Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council

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[edit] Peer review bot task

Hi, I ran a short task with MartinBotII, by way of testing, to add the WikiProject Military History peer reviews to the list. The bot was then reverted and the peer reviews removed. Now, I was under the impression that it was OK for us to list the peer reviews like this, and that there would be no change for WP:PR. Perhaps the problem was the sheer number of reviews added, or perhaps there are other process which take issue with this method. I was wopndering where we go from here? M a rtinp23 09:37, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I saw that - it did rather flood the central PR. Maybe you can get it to add only newly created PRs so the system is slowly phased in. Has anybody actually brought this up at WP:PR (asking because I'm too lazy to look at the talk page)? Yomangani ^talk 10:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

No - not yet. It's relatively easy for me to get it to only list new PRs - but now I have to ask for a definition of new (at least to start with). How about those created within the last five days (or sooner??)? I'll be ready to put this fix in the bot in a few hours - currently it's running about 16000 or 17000 queries on wikipedia, but before I run it on PR again, I'd like to see us get permssion from them, if possible. M a rtinp23 10:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Since my message has been waiting long enough on WT:PR without response, I'm running the bot now. Only peer reviews transcluded on subscribing WikiProject peer review pages from after the current run will be automatically listed on the PR page (to avoid a flood). Thanks M a rtinp23 17:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, how often is the bot set up to run? Kirill Lokshin 19:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It does a full check and will list any new peer reviews every hour (on the hour). M a rtinp23 19:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, ok. It'll be interesting to see what happens with regard to the section heading difference once the two review types are listed on the same page; the project peer reviews typically create a new heading for each editor's comments, while the main peer review does not. Kirill Lokshin 19:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a note to say that any WikiProject which decide that they'd like to use this task should follow the following instructions:

Add {{WikiProject peer review a}} to every WikiProject peer review currently transcluded (if this is a big task, as me, and the bot can do it in exceptional circumstances)
Add {{WikiProject peer review}} to the WikiProject peer review transclusions page
That's it! It'll help me if you leave a short message on my talk page to let me know. Please be sure to make sure that step 1 is done before step 2, as this prevents us from flooding WP:PR! Thanks, M a rtinp23 15:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A or GA

I am confused, between A and GA, what is better? Please advise. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 00:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

A-Class is higher in the scale than GA-Class. The extent to which there's a difference in practice varies depending on which project's assessments you look at. Kirill Lokshin 00:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Ganeshk (talk) 00:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

A little background: GA began after the A/B/Start/Stub and initially standards were fairly loose. Since then standards have tightened and most GAs are now pretty similar to A. Walkerma 17:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Space WikiProjects

Currently there are a number of Space-related wikiprojects (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Space/Projects for a list including number of members), and i thought it may be a good idea to somehow join them into Wikipedia:WikiProject Space, and divide them up as different task forces; the problem is, i don't know how conceivable this idea is.. 15 wikiprojects is a lot to merge, so it seems like a lot of work. what do you think the first step in this direction would be? start contacting them one at a time, saying "hey, do you guys wanna become a task force??" Mlm42 17:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, the first step should be setting up the Space project itself with all the infrastructure it needs to run as an umbrella project. Active projects are generally not going to want to become task forces of an inactive one.

Beyond that, I suggest proceeding slowly and with consideration for the feelings of the members of the sub-projects in question. :-) Kirill Lokshin 17:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If you can think of something that would be offered by the umbrella project which is not offered by the majority of "child" projects (assessment, collaboration, and/or peer review come to mind immediately), while still allowing the child projects to operate largely independently, you might have a chance. Even there, you might want to consult the projects one at a time, and thus maybe get a good head of steam up before trying to get some of the larger existing projects to join. Badbilltucker 19:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

One way you could ease the other projects into this would be to still call them WikiProjects, but still move their pages as subpages. Then explain that the "parent" space is for them to use for cross-collaboration, such as template sharing, style issues that cross over more than once, etc. I think that would be an attractive enough benefit to not only organize them better, but wouldn't really require starting up a new project all by yourself. It doesn't really matter if we call them full projects or task forces, but as long as we have better cross-collaboration. Think of it like each WikiProject is an apartment to live in, and we've just moved them into the same apartment building. As long as the groups don't feel anything is being taken away, or demoted, then it should go pretty smoothly. A place for all space projects to cross-collaborate whenever they need to. -- Ned Scott 19:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Similar to the situation between WikiProject Tropical cyclones and WikiProject Meteorology. Meteorology is the parent project of Tropical cyclones, although TC is much older, much more organized, and is farther ahead on the curve than Meteorology, which is just gaining steam. However, there's still the recognition that TC is a "subproject" of Meteorology, although WPTC is completely independent of the other one. Merger talks are nowhere in the foreseeable future, but there's still a good degree of collaboration between the two. Perhaps that is a good approach to take initially, to try to attack the problem from a general, broad perspective (perhaps WP:SPACE would encompass broad articles such as Space?), then try to bring in projects as subprojects, then get them collaborating more with each other, and finally consolidating them as parts of the larger project. As long as there isn't a feeling of a hostile takeover, there shouldn't be any problems. Tito xd^(?!?) 21:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think one difference here is that many of those subprojects are pretty inactive (last I looked at them - a few months back). They were very active 2-3 years ago then things died out. They (if anyone is still watching the pages) may be glad to consolidate activities into one broader project that is active rather than having lots of one-person projects.

