Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Archive 3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Scouting Wiki Project Wikipedia WikiProject Scouting/Archive 3 is part of the Scouting WikiProject, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Scouting and Guiding on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to boy and girl organizations, WAGGGS and WOSM organizations as well as those not so affiliated, country and region-specific topics, and anything else related to Scouting. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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Archive
Archives
1. 21 Jan 2006 – 03 Jul 2006
2. 6 July 2006 – November 2006
3. December 2006 – March 2007
4. April 2007 – ...

Contents

Related Question: Category:Guiding

What should we do with this category? If we consent that there is no distinct Guide movement, it's unnecessary. If not it needs a better definition: Actually it is quite unclear which articles should go in this category. --jergen 07:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I see this is what you think we should discuss. I suggest that anything that refers to a Guide person or activity should go into that category. In fact anything that is Guiding except for articles on WAGGGS organisations, which are in the WAGGGS category that is below Guiding, should go there. Note that WAGGGS is in Category:Guiding for the GG and in Category:Scouting for the GS. I think that is appropriate, even if not entirely logical. I think it helps to show that we are treating Guiding seriously in the Project. Guiding may or may not be a distinct movement (people may have different views) but it is certainly a term that has a lot of loyalty, and support as a distinction from Scouting. I suggest we leave things as they are. --Bduke 08:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I've looked at this to see what your guys are talking about. What's odd is that WAGGGS is both on the same level as Guiding (both as a sub of Scouting, as is WOSM) and also a sub of Guiding. If we make WAGGGS only a sub of Guiding, some GG/GS may say why isn't WAGGGS at the same level as WOSM? I have a suggestion that I think will meet both your concerns and also follow wiki policy on categories: Put WAGGGS, WOSM, and the non-aligned cat all under "Scouting related associations" and put WAGGGS under Guiding also. Thoughts? I've put this on both your talk pages. Rlevse 12:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

See by sandbox, User:Rlevse/sandbox, Jergen and I have worked something out. Rlevse 14:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Inviting Participation

I am aware that there are people on Wikipedia who are likely to be/have been Guides, based on their posts. I was wondering about inviting them to join the Scouting Wikiproject, as they may not know we cover Guiding too. Does anyone have any advice on how to do this successfully? Kingbird 17:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

We are listed here, and I listed Guiding specifically: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory/History_and_society#Social_organizations. I'll look for other ways to advertise. The portal also lists that we cover Guiding, etc. Rlevse 18:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I've now put a goals and scope section at the top of our project page. Rlevse 22:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
KINGBIRD-I'd be honored for you to write an article about us for: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/About. Rlevse 22:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for inviting me to write about the project in this way. At this time, I'm afraid I must decline due to lack of time. I have recently committed to doing work on Girlguiding UK matters, both programme details and regional information, plus I was already researching information for a few new articles when I made those commitments. I want to keep on enjoying being part of the Scouting Wikiproject, not feeling hassled by being over-committed.
No problem, it would be a good way to advertise the project, so I'll do it sometime this weekend.Rlevse 15:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Added a blue Guiding link on the project talk page template. Rlevse 11:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

130th Glasgow Company, The Boys' Brigade

If we are interested in the Boys' Brigade, this article is up for deletion. It is not straight forword as it does seen fairly notable and old. --Bduke 21:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't find anything that notable about it - apart from the names of the various leaders involved, that could be a fairly generic article on other BB companies. Horus Kol 08:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Caio Vianna Martins

I just started a stub article on Brazilian Scout and national hero Caio Vianna Martins, if anyone has anything to contribute to it. -- Writtenonsand 05:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Page redesign

I've been working ideas for improving our project page layout for some time--I for one am tired of all that scrolling! I started working on Scouting WikiProject Navigation box a few days ago. Over the next several days, I'll be working this and at various points playing with the page layout. None of it is chiseled in stone, so if you have ideas, please leave talk here on this talk page. Rlevse 23:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Could I mention the instructions for placing the Scouting Portal tag? The How you can help section and the Templates section indicate different places to put it. I haven't liked to change either section as I haven't been around here too long. Also, if using the WorldScouting Infobox, should we omit the Scouting Portal tag, as for the BSA box, or not? I don't mind the what the answer is, I'd just be happier knowing the standard. Many thanks, Kingbird 16:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Fixed the portal discrepancy, it should go in See also, BUT if you use the info box, since it has a portal link builtin, you'd don't need to use the standalone portal tag. Rlevse 16:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, I've just dropped in the first version of the navigation pane. Constructive feedback and ideas for improvement are welcome.Rlevse 18:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Interesting colour scheme... it was a little too bright for viewing before my first cuppa of the morning... Horus Kol 10:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I went with green, gold, and ivory....ivory to offset a tad from the white background of main space, green and gold as they are good Scout colors. I'll check for a tad darker green, but before when I used one particular darker green, it was too dark. Rlevse 10:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)....try the one I just changed too. Rlevse 11:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Its a bit easier on the eyes now... good work with the reorganisation. Horus Kol 08:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm now putting this on all project pages. Rlevse 03:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this original research?

I just came upon History of the Scout movement in Poland and don't know what to to with this article in need. It names only one unpublished source for the whole text - to me this is quite near to original research. Waht should we do with it? --jergen 09:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, quite interesting, but it says it's based on a memoir, which we can't verify as it's not a web reference. I'd say it's not original research, but more likely a copy vio, but we can't verify that. I'd hate to lose this interesting info on the other hand. Rlevse 11:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Looks like most of this was added by User:Andrzej anonimus. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 11:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Explorer Scouts

I've been following the recommendations of the peer review I had made, and I think I've taken it as far as I can... could anyone else do a copyedit and see if there are any more links we can get in there? Horus Kol 10:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Boy Scout Vespers

Hello, I have added a comment at Talk:Boy Scout Vespers. Carolynparrishfan 23:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

UK Scout County Style

I'd like to come up with a standard style for the UK Scout County articles - I've been developing one with Scouting in Royal Berkshire (trying to get the relevant information in the article for anyone interested in the County)... firstly, I'd like any suggestions about it... and then how do I let people know about it? Cheers, Horus Kol 15:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Images of World Scout Bureau document

I have some images of a certicate and a letter from World Scout Bureau for accepting a new member. Could I upload to commons or here? If yes, What kinds of license could be written down in their comments? — HenryLi (Talk) 22:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

wikisource is probably a better place. I think GFDL is automatice for wikisource and wikicommons.Sumoeagle179 02:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
It's an image, not text. As the copies of document are written by World Scout Bureau, I'm worry about copyright. Is it in fair use or public? — HenryLi (Talk) 13:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, try User:Wimvandorst, I'm not sure.Sumoeagle179 12:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. — HenryLi (Talk) 00:53, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Return to wiki

Many thanks to all who supported me during my MUCH NEEDED WikiBreak. Now I FULLY understand why they are needed. What an intense year! Man, did I need that break. Many thanks to you all for supporting the project. You are all fine Scouters and editors. Let’s keep improving our articles. Scouting is still a FAC (not sure if it’ll make it or not on this round) and the Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting Task Force was recently started—please support the GG/GS Task Force if you can. We really want to beef up our articles in that area. I myself ordered a book on Our Chalet and have started an article on that. Yours in Scouting, Rlevse 21:32, 29 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 22:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Lead coordinator

I am sure that all participants in the Project are delighted that Rlevse has returned to WP and the Project. When he left he resigned as lead coordinator. He has asked me, as coordinator for Project mediation to seek consensus whether the Project wants to hold an election, where I understand Rlevse would stand, or just to ask him back as coordinator. I therefore ask you to give your views below. Please vote for Hold an election or Ask him back, although of course other opinions, comments etc are welcome. I will start the process. --Bduke 23:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I should have added that I will close this discussion in a week or sooner if an overwhelming consensus develops. --Bduke 00:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Ask him back. I sense that the Project is more than delighted with the leadership that Rlevse has given over the last year and simply wants him to continue with the minimum of fuss. --Bduke 23:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Return to duty --JohnDBuell 23:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Welcome back, your seat's still warm Chris 02:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Ask him back I feel he performed very well and would continue to do so.Sumoeagle179 02:35, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Ask him back he's done well in the past, and I know he will continue to do well in the future. Darthgriz98 02:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Ask him back, but it is his choice, not his duty.--Egel Reaction? 15:54, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Ask him back; he needed a break and I don't want to do it :-) --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:24, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • He wasn't gone: going on a wikibreak, even if you make a little bit more fuss about it, doesn't change any informal status the lead coordinator functionary has. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 15:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

This seems a pretty solid consensus with all comments agreeing and no new contributions for over a day. I am therefore closing this discussion. Rlevse, put your coodinator's hat back on and get to work! Actually you seem to have been working very hard on the Project since your return. Well done, we look forward to more excellent leadership for a long time to come.

