Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Organizations

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The Organizations WikiProject is currently building a new framework for the Organizations category! We are planning to add all notable organizations by location, field, kind, and ideology from the "bottom-up", as well as move existing pages into the new scheme from the "top-down". Feel free to add content below, or share your thoughts on the discussion page.
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Contents

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Items for organizations

The following needs to be put in for each organization, IMO. They are name, established, list of presidents, list of awards (including winners), list of publications, headquarters, list of conferences, list of executive directors (vice presidents), and official websites. Chris 16:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a good idea to create a standard for organization articles (I couldn't find discussions yet on this topic, must I think there must be some..). I created a new subproject to centralize discussion and added your contribution: Formats for organization articles. Brz7 23:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Future of this WikiProject

[edit] Preamble

Some time ago, I had began envisioning building an online network of local groups and organizations in my city. Recently, it has become increasingly clear to me that I would need to compile and catalogue a list of all the relevant unions, associations, societies and federations in order to move forward. I had installed my own MediaWiki, but through a combination of my lack of programming skills and repeated bot attacks, I was forced to put that integrated project on hiatus. I began to focus more on my day job, and life moved on.

[edit] Wikipedia

Over the last couple of days I started to realize that the benefit of having such a list of local groups would be of more benefit to my community as a whole, than any single project that made use of it. I began to wonder if there weren't others in my city and in other places around the world, that wouldn't enjoy researching and collaborating on localized groups.

[edit] Existing Framework Lacking

I started drafting out some goals and objectives for a WikiProject, which mainly pointed out that the existing 'framework' consists mainly of two monolithic categories within the society portal. Both the clubs & societies, and the organization categories have been developed from the top down, as opposed to bottom up from the grass roots.

As a result, I found that there is only one categorized Alberta Organization, and no category for any communities within my province. The picture looks a bit better at the national level, but stubs and other incongruities abound.

[edit] Organizations vs. Groups

I had tentatively used the name WikiProject Organizations, on my user space where I was drafting this plan, and then switched it to WikiProject Groups after discovered this project had already been started last year. The reason why I started the Groups WikiProject, was that my plan was far more ambitious than what had been laid down already, and I didn't want to ruffle any feathers.

However, in consideration of the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia, I knew that if I presented a clear and reasonable enough justification, I would more than likely be given a nod from the users that spawned the page.

[edit] Primary Objectives

To catalogue and organize localized listings and categories of associations, societies, unions and other non-profit groups in communities around the world. Form and update templatesfor each type and region, as well as create guidelines for article sections and info boxes. The end product of which will be a stable and growing Organizations Portal.

[edit] Manifesto

The main point of contention I have with the current framework is that it is cumbersome and overtly top-down in it's classification and structure. This does not bode well for the end-user or first time visitor to wikipedia who is looking for groups and organizations in their community.

Therefore, I propose that we model this project in a modular and scalable way that allows for members to focus on their own community or region in tandem with others. For example, there would be room for separate task-forces for each nation, state, province, region, and city all accessible from the front page.

This WikiProject, then becomes a resource for standardized article guidelines, infoboxes, boilers and other templates, for anyone who wishes to work on their own community or do research on others.

It will be important initially to develop rules for categorizing international and intraregional grassroots organizations. For example greenpeace should be listed as an international or ubiquitous organization, but should also have national and local offices listed where appropriate, (linking up and down).

I will start by developing this specific framework for my communities of Edmonton, Alberta, and Canada, and hopefully along the way, will have ironed out a system that can be applied and easily extended by other contributers for their own cities and regions.

For clarity, I don't think that location and geography should be the only categories for organizations, not least of which because I'm fairly sure they are already prevalent on Wikipedia. Rather, the primary method of navigation and classification should be based on where they are located, as there are hundreds of thousands of organizations around the world, and it would be totally unrealistic to access them mainly through lists and lists of lists.

i.e. In my city alone there are probably 350+ local student and labour unions. Is the best way for someone to find them reading through a list of tens or hundreds of thousands of unions from every nation and city around the world? Obviously not. The emphasis on building from local upwards will create a meaningful and structured tree of articles and categories.

As this project evolves and grows, local organizers will have an increasingly powerful resource for outreach, cooperation and consensus building amongst their peers and related organizations around the world. In anticipation of the potential of this turning into a large project with many contributing members, we should look to the structure of the Military History WikiProject for guidance. I envision our local and regional task forces and other process to be arranged in much the same way.

As we move forward, I appreciate all feedback and input to improve the effort and product of this Project.