As for the idea of projects working together, WP Chemicals (sub-project) and WP Chemistry (umbrella) do this well, I think. Chemicals was much more active last year, and Chemistry did very little, but many of the chemists naturally joined both. Nowadays both projects are roughly equally active, and Chemistry has begun things like a Collaboration - and last month's one was in effect a Chemicals article. The projects are semi-independent, but they share the same Chemistry template, and the assessments are all pooled together into one big "Chemistry article by quality" list (along with some other sub-projects like "Elements"). This hybrid model may work if the sub-projects are more active than I thought. Above all, though, keep things friendly, and things will work best that way! Walkerma 21:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

great, thanks for the input! i think, though, articles like Space are likely too broad, and the projects should be restricted to outer space.. but i have realised that even still, astrology would fall under that blanket. Mlm42 09:59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How does one delete a project?

A single purpose account User:TriviaGood has created a project (Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia) to protest a real project (Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia Cleanup). This seems to me to not only violate WP:POINT but to be at cross purposes with WP:AVTRIV, WP:TRIVIA, WP:V, WP:OR, WP:WAF, and WP:EPISODE. I've tagged it prod for speedy delete but I'm not sure if that is the proper way to go about it. Would someone be so kind as to give me a little direction here. Thanks and cheers. L0b0t 22:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion is what you're looking for, I believe. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:24, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Done and done. Thank you very much for the help. Cheers. L0b0t 22:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

No problem. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Titles and capitalization!

Do normal article naming rules apply to WikiProjects? Would, for example, a "WikiProject Giant Robots and Colossal Monsters" be a bad idea? (Not the concept, the capitalization!) -ryand 15:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, they do. I think that one might be a bad idea on both counts, but that's just me. :) Badbilltucker 15:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The convention that I'm aware of is to consider "WikiProject" a pseudo-namespace and put everything after it in sentence case; thus, "WikiProject Giant robots and colossal monsters". There are some exceptions to this, though; I've seen a few projects go for full capitalization. It's not really a big deal either way. Kirill Lokshin 16:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Aw, damn. Thanks! -ryand 16:58, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:WikiProject

just something to point out. I don't think it is such a good idea in the template to use User:Name as an example as they have been blocked indefinately for vandalism a while ago. Simply south 20:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple importance rankings in a project banner?

User:Kusma, a highly-regarded (by me, anyway) admin and right now the driving force behind WikiProject Germany, has asked me if there is any way to set up a project banner so that it can display two different "Importance" rankings, on for the parent project and one for the newly-created Mainz task force. Personally, I don't know if it can be done, and certainly don't know how to do it. If anyone does, I would be fawningly grateful for the information. :) Badbilltucker 17:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty trivial if you add a second importance parameter (e.g. "importance-mainz"); then you can just copy over the existing importance-rendering code into the #if: block for the task force. Kirill Lokshin 18:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Er, I already have implemented the secondary importance level, see Template:WikiProject Germany. I just need help getting the subproject article categories parsed by a bot :-) Kusma (討論) 19:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, you need to create all the possible categories, and nest them under something like Category:Mainz articles by importance and Category:Mainz articles by quality, just like what happens with the main project. Kirill Lokshin 19:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New vague proposal

It has recently occurred to me just how many projects are out there, and how we might be facing either direct conflicts between projects and other wikipedia content issues, and might be better able to coordinate activity so that content and related issues could be more harmoniously handled. On that basis, I have today created what is probably a truly goofy proposal at User:Badbilltucker/Internal organization structure regarding how I think we might be able to address some of these concerns. As stated there, I welcome any responses, and recongize up front that the majority of them may well be on the negative side. Please criticize it or praise it as fully as you wish. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It's a pretty good idea, actually. I see three major issues that need to be considered, though:

The existence of project coordinators is not something that can really be assumed throughout. While I would argue (obviously) that they're useful—at least in very large projects—they are also viewed with disfavor by people who regard the idea as overly hierarchic and bureaucratic. I suspect that a push to create them across the board would be heavily resisted; and, in any case, they're not likely to be very useful for small projects.
Some of the top-level projects (the one of particular interest to me being WikiProject History) are obviously nonfunctional, at this point; based on my experience, I suspect that this problem is a fundamental one when dealing with a too-broad scope. I don't know to what extent a practical hierarchy at that level would be helpful; it may be better to stop the organization (or its practical aspects, in any case) at the next tier down.
There's no mention of task forces; they tend to make things considerably simpler, as they institute an explicit hierarchical organization, and prevent narrow "sub-projects" from being left off with no attention from their parents.