Having said that, I suggest we do discuss whether there should be a term for the appointment of the coordinator, say one year, or whether we just leave it informal. I think I am an appropriate person to raise this question, since, for reasons I will not discuss here, I have absolutely no intention of ever being coordinator of this project. Let us discuss this broadly below, and see whether a consensus develops. --Bduke 22:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

  • The advantage of a term with, say, a call for interest early in December and then a debate or vote, might allow a smooth transition with one coordinator mentoring the next for a short time. The alternative might be the total departure of one coordinator in a stressed out condition. I therefore support a year's term. --Bduke 22:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks for everyone's support. I support a one year term with no limit on being reelected. Let's do it every Dec and close in early Jan, like we just did. Bduke is in charge of overseeing it. This will give folks a chance to openly voice concerns, if any exist. MILHIST does it this way and has had the same lead coord for some years but they still hold the election.Rlevse 22:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I am taking it that people agree with Rlevse, so let us do it as he suggests. --Bduke 23:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


Happy New Year

Hey, all, the very best wishes for 2007!!! Wim van Dorst (Talk) 15:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC).

You too, brother, and to all sisters and brothers in Scouting! Chris 07:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

al-Mahdi Scouts

Fox News on January 1, 2007 had a report on the al-Mahdi Scouts, a youth wing of the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The really interesting thing is, outwardly, they look very much like traditional Scouts, with the normal uniforms (light and medium blue, white, yellow and purple for different groups) and badges and all. The flags being flown from cars and along the roadside showed the emblem, again a traditional fleur-de-lis, whose petals are left-to-right green/white/red, and in the top center of which is a hand with an out-turned palm, possibly the Hand of Fatima, and supported on left and right by single scimitars. Can anyone support/document this? In itself it would be a most interesting article. Chris 07:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It's clear that this organization exists but it's status in Scouting is unknow: There are no reliable sources on the members of the Fédération du Scoutisme Libanais - according to some sources this militant anti-zionist organization is a member of the federation and of WOSM. We had hot discussions on this topic in some German Scouting boards resulting in questioning WOSM about this organization. This was in last August, but there is no final answer yet. Quote: We well received your message and we forwarded it to the Lebanese federation through Georges Ghorayeb, also member of the World Scout Committee (Cc to this message). Please understand that our brother scouts are currently busy with relief work. I hope we will be able to give you the accurate information very soon.
Some links:
Hope this helps. --jergen 09:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Jergen! I am pretty sure, based on the news report, that this is more a political organization which has taken on the names/symbols... of Scouting, but in truth is probably more of a Political or military youth organisation. I'll get to work on it as I get time. Chris 10:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
If someone knows Libanees: al-Mahdi Scouts in the Internet Archive --Egel Reaction? 10:53, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Sites of Jamborees

Is it appropriate to put articles on sites of Jamborees, such as Arrowe Park, in the Project with the big template on the talk page, when the Scouting content is one sentence in quite a large article. Several have just been added. I doubt it is appropriate. If it is, Sutton Park should be so tagged. --Bduke 22:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Well, Arrowe Park is listed as Low Importance, as it is indeed merely touching on the subject of Scouting. And I don't think that is it so very wrong. The Arrowe Park is just a stub anyhow: perhaps when it is enlarge to FA quality, the Scouting part will be more? No big deal, I'd say, with appropriate importance (Low). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC).
    • I almost took the tags off, but went with leaving them, but Low imp. I agree with Wim. Let's make this a defacto rule, or an official one if you guys want.Rlevse 22:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
      • It already is a rule: (from the Importance Assessment table): Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within the field of Scouting, and may have been included primarily to achieve comprehensive coverage of another topic (such as a subcamp of a Scout reservation). Just to avoid extra rules and regulation (read: work for our well-rest (albeit already again nearly overworked ;-) lead coord. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
That does cover it in my opinion, it just doesn't explicitly say "cities where jambos were held"-;) Rlevse 03:03, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • That's because you looked right after you edited it-;) Rlevse 01:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Image:AlbaniaScouts.jpg

The image deletionists are at it again, will someone please help me save this graphic? Chris 02:04, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Listed this on the "delete" section of the project page. Rlevse 03:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Sorry, Chris, but this is really a copyright infringement, as well as a privacy violation. But easily solved, I guess: just ask the Spanish the webmaster of the site where you grabbed it from whether he would can give it into the public domain. The 'Contact Us' is on the home page of their website. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 10:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC).
    • Yep ... the new(er) interpretation of the policy is that if the person is living or the building is standing, it's replaceable. I really wish that old photos had been grandfathered in (kinda like was done with images missing rationales or uploaded under a non-commercial license) so that they could be replaced gradually ... but that didn't happen. I don't think the discussion on the talk page is really going to matter - when an admin reviews it in a week, it's gone. Please see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission for instructions on seeking permission. Specifically, if they are willing to release the image under the GFDL or into the public domain, that permission needs to be emailed to "permissions-en AT wikimedia DOT org". --BigDT 10:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand the privacy bit, but I have written to the site master, turns out I know three of the five contacts listed. Thanks for the heads-up. Chris 10:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
That policy makes no sense at all. If there's only one known copy of a person/building, then it is not replaceable. What are people supposed to do, like in this case is to fly to Albania to get their own. This is expecting too much of people and another case of extremists getting control of wiki.Rlevse 13:12, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
It may not be easily replaceable. But it is potentially replaceable. I wouldn't be overly inclined to fly to Albania ... but there is an Albanian Wikipedia where someone who speaks the language could make the request. [1]. Category:Wikipedians in Albania gives five en Wikipedians who self-identify as being from Albania. One of them - User:ProgressiveΛeternus is active here and on the Albanian Wikipedia. If contacting the owner of this image falls through, I would suggest contacting User:ProgressiveΛeternus to ask for help. --BigDT 15:16, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip, 5 isn't much to work with, especially for an area like Scouting, but maybe one will come through.Rlevse 15:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
See also Category:User sq - that gives 41 users who speak Albanian and Category:User sq-N gives 24 who speak it as a native language. That may give a few more to work with. --BigDT 16:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons

Hey everyone - Randy asked me to mention Wikimedia Commons here. Commons is another Wikimedia project whose mission is to store free (no fair use) images that may be used on any project. Only images that are unquestionably free can be uploaded there. Any image on Commons "automagically" comes through to Wikipedia. For example, if you take a look at Image:Virginia Tech War Memorial Chapel sunset.jpg, both the image and talk pages are redlinked. But anywhere that the image is used, it shows up and pulls the image from Commons.

There is a built-in security feature such that once an image is uploaded to Commons, you are prevented from uploading an image here with the same name. That means that once the project logo is deleted locally, nobody can vandalize every single Scouting page by uploading an unScoutlike picture.

Commons has articles like Commons:Virginia Tech or Commons:glasses that are essentially galleries of images that can be used for articles on a given topic. There is already a Commons:Scouting article. If you contribute an image to Commons, you can add it to that article and then it can be used by anyone on any WikiMedia project.

Many projects consider it a goal to enhance Commons coverage of images dealing with their topic. I think that would be a good Scouting goal as well. We could create articles for camping, or other Scouting topics.

