Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mesoamerica/Archive 2006

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Contents index of WP:MESO archived discussion topics



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Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation

The WP:MESO article rating and assessment scheme is up and running as of 2006-07-05, and it looks as if the first pass of Mathbot auto-updates to Mesoamerica articles by quality rating has been successful.--cjllw | TALK 04:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Project startup

Like it says, this project is very much in draft mode. I'll continue working on getting it into some sort of usable order, but if anyone happens to drop by with some ideas or desire to help out, then please do!--cjllw | TALK 07:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

An update- have unfortunately been rather too distracted (as well as busy on some Real-Life tasks) to progress much further with overall layout and project content/documentation. I've some ideas and am still working on them, hopefully will put these into practice/up for comment by the next two weeks or so. Again, suggestions welcomed.--cjllw | TALK 09:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

"Mesoamerica"- geographical scope

(prompted in part by Matt's offer of assistance on proj pg re Columbus & Taino)
While many interpretations of Mesoamerica used by various reference works exclude or ignore the Carribbean islands, in the absence of any project focussed on the history of the Carribbean I don't see why these may not also be considered in scope; certainly, there is a pre-Columbian --cjllw | TALK 09:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC) a

The reason the caribbean is not considered a part of mesoamerica is that the islands doesnt share the cultural traits that are used to define mesoamerica as cultural and not just a geographic arefrontier and trading connection between the islands and the mainland areas. They have different agricultural practices, different mythological complexes, and different social organisations etc. Indeed they lack most of the really defining traits of the mesoamerican area such as Maize, Ballgame, 260 day calendar. Basically they were oot of the loop of interaction that caused the diffusion of these traits throught out the area known as mesoamerica.--Maunus 16:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

V1.0 of project structure layout implemented

It's taken a little longer than anticipated, but the Project's structure and layout has now been completely overhauled, and some additional content added. This structure revolves around the Project Main page, which provides links and windows to the content of a number of Project subpages which have been set up, each addressing a particular facet of the project. Updates to the project documentation and work efforts take place on these subpages, while the results are visible on the main page. Most of the presentational and formatting markup is hidden away on separate layout pages, for protection and to avoid cluttering up the editing window when working on the project, and also to make it easier to keep the formatting consistent. The structure is explained a little more here, but (I hope) should be reasonably self-explanatory.

There are three main sections defined, each consisting of a series of subpages:

  • 01. Project Definition - information describing the project, its goals and scope, guidelines, resources, and so on. This section can be "hidden" if desired by using the 'show/hide' toggle link to the right of the title.
  • 02. Project Activities - the work and activities for the project, such as To-Do list, Open Tasks, and so on. Some of the content here is still under construction.
  • 03. Project Catalogue - survey of Mesoamerica-related articles, lists, templates, categories and images. These still need to be updated, organised, categorised, and rated. Some sections and features are still under construction.

Any comments on the content, appearance and usability of this structure would be appreciated- putting it all together was more a case of "monkey see - monkey do" than any real markup expertise on my part, and I'm sure there are a number of improvements and efficiencies to be made. The pages look fine in IE6 and Firefox at my local settings, but would be particularly interested to hear if there are any browser display problems.--cjllw | TALK 10:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

After playing around with the V1.0 structure for a bit now, it is starting to seem a little too cumbersome to have all three Main sections (listed above) on a single page. Am now considering breaking the main page into three separate pages, will give it a go and see what that looks like.--cjllw | TALK 02:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

V2.0 of project structure layout implemented

Project structure and layout has now been overhauled to break the project mainpage up into three separate mainpages- Definition, Activities and Catalogue, since the all-at-once approach was appearing too crowded. Each of these three main pages has a series of associated subpages, which appear transcluded (either whole or in part) on these main pages. The actual work takes place on these subpages, while the results are passed through a layout formatting 'template' for consistent viewing from the main pages.--cjllw | TALK 04:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Mesoamerica as the WP:SPATRA

The Mesoamerica article was recently selected as this week's Spanish Translation of the Week. The article is basically finished now, and it's a straight translation of the Spanish article with very little added. You might want to take a look at it, check it for factual errors, and/or trim it down (at 88kb, it'a a huge article). We're translators, not historians, so once the translation is wrapped up, the SPATRA crew will move on and probably not look back. - Draeco 17:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Draeco, have been watching that translation with keen interest, and kudos to the SPATRA team for a job well done. Will certainly be reviewing that article now that a stable version has been reached. Thanks again!--cjllw | TALK 00:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Article rating and assessments

