, for Elvis Presley, |listas=Presley, Elvis, so that the talk page will show up in the P's and not the E's of the various assessment and administrative categories)." I had to hunt around for that definition. You might be semi-interested in this colloquy: User:GeorgeLouis#Category:Biography_articles_without_listas_parameter Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:Recentism

Is there a project anywhere that aims to tackle all the articles with "Recentism" tags, like this one:

? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Try this link it might help, Category:Articles slanted towards recent events. --75.154.186.99 (talk) 19:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yes! Thank your very much. GeorgeLouis (talk) 23:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposing some changes to Proposals

Looking at a couple of recent proposals for (Modern Talking; oldid), and a previous one (Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/The Kinks; oldid), where both had a substantial amount of test templates, and other material before I removed them, ( Modern Talking also added a banner linking to the proposal at Template:Wikipedia ads), should there be any stated limits on the amount of test material, sandboxing, and advertising the proposal. I'm fine if it's in userspace, but those proposal pages can get a bit unwieldy with excessive sandboxing on the proposal subpage.

I'm also wondering if we should append some sort of AFD style template to the top of the header, similar to the keep, delete, and header templates with proposed and categories (below Category:Wikipedia WikiProjects) for the subpages, since I think people have been removing some from the proposal page without archiving the discussion, which leaves some dangling subpages out there. Although it's all for tracking, since we can't really dictate whether or not to create a project.

One last thing I think that would be helpful to add to proposals would be to ask the proposer to identify at least one (preferably two, or more) parent projects for the new project, since of a lot of the more narrow scoped ones don't seem to have ever considered or tried existing projects. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:41, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, should we add an oppose section? I've seen them created by users, or comments posted as Oppose in the Discussion section. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:58, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I've created several of the archival templates, and will try to go through and archive the proposals tomorrow. -Optigan13 (talk) 09:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Implementation of Book-class for WikiProjects

There are now 0 projects which have chosen to add the new Book-class to their quality scales to help keep track of Wikipedia:Books within their scope. Although it is early days, this seems to be a class may become widely used by a significant number of WikiProjects in the future and I'm looking to gauge whether there is support for adding this class to the 'extended quality scale' bundle of classes (which currently consists of all the standard classes plus Category, Template, Image, Disambig, Project, and Portal). This would make it a bit easier to add support for Book-class to project banners, although it would mean that we are imposing this new class on all 0 projects which are using the extended scale. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Just a note that projects who don't feel like adopting the book-class could always request to return to the previous behaviour. No project approached so-far declined the implementation when offered, the response ranging from indifferent (the mentality being "nothing gets broken, so who cares:) to enthusiastic.
Benefits of including it in the extended scale means more users looking at books, thus more books, thus more feedback on books, and thus better books for readers. (I do have a certain conflict of interest here since I work with the people who are developing the book tools.) Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 08:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I guess I'm just trying to figure out how this fits into the grand scheme of things, both on en.wiki and relative to wikibooks. The extension itself is largely for compiling everything into one file (PDF or other format) for offline access, including simple saving and printing, correct? How will this namespace fit in relative to the Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates, and those outlines? I'll try to play around with one in my userspace to get a feel for them. I'm just trying to get a sense of them to see what kind of maintenance will be needed, and any conflicts before we go into a much wider usage. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Well the typical maintenance of the Book namespace itself will be relatively low since it's a relatively low-traffic namespace (for the moment at the least). It involves building a collection of related article and giving them a structure. Books need to abide by all policies (neutrality, blp, no original research, etc...), so that's an issue that will be encountered from time to time.
More janitorial tasks will be merging duplicate (or strongly overlapping) books, making sure that books have correct structures, are correctly categorized, and so on. I want to create a Wikipedia:Books for discussion (BfD) page eventually, where all issues could be raised (right now this falls to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, and the talk page of related Wikiprojects). A book MoS could be developed (see naming conventions, which is a very rough draft at the moment), etc... And then there's also making sure that articles render nicely (which often means excluding templates from print, or developing print versions of templates)...
I hope that answers. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:14, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
After playing with them some more I'm okay with implementing the Book class. I'm still not sure how this will affect the similar pages, but I can't think of anything so bad as to cause us to hold off on it. It will likely cause some conflict and a some maintenance burden (probably light) by adding to the number of variations on ways we present material, but nothing that can't be handled, reverted, etc. Have there been any WP:Miscellany for Deletion on books created yet? Has there been any discussion on the MoS side of things yet? It's probably good to get the ball rolling on that so they can adapt as features to book class are added. -Optigan13 (talk) 09:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, there's been a couple of MfDs related to books. (See here.) Nothing on the MoS for now, but I've made a rough draft for naming conventions and other books-related issues. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 21:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I think it is a necessary move, as WikiProjects are becoming increasingly popular. By adding it to the extended list, it will be there to be used more anyway, and, as User:Headbomb pointed out, the books scheme will become more popular and more users will hopefully become more alert to it. 95jb14 (talk) 19:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC), founder of WikiProject Latin.
How does a "book" differ from the much-disputed "outlines of knowledge"? Why not just call them "lists"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Well take a look at Book:Hadronic Matter or Book:Frédéric Chopin for examples (click on the "PDF" link in the banner). Basically it's a collection of articles related to a topic, structured logically, meant to be read offline or in print. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 22:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No to this proposal (though I'm not sure why it's being discussed here rather than Template talk:WPBannerMeta). At present Book-Class simply isn't common enough. To put this proposal into perspective, Redirect-Class was removed from the extended quality scale a while back, and that's used by around 200 WikiProjects. Something to look at in the future, certainly, but for now the numbers just don't add up. PC78 (talk) 02:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I may be recalling incorrectly, but weren't the redirects removed because too much projects didn't want to keep track of redirects? I don't think this would be the case with books, considering none refused so far. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 03:04, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
To address the first point, this page is the main discussion page for WikiProject-related issues. I think Template talk:WPBannerMeta should be kept for technical discussion on how to implement things rather than gauging consensus on whether things are a good idea or not. There are quite a few editors who are concerned that far-reaching decisions which can affect hundreds of WikiProjects can be made on a template talk page watched by relatively few editors. Although I don't share these concerns, I do understand them and it has led, in some cases, to suspicion of the meta-banner and the feeling that decisions are made in secret. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:18, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Alliances

I have written a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Alliances that I think is worth looking at, I came up with the idea several months ago. 95jb14 (talk) 20:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC), Founder of WikiProject Latin, Member of WikiProject Lincnshire.