Please keep in mind, as a general warning, that they are, out of necessity, more restrictive than enWiki. For example, even things that nobody on en Wiki would really mind - like a photo that prominently displays a copyrighted logo - should not be uploaded there to be on the safe side. (See Commons:Commons:derivative works for more than you ever wanted to know about this.) --BigDT 20:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we use WikiCommons as much as possible. Whether you agree or not, Wiki is increasingly moving towards free images. This option will give us an easy place to find free images (PD, CC, and GFDL) that can be used without question and on any wikipedia. BigDT is a Scouter and image tag expert, so I suggest we follow this suggestion here. His knowledge of Scouting and image tagging will help us navigate the often mystical world of image tags. He is listed as our image coordinator on this article's page and is ready to help us all. Many thanks to BigDT here! Rlevse 22:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
If anyone is interested in moving an image from here to Commons, please see Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons. There is a great tool that you can use - http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/commonshelper.php - that does 99.999% of the work for you. You just point it to the image that you want to move and it adds the text for the Commons description page. You need to create a Commons account first. Then open this tool, enter the name of the image that you want to move and then when it asks you to, save the Wikipedia version of the image to your hard drive. It will take you to the Commons upload page and it will already be fully decked out. Then, you come back to Wikipedia and tag the image with {{subst:ncd}} so that the Wikipedia copy of the image can be deleted (the Commons page will "show through"). If you have an image that is potentially useful, but isn't being used in an article right now, moving it to Commons is a great way of making sure that it doesn't get deleted as an orphaned image. Wikipedia isn't free webhosting and if an image is orphaned and we can't figure out at WP:IFD what it's supposed to be used for, it will be deleted. But if it is put on Commons (and preferably add it to an appropriate gallery or category), it's safe. --BigDT 22:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Then don't you have to add it to the Scouting article/gallery to get it to show there?Rlevse 23:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
If you upload an image to Commons, it will automatically be available for anyone on any Wikipedia to use ... if they know the filename or can find it when searching. But it makes it a lot easier to find if it's categorized or on an article. If you look at the very bottom right hand corner of en Wikipedia's Scouting article, there is a link to the Commons Scouting article. So anyone working on another language's Wikipedia can put a similar template on their Scouting article and everything is instantly readilly accessible to them. --BigDT 23:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
You missed my point, I meant don't you have to manually add the image to the Scouting gallery on Commons? Commons won't automatically know it's a Scouting image. Rlevse 23:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok ... yes ... the Commons:Scouting article is an article just like one on Wikipedia ... any image that you want there, you have to add to it. --BigDT 01:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, dumb question-do Scouting logos count? We have over 300 (see Gallery of Scout and Guide national emblems) that would be nice to share between wikis. Chris 23:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
No ... only free images can be uploaded to Commons. Anything that is fair use can only be here. --BigDT 00:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Please note that commons has other restrictions as well. For instance, they frown upon candid photos of people becuase in some European jurisdictions it can be legall construed as an invasion of the person's privacy to post such a photo (this depends on a complicated set of circumstances). Furthermore, commons is very strict about copyrighted images as well as images that show copyrighted images. A close-up photo of a merit badge or merit badge book is not OK. A poised photo of a scount wearing a merit badge sash is OK. A candid shot of a scout is probably OK.
One more point, it is true that you have to manually add the image to the Scouting gallery, but there is also a Scouting category that works just like the categories here - just add the right text to the photo description when you upload it (or anytime after-wards).
All that being said, I totally agree and support putting pictures on commons. I put all my photos there if they fit the criteria. I also sometimes go looking for suitable photos on the web. Essentially all photos taken by the US govt are public domain, so they qualify. Some people on Flikr release their photos appropriately as well. If you need a photo for an article, searching flikr is a good step to take. Johntex\talk 04:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Scout image naming

Okay, this may be a horribly bad idea, and unworkable, but I will throw it out to see what you think. Since we do have so many Scout images with so many names, which do not match each other, perhaps we should resave them under new names which specifically state what they are and where they're from? My idea is that they should use the Country code top-level domains, like is done at Flags of the World, like so:

A badge from the German Saint George association would be labeled like

Image:de.wosm.dpsg.1986 Image: de. (for Germany) wosm. (for supranational affiliation) dpsg. (acronym of organization) 1986 (something to describe it in the event there are several images for one organization)

while a badge from Japan may be labeled

Image:jp.wosm.saj.Scouts at camp and so on. Please no flames, just an idea. Chris 01:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

As a software engineer, I love that idea. Keep in mind, though, that there is no way to rename an image - they would have to be downloaded and re-uploaded. For the "free" images, this could be done as a part of migrating images to commons - move it to commons under the new name ... then delete the old image here. For the non-free ones ... I don't know ... flip a coin there. It's an interesting idea. Going forward, though, having a naming convention wouldn't be a horrible idea. --BigDT 02:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Nice, but it'd confuse the non-computer geeks.Rlevse 03:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I did say, "as a software engineer". Of course, I think things like grep are straight forward, so it may be a good idea to ignore me. ;) --BigDT 01:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi Chris, always good to provide fresh ideas, and for this one, I think you correctly estimated the horribleness and unworkability. ;-). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

article rename proposal

I propose that Scouting in breakaway and non-aligned organisations be renamed and moved to Breakaway and non-aligned Scouting organisations, it's just way less cumbersome in English. Didn't want to make this a voting matter for all of Wikipedia, we can figure it our ourselves. Chris 22:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't matter to me. I'll go with the majority vote. Let's allow this to run for 5-7 days.Rlevse 22:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • support moving. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC).
  • support - I agree it is a little smoother and more consistent with general naming practices on Wikipedia. Johntex\talk 04:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Project logo - SVG version

Several days ago, I asked at Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Images to improve if someone would look at making an SVG version of the project logo. SVG graphics are completely scaleable. In other words, it doesn't matter at what resolution the image is displayed. If you display [[Image:Scout logo2.svg|20px]] or [[Image:Scout logo2.svg|1000px]], it will completely scale.

current project logo

SVG logo

Recoloured SVG logo

Consider the userbox and the portal logo:

This user is a member of WikiProject Scouting.
This user is a member of WikiProject Scouting.
Scouting Portal
Scouting Portal


I think User:Time3000 did a great job with it ... if anyone would like to suggest some tweaks, please see Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Images to improve. Obviously, there are no policy issues here or any such thing - either or both versions of the logo can be used as desired - whatever is desired by everyone here. For a minor change (tweaking colors), I can probably do it myself. (SVG files can be edited by anyone in a text editor.) For anything major, we can ask at the graphics lab. --BigDT 17:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm not good at creating/editing graphics except simple stuff, but I like the SVG version. I'm giving Time3000 a wiki MB (black and white one). I'm putting into our portal, project, etc. Rlevse 17:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The scalability of the original PNG file wasn't bad, although it definitely gets grainy when scaled beyond +100% or so, downscaling is better. But a nice SVG is good too. Would it be possible to re-add the embroidery look of it? Now is looks rather flat, even when there's the colour gradient. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC).
    • I wish it were, but I don't think textures work in SVGs. --BigDT 23:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
This is one of the coolest collaborations our Project has produced-I was asked to create the original free non-specific logo, then Gadget Ed modified it, now this one, it just gets nicer each time. Next suggestion-can we plug it into the Commons to add a little color to our brother and sister German and French Scout WikiProjects? Chris 06:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
In addition, we have our own resident logo creation and cleanup genius in User:Zscout370, the work he's done on Belarusian and post-Soviet articles is vibrant and phenominal-I wonder if we can nominate folks for the Graphic Lab? Chris 06:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
ps-there are several images in the Gallery that could use some cleanup, so I came up with the half dozen in need of most help and asked Zach to look at them when he can. Chris 06:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I've already put the SVG and PNG versions in Commons.Rlevse 10:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Scouting Ireland

  • the scouting ireland article seems to be lacking of much information. and in other articles i can find hardly anything about scouting ireland, there are no mention of promise etc. could this be added to the project or sumthin?Daniel625 19:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but we need someone familiar with Irish Scouting. Try User:Stevecull. Rlevse

Proposed Changes to {{user vigil-n}}

I have created a proposed change to the {{User vigil-n}} user box at User:Z4ns4tsu/Sandbox2. It removes the options to change the box's colors, image, and text and instead uses options and parser functions to allow you to add your Vigil name and it's translation. Examples are at User:Z4ns4tsu/Sandbox3 and on my user page. Please look them over and then let me know if anyone else is interested in this at all. If not, I'll just leave it in my sandbox and use it myself. If so, we can discuss putting that code on the template's page. z4ns4tsu\talk 17:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

OK with me. They can be added to Scouting user templates cat when adopted.Rlevse 18:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
It looks like this will make the {{User:UBX/vigil}} and {{User vigil-n}} userboxes redundant. However, the coding is the same for the new vigil-n and the old vigil, so I would suggest that the new code be placed on vigil and a re-direct placed on vigil-n. Does that sound about right? z4ns4tsu\talk 19:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Fine with me ... I was actually going to suggest that. When I originally made {{user vigil-n}}, I was a new user and didn't know about optional parameters. There's no real reason for two different ones. ;) --BigDT 19:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I've made the changes. I spot-checked about five users pages to make sure they didn't break, and it looks good to me. I guess the next step would be to get the users who are pointing to vigil-n over to vigil so that the other can be deleted, but I don't know how to do that or who to talk to about that (I think it can be botted?). z4ns4tsu\talk 21:20, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I have updated all transclusions and nominated the redirect for deletion at WP:RFD. --BigDT 18:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

What Scouting really is

Scouting is too often confused with an association or the outdoors. That is not Scouting, those things are just veils to cover what we really do. Scouting (Girl Guides, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Ventuers, Explorers, etc) is really a program, system of beliefs, a way of living and thinking, all grounded in the same root, that we use to instill things like character, honor, and integrity. And for many of us, such as me, it's also an extended family. Let's stop worrying about how we're different and focus on how we're alike and what we're really about. (pasted from a thread at GSUSA talk) Rlevse 11:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Well said.Sumoeagle179 20:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Tin Tun

Would you please watch over this article? A biased newbie keeps editing out what I verified and documented. As a Scouting bio I don't want to see our pages violated. Chris 20:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Layout of wikiproject page

As Randy just reverted my alteration of the wikiproject page, I'd like to mention here that personally I find the page very cluttered. Finding the Table of Contents in the middle of section 2 doesn't help either. And I tried to find an obvious place for wikiproject announcements, but couldn't. Anyone else having an opinion on this? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC).