Now that the initial round of article assessment ratings has been completed for practically all of the currently-tagged {{WP Mesoamerica}} articles -thanks to all-, it might be beneficial to review each of the by importance and by quality categories to check whether any articles are perhaps out-of-place when compared to others in the same category, and so could need a change of rating. My assignments at least were done more by rule of thumb at the time, and there are probably some inconsistencies. If anyone has some ideas on expanding on the guidelines for classifying by importance or quality, feel free to make suggestions or amendments to the WP:MESO/RATE guidelines. As for any procedures to notify or validate changes of the rating values for an article, a brief note on the article's talkpage accompanied by setting the project banner parameter |reassess=yes might be the go, but am open to other suggestions/enhancements.

With around 283 rated Mesoamerican articles now recorded, there are probably just about that number again of existing articles which are yet to be tagged with the project banner, not to mention the articles yet-to-be-created. These can be added to as we come across them, or perhaps after some more dedicated searches for likely candidates, but a lot of the tedious work in tracking them down is now done. Hopefully the results of the automatically-compiled quality listing now make it easier to see which of the priority articles need the most work, and to select a few for concerted effort. Of course, anyone's welcome to work on whichever article or topic interests them regardless of priority, but hopefully overall some focus on improving the "core topics" will be easier to establish.--cjllw | TALK 08:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Note that the same assessment rating functionality has now been implemented in the project banner for the descendant WikiProject WP:AZTEC, {{WP Aztec}}, so that these articles too may be included in the overall Mesoamerican assessment scheme. The parameters are the same, and in addition to adding the assessed articles into the various Mesoamerica by quality and by importance categories, they also place the article into specific Aztec by quality and by importance categories, so they may be separately be identified for those folks interested in Aztec-related articles. See the WP:Aztec assessment page for these listings and stats.
In short, whether an article's talk pg is tagged with WP Aztec or WP Mesoamerica banners, it will show up in the Mesoamerican rating categories and lists, however only WP Aztec-tagged articles will display in the Aztec rating cats & lists.--cjllw | TALK 08:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

added a mesoamerica page today and would appreciate review

To day I added the page Mesoamerican Linguistic Area and I would appreciated that it was added to the mesoamerica project and also that it was reviewed by you guys. Thanks--Maunus 18:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, Maunus, good to see more contributions in the linguistics arena. Will definitely give it a look over, regards--cjllw | TALK 02:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

WP mesoamerica ethnic bias

I have noticed that the articles that are tagged to the project seem to have a bas towards certan ethnc groups within mesoamerica. I see articles about aztec and mayan topics mainly, while other important mesoamerican cultures seem to be left out: zapotec, mixtec, p'urhépecha (tarascan), totonac, huastec, otomi, mixe, zoque are all important mesoamerican cultures that should fall under the scope of the project. But still those of them that have articles already seem to not be tagged to the project and some groups havent even got articles. Could someone help me by adding those groups (and other groups that fall under the scope) to the project either by tagging and assessing their articles or adding them to requested articles. Also I think that in all cases there should be an article on the people and an article on the language.--Maunus 09:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Maunus, indeed there are a great many other Mesoamerican cultures which can and should be taken into the scope of this project, but as yet have not been tagged as such (or indeed, their articles may be missing from wikipedia entirely). It's not a case of any intentional or unintentional bias, however, more a case of not yet getting around to fully identifying them all. I'd also till now held off tagging a few of these with the project banner, until it could be worked out whether and how to split up the article into separate ones on the historical culture (ie primary focus of this project, as initially conceived) and the contemporary indigenous population (since there'd be an overlap for these with the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America), like is already done for Maya civilization- Maya peoples. Which is not to say this project will only look at pre-Columbian aspects; the contemporary history and description of Mesoamerican peoples would be of interest and in scope for the project as well.
Also agree that information on their languages should be covered in separate articles from ones concerning the peoples/cultures themselves, a start on this has been made but since there's only a handful of folks regularly editing in this field it's been a lengthy process; and since Maya and Aztec are the better known to the general editing community, there's been more work done on those. Hopefully though we can work on bringing in more material on the lesser-known, but equally significant, Mesoamerican cultures, a stated aim of this project.
It might be an idea to set up a comprehensive list of Mesoamerican cultures to help identify the missing ones, and for those which do have articles identify which need splitting into separate articles (on language & people, & historical culture(s)). That's one thing I'd been planning but have not yet gotten around to it.--cjllw | TALK 09:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Where would we set up such a list? If you start it somewhere I'll begin elaborating it little by little.--Maunus 16:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Probably the most natural place would be at the Strategy subpage, which was initially intended to contain details of the individual tasks and subprojects. However, I've been planning to overhaul this subpage as the current tabular format doesn't seem to really be working or be entirely necessary. So give me a little while and I'll rejig the structure of that subpg, and include there a section for this activity.--cjllw | TALK 02:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


Maya art article?

