Wikipedia talk:Collaborations

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[edit] Overviews

I have some concerns with creating overviews for each collaboration project.

  1. Large overlap with the collaborations template.
  2. The constant birth and death of collaborations would require near-constant editing and re-editing of this page.
  3. No other top-level overview page does this. The page on WikiProjects doesn't attempt to overview every wikiproject--it would be a logistical nightmare.
  4. Doesn't add much to the wikipedian's experience: the name of the collaboration is usually enough to pique one's interest.
  5. Overloads this page's length, TOC, and general usefulness. I think we should remain on-point with the most useful information about collaborations in general, and about setting up new collaborations.
  • Understandable, it was just stated in the project page that the page was supposed to have that. It wouldn't require constant updating though, just the new collabs when this done.(Idea is to have inactive ,and active). Anyway, I'll go either way with this but for now I removed the text in the article refering to the overviews. Falphin 22:40, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Commonwealth of Nations Numismatics

We could do with a lot of help from the numismatists on the board with improving the articles in this project, especially with photos. I can't provide photos, as I have to borrow a computer, which does not have a scanner or a digital camera attached. If you are a coin dealer, we'd like your assistance with catalogue references. - (Aidan Work 01:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Where should the collaboration template go?

The Wikipedia:Collaborations states (with my emphasis)

Create a collaboration notice template, and insert it at the top of the talk page of current or nominated collaborations.

but later it says

General practice is to have the template marking the current collaboration at the top of the article in question while leaving the candidacy templates on the talk page.

Is that a contradiction?

I strongly disagree with putting any kind of such templates on article pages. They do not belong there and are distracting. The appropriate place for them is the talk page. I would like to raise some discussion on that. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I made a bit of a speech on this very issue to get the GA collaboration rules changed, and I don't think I have the time to re-type the whole thing, but my sentiments on the issue can be found at: Wikipedia talk:Good Article Collaboration of the week near the bottom. I would however agree that the rules are probably contradictory in this respect, however, it may be that the first one is talking about a different notice template than the one below, I dunno. Homestarmy 00:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The template should go on the talk page in my opinion. The only messages which go on article pages are ones directly relating to the content. Wikipedia messages go on talk pages. If they are to go on the article pages, then at least make them small! --Midnighttonight 02:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that all such templates should go on the talk pages. Paul August ☎ 00:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that the templates can be distracting, even ugly in some cases, I think they are too often overlooked if they are relegated to talk pages. So I support placement of temporary collaboration templates on article pages, although with reluctance in some cases. Perhaps we could agree on some guidelines for size, colour, etc to minimise the obtrusiveness of the templates? -- Avenue 00:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I think guidelines would be nice, 1 line ought to do it in my opinion. Of course, im one to talk since the collaboration I participate in has a 2-line template, but I can't figure out how to shrink it to a neat, single line of text :(. Homestarmy 00:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the article page is probably the place for the tag of the article being worked on. This results in only one tag per collaboration, bringing the total number of tags on the entire en.WP to like, what, twenty? Then you have to realize that all of those tags are on articles that are so bad that a group voted them in need of dire help. That being the case, I don't think the tag is taking anything away from the article. In fact, it is doing the opposite by letting visitors know that not only does en.WP realize the article quality is lacking, but that en.WP is organized and doing something about it.
With that being said, I think that only active collaborations should have tags on pages. If the collaboration is defunct, the tag is meaningless and will negate all of the pros I listed before. uriah923(talk) 03:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The mathematics article is not bad, rather in very good shape. And until I changed it, that collaboration template was with red text on reddish background, awful. I see the motivation for putting tags on articles needing cleanup, but not on good articles.
Besides, the surest way of people noticing the collaboration is via the collaboration project and other various posts, not on the article itself. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration templates belong on the talk page because they are not relevant to the general reader of the article (i.e. a non-contributor who has just picked the article from a Google search). Gandalf61 08:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Well what if somebody tries to reference Wikipedia while an article is in collaboration, and cites it, and suppose a teacher back checks it only to find the article has been changed? A collaboration template would help tell readers "Hey, this article is being worked on, yo!" Homestarmy 14:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Articles are always being worked on, whether in collaboration or not. By definition, all of Wikipedia is fluid at all times. I find your argument a bit unconvincing. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
But think of it this way, if you've got a collaboration, that's somewhat like an extra cluster of Wikipedia editors focusing themselves on an article, often times with the goal of changing it as much as necessary to become an FA. Many articles are relatively stagnent until a collaboration comes on by, and while an article can surely change at any time, collaboration status makes it far more likely that it will change much more drastically, especially in the way of getting references, which is basically what verifies most information. With the push to improve an article much more strong, information and references will probably change much more rapidly and drastically than normal editing would do. Besides, the single line templates aren't that ugly, maybe make a standardized style for all of them onto one line, it could make it look more formal. Homestarmy 17:37, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that tasteful and unobtrusive tags on the article page are the way to go. uriah923(talk) 18:05, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree that these templates belong on the talk page - ESPECIALY the potential COTW templates like {{USnom}} - no one but editors needs to know that information. While I disagree that those using wikipedia need notice that an article is under current collaboration; there is at least some logic to that. But putting a notice on somthing that may or may not ever be collaborated on is meta data that does not belong on the article page. Additionally, as indicated in the recent signpost article on the subject of metadata on the article pages - even templates that only add small unobtrusive icons are generally still reaching concensus to be deleted except for the most popular ones ({{featured article}} and {{Spoken Wikipedia}}) Trödel 21:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
notice I went ahead and moved all of the {{USnom}} to the talk page so that it doesn't end up being nominated for deletion while this is being discussed. Trödel 22:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I got to Games on {{COTWs}} removing all nomination templates being used on the article page as of 22:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC) Trödel :)
I think that candidate templates definently don't need to be on the article page, but should this discussino include both nomination templates and main templates? Homestarmy 22:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The nomination tags most definitely should go on the talk page, as there could be hundreds of them and their validity/importance hasn't been established. Active collaborations, however, are very few in number and are on articles that are usually voted to need lots of help. uriah923(talk) 22:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
No such templates are not restricted only to articles which "need lots of help". Paul August ☎ 23:04, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that think that candidate templates should be on the talkpage, but 'Active collaborations should go on the article page. Brian | (Talk) 07:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, candidate templates should be placed on both article and discussion pages. Paul James Cowie 07:26, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Meta information should go on talk pages only. This is an encyclopedia and while every article could use and under construction sign, that's implied in what we do. I can't believe there aren't more people that are chiming in that there's already been significant discussion and consensus that templates like this should only go on talk pages. It's not like the template is what draws someone in to edit the article. The collaboration pages themselves and other placces that point out the collaboration do that and it's fine for the template to be on the talk page. - Taxman Talk 21:44, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well whatever discussion happened, most collaborations seem to of either ignored it or didn't care, because most of them seem to still place their tags on article pages. Homestarmy 00:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