I'm not sure how useful it is a proposal or essay, as it seems redundant to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Inter-WikiProject coordination, especially as it is specifically directed at WikiProjects for English counties. -Optigan13 (talk) 09:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
95jb14, you might like to look at the task force system. It 'merges' small projects into one larger project, but allows each group to maintain a separate page. WP:MILHIST is an excellent example; WP:MED also uses it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
With task forces, overlap is permitted. For example, there is WikiProject Trains. An article on a railway station will come under the taskforce WikiProject Stations, and an article on a British railway line will come under the taskforce WikiProject UK Railways. A British railway station will therefore come under both taskforces, and the article's talk page would be tagged thus:
{{TrainsWikiProject|UK=yes|stations=yes}}
which bundles all three projects together as one project and two taskforces. See London Paddington station for an actual example of an article which falls within four taskforces. Hope this helps. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Naming of WikiProjects covering metropolitan areas

Please be advised a conversation regarding naming conventions for WikiProjects covering metropolitan areas here. Your feedback would be welcome and appreciated. Squideshi (talk) 22:38, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Unbecoming a member of WikiProjects

How do I unmake myself a member of a WikiProject? I am a member of WikiProject photography and I upload a lot of photographs, but now I upload them here, so there is no reason for me to be a member anymore. Should I just removed myself from the list? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (Talk • Contribs) 22:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Certainly, that would be the best way to do it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Alternatively, you could use <s></s> to strike out your entry, which will allow you to give a reason; for example, this:
<s>[[User:Redrose64|Redrose64]] ([[User talk:Redrose64|talk]]) 14:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)</s> sorry, but pressure of work forces me to withdraw --~~~~
produces this:
Redrose64 (talk) 14:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC) sorry, but pressure of work forces me to withdraw --Redrose64 (talk) 11:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Of course, you don't need to give a reason, so it's entirely up to you. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
As a stickler for best HTML practices, I must point out that the semantically-correct tag to use would be <del></del>.
(That's because <s></s> is merely presentational markup that says "render this with a line through the middle", whereas <del></del> says "this text has been deleted or redacted. browser, you determine how that should be displayed.")
FWIW.
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 08:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Quite right: that's what WP:REDACT says to do; but I'm sure that I have seen the <s></s> documented somewhere in WP (and it is commonly used too). Go with <del></del> then. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
You can always just not edit WikiProject-related pages... member lists need to be taken with a slight amount of sodium chloride anyways. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 07:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
There's also the option of moving yourself to the inactive section (or page) of a participant list which many wikiprojects use. -Optigan13 (talk) 07:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

3 categories for deletion (writers, actors, musicians who served in the military): Your opinion needed

The category for writers who served in the military was nominated for deletion. You can voice your opinion and reasons to Keep, Delete, or otherwise here.

Also, the category for actors who served in the military was nominated for deletion. You can voice your views here.

Lastly, the category for musicians who served in the military, for which you can voice your opinion here.

Thank you, Abie the Fish Peddler (talk) 20:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposed change to tagging Disambiguation pages for projects

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Conclusion: Projects can tag what they want, how they want, for whatever reason they want, as long as they have internal consensus. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 04:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I propose the following:

"The only WikiProjects that may tag a disambiguation page are the Disambiguation Project and Projects that cover all entries in the Disambiguation page (for example, the Anthroponymy project if it's a surname disambiguation) or the explicity defined primary topic of the disambiguation page (for example, the cheese WikiProject on the cheese disambiguation)"

My reasoning: It is blatently unfair for a project that has only one or two lines of a disambiguation to tag it for its project, and could lead to POV issues in the discussions.

Thoughts? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 01:30, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Strongest possible oppose. If projects wants to tag a dab page, let them tag it. If other projects want to tag it, they can. There's nothing unfair in that. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:37, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
It's been my experience that a) not all projects who have links will bother to tag their projects for it (in fact, very few do); and b) people who follow projects that have tagged disambig pages often have undue influence over said disambig page (Especially if the project has also tagged it for importance; which is 10x more ridiculous). Plus, there's no real reason they need to be tagged. Would you tag Force (disambiguation) for Proj Phys? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 01:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes. Assuming there are good reasons to. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I strongly oppose this proposal. Projects have absolute authority over their scope. If they want to be named as a place for editors to seek help with a dab page, then we will let them.
However, that's the beginning and end of their authority. WikiProjects do not own articles. A "member" editor has no more rights than, or any authority over, "non-member" editors. I suggest that you read the Guide. If a project is throwing its weight around, please request help here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:48, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
How is a disambiguation page in somebody's scope except disambiguation? That makes absolute no sense Purplebackpack89 (talk) 05:04, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, you're entitled to your opinion, certainly. Two points:
  • Projects traditionally enjoy complete autonomy as far as determining their own scope. If a project thinks disambiguation pages are of interest to it—and, to be fair, most don't really bother with them—then there's no harm in letting the project track those pages as it wishes.
  • It's generally considered polite, when starting such a discussion as this one, to inform everyone of prior discussion on the matter.
Kirill [talk] [prof] 05:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I believe there is harm. The point is, it ain't fair to the projects that don't do it that some do. The Lincoln discussion is an example of this. For the past few months, users affliated with and sympathetic to WikiProject Lincolnshire (nd for that matter, the discussion you cited) were contributing at a much higher level than users at any other WikiProject--at a time when the project was tagged as high importance by said project (the only instance i've EVER seen of a project tagging a disambig page for importance). Honestly, it was tagged just to place influence on the page. It is my belief that continuing leads to POV inbalance, and that all disambiguation pages shouldn't be tagged by projects only interested in one line. All 50-100 lines in a project, sure, go ahead. One line--no way. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 05:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
If members of a particular project are attempting to unduly slant the content of a page, then that's a problem that needs to be dealt with through the normal dispute resolution process; it has little to do with the procedural practice of tagging talk pages. Prohibiting tags will do nothing to prevent a project from participating in discussion (since simply leaving a message on the project talk page will attract far more attention than any sort of tagging); and the overwhelming majority of tagging is done for reasons completely unrelated to any discussion taking place on the particular page being tagged.
You may have run into a real problem, in other words; but the approach you're proposing won't actually solve it. Kirill [talk] [prof] 06:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Strong Oppose Purplebackpack89, Why? You have alread been told on the said Lincoln page that WikiProjects may add and rate Disabig pages as they please and how can you possibly make an assumtion about why another editor did something and what another editor did. I have just contacted User:BSTemple who tagged the article and asked him for his reasoning. Lincoln (Lincolnshire) is an important article to us, one of the most important in fact, and therefore so is the Disambig page. 95jb14 (talk) 19:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC), founder of WP Latin, a member of WP:Lincolnshire.