I'm a newcomer to the Mesoamerica project, and I was wondering if there would be any interest in creating an article on Maya Art. There certainly is enough information out there to create one, and I think it would be a worthwile addition to the project. If anyone is interested in helping with this add your comments below. Akubra 14:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I say go for it. Be bold! I'll help you along once it gets going. Maunus 15:56, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I just put up the page, it needs some more information, but I'm too tired to do it now :) I live pretty close to the British Museum, which has some Maya pieces; I might go sometime soon and take some pictures to add to this article. But for now, I would appreciate if anyone with any additional knowledge on the subject would add it to the article. Akubra 20:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Cannibalism in Mexico:The Aztecs and the Mayans

Check out this article. Should we expand it or delete it? If nothing else, the title is too long. It should be Cannibalism in pre-Columbian Mexico. However, I'd like your opinion on whether that is a promising topic for an article or if this should just be treated in the Aztec and Maya articles.

--Richard 08:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the redirect to Human sacrifice in Aztec culture now employed should suffice at the moment, particularly since the orig article was quite slipshod. There might conceivably be scope for an article on Cannibalism in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, but the topic could perhaps best be covered first in some overarching article on Mesoamerican social/ritual practices. I don't think that there's all that much (reputable) data on the topic to work with anyway, particularly for non-contact era cultures; but could possibly be worked on if someone had a mind to do so.--cjllw | TALK 03:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
This

2012

I think it would be an idea if project members were to keep a watchful eye on the article for the year 2012, given its popular association with the "end" of the Maya calendar. I've just removed some of the more egrarious New Ageisms and updated the Dec. 21 entry with a more factual, less sensationalistic account of the Maya Long Count calendar workings and its possible significance to the pre-Columbian Maya; however it seems that this article is periodically 'adorned' with the latest speculative musings about this year/date. As we get closer to that year, there will surely be an increase in pseudo-factual additions at this and related articles, in particular Maya calendar.--cjllw | TALK 08:54, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Mesoamerican lectures in the US

US-based project members might be interested in the updated listing of public lectures, presentations and fora maintained by Mike Ruggeri at his Ancient America/Mesoamerica website, here. This is a compilation of upcoming academic presentations on the latest research open to the public (some with a fee) from all over the US (and some in Canada & Mexico, too). If anyone's able to go to one of these it may well prove a valuable opportunity and source for new materials, and the listing is well worth keeping an eye on.--cjllw | TALK 00:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 16:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Pre-Columbian "African contacts"

There seem to be a number of articles springing up which rather (too-)uncritically assert the claims for precolumbian Africa-Americas contact. It would be worthwhile to keep an eye on these.

Ones noted so far include African exploration of the Americas, Abubakari II, Muslims first journey to America, Native Americans and Islam.

While several of these contain information which is reasonable, they do at the moment also present the claims as historical fact, and are at-odds with what almost if not all contemporary scholarship accepts as demonstrated or even likely.--cjllw | TALK 09:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't take any more of this - Wikipedia is simply too inefficient. It will succumb to ideologically and religiously based pseudosciece if they don't find a way to add such crap to the criteria for speedy deletion. Maunus 10:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Agree that it can be quite frustrating at times, and that wikipedia has an exposure when there are several determined contributors bent on pushing some ideological barrow, particularly when they operate from multiple accounts and in areas that few have direct knowledge or expertise on.
However, for the moment at least collective efforts against such pushes are effective in at least identifying and quarantining such material, although it can take far too long to redress for my liking.
Also, if the POV and false claims are stripped away, these articles can (under different titles, perhaps) have a reason, justification and purpose to exist here- there have been a number of hypotheses put forward over the years on external contacts/influences on Mesoamerica, not all of them from crackpot or ideologically-driven sources, and to the extent the general public might encounter them elsewhere they can be covered here- but with the appropriate context and caveats re their failure to be accepted by contemporary scholarship.--cjllw | TALK 22:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

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 20:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)