[edit] Comments & Feedback

All input is appreciated here. Don't forget to sign (~~~~) and use colons (:) to indent your responses. Thanks in advance. Oldsoul 21:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello Oldsoul, you're more than welcome to join the WikiProject! (Just had an edit conflict and then saw you created this section) Indeed, there are millions of organizations which would need to be made accessible in a convenient way. The geographical proposal you made definitely makes sense. Look forward to see that developing: please add an open task/project on the front page. BTW the future goal of the WikiProject goes beyond the primary objective you mention above (To catalogue and organize localized listings and categories of associations, societies, unions and other non-profit groups in communities around the world.) but this sector covers indeed a large part of all organizations. Best regards, Brz7 21:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Greetings Brz7, thanks for the warm welcome! We can certainly have a debate in the near future about the different categorization schemes currently in use in the organizations category.
Basically I see this WikiProject as focusing on two separate areas. One is developing the system I've outlined above which allows the hundreds of different localized organizations to be added in a meaningful way - on the bottom of the tree. The second is getting the existing organization articles and sub-categories to fit into the final scheme we decide upon, from the top down.
  • Edmonton & District Soccer Association is an example of a local organization article that has been started and should be conformed to the new classification standards; whereas:
  • ACLU is an example of a fairly ubiquitous organization and well-developed article that would fit into our second area of focus.
Again, we should look to the military history project, and compare their category scheme with ours.
There's simply no comparison. We need not follow exactly that example, but we should bear simplicity and clarity in mind while moving forward. I expect to be adding lots of stuff to the front page over the next 6 to 8 hours.Oldsoul 22:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Good to see the WikiProject gradually being transformed to the new project structure! For now I have not yet spend time to know how to implement this so you're welcome to do the overhaul. I'm mainly interested in discussing content issues related to organizations :) (e.g. categorization schemes)
As far as the scope of the project is concerned I think an explicit reference to the various sectors of society (Referring to the initial objective of the project: "Create a comprehensive overview of notable organizations in society sectors, i.e. civil society, business government and media.") makes it clear that we deal with organizations in general. What wording of the scope do you propose? I think it would be an idea to create general taskforces: Business organizations task force, Government organizations task force (e.g. expand and improve Category:Ministries (goal: include all ministries categorized by country/portfolio)), Civil society organizations task force, Media organizations task force. Let me know what you think! Best regards, Brz7 14:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category structure

A few issues:

  • Heritage, Ethnicity, Cultural history, Identity organizations ? Thoughts as to the best terminology to pick up things like the InterCeltic stuff and the Turanian Society and LGBT orgs, Latino orgs, and so on? I'm thinking tentatively "Organizations by ethnic and cultural identity"?
  • What about a supercat structure of:
    Organizations by subject
    Organizations by geographic region (picks up city, nationality, international)
    Organizations by sponsorship or funding, not sure of the best term; but to pick up NGOs and Govt; and set up a tree that would include front orgs and types of govt orgs. Thoughts?
    ... maybe others?
  • "Clubs and societies" seems a little non-obvious as the home for "hobbyist organizations" -- what about "hobbyist and recreational organizations"?
  • There's a problem with "political organizations" and "civic and political organizations" -- thoughts?

--lquilter 02:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

A few quick responses before bed:
  • I like the super cat concept, employed well by WP:WARS here.
  • I think we should redevelop the organization categories, and super cats with an eye towards our portal. Let's look at some other society and geography portals to see what they've done well.
  • Just had a peak over at the geography one, and I really like the look and layout of the navigation there.
  • We should distinguish political party organizations,(including all the local, regional and national party groups), and issue and general advocacy or lobbying groups that are inherently political in nature. There might be a fine gray line in sub-categories here, but it is there - lets find it!
  • I like the distinction between specific types of organizations. I.e. Non-profit, professional, academic, charity, labour, professional, government, business. I can't think of too many more, but the fewer we have the better.
  • I think that we should explore a flat-out avoidance of clubs. Some 'clubs' like the Boys and Girls Club for example enjoys registered or incorporated status as a non-profit, and becomes a no-brainer.
  • To that end, I'd like to propose that as part of our assessment strategy, we develop guidelines for including up to date information as to the official incorporation, charity or other publicly available registry information to verify and establish [ notability]. If we can start doing this, we should incorporate it this information into the ORG info boxes. I've got an increasingly clear concept of how those will be designed and I'll see about putting together some examples before the weekend.
Oldsoul 06:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi! Just read this (I like the distinction between specific types of organizations. I.e. Non-profit, professional, academic, charity, labour, professional, government, business. I can't think of too many more, but the fewer we have the better.). Above I already proposed the creation of 4 task forces. The distinctions you mention also deserve specific focus I think but could all fall under civil society organizations: it depends on the civil society definition we'll use. For now let's first think out all possible organization-types and list them here. Brz7 14:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Hey Brz7. I've set up a little sandbox for myself here. By the end of the day I should have an example of what I had in mind.Oldsoul 16:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of progressive organizations

I just added the list of progressive organizations to the lists of organizations category. I'm wondering if we shouldn't break down the list of progressive organizations into sub-categories for each section, and if so, what naming conventions should we use for type and location? Oldsoul 23:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of Organizations