Strong Oppose tagging by a project is a means of placing the article on the projects watchlist and as such allows project members to watch the activity on the page. There should be no restrictions on what pages a project tags it is up to the project members to decide on the relevance of a particular page to their project and which pages they consider necessary to keep an eye on. The more people watching a page reduces the amount of undetected vandalism and reduces the time vandalism is present on the page. Keith D (talk) 20:30, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Strong Oppose - Purplebackpack89 is trying to bring this matter up anywhere and everywhere now, its getting rather annoying. It is up to the WikiProject which pages they wish to include in their scope. Jeni (talk) 22:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Strong Oppose The reason I tagged the article was obvious as the name Lincoln originated in our county and gave its name to the county, hence Lincolnshire. All other names around the world in what ever form, be it place names, surnames, car names etc all come from Lincoln in Lincolnshire. Simply put, if there was no Lincoln here in Lincolnshire, then all the other names would not exist. It was the Romans who gave it the name. I see that it is Purplebackpack89 once more who is obsessed in controlling this Disabig page, and I fear lacks the spirit of what the Wikipedia is all about. The Wikipedia is global, not just American, and you will find that people, countries and cultures existed before America was born. --BSTemple (talk) 19:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, so people who don't agree with you automatically have an American bias? Where do I indicate any sort of American bias? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Surely the continued hard-headed persistence that Lincoln MUST redirect to Abraham Lincoln might have tipped 'em off? –xenotalk 21:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I support that because I believe that there is much more clue for Abraham Lincoln Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
You point to Cluocracy. "That means that disputes generally are, and should be, resolved in favor of whoever has the best reasoning – not in terms of rhetoric but in terms of his or her understanding of the established policies of Wikipedia and of knowing what works and what doesn't." Note the established policies of Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:Five pillars and look at pillars 1, 2 and 4. --BSTemple (talk) 21:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose and also refute the straw man argument that a project tag would lend some weight to a discussion. It doesn't. See Talk:Lincoln#Removal_of_project_designation for the lengthy discussion that preceded this. –xenotalk 19:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment Not getting involved as such; but viewing Talk:Lincoln#Removal of project designation shows that it is indeed extremely lengthy (and there's more in the ANI archives too). To my mind, there were/are many editors involved: and dipping in at random could give an unfair feeling of who supports what. Has anybody determined how many side with Purplebackpack vs. those against? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
    I don't recall seeing anyone at all who agreed with Purple's position (that the project should be prohibited from having their banner there). There was one user who questioned whether the disambig should be rated high-importance but they seemed to concede that it was ultimately up to the wikiproject. –xenotalk 20:31, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
These are the raw stats I have accumulated from both discussions on WP tagging: Strongest Possible Oppose: 1, Strong Oppose: 4, Oppose: 2, Support: 2, Neutral: 1. Basically: For = 2, Against = 7 and Neutral = 1. 95jb14 (talk) 20:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC).
Mmm. Fewer opposes than I thought. Can't invoke WP:SNOW then. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:58, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose — I oppose this proposed prescription on what Project tag(s) can go on a talk page. I see enough ownership squabbles as it is; I don't need to see more, thanks. --Una Smith (talk) 06:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unreferenced BLPs are about to be deleted faster. Is your wikiproject monitoring them?

Any Wikiproject that is not identifying unreferenced BLPs, may find them deleted in upcoming months, creating more work for project members.

A recent ArbCom motion supported admins who were beginning to delete large numbers of unreferenced BLPs. In response, the community has taken up proposals for dealing with the potential libel problems with unreferenced BLPs at this page: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people.

It seems to be fairly easy for any Wikiproject to monitor BLPs that have been prodded for deletion, since (I'm told) this can be done with WP:AALERTS and the User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings bot (which produces, for instance, Wikipedia:WikiProject Arkansas/Cleanup listing). Even individual editors can work with this [1]. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 04:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC) i want to edit

Any editor can easily use AutoWikiBrowser's list comparer to generate a list like this one I have done for the New Jersey project. If you just save the list as text with wiki markup and copy and paste to a project page, you don't need to use AWB to do the edit, and do not need to be approved for editing with the tool. I did it this way because WPNJ doesn't currently use a bot to tag all the articles in our categories, and I wanted to cast a wide net. Jim Miller See me | Touch me 04:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Directory cleanup

I've been working on cleaning up the listings in the project directory. A lot has been done, but it still needs work. Would anyone be interested in helping out?
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 06:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll try to help out when I have time, is there any particular logic you're using to go through and update the pages? In the long run I think this is something that would be better handled via an on wiki bot, I think Clockworksoul's Igor is a step in that direction, but it looks like the last mediawiki update might have caused some issues. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Mainly for now I was trying to clean up incorrectly-linked secondary listings ("redirects" as I call them). I've come across plenty of circular linkages in the process, but most are just pointing to old page names of the correct categories.
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 03:54, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Are you just working from top to bottom (Wikipedia's contents systems to Wikipedia maintenance), and where are you at now? Just want to make sure we don't work on top of each other. -Optigan13 (talk) 03:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Lol uhhhh... up 'til now, no. Don't remember how I got started, but so far I've done Culture, Culture/Language and literature, Culture/Philosophy and religion, Geographical, Geo./Africa, Geo./Asia, History and society, Science, and Wikipedia.
Keep in mind that all I've done is to correct red links in secondary listings only. I didn't check the ones that were already blue, not did I mess with red links in other fields.
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 04:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Well I've started by merging all those individual contents systems listing into the wikipedia page. I'll try to continue to work through the wikipedia page and work my way up, but I might jump over to Geo/Americas. I've tagged some projects as inactive and will see how that goes, I think the number of truly inactive projects is underrepresented. I'll try to do some other general fixes but I'm trying to look at the inactivity as well as the Root category and the namespaces to get a sense if the structure of the directories needs adjustment. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:41, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
That's the stuff!
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 15:40, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I've made a first pass on the Wikipedia section. As I figured there are several inactive projects that I've updated. I'm going to go through the Americas project pages tonight to see how many are inactive there, and after a few days have passed update their directory listings. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for doing so much work! I would be doing more, but I just don't have time for it.
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 05:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Animals