Forcing actionable items way down past the nav pane isn't the answer either. Rlevse 23:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Why not doing away with the TOC then, and improving the navigational pane to actually do navigation?? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm all open to improvement, but we shouldn't test on the live project page. Feel free to use my sandbox to testing, that's what I did when I made the nav pane. See email too. Rlevse 23:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

invitations of great resources

Administrators and friends, I have sent invitations to join our project to two of the greatest Scouting resources on the net, http://www.troop97.net (maybe later) and http://n2zgu.50megs.com/ (no thanks). I must be doing it wrong. Would someone else take it upon themselves to invite the webmaster of http://pinetreeweb.com/ ? Thanks, Chris 03:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Pinetree web was asked before and said no, but anyone can try again. Rlevse 04:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Do we have something specific in mind we would like them to contribute? Also, have they made any specific objections as to why they don't want to help us out? Johntex\talk 04:32, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

REQUEST FOR OPINIONS - Isn't BSA Exploring part of scouting?

In the article about collecting scout memorabila, a section includes links to related subjects. Law Enforcement Exploring[2] is an existing related Wikipedia article. Kintetsubuffalo believes it is not related to the subject of collecting scout emblems, and has repeatedly removed it. Since Law Enforcement Exploring is a formal part of BSA, and hundreds of unique emblems are used by the BSA LE explorer program, I believe it to be properly related and should be included for reference. Please provide opinions so that I may be guided.Patchbook 06:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The stub even doesn't mention emblems - so why should it be included in this category. Please insert content first before addin the category. --jergen 10:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Patchbook posted this same notice on the memorabilia article Talk:Scouting memorabilia collecting talk page, please post comments there. I've copied Jergen's there. Rlevse 11:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)...See my response to this there. Rlevse 13:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Good grief ... there are a kazillion different kinds of explorer posts. Nobody would consider a police badge to be a kind of Scouting memorabilia. Categories are used for linking loosely related articles ... there is already Category:Collecting there ... there's no reason to list every kind of collecting in the See Also. --BigDT 12:32, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I was considering the link and additional article from the perspective of a Wikipedia user looking for information and not knowing anything about scouting, LE Exploring, or emblem collecting. Are you folks suggesting that BSA and LE Exploring, and the emblems worn in those programs are not a related subject? Please offer more discussion so I may understand better because I thought the "be bold" Wikipedia concept here was focused at providing a cross section of information. Thanks Patchbook 23:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

User:English Subtitle

This user is a sockpuppet, and has been unilaterally changing names of international Scout articles to proposed but unagreed upon English translations, despite the fact no agreement has been reached on said renames. This user has no other user history except doing this, and needs to be watched and reverted when possible. Chris 04:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I proposed the four article for renaming; this can't be done by me since User:English Subtitle vandalized all redirects. --jergen 10:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Just because you don't agree with someone, it doesn't make them a vandal. While I don't agree with or condone User:English Subtitle's methods - it did amuse me that suddenly jergen has agreed to mediation. --evrik (talk) 02:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Jergen has a point-the unagreed upon redirect is one thing, the intermediate edit preventing it from being reverted is dirty pool. If not vandalism, sabotage is a good word. Chris 08:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I was a cub scout as a kid. Really. English Subtitle 22:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Leaving snipes on users' talkpages is not at all Scoutlike. If something looks like a sockpuppet, acts like a sockpuppet... it is not out of bounds to say it is probably a sockpuppet. The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. (Winston Churchill) Chris 05:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

New picture of Gilwell Park

GoogleEarth has a new scan of Gilwell Park, with superb resolution. You can now count the persons walking in each separate camp on the site. Excellent view, well worth a visit. Just click on the coordinates in Gilwell Park and choose the Google Earth link. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

Very cool.Rlevse 23:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Studio 2B makeover

Studio 2B is undergoing maintenance and a complete makeover including a history section and a new image. Feel free to pitch in or add your two cents on what you think needs done yet. Darthgriz98 15:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You could list this on the project page for in-project Peer Review if you like.Rlevse 15:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Girl Scout levels (USA)

This article is undergoing a huge redo, please feel free to jump in. Darthgriz98 04:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Congrats, everyone!!!!!!

Congratulations for having the Scouting article becoming a FA!!!!!! Keep up the good work! —¡Randfan!Sign here? 01:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

BSA advancement cleanup

Previously on Wikipedia. Back in March of 2006, we had a consensus to merge the Cub Scouting and the Boy Scouting advancement articles as I have proposed below. These merges were made and the links and redirects fixed. In June 2006, User:Cool Cat unilaterally reverted all of these changes. There was a lot of discussion and acrimony, and we left it as it was.

It is now almost a year since the original merges and the articles in question have stood as stubs since then, with only a few minor edits. I now propose to reinstate those merges. These merges are effectively already done, as the information was moved back in March.

Merge these articles into Cub Scouts (Boy Scouts of America):

Merge these articles into Boy Scouts (Boy Scouts of America)

Merge Eagle Palms into Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America)

Before I start applying merge tags to these, I would like some discussion. Once I see how this is going, I will do the proper tagging and solicit more discussion. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Comments
Go for it. Cool cat is only one vote. Suggest notices on talk pages again to cover selves.Rlevse 17:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Can we see drafts of what the pages would look like before we decide? - evrik (talk) 17:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
As noted, it is already done. The information from these stubs were merged back in March 2006, the stubs were made redirects and the links were removed from the main articles. In June, the redirects were reverted and the links put back in the articles, but the information remained. Thus the stubs are redundant of the main articles. I will go through and ensure that the few edits that were made in the last year are applied to the main article. This proposal is really to clean up redundancies. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I think it's a great idea to merge them, the GSUSA levels are all in one article. Convenient, and functional. Darthgriz98 17:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

OK- I there there is enough support from this straw poll to do the merge tags. Thanks. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Just to show that this is a BSA thing, I flattened the above wikilinks to show the real articles they point to. And they are all BSA articles. A merger of all those stub is a good thing: Support.
I thought that was implied by the section title :-)
  • And would it be relevant to suggest making it a more Scouting-generic article? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC).
It? Generic? These are BSA specific articles. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 21:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • 'It' could be Advancement in Scouting or Scout ranking or so. 'Generic' as in not being BSA specific anymore. Just a thought. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC).
The articles in question are highly BSA-centric. Advancement in Scouting would be a completely separate article. Frankly, with the hundreds of programs, it would be like trying to herd cats. Take a look at the differences in the BSA and GSUSA programs. I would like to clean up the BSA stuff in my lifetime :-) Right now, the closest we have to what you are thinking of is List of highest awards in Scouting. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 21:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Featured Picture goal

ScoutingWikiProject has one featured portal, one featured list, several featured articles, but ZERO featured pictures. Do we have any or can we upload any that will meet that standard? Let's give it a shot. I suggested someone nom the pic currently getting beat up at the candidate page, so that won't make it. It's a lovely sunset at Philmont.Rlevse 21:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Scout Island

Does anyone have any idea whether the name is somehow related? Chris 06:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

No, but it's probably get afd'd one day because there's nothing on notability.Rlevse 10:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Scout County/Area articles in UK

Scouting in Cheshire, Scouting in Dorset, Scouting in Cumbria and Scouting in Orkney have just been put up for speedy deletion. They are some of the shorter County/Area articles and they need expanding fast to keep them and preferable adding third party references. There may be more. I'm not sure I have all of these articles on my watch list. I'll check later but am tied up now. --Bduke 04:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I have tagged them with {{hangon}} I hope that will help. Chris 05:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I have fixed up Scouting in Cumbria and had such a massive edit conflict with Chris that I just overcopied everything. The hangon on the others means we have to expand them. The Orkney one will be difficult. --Bduke 05:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Edit conflict? :( I don't understand. Chris 06:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I did the whole rewrite in one go using "Show preview", starting before your edit and finishing afterwards. It gave me an edit conflict when I tried to finally save it, so I just copied all of my version and overwrote your version. It would have been too complicated to do anything else. One of the problems of previewing major changes and never saving until the end. --Bduke 06:39, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh good, I locked in on the "conflict" bit, and thought "I'm not that guy" *whew* Chris 06:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Scouting in Greater Manchester North is at AfD - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scouting in Greater Manchester North. Scouting in Greater Manchester East was put to Afd and speedy deleted. Three of the ones above have already gone even though a hangon tag was added to them. Where do we go from here. --Bduke 22:32, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Because of the smaller geographic area and the greater number of political units in Britain, would it be more delete-proof and space effective to start merging articles into "Scouting in England", "Scouting in Wales" and so on? If the deletionists are out in force, the only way I've found to save the information is to merge it into a larger parent article. There is one user here that hates my view on merging, but it's a darn sight better than losing entire articles for notability. Chris 02:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm proposing that here rather than at the deletion vote site-if we're going to solve it, let's solve it among ourselves. Chris 02:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the answer is to write articles with real content and not just a list of Districts to get it started. If the Manchester one goes down, I'll suggest that we write "Scouting in Manchester" for all the Manchester Counties and then split it later. So far we have not lost an article with real content. I could expand the Cumbria one because I knew where to look and what to look for. I had links with them long ago. We do not have enough UK editors but those we have are pretty good. We need their views and their input to the articles. --Bduke 03:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


I apologise for having missed all of this - I don't know how... I'm working my way through the Counties, and trying to boost the information in all of them. I'll focus on the Manchester articles to start with. Horus Kol Talk 11:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Style guidelines for Scouting in ... pages

This is meant specifically for the style of the U.S. state pages. I think we need a style guide that lays out how links, OA lodges, district an camps are to be laid out. --evrik (talk) 04:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  • There appears to be a discussion below about this. --evrik (talk) 00:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please explain ...