Over here there is a little discussion about what makes an organization notable, and thus worthy for inclusion on Wikipedia. I argue that the classical view of notability was inadequate given the justifiable goals and objectives of this WikiProject. We will develop our own definition of what is not notable as we move forward regardless of the outcome elsewhere, but nevertheless you may want to throw in your two cents as I have. Oldsoul 04:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Navigation Template

I've just added the nav temp. used by WP:WARS, which I think may be the best foundation for us to build off of. Have you guys seen any others that might work/look as good or better than this one?Oldsoul 04:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead Coordinator & Technical Help

For the time-being I shall assume the role of Lead Project Coordinator. I don't assume any real power of course, but I just want to make it clear that I intend to dedicate lots of time to this Project, and would appreciate as much positive criticism and feedback as possible.

That being said, I've been able to teach myself some template basics - enough to copy/paste and configure simple boxes. However, I do need lots of help on the technical side of things. The WP:WARS project has a great automated assessment system that is integrated with task-force info boxes and other templates. Before I start researching and adding organizations to the bottom end of this Project Tree, (i.e. starting new article stubs), I'd like to have a similar system in place.

That way, every time one of us starts (+plants a seed) for a new organization stub, we can paste in all the standard templates right away, and not have to return and create more work for ourselves later.

Thoughts? Help?
Oldsoul 05:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category discussion pages as project spaces

I've realized, browsing around the various sub-categories that it makes sense to use the discussion pages associated with each one as space for our project. (example) The navigation template should be added to each one. If we don't do that we'll have a multiplicity of project sub pages in this namespace, and a growing number of parallel and relevant conversations happening on the category discussion pages. For clarity, the individual article discussion pages should have the simple {{WikiProject Organizations}} and other standard tags on top. Thoughts?Oldsoul 19:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religious and age based organizations

It all looks like vary nice work you have don so far. So how do we go about the categorizing of the religious and age bast organizations, and ware do they fit in?--Devin Murphy 90 90 06:54, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Devin, I've been busy the last few weeks, so I haven't had a chance to keep moving forward, but I plan on starting to do about 30 minutes a day soon. I think you've raised an excellent point. My best estimation is that they would fit under the cultural organizations (by field) branch of the scheme. Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you around again soon. Oldsoul 16:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Organization versus Organisations

No Wikiproject can dictate on spelling matters, and in particular it cannot over rule the policy that Wikipedia is not standardised into American English. Olborne 00:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

**This policy is simply invalid. No wikiproject has the authority to over rule the Wikipedia policy on use of variants of English. Olborne 00:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

And what policy would that be? --Vossanova o< 15:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Moved the blockquote from the project page. Olborne, it's been made quite clear that organization is the ipso facto majority standard internationally, both on wikipedia and in peer reviewed scientific journals. For the record, I am canadian but it's been established that the 'ize' spelling is not in fact the American spelling at all. Individual articles, especially on british organizations may use the 'ise' variant without error, but in all others and for the categorization scheme of this project, 'ize' will be used.Oldsoul 16:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Apparently there was a brief and limited 'consensus' reached here which contradicts the clear and justifiable nomenclature of the 'ize' ending. I don't have the time to reverse those edits made, but this is clearly going to be a problem with users coming in and intentionally or otherwise messing up our naming [[1]]. Thoughts on how to repair/revent this from happening in the future?Oldsoul 23:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
There is no problem that needs being repaired or prevented. It is an established practice on (the English-language version of) Wikipedia that all varieties of English spelling are equally acceptable, as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English, and that we shouldn't waste time going around changing spellings for the sake of it. -- AJR | Talk 22:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
It will be a problem if users from one side go around reverting edits or setting up articles that contradict the manual of style. That is, in my understanding of it, articles from english language entities that use one or the other should retain that spelling for their articles, but that macro level categories, should retain the international standard (ize) unless the topic covers an area where the 'ise' ending is more appropriate.Oldsoul 18:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

I've been coming across many organizations listed under the Business & Economics Project, and I'd like to be able put an 'organization infobox on their pages. Do you have a template ready to go? I noticed there's definitely more than one out there. -- SueHay 01:12, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey Sue. Yes there is one ready to go which, as of yet, this project has not had any direct influence over, but is the one we are going to move forward with, Template:Infobox Organization2. In the future we can make changes to that infobox, or create specific ones for certain organization fields or locations. Oldsoul 15:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non profits/NGOs/Charities etc - what a mess!

I am joining this project due to frustrating with the disorganization of categories related to the above. As I posted in Project Human Rights, this is just an example of the myriad places that organizations are thrown into at the moment.

Presently, human rights organizations can be found in:

and I'm sure myriad others. Ideas on where to start or where this problem has been discussed before? Scarykitty 08:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC) Ideas on where to start? I am concerned that some of the existing trees being proposed perpetuate the unnecessary distinction between NGO and non-profit organization Scarykitty 08:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

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