I have requested that all Projects that are under the scope of WikiProject Animals register their Active status here I will update the Council Directory listing after all project status's have been confirmed. This may be an idea that could be suggested system wide that all projects confirm there status to ensure we have the most up to date information avaliable not only to other WikiProjects but to editors that are looking for a Project to join. In an unrelated matter, has there ever been a suggestion of a formal council project that overseas all the WikiProjects, such as a formal list of members that is comprised of WikiProject Coordinators that decide on matters related to WikiProjects and assists with conflict resolution, very similiar to ArbCom except exclusively for the WikiProjects. Regards ZooPro 09:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I think updating the pages is a great idea. thanks zoopro. Not too sure on coordination yet but there are cross-biology issues that's for sure. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC).
I find ZooPro's actions questionable for several reasons:
1: He has been going around templating a lot of animal related projects. Here's an example: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fishes#Important WikiProject Notice.
2: He has not discussed this before going ahead. I can't find any discussion about this over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals. And his above message was put here after templating the projects. Had he discussed this he could have avoided several mistakes.
3: We already have the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science. It is better to ask the WikiProjects to update that listing, instead of creating a duplicate in the form of Wikipedia:WikiProject Animals/Directory.
4: ZooPro's duplicate list lacks explanation what it is and what the different columns mean and what should be put in them. While the central list has such explanations. When I pointed that out his answer boiled down to "if you're to stupid to understand that then it is your problem". Or at least that is how I understand his answer.
5: ZooPro's duplicate list doesn't link to and doesn't even mention the existence of the central list.
6: Using a box to communicate with the WikiProjects is bound to cause negative reactions, since we usually associate boxes with warnings and top of page notices, not messages. So please use a simple text message, not a box, when communicating with the WikiProjects.
7: A minor thing: The template he uses is of the wrong type, it should not be an {{ambox}}, it should be a brown {{tmbox}} since it is used on talk pages.
8: His answer to questions about this on his talk page mostly boils down to "this is a simple administrative action that has no need or usage to be discussed" which to me sounds like "I have decided this so now you guys must jump through hoops for me".
9: He clearly has stated that if we don't jump through hoops for him he will add a template at the top of the WikiProjects' main pages marking them as "inactive". That can be interpreted as a threat.
10: For projects with wider scope like WikiProject Animals (or rather editors from those projects) to behave like they rule over more specialised projects like WikiProject Fishes always is very provocative. I see this all the time, like people from WikiProject Mathematics every now and then come to WikiProject Cryptography and tries to boss around. (Which gets especially silly since maths is just a very small part of what cryptography is about.) The WikiProjects are not hierarchies, they are separate workgroups with very different needs and often different ways to do things.
I might sound irritated, and I am, since all the points above together is a pretty irritating total. I hope ZooPro and others might learn from this so these mistakes aren't repeated to often.
--David Göthberg (talk) 23:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
David, I think you're overreacting.
ZooPro has requested a response: Who cares? Projects are free to respond, or to ignore the request. There's no rule that says you have to do anything about his request.
ZooPro has "threatened" to mark non-responsive projects {{inactive}}: So what? Projects can revert the tag, or replace it with {{semi-active}}, if that seems appropriate to them. Inactive projects are supposed to be tagged out; the template page even provides a standardized, zero-notice recommendation for identifying inactive projects.
If you really understood that it is absolutely impossible for any editor to force a group of volunteers to do anything on Wikipedia, I think you'd find this sort of behavior much less threatening. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't feel threatened, I meant that ZooPro's behaviour is highly irritating and detrimental. What I meant with point 9 above is that he tries to threaten the WikiProjects to obey his orders, which really isn't threatening but just very irritating and ridiculous. That he more or less calls us stupid when we ask how that list works is very rude, and thus again very irritating. He tries to force people to do as he wishes, but as you stated and I already knew, you can't force Wikipedians. Wikipedia is run on consensus, not on orders from single editors. Sure, we should be bold in editing, but it isn't bold to try to boss other users around. So all he achieves is irritation which will instead decrease the possibility of fruitful cooperation. He is a bad representative for "his" WikiProject. He claims that he represents WikiProject Animals in these things, in spite that it has not been discussed at all in that project. He hasn't even announced these things there so his fellow project members are probably not even aware of this.
Note that I am not objecting to that ZooPro wants to collect status information from different WikiProjects, I am objecting to the way he is doing it.
--David Göthberg (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I would agree David you are overreacting and have done nothing but question me as an editor as opposed to my actions to better help the wikiproject. My reasons for creating the list within the WikiProject Animals area was so it was centralized and editors didnt have to patrol throught the directory looking for thier project. It was and is my intention to after some period of time move the updated information into the database as stated. I fail to see why i would need to discuss asking projects if they are active. It would be like two paramedics discussing wether to check if someone has a pulse. In all aspects i find you to be a rather rude. How dare you claim i used words such as if you're to stupid to understand that then it is your problem,and were have i threatened anyone????????? For something as simple as assessing if a project is active or not, you sure are making a BIG deal out of nothing. This is more of a personal attack on myself rather then a discussion on the status of projects. I would direct you to WP:BB however i assume you will ignore that. I have made no mistakes to learn from. You yourself are making this a WikiProject wide problem by announcing it on all the project pages. Furthe more reading you point, clearly you didnt read my original notice did you???? NO clearly not as it does mention the WikiProject Council directory. I find your behavior very offensive and it is doing nothing but harm your wikiproject, i will assume then that you are acting on behalf of WikiProject Fishes ???. ZooPro 02:07, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Furthemore out of the large amount of editors that responded you are the ONLY ONE who has a problem. Some seeked clarification and it was given they accepted it. You are the only editor out of every editor that noticed the "Notice" to have a problem, seems like consensus is against you. I do nothing but attempt to help the WikiProjects that are related to WikiProject Animals and for you to say otherwise is insulting. ZooPro 02:13, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
David, I think you misunderstood ZooPro's actions. ZooPro wanted to get an idea of what projects under WikiProject Animals' scope were still active. Therefore, he created a page for that and sent a notice to all the related WikiProjects. What is he asking them to do? To all merge with WikiProject Animals? To delete all their pages? To all file a monthly report with him? No, he is just requesting that the projects show whether they are active or not. What is he "threatening" to do? Yes, he'll tag them as inactive if they don't respond within a week. From my experience (limited as it is :) ), active members of a project would be happy to show that they are alive and editing well. But, say the message goes unnoticed for a week. So, ZooPro tags the project as inactive. What will happen? Nothing, really, except people knowing no one works on it. If, however, people are active, they will just take off the template and in the process, show that the project is still active. Doesn't that accomplish the original purpose? He isn't making any arbitrary changes to projects, he is just getting a view of the projects under Animals. I am sure that ZooPro was not intending to usurp the purposes of the larger directory. Cheers, The Arbiter★★★ 02:36, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

David you are not even listed as a participant/member of WikiProject Fishes, I was under the assumption you actually took part in WikiProject Fishes and were concerned for your project, clearly not now i am convinced this is a personal attack. ZooPro 02:45, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

You guys haven't understood a thing I have said. As I wrote over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals#Templating related WikiProjects: "User ZooPro is trying to collect status information from related WikiProjects. That might be a good idea, but he is doing it in a bad way." So what I am reacting against is not what he is doing, but how he does it.
Over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fishes#Important WikiProject Notice he claims that "the Message comes from WikiProjects Animals", but he had not discussed it and not even announced it over at WikiProject Animals. If you go around doing things in the name of a project, then the least you can do is to mention on the project's talk page what you are doing so other participants in the project knows what is going on and can comment or even help out if they want. When I announced it for him over at WikiProject Animals he responded here with "You ... are making this a WikiProject wide problem by announcing it on all the project pages". It seems ZooPro thinks it is a bad thing to inform his fellow project participants of what is going on. But remember, Wikipedia is about cooperation, not about single editors like ZooPro ruling over other editors.
His way of handling all this (including small things like using terms as "parent project") shows that he thinks that WikiProject Animals rules over the related projects such as WikiProject Fishes. But that's wrong, no WikiProject rules over another WikiProject. And a single user certainly doesn't rule over other WikiProjects, and also not over the WikiProject where he happens to be a participant.
And by the way, I am not a member of any of these WikiProjects, I just happened to have WikiProject Fishes on my watchlist since I had been doing work on the fish disambig box. We who work with disambig boxes want to add that box to the list of recommended disambig boxes, so I went to WikiProject Fishes asking them for input about that. I prefer to announce things and ask people that it concerns before I take larger actions. Even if those actions seem uncontroversial and straightforward. Surprisingly often some other user then comes with ideas for improvements or even suggests a whole other way to do it that is better. So announcing first often pays of well. ZooPro: That is something you should learn too.
So ZooPro, what you need to learn from this is these things:
  • You don't rule over others.
  • When you do things in the name of a project, then announce it on the project's talkpage.
  • When people ask what the things you are doing means, then don't ridicule them.
Again, Wikipedia is about cooperation, as in people working together and listening to each other, not as in "obey or else". Wikipedia is not about single editors ruling over other editors.
--David Göthberg (talk) 10:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
You have still failed to explain to me with any comprehension how you have come to the conclusion that i am ruling over the wikiprojects, I would caution you not to claim that you know how i think as you have above. I am well aware no project rules over any other and have made no claim as such, yes i did state that you made this a wikiproject wide problem because you decided to comment on a number of talk pages and ensured that the disussion was broken and only your POV was seen. I would also ask that you provide some sort of source's for you point of claiming i ridicule editors? I think i explained the situation rather well on my talk page, 1 editor understood my logic, you were the only editor who has so far failed in that aspect. Why would i discuss an action that has been done countless times in the past by many projects. WP:BB would come into play here though anyway. You still have not explained what "In a bad way" means, your comments have done nothing but attack me and my contributions. You have not given any examples and you have not provided a "solution" (not that i believe a problem even exists). What i think is a Bad thing is you dragging my name through the mud for no good reason, your only reason so far is because you believe you are correct (in that same thought does that mean everyone who had no problem with my actions is wrong?). You dont seem to be making sense, no one else in the project/s seems to have a problem except you so does that not show i took the correct action?, Perhaps my only error is not using the correct talk page template a rather trivial issue at best. Sad to think that something so simple has turned into what can only be described as a circus. In future would you like me to post to the talk page every one of my intended actions to better the project? Every time i assess an article should it be discussed on the talk page even if i only intended to rate it a stub?, Every time i edit a WikiProject Animals tagged article should i discuss it on the talk page? This is what you are asking is it not?, it is nothing more and nothing less then red tape gone mad. I have not once attacked you and i am proud of this, however your repeated attempts to make me comform to your standards by telling me what i need to do and learn is once again insulting, I work very well as a team member on the WikiProjects if you had cared to take a look at my contributions or talk page archive you would see this, in fact if you had cared to ask me you would know this. I will not change how i edit and contribute as it has worked well so far and i foresee no genuine reason to change. ZooPro 11:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps this is what you want then??? Even though the coordinators have done that action many many times in the past without discussion and no one has ever had a problem?? Is this really what it has come too? Every action i make on the project should be discussed in detail?? If this is the case then why would anyone want to join a project less rubbish to go through as a freelance editor?? This is ultimatly what you are asking. ZooPro 12:12, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Guys? This isn't helping anything. It would probably be a good idea to take a breath, accept some wires got crossed and move on. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:43, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I really don't think that ZooPro thinks that he can rule over others. He is the coordinator of several wikiprojects, including mammals, and does everything in good faith. If he really thought he ruled over others, he wouldn't have let me co-coordinate WikiProjects Zoo and Mammals with him. Secondly, about ZooPro not saying anything on the Animals talk page, ok, so maybe he should have. But he obviously is not trying to sneak something by the Animals project without anyone knowing it...he just didn't think to announce it. So, just a minor mistake...easily correctable, and absolutely no harm done anywhere. (Really, I don't see how ZooPro's actions harmed anything.) Finally, ZooPro didn't "ridicule" you. You are kind of making a big deal out of a little matter. And, I'm not sure where ZooPro said "obey, or else". So, in conclusion, please, David, you've made your point, and there isn't really anything else to say. ZooPro didn't harm anyone, so it really isn't a big deal. The Arbiter★★★ 01:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I will take Sabine's Sunbird and The Arbiters advice and leave it at that. There is far more important things to be concerned with i am rather annoyed at myself that i spent so much time on this anyway. ZooPro 02:08, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject renaming