After reading Scouting in Cleveland and Scouting in City of Coventry, I went to look at Category:Scouting in the United Kingdom. How is this different than the individual councils in the U.S? If every county in England gets its own article, why not every county in the U.S? Just curious. --evrik (talk) 04:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there are rather a lot of them, but the Scout County in England and the Scout Area in Wales and Scotland is the next organisational step down from the Scout Association itself. There is no level in between. So from that perspective they are the same as States in the US. Note that Scout County is very often not the same as administrative counties. So we have articles on Scout Counties/Areas but not on Districts which are below them or Groups. In Australia we have State Scouting articles. Does that clarify it. --Bduke 05:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Individual councils in the US are grouped by regions that are extensions of the national office. If it's okay to have English counties listed, why do we have so much angst about individual council articles? --evrik (talk) 19:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I hereby nominate evrik to be our director of BSA unit, camp, district and council articles. Seriously- can a dozen of us manage 306 council articles properly? Fight off vandalism, keep them to a common format and weed out the cruft? Take a look at my comments on Talk:Religious emblems programs (Boy Scouts of America)- that article has been on my todo list ince July 2006 and I just worked my way to it. I understand your point- it would be nice to have all of these articles, but we just don't have the resources. As I noted in an earlier discussion, many new articles are drive by and many have the Athena effect- someone has to manage all of these. How many editors vote on merges and renames- that should give you an idea of how many of use are doing active administration as opposed to editing. There is a balance between editors, articles and quality. With a low editor to article ratio, overall article quality suffers. Bottom line: We either need more editors or fewer articles. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 19:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Hey ... don't get testy. I was just trying to figure out why we're killing all the U.S. local articles at the same time as we're starting a whole new series of articles in the UK. --evrik (talk) 19:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't know. You know how it works- you brought it up again, you get to be in charge :-) --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
The UK Scout Counties have been a series since before I started here... I agree that many of them need a lot of work, and I am working my way through them, albeit slowly - cleared about 12 or so now. I would like note to be taken that there is not really an equivalence between a UK County and a US county - the comparison is better made between County and State. Perhaps a similar model for the US "Scouting in..." articles can be used where the local councils and troops are listed, and then only articles for really outstandingly notable troops/councils (note, that as yet, no UK Group or District has been deemed notable enough for this status). -- Horus Kol Talk 00:11, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I have been short n time, but I would like to rework the guidelines so that any article on local councils that meets a certain standard gets to stay.
Let me give you an example: Take a look at Camp Yawgoog- I just did a quick critique. This article has existed since 28 November 2005, and I'm the first to note that the article is wrongly titled? I would love to have an article on every camp, but not if it means stuff of this quality. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Accuracy and quality are important. --evrik (talk) 00:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
As far as camp articles- Gilwell Park should be the model. At least it does not go into excruciating detail on latrines like Philmont Scout Ranch. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:57, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
I have to go with Gadget850 on this one, unless we get more active editors knowledgeable about (note there are over 100 on our member list, but we're really talking no more than 15) many of the BSA articles need to be merged so quality can be kept up. Do we really want 615 stubs out of 13+ articles and be known as a project of low quality stubs? Evrik, if you get enough active editors to form a BSA task force, like we have a GG/GS TF, then I could agree with you, until then I have to agree with Gadget850. Rlevse 17:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
How about this: Create a standard for camp articles and council articles. I have a rough draft for camps at User:Gadget850/Camps. We need to hold editors to some standard. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I like Gadget's idea, this can be worked with.Rlevse 18:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I have been suggesting for a while that we have a standard - once we get that done, we can revisit our rules. --evrik (talk) 00:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Userbox migration

The userbox migration initiative hit our project userbox. You can either replace the old link with "User:UBX/Scouting_WikiProject" (see Kingbird or Gadget850 pages) or paste in your own code (see my userpage).Rlevse 01:28, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

And a number of others- see Category:Scouting user templates. Any of the userboxes that have been migrated will show:

Per the Userbox migration, {{User Scout}} was moved to {{User:UBX/Scout}}

Simply update to the new boxes. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Good grief ... migrating "this user is a fan of some random TV show" is one thing ... but why in the world are we migrating templates that are actually project related? --BigDT 05:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Got me, I'd like to know too.Rlevse 10:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I'll check into this. Having been involved somewhat in the issue in the past, I do not believe that this template "needs" to be moved. There is a process to contest the migration activists. I'll report back here on a recommendation shortly. --NThurston 16:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Userbox migration. Basically, userboxes that are POV or interest should be in userspace not articlespace. As there is no effective difference, I don't understand it. The boxes got moved to User:UBX. We might want to create a User:Scouting and move all of our userboxes to it for control. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userbox migration is not policy, and even if it were, there is still an allowance for project-related boxes to exist in Template space. Another option is to put them in project space. That would be better than creating a dummy user. We can also contest the move from Template. Which course would you prefer? --NThurston 16:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
They haven't gotten to the GG/GS taskforce box yet, but I think that's probably a good idea to stick it in the project space since users come and go, and if stuff gets deleted so does our information. Darthgriz98 16:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I have moved User Scout back. It was moved by a bot, so it is arguable that this was in error and without consensus. However, the larger issue will hit us eventually, so we ought to come up with a plan. Choices are a) try to keep them as they are, b) create a safe haven under the project page, or c) create a place in User: space (such as User:Scouting). --NThurston 16:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
On second thought - there is a fourth option: d) accept what the bot is doing - putting them all in User:UBX. This isn't a bad alternative, although it is sort of bizarre attempt to call a rose a daisy. I do worry that eventually User:UBX will cause an renewal of the userbox wars and our templates could get caught up in it. The problem is that the bot is programmed to change all of the hundreds of links to the templates. Who of us will have the energy to change them all back? --NThurston 16:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd would go with projectspace. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't look like any links are being changed. The old userbox gets edited with a template so that you see a message in the userbox on your user page. See Category:Wikipedia GUS userboxes for the template. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Eventually the same bot that is changing the templates will work its way through the "what links here" and change all of those too. --NThurston 20:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the owner of MetsBot, who moved these userboxes. If people here would prefer, I have no problem with moving all of the scouting-related userboxes in Category:Scouting user templates to a subpage of Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting; just give me the word and I'll have those templates moved and their references on Userpages updated. —METS501 (talk) 21:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I like this best of all...please them here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Userboxes. Thanks. Rlevse 22:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Userboxes is now a userbox index page. As part of this process, all of the user boxes were also created on User:UBX, but have been changed to redirects. SO... if you want to, you can use the code {{User:UBX/Scout}} instead of the longer code. It is a redirect, but it still works. --NThurston 16:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

UK User Templates

Would anyone object if I change the colour of the UK Scouting user templates, because its impossible to read the link text against the background colour... Horus Kol 12:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I see (or actually can't :-) the problem. Go for it. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Give it a shot.Rlevse 20:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
By all means. If you want help, let me know. --NThurston 20:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
right - well, I've decided to use the corporate green colour - let me know what you think:
Horus Kol 00:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I like it.Rlevse 01:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Nice. --evrik (talk) 14:33, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
My eyes thank you. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Scouting Userboxes

Regarding scouting-related userboxes:
1. It was inevitable that at some point they would be moved from Template: space. This week, a bot moved them all to User: space as sub-pages of User:UBX. Quick discussion here resulted in all scouting-related userboxes being moved from there to Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Userboxes (which now has a complete index). Bottom line: No more scouting userboxes in Template: space.
2. The choice of whether to have them in Wikipedia: vs. User: is somewhat arbitrary, although there are pluses and minuses to each. Here's a summary of the main issues:

3. Current status - You can use either the User:UBX or WikiProject code. The User:UBX code for each box contains the correct redirect and the boxes should display properly. It's up to you which you prefer to use. --NThurston 17:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks for your quick work on this. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Beautiful work!. The Userpages page holds them all for display in one place and the subpages thereof hold the code. NEAT!Rlevse 17:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
The only issue I see is in maintaining two userbox index pages: Wikipedia:Userboxes/Interests#Scouting and Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Userboxes. If someone adds a new box, there is no real way for them to know to add it to both pages. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Yep, but the one controlled by wiki is not controlled by us.Rlevse 18:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I like having it under our own project.Sumoeagle179 19:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I will volunteer to keep an eye on Wikipedia:Userboxes/Interests#Scouting to keep it updated when changes are made to Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Userboxes. I will also look into the possibility of automating it (which I think is actually possible). --NThurston 19:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
User:UBX is an all-around bad idea ... we shouldn't be creating quasi-namespaces like that. I don't know of a good reason for anything project-related to not be in template space, although in template space, it's subject to people wanting to move it, so Wikipedia-space is probably as good as anything right now. The big problem is that meaningful userboxes get lumped in with the ones like "This user has been a fan of MASH since the fourth episode of the third season at 2:05 pm on a Sunday afternoon while sipping RC cola". And then, of course, someone inevitably makes a category, Category:Wikipedians who have been fans of MASH since the fourth episode of the third season at 2:05 pm on a Sunday afternoon while sipping RC cola. See some of the nonsense categories at WP:UCFD like Category:Wikipedians who will not drink Foster's beer, Category:Wikipedians who hope Richard Stallman and Creative Commons will reconcile their licenses, or Category:Wikipedians who believe West Virginia is in the Southern United States. Umm ... who cares? So the morals of this rant are (1) if you want a userbox that is not project-related and nobody other than you is ever going to care about, just use {{userbox}} directly, don't make a template for it. (2) Don't make a user category with your userbox unless there's some really good project-related reason to. (3) Create the userbox in template: space or Wikipedia: space if it is tied to a project and in User: space if it is not, but don't make up a pseudo-namespace for it. --BigDT 20:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Having watched most of the discussion on WP:UM for the past while, I sort of agree with BigDT. While User:UBX is sort of a clever solution to the "no userboxes in Template:" issue, it really isn't a solution at all, because it's just a renaming of things. AND since the whole goal of the deletionists was to not have an official namespace for stupid userboxes, it inevitably will rub one of them the wrong way, too, settng off another round of userbox wars, that we want to avoid. So, while I would have been fine leaving them all in Template:, it was inevitable that someone would start messing with them, so a safe harbor in Wikipedia: is probably the best solution. It's just an interesting artifact of the move process, that you can (at least for now) use the User:UBX syntax to achieve the same thing. More to come on indexes, instructions, etc. --NThurston 20:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userboxes/Interests#Scouting now transcludes part of the information from the project userboxes page. If people are good about adding new userboxes there, we should be OK. --NThurston 21:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I've finished migrating the scouting userboxes this project's domain. In defense of User:UBX, I have the following to say: I am not blindly migrating all userboxes in sight to User:UBX. All userboxes related to things which would not help the project are staying in Template space. Only the Scouting WikiProject template should not have been moved, and I apologize for including it. All the templates regarding WikiProjects, languages, Wikipedia affiliations, educational experience, and more are staying in template space; the rest ar being moved. And what's the difference if a bot is placing the templates in User:UBX or if User:Scepia or User:Rfrisbie or one of the many others put the userboxes in their space? This bot just saves them work. The deletionists really don't care about user space, they just want the template space clear of things that don't directly help the project, and claiming that someone was a boy/girl scout as a kid doesn't help the project. —METS501 (talk) 04:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I hope you are right, however, I have my doubts. See Wikipedia_talk:Userbox_migration#User:UBX. The compromise was that the deletionists would leave stuff not in Template: alone, however, that has not always been honored and had to be defended in DRV and other places. As is, putting them on our project page is the best solution because it isolates us from whatever might happen regarding User: space. So, I guess thanks is in order for your cooperative attitude and can-do spirit. --NThurston 14:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to all who helped out in this little crisis. I still don't understand all of the reasoning but I'm not loosing sleep over it as we have a viable solution. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Userbox Instructions

I have some language prepared on "how to add a Scouting userbox to the Project." Where should I put it? --NThurston 15:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps on the Userbox talk page. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:AmScoutbystate

A non-project user has totally reformatted this template, which is generally fine, except changed some of the categorizations. Will a BSA editor look this over? I don't think Scouting overseas belongs removed from the rest. Chris 07:04, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. I could imagine changing the footer just a bit, perhaps having "overseas" on its own line or removing the BSA/GSUSA links. I'll give it some thought. --NThurston 16:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

List of Council Shoulder Patches

this is going to be insanely big with the gallery and all. I have about 1500 in my own collection, should we maybe just use one to represent each Council? Chris 03:17, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I saw and agree, it'll be way too big.Rlevse 03:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
While a very interesting topic to us patch guys ... well ... umm ... articles that consist of nothing but fair use galleries are usually deleted quickly. See Wikipedia:Fair use criteria #8, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kelly Martin2, Wikipedia talk:Logos#Enough, and probably a few other places. We can use a non-free image when necessary to illustrate a point within an article. But if the entire article is nothing but a gallery of non-free images, then they aren't really illustrating anything. A gallery of non-free images is rarely considered acceptable and an article that is nothing but a gallery of non-free images doesn't last too long. --BigDT 03:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
comment Which is why we are trying to make Gallery of Europa 2007 Scout Centenary stamps and Gallery of Scout and Guide national emblems better and meatier articles. A kid last year uploaded dozens of Jamboree patches trying to make an article, it was quickly deleted for the reasons you mention. We tried to get him to move the images to the local state articles, no dice. We don't want our good ones deleted. Such galleries really need to have a reason for being, not just "hey, look what's cool." One look at http://www.councilstrip.com/ also shows such resources already exist. Never saw that Wikia thing before, may be a good idea. If it stays here, it needs some writing cleanup, too. Chris 03:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Something to consider, though ... and I'm just throwing this out there ... it may be worthwhile to make a Scouting wiki or Scouting patch wiki on Wikia [3]. I don't know how all of that works and what their restrictions with file sizes or non-free media would be ... but it may be worth looking into. --BigDT 03:43, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
And actually, there is a Scouting Wikia already - http://scouting.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. --BigDT 03:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I concur. I was going to make the same points on the article talk page. Didn't we have an article like this a year or so ago? There is also http://www.councilstrip.com/ and http://www.shoulderbank.com/. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 04:05, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Scouting Wikia

FYI, I did some research (as I mentioned in the above thread) and there is a Scouting Wikia. I spent a little time cleaning it up today (it was disgraceful). If anyone finds themselves interested in doing so, articles that would not be appropriate here (articles about patches that are mostly galleries, how-to manuals, etc) can be created there. Wikia, like Wikipedia, requires that images be free (no non-commercial-only images), but fair use is a lot less restrictive. Anyway, I just thought I would throw this out there in case anyone is interested. --BigDT 05:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow- that's a bang up job on the home page- it was pretty blah. This might be a good spot for the Cub Scout-Boy Scout parents training module I'm working on. This is built off of wikia.com, so it should be stable. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:05, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
If it is possible, cooperation with other scoutwiki's would be nice! See www.scoutwiki.org SietskeEN 16:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

FYI, to anyone interested, I have emailed Essjay (talk · contribs) to ask about making interwiki links on wikia. Rlevse (and others), what would you think about adding links to Scoutwiki (or any other well-maintained Scouting wikis that might be out there, for that matter) to Portal:Scouting? --BigDT 16:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

1st SeaScout Group of Paleo Faliro

This has been redirected once before, and has been recreated without the space between Sea and Scout. Please comment. Chris 06:11, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Was the one without the space deleted? If so, it's clear attempt to avert the system, so you could put it up for speedy delete.Rlevse 12:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

WINGS2009

I have just noticed that the new article WINGS2009 does not seem to exist anymore... when I last looked there was information in there that would have been useful for a generic article on the WINGS event which is a major interational event for Scouts and Guides, which I was about to write up (or at least as part of the Scouting in Royal Berkshire article - is there any to retrieve this information? Horus Kol 11:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

You can try asking the admin who deleted it: User:Arjun01 --Egel Reaction? 11:55, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
The reason it was deleted according to the deletion log is that it was substantially a copy of http://www.wings2009.org.uk/info/what.html. I took a look at the deleted article to confirm this. A copy/paste article is generally deleted on sight. If an article is to exist on this subject, it needs to be written from scratch and should cite external sources. --BigDT 19:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough - I don't think that the one event deserves an article, but there is already a section on the series of WINGS events in the Scouting in Royal Berkshire, and the information from that site will help improve that. Thanks for helping me to locate the information. Horus Kol 23:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Camp articles

We keep merging camp articles into by state articles. Given the sub-par quality of most articles, this is probably good. I'm not normally a deletionist, but most of these are going to get deleted. I would rather see them start in the state article then developed to the point where they need to split.