(On a side note: a thousand WikiProjects?!) Kirill Lokshin 17:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I was actually taking task forces into account, implicitly, as being basically separate projects. I guess I would think of any task forces as being children of the main project as well as, potentially, of any other applicable projects (like maybe national projects when dealing with Military history task forces). Also, like in the case with the new (maybe?) resuscitated WikiProject Religion, I think that maybe the other "umbrella" projects might be workable if they somewhat limited their current focus to general subject-related matters and those areas not explicitly covered elsewhere. History, for example, could cover the article History, Revisionist history, Lost History, Pseudohistory, and other pages which do not fall within the scope of any children projects, and probably at least geologic history and most of African history, both of which I think are currently orphan subjects. Of course, such umbrella projects would also have their own membership, such as it is, and any other individuals interested could take part in any discussion on their project pages. So, in the event that there is no coordinator, like in a one or two person project, any interested and informed member of the project could be bold and appoint themselves, like is currently done with a lot of the featured article removal discussions. I honestly don't know whether turning a project like History into one more focused on the areas of history which do not fall under the scope of any existing project would work or not, although I wound tend to think it would to at least a certain degree. I have made another rather vague proposal on their talk page to this effect. And, yes, at leat count, counting task forces and inactive projects, it's a bit over 1100 (I came up with 1,104) total. Badbilltucker 18:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

What about this for vague and controversial? More actively integrating descendant WikiProjects into parent ones as task forces. I don't know if this is completely doable (ie - making every TV show-centric WP into a task force for WP Television), but in other cases such as the multiple clinical medicine projects, it might be for the best. On the other hand, having task forces for individual shows within WP TV probably isn't a bad thing either, as the task force page can more or less function identically to the current WP page.

The only difference is that integrating projects as task forces under a larger project allows there to be more editorial and stylistic consistency, as well as preventing projects with similar types of content having to re-invent the wheel when project-wide or supra-project issues may occur. For example, the various Film WikiProjects ultimately are expected to conform to the style guidelines set down by WikiProject Films. What does being a WikiProject allow them which being a task force of WP Films does not? As a task force, they can still have their own pages and largely their own autonomy, while being connected to a larger resource of people (thus advertising their task force's work better).

I submit that we should consider actively promoting more WP migration to task forces. It also increases the membership of the larger projects, which (hopefully) will allow them to become stronger and more useful. We don't need more or less WikiProjects, but we can certainly use more excellent ones! Girolamo Savonarola 19:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I actually like the proposal above a lot, and tried to get one project Wikipedia:WikiProject University of Virginia, to do just this when it was put up for deletion. I think the problem is the emotionalism which goes into the foundation of new projects, and the factor that some people really, really like to describe themselves as founders of projects. Not that I can think of anyone in particular who does this, of course :) . But I do think, at this point, such reorganization will only happen after we get all the projects talking to each other, not before. Badbilltucker 19:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

What's so wrong with being the founder of a task force? :) None of us are Jimmy Wales (Jimmy excepted), so there's not much glory in trying to plant flags, AFAIK. After all, all (non-WP:NOT) articles fall under the scope of Wikipedia! As far as getting the projects talking...isn't that partially what this place provides? A neutral ground for projects to discuss such things? I'm not saying that our scope explicitly involves dispute resolution - at least not any more than any other WikiProject would regarding the articles within it. But IIRC, surely this was one of the establishing points of WP Council? to act as a central point for inter-WikiProject discussion and collaboration, as the project page says... Girolamo Savonarola 19:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. As a practical point, though, the first targets for absorption into task forces should likely be projects that are inactive, as they're generally quite easy to deal with. Once those are cleaned up, we'll be in a much better position to figure out how to shuffle around the groups that are actually doing something. Kirill Lokshin 19:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

About the UVA project...where would you propose nesting the task force? Under WikiProject University or Wikipedia:WikiProject Virginia? I certainly think that both should link it, but as discussed previously regarding WP Indian cinema, I believe that the UVA project has more in common, editing-wise, with the other university projects. Task forces should probably be located within their content parent, not their geographic one (unless the two are substantially the same). Girolamo Savonarola 19:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I actually proposed both to the originiator of the project, favoring WikiProject Virginia because it has a red-link section on its project page dealing explicitly with education. Also, it seems to me that the people in a particular state might be more familiar with a school than someone across the continent who belongs to the "proper" parent project. Either would work, of course. Badbilltucker 19:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I mentioned above, WP Virginia could still of course retain linkage to the task force (including listing it as one of their task forces too). I'm just saying that, for organization and consistency, the UVA project should be an explicit task force subsection of WP Uni. As many other projects as desire can still also claim it as a task force and link to it, so long as the actual task force is located within WP Uni. That's my proposal. Just keeps the hierarchy easier and more consistent.