I found Wikipedia:WikiProject Durham NC - which was a WikiProject about one city in North Carolina. I didn't see this as a feasible goal alone, so I proposed changing the scope here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Durham_NC#Scope - I stated that I would change the scope myself if I found no activity in seven days. Over seven days passed with no reply, so I altered the project page and reset the scope. With no activity present, I believe there are no objections with my decision. Now, I would like to rename the project page to the "Raleigh-Durham WikiProject" - How do I do this? WhisperToMe (talk) 06:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

First off I'd ping WP:WikiProject North Carolina to see what they think. I think a good chunk of Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces#Converting existing_projects to task forces is fairly applicable to this. -Optigan13 (talk) 20:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Since the Durham/Raleigh/Cary area is entirely in North Carolina, the task force idea is a possibility. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
I'd be inclined to tag the project as {{inactive}}, given that there was exactly one talk page messages during 2009, and not care about what the nominal scope is.
Given that there are comments (ever) from only five editors, only one of whom is still active, it might be more appropriate to take it to TFD rather than proposing a task force merge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
I was actually pointing at the task force conversion checklist as the steps for moving a project's name would be very similar. I'm going to have a look at the various Americas projects tonight to see what the general activity level is. I agree an MFD might be better at this point for this project. Regional projects suffer especially hard from people who sign up based on having lived there, etc. only to have very limited project participation. In general I think we should move to strong centralized projects with broad scopes and larger pools of participants. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I also believe that regional projects need to be encouraged to cover their entire metropolitan areas to increase catchment and viability. For instance the Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia etc projects cover their entire metropolitan areas. That means the Chicago one, for instance, also covers Gary, Indiana, Aurora, Illinois, etc. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't necessarily talking about simply city based projects to broaden to regional projects, but more of a general large projects. I'm working through the Americas page of the project directory, and a lot of what I see is uneven activity of state level projects, and thinking that moving to a system of a centralized US project with 50 + DC + Puerto Rico task forces, etc might be an effective system. I'm not planning to try to implement this any time soon, but I think evaluating the effectiveness of something like that versus the current setup is worth considering. In the meantime I think developing effective tools/bots for projects, cleaning up the directory, updating and making sure the guide is comprehensive, and other tasks would be useful for projects regardless of size will help for now. -Optigan13 (talk) 21:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
It's understandable that different states have different participation levels since they are of uneven sizes, uneven demographics, and of differing population levels. I would imagine that the project of California would have more participation than, say, Wyoming.
If one wants to make each state a task force, then how would one deal with the metropolitan area projects, especially the really popular ones? What about state projects that have high participation levels?
I think the reason why the US articles have so many projects is because of the high activity regarding US articles. The U.S. federal Government itself has its own wikiproject. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure on what would happen to the metro task forces, either trying to get people to agree to move up and group together more, or to leave them be and have an odd gap. I'm also speaking not just about the regional US projects, but also things like merging WP:WikiProject Illustration into Images and Media, the Caribbean nation projects into one, and other ways to pool a decreasing or limited number of participants together to form effective projects. Right now I don't think large projects are feasible without a plan on what people want to get out of projects and tools to automate maintenance. -Optigan13 (talk) 01:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I am going to propose making Wikipedia:WikiProject Mexican-Americans into a task force for Wikipedia:WikiProject Latinos (both seem to be inactive....) WhisperToMe (talk) 09:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject overkill for a page

I'm bringing this here so I don't have to ask each individual project if the page falls into their domain. A user has been adding tons of wikiprojects to the Sakis Rouvas. I tried to trim out some projects I didn't feel fit according to their scopes[2] and the user reverted calling it a pointless edit[3] and then informed me that i was way off[4]. Can someone weigh? Is this overkill? Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 19:27, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, generally speaking, it's up to individual projects to determine their scope. Some of those tags do look rather questionable, but I don't think you can get a definitive answer without asking each of the projects in question to take a look at the article and determine whether it's in-scope for them. Kirill [talk] [prof] 22:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
The other editor is a declared fan of Sakis Rouvas. I perceive a POV issue. The other editor will, of course, deny it because that is the nature of POV issues. JimCubb (talk) 06:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Okay. Thank you for your input. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 20:58, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Inactive Wikiprojects

Hi, I've noticed an inactive Wikiproject that I'm interested in, I was just wondering, what steps should I take to taking it over and getting up and running again? --Lcawte/WebCoder11 (Talk) 13:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You could post to the talk page to see if anyone responds. Or check out who used to be involved and see if they are still active on Wikipedia; if so, they might like to get involved again. The user categories are another way to try and find editors with a certain interest. Basically, I advise you get a core of people on board before starting out, so you can collaborate and also share the load. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Projects benefit from members that are willing to talk about what they're doing. If you've got two or three people that post a note every now and again -- I'm working on this article, I have a question about this, does anyone have a suggestion for that -- then it feels more 'alive' and tends to grow over time. A lot of steady editors rely heavily on their watchlists, and a page that isn't being edited is effectively invisible to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:29, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Adding a cleanup page to all wikiprojects

There has been a lot of discussion about cleaning up unreferenced articles about living people (BLPs). A solution which has come up again and again, and which has gotten overwhelming support, is the use of Cleanup listings in some capacity.[1]

Cleanup listings is a list of cleanup articles for each wikiproject on one designated page. A bot then collects all relevant tagged unreferenced biographies of living people, plus other lists onto one page in the wikiproject. This bot is updated regularly. As the page states: "Approximately 27% of all Wikipedia articles are flagged for cleanup. To deal with this enormous backlog, it seems reasonable to involve the topical WikiProjects in the cleanup process."