There hasn't been discussion on this in over a month, but I would like to see a consensus reached so we don't have 20 different collaboration projects all working with different rules. Whatever is decided, it should apply to all projects. I feel that according to what the Help:Namespaces are used for, and WP:ASR, that these sorts of templates should go on talk pages. Any message aimed towards editors should go on talk. Any message aimed towards casual readers (such as NPOV tags and clean up tags etc) should go in the main article namespace. Some editors have suggested that placing the collaboration templates in the main article namespace works to advertise these projects. However, I do not think the encyclopedic integrity of an article should be compromised in order to advertise to editors, or otherwise encourage lay readers to participate. If someone is interested, they can actively seek out the project pages, or come across the templates almost just as easily through the talk pages. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Whatever happens, I hope we can reach a decision, and that we can apply it for all the collaboration projects. --Andrew c 22:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Some of us have also expressed the idea that putting the collaboration template on the main article helps to inform casual readers that the content of the article may change more rapidly that the article may normally change. Homestarmy 23:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Well if that is the case, a) I think the templates should be revised in order to suit that meaning better and b) we should put similar tags on some of the most edited articles (surely there is a way to figure out the top 20 articles that get the most edits per day). I think the compromise that most collabortion projects have reached, put the nomination templates on talk, and the weekly article templates on the main article, seems sufficient (while I personally would like to see them all on talk, in the spirit of compromise, hold back those feelings). --Andrew c 00:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
My view remains the same - they should be on the top of talk pages only. But I am willing to compromise on the actual selection. However, for nominee templates I feel to put them on the article page is goes agianst policy. --Trödel 02:32, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

This discussion seems to have ended, but any kind of self-referential (so to speak) templates should probably go under discussion only... Mad Jack 16:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, I plan on bringing this up with some of the projects within the next week --T-rex 19:34, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LGBT?

Was just looking at the Collaboration templates' sections, and have no idea where WP:LGBT's Collaboration would go. Anyone know? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Standing lists at Wikiprojects

To facilitate throughput to GA and FA, I'm trialling this; I've listed Standing Lists of large articles with substantial content which may be within striking distance of GA with varying amounts of work WRT formatting and copyediting. Some are already being worked on but I'm seeing if this increases collaboration. So far I've done this on WP mammals talk page and WP Birds collab pages. Be interesting to see if more of these come through cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 01:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RfC: Should the collaboration template appear on the article page

Some editors have suggested that the collaboration template should not appear on the article page. They have raised the matter at Wikipedia talk:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight#ACOTF template and also at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Wikipedia:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight . At WP:ANI it was suggested that the issue be escalated more generally and it should not consider only the Australian collaboration but collaboration projects in general. I note the issue was discussed above on this page (Wikipedia talk:Collaborations#Where should the collaboration template go? butthe project page states at Wikipedia:Collaborations#Templates at the time of my writing this General practice is to have the template marking the current collaboration at the top of the article in question while leaving the candidacy templates on the talk page. --Matilda talk 00:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

This RfC should go at Wikipedia talk:Template namespace#Usage which is the guidline for template usage - it would overule the consensus of this page. Ryan Postlethwaite 01:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RfC concluded

The conversation seems to have died down, so I have updated the page here in a manner I believe to be consistent with the decision:

“ Allow active collaborations to mark the article page, but if the collaboration goes for over twice as long as it is scheduled to, the tag should be removed and the collaboration marked inactive. ”

The wording is not quite the same, as that wording doesn't fit here. --Scott Davis Talk 12:21, 25 March 2008 (UTC)