I'm going to start looking into the WP Directory as I have time and draw up a list for discussion of inactive projects which can either be task forced or merged. Would anyone have any objections? Girolamo Savonarola 19:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

None from me! :) Badbilltucker 20:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

P.S. The UVA project has been recently restored/recreated/whatever through Deletion review, as the creator wasn't willing to let it die and requested its reinstatement. Badbilltucker 20:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should create a place of discussion for small Wikiprojects merging into parent WikiPorjects. Maybe like WP:RM. NauticaShad e s 07:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Authority" of wikiprojects

Do wikiprojects have the authority to set guidelines for articles within their subject area? Assuming they do, can they set guidelines that are exceptions to, or in conflict with overall wikipedia guidelines? --Milo H Minderbinder 17:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I would say no, they have no authority whatsover to contravene established policies and guidelines. That is a very slippery slope to tread as we already have users claiming that their particular pet television show articles should not have to cite sources and can be chock full of trivia and cruft. Cheers. L0b0t 17:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I recall having this same discussion on WP:VP recently, so I'll just copy the comments I made then:

Broadly speaking, a WikiProject's guidelines get their "power" from the fact that the members of the project—who are generally a large portion of the editors in a particular area—are presumably supporting them, not because of some partiular official status of the project itself. While WikiProjects shouldn't be coming up with things that conflict with major policies, I see nothing wrong with developing exceptions/special cases/etc. to issues of formatting, layout, usage, and so forth for particular areas where the Wikipedia-wide guidance may not make sense; this happens quite often, and is generally entirely uncontroversial.

A WikiProject's guidelines are meaningful because they (presumably) represent a consensus of editors working on some particular topic. This is not to say that WikiProjects can do unreasonable things; but, if the editors who are actually writing articles on X decide that some section of the MoS doesn't make sense for those articles and come up with a reasonable alternative, I see no reason to reject it out of hand because the MoS is "more official" than the WikiProject. Kirill Lokshin 18:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I would opine that WikiProjects establish conventions rather than guidelines. If these conventions are in contradiction to the MoS, then the MoS should trump them, unless they decide to bring the conventions to MoS as a proposal. This isn't particularly uncommon. Girolamo Savonarola 18:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Meh. That'll just bloat the MoS with dozens of obscure special cases, the vast majority of which will be entirely uncontroversial.

The entire dispute from which this issue arises is something of a bizarrely degenerate case, actually; most of the time, the issue of which guideline is better doesn't come up, because the WikiProject's guideline/convention/whatever is clearly seen to be more reasonable than the "official" one. The issue here is that there's (a) no consensus among different WikiProject in an area and (b) strong feeling from outside the WikiProjects that the WikiProject guidelines are unreasonable. Kirill Lokshin 18:31, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

As a consequence of our structure, there is no such thing as "jurisdiction" on Wikipedia. Therefore a WikiProject cannot claim jurisdiction over the articles in its topic area, nor claim immunity to existing policies and guidelines. Obviously WikiProjects are given large leeway to write the articles in their topic area, and several broad guidelines (especially naming conventions) have been established by WikiProjects and expanded in scope. But since Wikipedia runs on the principle of consensus, a consensus within a small group of people cannot override a consensus within a larger group, or that of Wikipedia as a whole. For instance, if a WikiProject on <some game> decides it's a good idea to use colorful words in mid-prose (and yes, that has happened) and the rest of Wikipedia says that looks ugly and unreadable (and runs counter to the MOS, for that matter), the project does not get to keep their funky colors. (Radiant) 18:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
- True, that. (Keep in mind, though, that consensus can be formed in different places, and isn't necessarily limited by the role of those. In other words, a consensus of three people on some obscure MoS page doesn't automatically carry more weight than a consensus of thirty people on a WikiProject page.)
- But, broadly speaking, most (serious) WikiProjects tend to be reasonable, and, as a consequence, most (serious) WikiProject guidelines are followed no differently from other guidelines in practice. Kirill Lokshin 18:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