Adding this bot is very easy to add to a project: simply add a template to a new or existing page of the project.

The 616 projects which already have this cleanup listing and use this bot are here an example is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject London/Cleanup listing.

How about generating a special page for all wikiprojects not already subscribed? (my own idea first proposed here)

Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 14:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced the WolterBot listings are particularly useful, since they use database dumps rather than live data. The London listing, for example, is dated 28 November, and a spot check shows that many of the entries are no longer tagged with the specified maintenance issues. Sending project members hunting through month-old lists isn't going to be the most productive use of anyone's time; we really need something that's no more than a few days old.
It may be possible to do something more efficient by way of categories rather than direct bot listings, incidentally; if there were some way to create intersection categories between WikiProject articles and articles needing cleanup, that would solve both problems. Kirill [talk] [prof] 15:24, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
RE: Intersection categories: See Pohta_ce-am_pohtit's posting, which describes the pros and cons for Intersection search and Cat Scan. (Wikipedia:CatScan).
Wikipedia:WikiProject London/Cleanup listing was lasted updated on 22:26, 10 December 2009, as all listings were. A cleanup listing would be a good start for a lot of projects, and better than what many wikiprojects have now. The bot only runs every month or two. Sigh. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 15:34, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Betacommand is willing to do a daily list: Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Unreferenced biography of living persons bot to get projects involved in referencing. The question is should this be done piece meal, or with all wikiprojects? Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 19:10, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, a lot of projects might not have any BLPs within their scope; creating empty "lists" for them doesn't seem like a good use of anyone's time. I'd suggest generating, offline, a list for every project, and then inviting those projects whose lists are above a certain size (e.g. 100 articles) to take part in the effort. It's generally a good idea to get the project to say that they're interested in participating, even if the list would be generated anyways; doing otherwise increases the risk that the list will simply be ignored. Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:09, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Excellent points as always, I asked Does a list exist of all BLP related wikiprojects? and FloNight responded, "While some would have more than others, almost every type of wikiproject could have a BLP related article because they are broad in the way that they cover topics. Who would have thought that Equine would have that many unref BLP articles." Before he wrote that, I never thought of BLPs being so expansive.
Two editors criticized me for inviting wikiprojects King Arthur, the Bible, and Death to use User:B._Wolterding/Cleanup_listings. I can think of several living authors which regularly write on such subjects.
I agree 100% make sure the project feels involved, otherwise the list will be ignored.
Betacommand's offer turns this whole conversation on its head. Thanks. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 22:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

No Activity in the South Carolina Project

I posted a question in the talk page of the project a while ago and got no answer so far. There has been no activity on the page for a few months but some people are editing the pages covered by the Project. How can I find out who the coordinators are for this project to try to get it moving again? I could help with coordinating some things but I don't have the skills I think I would need to take over if the Project needs to have a whole regime change (if that makes any sense). Marine79 (talk) 08:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Well not all projects have active, formal coordinators. Try to respond to any open talk page posts if you can so people know the project is alive. Take a look at the contributions of participants listed in Wikipedia:WikiProject South Carolina or Category:WikiProject South Carolina participants and if they've been making recent edits try dropping them a note about how you're trying to revive the project, and if they'd be interested in helping with that. -Optigan13 (talk) 09:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I'll see if I can spread around the South Carolina portal... WhisperToMe (talk) 21:39, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject:Hotel

I've been searching high and low for a hotel/motel wikiproject that would cover:


thats just a few Australian hotels to name. I've found wikiproject food and drink as well as wikiproject casinos. But no project that covers a hotel. If i'm correct in saying there is no such project how does one go in creating or requesting a new wikiproject? Regards Wiki ian 08:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Hotels seems to be what you are looking for, though the project looks fairly moribund. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:07, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Council participants

If we are to have no list of Council participants, shouldn't this category also go? I imagine that removing it from the userbox would be a good first step. Waltham, The Duke of 10:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. Kirill [talk] [prof] 15:24, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I have finally emptied the category (some pages were rather persistent). I have removed category inclusion from three templates—Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Userbox, Template:WikiProject Council and Template:User label WPCouncil—and adjusted the documentation accordingly, but I suggest that someone should have a look at them anyway, as the templates and/or their documentations may be anachronistic regarding the use of terms like "participants". Waltham, The Duke of 10:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject assessment table

Hello. I have noticed that some wikiprojects have a full list (a "File", "Category", etc, fields), while some do not. Can anyone help? My aim is have a full list for Wikiproject Bahrain; part of my attempt to revive it. Rehman(+) 14:00, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

As there are only 18 non-articles within the scope of the WikiProject I wouldn't have thought it worthwhile at this stage. The way to change this in the future is to change the |QUALITY_SCALE= parameter of Template:WikiProject Bahrain. Full details about this can be found at Template:WPBannerMeta#Assessment. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:11, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
I understand. The wikiproject was actually dead for a while, so many articls/templates/etc have not yet been tagged. I will look into the above details soon. Thanks. Kind regards. Rehman(+) 00:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Image-class vs. file-class

Hi there, I recently nominated Category:Image-Class articles to be merged into Category:File-Class articles as they pretty much cover the same scope (full rationale can be found at the discussion page). It was pointed out that these categories are populated by WikiProject banners and should be brought here for discussion. Is there a reason why these two categories are separate or why they should be kept separate? This would help move things along (or halt them, depending on the response). Regards. — ξxplicit 23:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Foo articles with comments

See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 February 25#Category:Chile_articles_with_comments. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:25, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are on sale as printed books for 50 dollars in Amazon.com with no warning

This is the kind of worst case scenario for wikipedia, where people are deprived from their hard earned money with false advertising.

Wikipedia articles are on sale as printed books for 50 dollars in Amazon.com with no warning in amazon yet as printed in 4th page of the "book" after you buy it
We require a huge task force that can put a warning to thousands of similar titles in amazon.com as customer review so that people might be warned about this issue. Read VDM Publishing House for details.
Not sure right place to post, but feel free to move or duplicate the thread elsewhere. Kasaalan (talk) 04:38, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Request comments and guidence on an RfC

The specific issues are

  1. The WP:CM-related projects, including WP:WikiProject Composers, WP:WikiProject Opera, WP:WikiProject Contemporary music, and WP:WikiProject Classical music itself, are all opposed to the use of biographic infoboxes
  2. The members of those projects often remove these boxes per the strong consensus to do so at those projects
  3. Some editors not involved in any of those projects have raised objections to this removal citing "non-ownership" of articles as one of their objections
  4. The "ownership" issue is seen as a red herring due to the fact that consensus is across the board at these projects concerning the non-inclusion and removal of infoboxes and due to the tacit acceptance of that consensus in the "Word of caution" found here at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography.