I would like to develop some guidelines for camp articles that would help editors to develop a quality article. I have started a stub at User:Gadget850/Camps. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Some good points in there - you could cite Gilwell Park as an example... One suggestion, change the "only open to BSA" to "only open to Scouts or Guides"... Horus Kol 23:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I was distracted by this damn work thing. Edit it as you please- if it works maybe we will put it up as a guide. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 23:45, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Who is Dorothy? :)

Hello! i'm starting to write articles about scouting in Ukraine. The first I published is about my rover troop Lisovi Chorty. When it appeared in "New Scout articles", somebody wrote: "somehow, under the radar... (sing it Dorothy!)" So, the question is who is that Dorothy? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yarko (talk • contribs) 13:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC).

  • explanation-I was being silly. "Under the radar" means I found articles on Scouting that we didn't know about before. I made it sound like "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is the main character in the film. I am sorry, western cultural reference, I meant no systematic bias. Your brother in Scouting, Chris 03:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I thought troops weren't allowed to have their own articles.... -- YiS, Jediwannabe 14:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
As far as I understand it's more like an international club of former Scouts (one of several in Ukrainian Scouting) but I'm not quite sure. The text gives very few hints on the notability of its subject; if this is not changed the article will be deleted soon. --jergen 14:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to explain what scout status Lisovi Chorty has. Formaly in Ukraine, USA, Canada and Australia, where Plast officialy registered as scout or youth organization, "Lisovi Chorty" scout troop is rover's and senior's troop. In Soviet Union Plast and scouting at all were forbidden as well as a lot of Ukrainian things. That's why Ukrainians went to other countries and made diaspora there. Of course, Ukrainian scouts continued to work. At first years after IIWW there were Plast troops almost at all countries of West Europe, Both Americas, Australia and even in Tunisia. Members of "Lisovi Chorty" troop also like all Ukrainians spread over the world that's why nowadays we've got them mostly in Europe, North America and Australia. The system of Ukrainian Scouting Organization Plast allows scouts of 18 years to join Rover's troops. Rover's and Senior's troops could has their oseredky (branches) in different cities that's why we has members from a lot of cities and even countries. So, "Lisovi Chorty" troop is not like common scout patrol from local place. We got now over 300 members from age of 18 till 96 and they are present scouts. Well, may be some of them not very active but they're still scouts. May be it's not correctly what I wanted to say, because I'm a little bit busy. By the way, why troops aren't allowed to have their own articles? --Yarko 20:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It does sound very interesting - though I think, as the article stands, it might be better as a secion in the main article on Scouting in Ukraine... Horus Kol Talk 01:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Local units such as troops would have to be very notable to meet the Wikipedia:Notability standards. Most of those type of articles start off as either short stubs or an article full of cruft and get put up for deletion. We also have been deleting links for local units that get stuffed into articles- if we allow one, then we have to allow the thousands of units with a web site. I do have a solution for that that I will put up for review. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 01:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
As our local post-Soviet Scouting guy, I thought I would give it a look in other places, found it at the national Plast website, it sound to me less a troop and more a fraternal organization, akin to the Knights of Dunamis, Student Scout and Guide Organisation or International Scout and Guide Fellowship. Chris 02:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
To Gadget850: what kind of review? I just came to english Wikipedia and don't know all your rules.

To Chris: It's all OK about Dorothy. I've read this book ages ago and simply forgot. You're right more than other who wrote here. I'm going to explain everything in article, but now I'm a little bit busy in my University. Structure of Lisovi Chorty fraternity is very somple. In local cities we've got patrols with 20-30 members and they are united at country level. Troops from other countries formally are separate, but they just divided by countries. Actually, we has the same logos, songs, traditions etc. Just because of Soviets we are divided and living in four countries (Ukraine, USA, Canada, Australia) where Lisovi Chorty registered as local Plast-scout troops. Those troops with their local patrols are unite in fraternity Lisovi Chorty. So, formally we are 4 troops, but in actual fact we are big fraternity with members in few countries.--Yarko 11:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Peer Review

Can editors with interest in peer reviewing please peer review South African Scout Association. I'd like to see it reach FA, it currently holds GA, and I don't think it will take that much extra work to get it to FA quality. I'd just like to hear the opinions and any suggestions from my fellow Scouting editors before I nominate it for FA! Thanks in advance. -- YiS, Jediwannabe 14:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Find more refs, lead needs to be more of a summary (see Boy Scouts of America for a article on a Scout assn that is both GA and A-class), lead has details that should be in the body (like the requirements for the highest award). Then have Wimvandorst look at it, he's our article improvement coordinator.Rlevse 04:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

UK Scout County Layout

I'm trying to standardise the layouts of the Scout County, and have arrived at the layout at User:Horus Kol/Scouting in Royal Berkshire - let me know what you think and point out any improvements you can think of, and then how we might go about making this the recommended layout... Cheers, Horus Kol Talk 03:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

It's too listy for a regular article and too much text for a pure list. Also, the two pics to the left just below the intro leave too much white space.Rlevse 04:03, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Any suggestions on how to fix all of that? Horus Kol Talk 11:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Put the two pics elsewhere so that the came move up and close the whitespace. Decide if you want a list or article and edit accordingly. Does this help?Rlevse 11:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Not really - I think I might be able to do something with the images, but I don't see a way to get this information formatted any other way than I have already... Horus Kol Talk 12:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
If you're content to not have it go any higher than a B-class article, the list vs article issue it's a big deal, I was looking at it from that level.Rlevse 12:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
To be honest, I never thought that it would get to GA or FA - I'm simply trying to get all the relevant information about any particular Scout County tied up in one article with wikilinks and outlinks where necessary/appropriate so that it is easy for a user to get hold of that information... I realise this is counter to most editors desire to achieve GA or FA, but I personally believe that it is simply not possible for all articles to achieve these statuses... However, if anyone else can see a better way to present the same information, I will be happy to go with that. Otherwise, with the consent of the project, I would like to replicate this format through the other Scout Counties, and start filling the remaining holes we have there Horus Kol Talk 13:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
OK with me.Rlevse 13:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Horus Kol, I fully agree with "I would like to replicate this format through the other Scout Counties, and start filling the remaining holes we have there" and I'll continue to help. However remember the County articles we have recently lost. We will have to do a really good job with these. They are "Scouting in Cheshire", "Scouting in Dorset", "Scouting in Orkney" and "Scouting in Greater Manchester East". There has been a suggestion that the three Manchester articles might be merged into one for now (with presumably the three County names as redirects) but I have no fixed view on it. I do know it is difficult to get information on these counties as much stuff is in Districts articles for Districts that previously were in different counties. Maybe there are some web pages on old counties somewhere. --Bduke 23:00, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know we had "lost" any County articles... if i had known they were under threat, I would have added enough information for that to have been avoided. I can get District and Group listings for all UK Scout Counties, as well as campsites... I can also get some Group and District websites, and other information on events and activities... its just a case of knowing where to look, and a little bit of local knowledge helps (I get emailed about all sorts of activities being run all over) Horus Kol Talk 23:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
It is up above under the heading Scout County/Area articles in UK. I wondered why you had not waded in. I saved Cunbria as I know quite a bit about it and knew where to look. Chris added "hangon" tags to the speedy'ed articles but they got rapidly deleted. The one that went to AfD was a no consensus keep if I recall and that is where the suggestion about merging the Manchester articles was (and on a talk page of one them I think). --Bduke 00:41, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Mediation on names of non-English speaking Scout organisations