If there are a lot of subject-specific guidelines, I think it's appropriate (in fact, very good) for a project to give it's own guidelines - for example for chemical compounds we use this style guide. There's no need to clutter up the main MoS, and I believe it's linked from the main MoS section on chemistry. However, nothing in there contravenes the main MoS - as stated above, the main MoS should normally trump anything produced by a WikiProject. Walkerma 20:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Many WikiProjects use de facto style guidelines when the MoS is undefined or simply when there are good reasons to ignore it. (After all, the MoS is a guideline, and not policy). The MoS's purpose is to try to maintain consistency within Wikipedia; consistency within a topic is relevant as well, but as long as a WikiProject's guidelines are not drastically different from Wikipedia guidelines, these "violations" are just not controversial. Tito xd^(?!?) 20:40, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Since we appear to be in agreement, and there has recently been confusion on the issue, maybe we should consider adding a few words among these lines to Wikipedia:Wikiproject? (Radiant) 09:44, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Where I've seen a few problems is not with the style and formatting of articles, but with individual WikiProjects wanting to go their own way with templates, categorizdation, etc. One topic that seems to get rehashed occasionally is the relationship between the Stub-Sorting WikiProject and other WikiProjects. I haven't seen any problems lately, but I haven't paid that much attention to the WSS lately. ^Blank ^Verse 12:54, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

There has been one complaint recently about the stub-sorting project. Personally, I think that, in this particular case, the complaint is less than well-founded. I can see how it might be beneficial if some projects whose scope covers matters of vital importance to a variety of other projects were to be in some way more accountable or responsive to other projects. Unfortunately, like in this particular space, I can't see how to in any way actively enforce that without serious and probably counterproductive changes to the existing structure. Badbilltucker 14:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiversity Learning projects

I think Wikipedians who are interested in WikiProject Council will also be interested in creating a similar things for Learning projects in Wikiversity. Join us in Wikiversity. Srinivasasha 02:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Signpost

So, what do we want to do with this page? Last time I checked, I thought we were going to do an internal newsletter (a la WP:MILHIST, WP:BEATLES and WP:WPTC) but it seems that the page was created as part of a dispute currently on WP:RFM. So, do you guys want to start an internal newsletter? What content should we have, if we decide to have one? Tito xd^(?!?) 01:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

First off, what is going on with this edit warring? I have no idea what the controversy even regards. Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola 01:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

What I understand is that Nathannoblet was using the page as a sandbox for work in the Wikipedia Signpost, then Ral315, the Signpost's editor, rejected it. Then Nathannoblet filed an RFM, as can be seen on Ral315's talk page. But that doesn't tell us what to do with the page in this project space: do we nuke it, or do we just use it for something else? Tito xd^(?!?) 01:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd say nuke it. It's just the latest in a string of troublesome contributions by Nathannoblet.--cj | talk 17:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Getting rid of it seems to be the best approach. (Which is not to say that either a newsletter, or a way of getting WikiProjects featured in the Signpost, would be bad ideas; but this isn't a working version of either.) Kirill Lokshin 00:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Newsletter collection

Since many wikiprojects are releasing newsletters G-hits, wouldn't it be a good idea to gather them all to one page (say under WikiProject Council). This would help outsiders (relative to the project) to see what's going on with wikiprojects, and maybe get them interested in some projects. The page could be a overview of new newsletters published in one month (or depending on the volume). Usable idea? Doable? Ideas? feydey 03:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe that would be a good use for the page being discussed above... Tito xd^(?!?) 06:47, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I got BOLD and edited the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Signpost page as I described. Comments? Feel free to rv. if needed. Also wikiprojects can be notified to deliver their newsletters straight to the page. Still the current name "/Signpost" for the subpage doesn't really describe the content? Suggestions? feydey 20:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea a lot. I would like it even more if it could include info on the new projects or sub-projects created or re-energized since the last edition. I'd love it if it could have some sort of automatically generated content included, like a list of GA and FA promotions and demotions of the past month, and maybe a link to a list of the existing portals. If it could be done on a regular basis, though, we'd need quite a few contributors from a lot of different fields coming in to update it regularly. I think having it made maybe bi-monthly would be the best way to go for regular updates, since that would allow some of the contributors time to do other stuff too between issues. As for the title, what sort of documents do "councils" get? Maybe a Council Briefing? Badbilltucker 21:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Actively recruiting new members of the Council?

For the newsletter collection to work best, I would think we want to ensure that each of the larger projects, and maybe most of the smaller ones, have a member or two who are specifically requested to add updates to it. To do so, these people would probably be optimally members of the Council. Does anyone think we should try to actively recruit such members from as many projects as possible? Badbilltucker 22:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sports Family Categories

I have been looking at categories more closely recently. Today, I decided that there are a lot articles that would be more easily navigated if we developed a Sports family hierarchy (in Category:Families). I have started to fill in what I could not find out there in the section that follows: User:TonyTheTiger#Categories_Created. Can you tell me if anyone at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture/Sports would be interested in getting involved in Sports family categorization or if there is a good way to proceed in such an endeavor.