What exactly is the policy on this? Can a group of projects insist on a particluar style of editing that excludes certain things like infoboxes? Any help appreciated, thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 23:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Further to that: Buzzzsherman (talk · contribs) has also posted a request for help at WP:ANI. --Jubilee♫clipman 23:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

A very fair statement of the situation has just been put together at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers#A new perspective. I'd encourage as many people as possible to give it an open-minded review and post constructive comments there. This is an ongoing issue that needs to be properly resolved, through a widely-participated review. Please come and give your thoughts on the statement linked. Happy‑melon 16:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


Well projects dont own the articles no one does, however the problem is that you have 1 editer v's a project full of editors. I have always felt that projects should be given the ability to determine through consensus on how the articles under there project are managed, this is true for naming conventions and in some cases what info boxes are displayed. ZooPro 01:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, projects have zero authority. Projects are not allowed to re-write the WP:MOS or issue blanket exceptions to it; they are not allowed to declare that the normal content policies only apply to articles outside their scope; they aren't, in short, allowed to overrule any community-wide consensus, by saying, "Well, me and my three friends at the WikiProject have all agreed that the community is wrong, and that means that the project has a 'consensus' to overrule any editor that disagrees with us".
It happens that many projects have put together some good (and even excellent) advice. That advice (when good) has been accepted by the community (and rejected when bad) -- a project can do WP:POLICY#Proposals, just like any individual -- but the mere fact that the editors choose to call themselves a WikiProject gives them zero authority.
The CM dispute also doesn't seem to be one editor vs a "project full of editors": it appears to be many individual editors vs about four noisy editors at a small project. One of them asserts that this is their tenth major battle over this issue in the last three years, which suggests that their so-called 'consensus' is, at minimum, strongly disputed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Projects have the authority of their individual editors. When those editors have special expertise, when they have served the reader and contributed to the encyclopedia, they deserve respect.
The Composers Project is a model of its kind: 5,000-odd maintained articles, a stable category tree, written assessments down to B class, well-organized archives etc. etc. Participants of this, and all other projects, should be allowed to develop their own project guidelines. --Kleinzach 04:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Sure, they can write down any advice they want. They can also advocate for changes to community-wide guidelines and policies.
What they ("you", since you're a major player in this dispute) cannot do is force non-members to follow their unofficial advice in any article, even in an article that the members who wrote the advice have been working on. WP:Consensus is policy; WP:WikiProject Classical music/Style guidelines is the non-authoritative and frequently disputed views of a very small number of editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Please read the project guidelines (not policies - that's just a red herring) before posting here. They are based on consensus at every level. No one is forcing anything on anybody, although some people have tried to force inappropriate boxes on the editors who have been developing the articles. --Kleinzach 07:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That might be how it should be but it is far from how it is, there is alot of contradiction about what projects can and cannot do. projects dont have "Authority" however they do have policies that allow them to do certian things and this also varies greatly, for instance some of the Animal project have different naming conventions that dont follow the MOS however they are allowed to do this because the policies say they can. I think you will find that it varys greatly across the board. I dont have an opinion on the matter either way, however if there is a policy then it should be followed. ZooPro 03:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The Classical Music and related projects have been scrupulous about trying to comply with WP policies and indeed the MoS. No one has ever claimed otherwise. If we found any discrepancies I'm sure the projects would address the issues. I don't know about the Animal project case, but I'd assume there are some knowledgeable editors there who have good reason for their naming convention practices. It's very difficult for contributors with real editorial or technical skills to get improvements made to the MoS. --Kleinzach 08:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Projects do not have any policies. The community has policies and many guidelines that were originally written by a handful of editors who called themselves a WikiProject, but the project does not, and cannot, own or control any policy. For example, WP:FLORA is not WP:WikiProject Botany's naming convention; it's everyone's naming convention for plants. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Once again, they're project guidelines, not policies. In the case of WP:FLORA, the most knowledgeable editors will probably be at WP:WikiProject Botany and it's important that we encourage them to take the lead in developing the naming convention. It would be bad if I, a non-botanist, started disrupting their project, telling them what to do. --Kleinzach 08:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Once again, they're not WP:Guidelines. A collection of advice that was written by a couple of editors who never even bothered to let the community know that they wrote it, much less to properly propose it for guideline status is not a WP:Guideline: it's advice from a couple of editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
See Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects. 94 projects have guidelines. --Kleinzach 06:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I may as well answer here... Basically:

If the WikiProject style guideline has received general consensus through the procedures listed at Wikipedia proposals, then the WikiProject style guideline additionally may be categorized as an English Wikipedia style guideline or a Manual of Style guideline. Please post a message at WT:Manual of Style if you would like to include your WikiProject style guideline as an official Wikipedia style guideline. We encourage people to write style guidelines on new topics, but general group efforts work best.

The category page itself explains, in other words. --Jubilee♫clipman 07:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I would very much like to hear User:ZooPro opinions over at the present RfC. His refreshing insight into the question would certainly be much appreciated. Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 07:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I have proposed that the RfC be closed. Please continue to voice your opinion at the straw poll, also, as that must be the barometer for consensus. After that we can consider the full implications, deal accordingly and move on. Thank you --Jubilee♫clipman 16:45, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Possible New WikiProject

I was wondering if I could help create a new WikiProject on The Last Apprentice(The Wardstone Chronicles), and through it a new portal. --Thanks! TrueKandra TK (talk) 20:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I recommend you ask advice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels. This is an active project which has many sub-projects, and you might find some other editors there to help you. Good luck. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

'NA-importance articles' categories

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#'NA-importance articles' categories for a discussion concerning the purpose of and need for 'NA-importance articles' categories. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Thank you, -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:41, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Participant lists

I wonder if we can do better with maintaining participant lists for projects. For instance, I can imagine a bot annotating participant names, identifying those which haven't edited for over a year (maybe moving to a separate subsection). Permabanned editors should also be identifiable, and moved to an archive section or something. Also, I'm thinking about ways to encourage more participation in projects and cooperation between projects, possibly bot-assisted to save work. (I've added a section Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Use_bots_to_save_work mentioning useful bots I know of, but this could be expanded with examples, more bots, new bot requests, and more creative uses of existing bots (eg at WP:VRNB I've got some random page suggestions going.)) Thoughts? Rd232 talk 14:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

RFC on using a Wikiproject Tag

Your input is appreciated at Talk:Johnny Weir#RfC: Is the LGBT Wikiproject tag acceptable on this talkpage. -- Banjeboi 02:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This has since evolved into a generic RFC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikiproject tags on biographies of living people. Comments invited. –xenotalk 18:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

RfC on using a Wikiproject Tag (2)

An RfC regarding the use of Wikiproject tags could use more input. -- Banjeboi 15:55, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

RfC on using a Wikiproject Tag (3)

Discussion has been closed, with the conclusion that these are useful for identifying articles of interest to a project. Further discussion on things arising from that discussion, issues identified, etc. are referred here for further discussion. Mish (talk) 20:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Despite the RfC, which closed with a consensus that groups of editors can work on whatever articles they please, just like the Council's guide says, it looks like there's still some slow edit warring on the original page to prevent the 'wrong kind' of editors from announcing their willingness to support the article's development. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Canada unasked for imposition of importances on separate projects