I'm not sure that there is an easy answer here. The people who would be in the best position to help you would probably be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Sports and games, given the scope of their group. I can personally see the value of having such categories, but they are probably the group most directly and closely involved in these articles, and would probably be best able to give you any assistance. Badbilltucker 18:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New bot available to help wikiproject members

Hi, my bot PockBot has recently been authorised for use. It is a tool I developed primarily with a view to helping wikiproject members better manage parts of their project.

The bot runs for any given category and returns a list of all articles in that category, as well as the current status of each article (ie FA, stub, start etc). I hope the potential benefit of this bot is clear in helping those trying to keep tabs on the status of articles within categories relevant to their wikiprojects. For example, for the wiki military history project, classical warfare task group, the bot ran a list of every article under the category (and all sub-categories) of Category:Military of ancient Rome.

I am not sure of the correct and efficient to publicise the availability of this bot to help out wikiproject members. Can anyone advise? - PocklingtonDan 10:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Template

I've created Template:Subprojects for use on WikiProjects pages. How should I tell them? It looks like this:

WikiProject Council Work in Progress:	edit · history · watch · refresh
Insert subprojects here.

Adam Cuerden ^talk 01:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Uh, I'm not very technically "ept"... How does it work? - AdelaMae ^{(t - c - wpn)} 01:21, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Just add {{Subprojects}} to any WikiProject page. It handles the title, et al, and then, using the edit button on it, you can change the listing. It's based off the To-do boxes. I'm probably going to change it from Subprojects to Work Groups or suchlike, since it was originally intended to house current projects of WikiProject Opera. There's a couple extra features: can change the image in the corner, might add more, but I've set it up to be as much as possible functional without tweaking. Adam Cuerden ^talk 01:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, duh... I missed the edit button. I saw the bit about changing the image, though. Thanks! - AdelaMae ^{(t - c - wpn)} 01:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't like it. It's quite crude, visually; and quite redundant, as most (all?) projects that have such structural features already use a real navigational template for them. (More generally, full-width boxes should be used sparingly, as they're visual overkill in most cases.) Kirill Lokshin 02:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

It isn't full width. In my opinion, it's hardly "crude" either. Mike Dillon 02:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly full-width in the sense that there can't be anything else next to it on the page. (The crudeness is, admittedly, a matter of personal opinion.) Kirill Lokshin 02:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought you meant 100% width. Mike Dillon 02:19, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Weel, the project I made it for wanted something to expand functionality of the Template:to do (Wikipedia) they were using, so I gave them this and a auto-updating monthly project banner in the same style (with a talk-page interface for setting up the next few projects. Thought it might be useful for other medium-sized projects. Adam Cuerden ^talk 18:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Top Ten

I accidentally posted this to the directory subpage as well. Sorry. Is it possible, or a good idea, to create a Top Ten or Twenty list of Wikiprojects? My recent efforts on WP:LGBT have been fuelled mainly by what I could find on WP:BIO, WP:MILHIST, and WP:COMICS, because these are the ones I saw mentioned as being amongst the biggest and most successful projects. A list of the largest projects would surely be useful to founders of fledgling projects looking to expand. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 11:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

We all make mistakes, and this was nowhere near a big one, if it honestly qualifies as a mistake at all; don't worry about it.:) It certainly might make sense to list the projects which have the most development in the Project Guide, particularly for those projects which believe that they themselves might have need in the future for such a large and complicated organization. I guess I would maybe appreciate some input from the others as to where and how, probably in the Guide, we would list such larger projects whose work is particularly effective. Badbilltucker 16:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Would be an interesting thing to do, but I have no idea how to do select the list without being entirely subjective. Anyone want to compile some sort of useful statistics on the various WikiProjects we could use? Kirill Lokshin 17:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the ones that would be most useful would be the ones that do all the three main actions (assessment, peer review, and collaboration), and possibly have official or unofficial subgroups as well. The ones that come to mind immediately are Biography, Military History, India, and Australia, but I know there are other groups as well. As I'm going through the Project Directory to add the recent additions now, I should be able to do this at around the same time and report back either today or tomorrow. Badbilltucker 18:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that peer review be replaced with number of members. A WikiProject may have all the accoutrements of a big WikiProject, but is useless without anyone to run them... Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think all four mentioned above qualify as having a substantial number of members, particularly counting all their official and unofficial subjprojects. And I wasn't thinking of trying to create a list of projects by number of members, or anything like that, because those numbers change so often that it would probably be outdated by the end of the day, particularly with existing members creating sockpuppets to get their own project numbers up, something I see as being a virtual certainty in at least some cases. And, of course, there are projects where people sign in just to officially be a member and never edit a single article thereafter, as well as cases of people who may have joined a project years ago, died within the week, and still remain listed as members of the project because no one took their names off. But those four are among the projects with the most members and the most complex structures. I think Germany qualifies as well, and maybe now Cats (with Cat breeds evidently having been absorbed when I wasn't looking), but those four or more (possibly including others) should be enough to give any other projects a rough idea of how a larger, more complicated project manages to continue to function. Badbilltucker 00:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Raw numbers of members is a bad idea IMHO - I have seen some projects that have a lot of members listed yet they are inactive, and others that were very active and successful with only 2 or 3 members. The talk page of a project can give some idea if read critically - but even there, activity isn't always a good guide. Some projects will be very "inward looking" - endlessly debating whether the Series 5 Weapons infobox should be blue or read, while not taking much interest in what happens outside their project - they will typically not have good practices to follow. Good parameters to consider IMHO:

FAs (and to a lesser extent, GAs) from a project, particularly those that were written as a collaborative effort by the project.
A "Collaboration of the XXX" that is active and successful
Clear goals or active ToDo list
Collaborative work on setting standards & policies - subject-specific citation guidelines, style guides, image guidelines and the like - a project that can produce "mature" information like this is usually pretty active and working well together.
An absence of name-calling on the project talk pages!

Not easy to use for giving us a top ten, but may be helpful. Walkerma 02:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

These are all fine and good, but as this will have to be somewhat subjective at the end of the day, let's not dance around it. Why not simply list projects by consensus agreement of WP Council members that they are good example projects? At least then we can cite the nomination and support (or lack thereof) and debate each project being added on a case-by-case basis. Isn't that the wiki way? :) Girolamo Savonarola 09:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yep, sounds fine to me! Walkerma 15:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me too. One additional comment. I've heard that Esperanza is intending to hold some sort of Appreciation Week in maybe January. I know this might be kind of controversial, but what would the rest of you think of maybe giving out a sort of "Project of the Year" award during this Appreciation Week, listing at least several of the top projects as nominees, and maybe awarding winner status to those projects which have clearly been most productive/successful during the past year. If we wanted to get carried away with ourselves, we might even create two different ones, one for the larger projects and one for the smaller projects, so that the most successful smaller projects could be recognized as well. Badbilltucker 16:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Unless the appreciation week is Wikipedia wide, I wouldn't advocate getting involved with it. Getting involved with Esperanza makes the Council look bad. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking something more akin to featured status (though not equivalent) - simply that projects can be nom'd and also denom'd at will, and chosen by group consensus. The major difference would be that it would solely be a mark of distinction, and therefore there would be no comments or suggestions - a project either would be regarded as exemplary or not. And of course, this could always be rescinded should someone de-nominate it. The only intention here is to collate the projects which best serve as examples for up and coming WikiProjects. As projects are constantly in flux (and are expected to be), a non-equivalence to featured status needs to be emphasized. Keeping this to a limited and practical number is therefore important. Girolamo Savonarola 19:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

No objections to what Girolamo Savonarola said above. I can well see how having such examples available would make it easier for someone looking to found a new project to have a good example of what works. I only mentioned the Appreciation Week proposal because one of the proposals regarding it is that it be kind of the annual awards program for all of wikipedia, with any projects or other groups who wish to do so appearing to present awards to the members or others that they believe merit receiving them. I thought it might be a good idea to let everyone who reads this know that, particularly if they haven't already heard of the proposal. It also already has one specific award for a kind of "Wikipedian of the Year" award, and I was just thinking that a "Project of the Year" award might also be somewhat appropriate. (Kind of like "Best Actor" and "Best Movie" awards, as it were.) However, I still think that the decision regarding who should be considered for being an examplar project/featured project should take place whether Esperanza does what they might be planning or not. Maybe jumping the gun a little bit here, but I'm starting a page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Exemplar Projects where we can have the members, I hope, discuss which projects would deserve consideration for this recognition and why. I think it would probably function best if it were done like some of the existing projects, like WikiProject Novels, are currently doing to determine which articles will be recognized as being of top-importance to their project. Exactly how to determine when consensus is reached is probably difficult, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Badbilltucker 19:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New WProj-oriented Category & Category talk header templates

I'd found Template:CatDiscuss and Template:CatMaintain and (aside from they seem to be named backwards) wasn't entirely happy with them for WProj purposes. So for your WikiProjectifying pleasure:

These can come in handy for when your project is overhauling a messy bunch of categories, or if people keep doing boneheaded things in them even after you've cleaned it up. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 12:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, the text there might be a little too WP:OWNy to work well, though. Kirill Lokshin 18:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project banners and actors

Should an actor have a project banner with class/importance ratings? I was thinking no, because then some pages would be completely cluttered with banners, but then I've come across some actor articles with them. Thanks, RHB 22:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan does that for the Victorian actors under their scope, but modern actors... perhaps not so much. Adam Cuerden ^talk 00:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what's being asked. Is the banner about the actor specifically? In most cases, a WikiProject based around a single actor wouldn't be viable anyways. Or are these articles about actors being assessed by other WikiProjects (e.g. Film or Biography)? In that case, I don't see anything particularly special about them; actor articles get normally assessed just like articles on any other topic.

(In any case, most of the WikiProject banners now suport the "small=yes" option for really cluttered talk pages, if that's the only concern.) Kirill Lokshin 00:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure either. I know of no specific project which focuses on a single actor, so I have to assume that the banner in question is one of a project like Biography or Film which feels the article to fall within their scope. Also, I suppose Christopher Reeve could fall within the scope of the WikiProject Superman, Basil Rathbone within the scope of WikiProject Holmes and some other specific similar situations, but I couldn't really object to seeing them included in the those categories as they are significant to that project. It would help to know what specific articles and banners are being referred to. Badbilltucker 15:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] new project/revived project

I've revived WikiProject Climbing over at WP:CLIMBING. However it's a relatively broad topic and I have never created a wikiproject before so I could use some help on the technical aspect of things. If anyone has some free time (bwahaha, no really), I'd appreciate it if you stopped by and lent a hand. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 11:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The thoughts that come to mind are:

(1) Did you mean bi-monthly or semi-monthly collaboration? It's hard to tell from the text. Bi-monthly generally means every two months, semi-monthly twice a month.
(2) You might want to list the project on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals before you start the project in earnest, maybe waiting for at least five members to join. That's generally enough to indicate that the project would be viable.
(3) There are a variety of other suggestions available in the WikiProject Guide, which was written by the developers of the more successful projects in wikipedia. It would probably be a very good idea to review it and see if any of the suggestions included could be applied to your project.
That's about all I can think of. I hope anyone who thinks of anything else feels free to add their comments as well. Badbilltucker 14:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One single Project newsletter for all the projects?

Yeah, I know that this has kind of been addressed above. But I noticed that User:Nathannoblet recently created an "alternative" to the Signpost. It really hasn't gotten much support, and was in fact nominated for deletion. But it did make me think of the idea of a single, unitary, project update notice. If you look at them all, many/most of the individual project newsletters begin to look more or less the same after a while. Does anyone think it might be a good idea to perhaps issue one regular "Project Post" (or whatever) which would discuss the major developments in all of the projects collectively. The things that I think would most likely be included would be the featured and good content raised up over the past month, the new projects and task forces developed in the past month, one or a few articles about certain specific projects, and a kind of letters/open forum section. Maybe it could be constructed along the lines of an average portal. I think that doing so would have a few advantages:

(1) The individual projects won't be committed to repeating themselves; if nothing new happened, they don't have to do anything,
(2) The newer projects and work groups will get some more attention than they otherwise might,
(3) it would offer the members of the various projects a forum to discuss matters of importance to more than one project, possibly including proposed mergers and other topics.

Anyway, any and all feedback would be more than welcome. Badbilltucker 13:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

As a quick aside, Nathan is currently blocked for a month and there is a discussion going on now for an indef block. See this discussion for details on the current and proposed blocks.

In general terms, I think an overall WikiProject newsletter could be useful, but I'm not entirely convinced that it's needed for discussing article quality promotion. If such a newsletter is launched, I would think that it should deal with project administration news; items like updates to the assessment procedures and associated bots (like the backup that Oleg's doing nightly in case the bot goes wonky) or interproject relationships (like the discussion a while ago on subprojects and task forces) would be entirely appropriate here. Slambo (Speak) 18:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The article quality promotion was really only indicated to (1) let projects show off recent work and (2) let people know exactly which articles have been promoted to maybe help keep an eye on them and possibly, for good articles, improve them further. Right now, I know of no official list of recently promoted good articles (of course, I don't actually know much anyway), and, as many projects do keep tabs of how their articles are doing, it would be useful. I know how difficult it has been for me to keep track of how many new good articles are determined, and figured it might be useful to other projects too. Badbilltucker 19:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, you might not have seen these then... Content promoted to Featured status is listed weekly on the Signpost under Features and admins (current column) and also on Wikipedia:Goings-on (WP:GOON) which also lists the current collaborations. Near the top of the GA page is a short list of recently promoted articles in that process. Slambo (Speak) 19:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requesting assistance

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Soft drinks has just set up for assessments, with the addition of a new Coffee and Tea work group. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to get the banner to change to accomodate both changes. Any assistance would be extremely welcome. Badbilltucker 18:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

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