There is a discussion at Template_talk:WikiProject_Canada#Cities about the way that WP:CANADA suddenly and without asking, added a second importance rating to four projects that are not subprojects of WikiProject Canada. The WP:VANCOUVER, WP:TORONTO, WP:OTTAWA and WP:Montreal projects were not consulted on their being "added" to WPCANADA, or the addition of a second importance rating into their own importance categories (ie. WP:VANCOUVER articles end up with two WP:VANCOUVER importance ratings)

76.66.192.73 (talk) 05:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I realize that there are some additional details here, but ultimately I take a "live and let live" line with this sort of dispute: If WP:CANADA freely chooses to advertise other WikiProjects with statements like "This article is also supported by WikiProject Ontario," then you may not prohibit them from doing so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:01, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah, but they are imposing their importance scale onto Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, and their importance ratings, meaning that articles get placed into two Vancouver/Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal importance categories, one of them will almost invariably be "low", regardless of how highly important it is to Vancouver/Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal. 76.66.192.73 (talk) 07:45, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
For the record, when this thread started it was already unanimously agreed on the template's talk page that cities should have separate importance ratings. The issue now is whether the template should default to WPCanada's main importance rating when the city's project doesn't have an importance rating. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:35, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
More specifically: Template talk:WikiProject Canada#Cities. Not my bag but some here might wish to comment --Jubilee♫clipman 16:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject multilingual review

The idea is simple: Articles, which broach the issue of a non-language-bordered content, i.e. wood, go (verb), or hand but as well nuclear weapons and sex, can enjoy the knowledge & expertise of two (or more) Wikipedias by this project. Of course one Wikipedia can jump on the bandwagon, if for example the article Avignon is in review of the french-speaking WP, too, there is no constriction on principle.
The standard lingua franca would be english, other arrangements are possible. The main sense of this poject is the to establish a good connection between the diffrent review-pages.
I thought of

  • a bot, which creates an automatic message to all review pages, if there is the same article in review process (connect already ongoing reviews).
  • "ambassadors", who get the information on articles in "their own WP", which are wanted to work over, and afterwards they speak to the "ambassadors" of some other Wikipedias and try to initiate a multilingual review (start new cooperation).

What do you say? --Hæggis (talk) 18:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC) P.S.: who finds some mistakes, can eat them ;)

Have you looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Echo? -Optigan13 (talk) 06:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the link, I´m going to link this discussion point there. If I unterstood it correctly, the sense of this project is to translate articles by a one-lingual team (means people only from the en-WP). The suggested project here intends a multi-lingual team of two or more Wikipedias. The users shall internationally interlingually work together, so there´s an meta-review in both (or more) wikipedias.
If there´s the case of connecting already ongoing reviews, there will be one review page for two (or more) articles, but just in diffrent Wikipedias, after all for one and the same lemma. And if there´s a new cooperation, the project members will furthermore suppose to round up the group, that means they coordinate (only at the beginning) the comprehensive cooperation.
Generally they translate some sources, clarify diffrences (often mistakes/bias by inaccuracy in a special thing) between two articles, which contents the same subtext, make networking between user portals & specific projects (surely cruelly english ;) and try to get the maximum effect for both (or more) teams, means the best output – i.e. the improvement of the lemma Chronos in english-speaking and german-speaking Wikipedia with an similar qualitative end result of collaborative review. Greets, --Hæggis (talk) 14:03, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
no tower of collaboration, everyone in his own house?

Horrible Histories (plus spin-offs) help

There are a whole collection of articles found at Category:Horrible Histories. Created by me initially but unable to be upkept due to inexperience in advanced editing and unavailability to edit due to other commitments, this whole category has become a bit of a mess. Some of the larger articles (such as Horrible Histories, Horrible Science and Murderous Maths) are probably reliable enough to become more than just very long lists of books. Horrible Histories (TV series) has recently become like a fansite, and some book series which have become obsolete (such as Dead Famous which is being made obselete by the Horribly Famous series, and The Knowledge (book series) which is now being re-released as Totally (book series)) remain. A lot of the articles are heavily out of date - expecially the Titles in progress sections. I have found many notible sources for a video games based on the series, found at Horrible_Histories_(other_media) and Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans but I am not quite sure the best way to extract the information out of them to create encyclopaedic material. Pretty much the whole category is in dire need of help. Please could some editors experienced in this type of project help? Thanks. The pages in question (for the moment) are: Horrible Histories, America's Funny But True History, Boring Bible, Dead Famous (series), Foul Football, Horrible Geography, Horrible Histories (TV series), Horrible Histories (other media), Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans, Horrible Science, Horribly Famous, Killer Puzzles, The Knowledge (book series), Murderous Maths, The Spark Files, Terry Deary's Tales, Time Detectives, Top Ten (book series), Truly Terrible Tales, Twisted Tales (book series), and Wild Lives.--Coin945 (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Upon recent experimentation with some articles and a translation program, I am very confused to what other language article have written about the series. For example the Portuguese version classifies the whole "collection" as The Horrible and appears to have books written especially for the Portuguese language, unreleased in English.--Coin945 (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
P.P.S. I have compiled a variety of different sources on different aspects of the Horrible histories franchise. Hopefully i will be able to sift through them to locate the most reliable ones. I have done this so any editors interested in aiding the growth of these articles will have a variety of useful sites at their instant disposable. They are located at: Talk:Horrible_Histories#2009_interview.--Coin945 (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Bibliography articles

I think that we are probably getting to the point that many of our more important articles and subjects are already using the more accessible and easily available sources, and that we are probably getting to the point that it might help editors wanting to work on specific subjects to have real lists of some of the sources available. Creating separate articles for many of these bibliographies, and linking to them in the main article(s) for the topics involved, would both help interested editors find sources relevant to the subjects, and maybe, in some cases, make it easier for school groups to find and develop articles to a good level. These bibliography articles could also, reasoably, be linked to from the project page of any clearly relevant WikiProject or task force.

I am not myself sure what the criteria for inclusion of a given work in a bibliography article should be, but I think being listed in a work which is itself a pure bibliography, or having multiple reviews, should be sufficient. I am also curious how such bibliographic articles should be structured, particularly regarding adding some descriptive text about the work in question. Also, there is a question as to how much attention and space should be given to journal articles and other articles, books dealing only partially with the main topic, and works devoted to the subject.

I have found that some topics, like Wallis and Futuna, have virtually nothing available in English about them, at least in terms of scholarly articles or books devoted to the subject. In that particular case, there is much more, although still not a lot, available in French. Would it be proper to list such foreign language sources in an English bibliography article, or would it be better to have separate articles for each language which has enough listed sources available to merit such articles? My own opinion would be to support the multiple articles, but I would welcome any comment. John Carter (talk) 15:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That sounds worth discussing - but here's probably not the place. I suggest WP:VPD might be a good place to develop this idea. Rd232 talk 21:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Inactive WikiProjects

I recently created the section WP:INACTIVEWP in the Guide - comments/improvements welcome. Also, I've started a general discussion on dealing with inactive projects at Wikipedia:VPD#Inactive_WikiProjects - please have a look and share your thoughts. Rd232 talk 21:54, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

  1. ^ Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_Resolute Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_The-Pope Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#Shameless_advertisement_by_Pohta_ce-am_pohtit Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#A_Bot_already_exists_to_inform_projects Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_WereSpielChequers Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_Hut_8.5 Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_Balloonman.2Ftechnical_option Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_Jayron32
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