I have been trying to mediate the disagreement about naming articles on non-English speaking Scout organisations. The mediation is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations mediation. The earlier disagreement is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations. We have made a little progress, but there is still a major difference of opinion and I would welcome opinions of others. There is agreement to provide an english route into each country with a link to "Scouting in XXX" for all countries "XXX" as a redirect or a disambiguation page or a small article. This helps even english speaking countries where readers may not know the name of the Scout organisation. These links have been completed for all countries, largely by Jergen. There is agreement to use an english name of the organisation if the organisation itself verifiably uses an unique english name in its own documents. The disagreement lies where this is not so. One argument is that then we have to use the official non-english name. The other argument is that we translate the non-english name into english. We can not find a compromise between these points of view and neither side is convinced by the other. Please go to the mediation page and give your opinions under the heading "Broader Scouting community views", at the bottom. --Bduke 07:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

deletionists

  • Gallery of Scout and Guide national emblems has been put up for Afd at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of Scout and Guide national emblems, please save this from the deletionists! Chris 03:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
    • You may want to save it to put on Wikia or something ... there's no way a gallery of non-free images will fly here ... I know that isn't what you want to hear ... but Wikipedia strives to be a free-content encyclopedia. Articles that are completely non-free content don't go over too well. --BigDT 04:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
    • If the images are really "fair use" then I do not think we can save it. We have a category of them and that was fixed as OK for "fair use" with a no-gallery display. What argument do you suggest is used on AfD? --Bduke 04:29, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I think they're fair use ... see my comments on that page ... --evrik (talk)
    • Bruce is right, and thank you for that! I don't think the deletionists will see it that way, though. I have a weird suggestion. *gulp* As they are all saysing "to illustrate the organization in question", well Scouting itself is an organization. I hesitate to suggest merger there, but I also don't want this gallery lost, not during Scouting's centenary. Chris 05:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
It's not there use on wiki that is wrong, it's the gallery. I know it's not what you guys want to happen, but BigDT is well versed in this area and you need to listen to his advice on this one.Rlevse 11:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

temp fix but please keep fighting and seeking other solutions

At least so we don't lose having all the emblems together, I have created Category:Scout and Guide national emblems to be a subcategory of the Scout logos category, like Category:Boy Scouts of America logos is, but I am doing something wrong, I can't get it to show up as a subcat, please help, thanks. Chris 08:29, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Chris - edited the above so the cats show but do not put this page into the cat. I can not see what is wrong. --Bduke 08:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Something else is wrong, the cat only shows one image..????Rlevse 11:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I'll come up with a fix this this morning. --NThurston 14:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
It turns out that it's not broke. Here's what's happening - Sub-cats only show up as sub-cats where their starting "letter" is included in the current list. Since Scout logos is so long, "S" doesn't show up until you have hit "next 200" a few times. The only solution is to pick a cat name that starts with "A" or "B." Any suggestions? --NThurston 14:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, but why is only one image showing in the cat?Rlevse 17:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Each image needs to be tagged with Category:Scout and Guide national emblems. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes. Apparently, the cat has only been placed on one two so far, and is a good idea to wait if we are thinking of using a different name. Also note that adding cats is not immediate. Sometimes it takes a while for them to start showing up.--NThurston 18:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure how useful this is as a gallery. The BSA logo is named Fdl-gold.jpg- not a very descriptive name. Extending it with Category:Scout and Guide national emblems|Boy Scouts of America doesn't help, as this changes the alphabetization but not the name. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Well... It probably isn't very useful as a gallery since they can't be displayed there either. But at least they are all grouped together. The image naming thing has come up before. I am not sure what to say on that other than people should be careful to write descriptive image names wherever possible. It is possible, but cumbersome to rename them. You have to download it, then upload it again with the new name; change all the links; then request the old one to be deleted. --NThurston 18:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

My comments

I'm posting the same comment I gave on the AFD. This issue isn't just a legal issue. I think I'm on solid ground when I say that under US copyright law, the doctrine of fair use makes us perfectly free to have this article. If the law were the only issue, that's a non-issue. If this were Gallery of news media photos, forget it, we would be infringing on their right to exclusively market their product. But a gallery of logos of non-profit organizations should not be a problem UNDER THE LAW. It is, however, a problem on WIKIPEDIA. Our fair use policy is intentionally more restrictive than what we could get away with. This is because Wikipedia is a free-content encyclopedia. We only use non-free images under a claim of fair use when it is a necessity - we don't have articles that contain no free content. Sometimes, this is inconvenient. Sometimes it's annoying. I am a Scouter and have been involved with Scouting for 20 years (since Weblos). I like this article. I enjoy looking at it. But, for the goal of being a free-content encyclopedia, we sometimes have to make compromises and one of them is that we don't have articles containing nothing but non-free images. --BigDT 18:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Can we do galleries on Commons? That of course begs the question of what images could be placed on Commons. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
My understanding is that fair use images are not allowed on Commons, so Commons is not a solution. --Bduke 21:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I was perusing Commons today and had pretty much come to the same conclusion. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 22:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
It's been deleted, but would you guys do me a favor? I went back and counted the deletes and keeps, and I cannot say that the deletes had a majority, would you guys count and see which I am missing? Chris 01:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
It's that it is against wiki policy to have a gallery of non-free images, in such a case the votes don't matter.Rlevse 01:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Which would be fine, but if you will read the later discussions, most of it was for holding or for making an exception, as there are times Wiki policy can be bent. My request still stands. Chris 01:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
AfD is not a vote. As you note, in the end the only argument for keeping it was WP:IAR. The closing admin chose to follow the rules. That was clear in his remarks on closing the debate. A pity, but there it is. --Bduke 02:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Chris--did you follow BigDT's advice on this 0420 Mar 7 entry? As much as you may not agree or like it, your chances of getting this one overturned about slimmer than snowball staying frozen in 120 degree heat.Rlevse 02:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
What an insensitive way to have said that. I was just making a request for a count. Chris 02:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

related thought

Since there is Category:Boy Scouts of America images for photos and maps and non-logo stuff, we need a similar category for the rest of Scouting. If there is already one, oops and please direct me to it. Chris 05:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Currently Category:Scouting images sounds like what you're looking for. --NThurston 14:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Backpacking

Hello,

As part of the Scouting WikiProject, You all may be interested in the newly formed WikiProject Backpacking, an effort to increase the quality of Backpacking related articles and media on Wikipedia. I hope that we may work together with other closely related WikiProjects (this one included) to make camping and packing articles the best they can be!
Regards,
-Leif902 13:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 You're invited to be a part of WikiProject Backpacking, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to backpacking. To accept this invitation, click here!


Scouting Featured Topics

I have made some lists for a some possible Featured Topics at User:Horus Kol/Possible Scouting Featured Topics - I suggest that we fix on a set of Fts to work towards, and then use the articles listed for each Topic in turn in order to improve those articles as much as we can, and also to gain FT status. I would also like to propose that we remove the current Scouting Topic template from all articles until we determine what Topics and articles we aim to include... Horus Kol Talk 23:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree and would like to help with this. I propose developing a "unified" topics template, such as {{Navbox generic}} as used in {{Dilbert}} where sub-topics can be grouped on a single template. Of course, we would modify colors/images to make it more Scout-y. --NThurston 13:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
okay - any comments on the three topics I already started pencilling out? Horus Kol Talk 14:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's a preliminary unified template. As for the topics - maybe:
  • A "Scouting" topic based on the articles in Category:Scouting has a chance.
  • Scouting in the U.S. or BSA? BSA has a fair shot at making FT. Scouting in the U.S. has a lot of significant gaps.
  • Scouting in the U.K. could eventually work, but needs some work.
  • I propose a "Scouting founders or pioneers" topic, as well as "History of the Scouting Movement" as two areas that have a chance at FT.
I suggest that we use the current categorizations as a good starting point, excluding any stubs. --NThurston 14:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The template is too big, but each section by itself is good. The template for an FT should only apply to the topic in question. The BSASeries template could possibly double duty as the FT template for a BSA topic.Rlevse 15:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
OK. Actually, BSA could be nominated as is for FT. It meets all of the criteria. So, should we be thinking of using a BSASeries-like template for other potential topics? In any case, we need to work on what those topics might be. What about the ones listed in User:NThurston/sandbox/test as a starting point for the discussion? --NThurston 15:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I like the template, but I agree with Rlevse that its too big - I suggest that we only have the Scout Movement section on all articles, and the relevant topic (Scouting in the UK, Scouting in the US, etc) where appropriate.
Is there anyway we can have a new section in the project space for creating topic lists, and showing the statuses of the various component articles (and any "gaps", such as those alluded to for Scouting in the US)? Horus Kol Talk 15:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Fix - There's an easy/reasonable way to do this - Create a separate template for each "topic." Each of these would look like a slice of the current working template at User:NThurston/sandbox/test. Each of these templates is only included at the bottom of the articles in the template. Each of these templates would have a small (one line max) footer on the bottom that links to the other Scouting topics.
    Currently, BSA has its own topic template. I say let's not mess with that. But let's think carefully about how topics should be organized and what articles should be in each one before we do too much. --NThurston 15:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Note: See University of Kansas for a good example of what multiple-topic articles would look like and University of Southern California for an example of an article with a big topic template. --NThurston 15:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Try this - I have fiddled with the test template to streamline it as much as possible, but still have access to all articles by topic available. In its current format, it could be included on all Scouting articles. The default is set to "show" the Scouting Movement list, and hide the rest. This can be customized to show or hide any combination on any particular page. Now there are two lines of thoughts on this: the template situation, and the organization of topics. --NThurston 16:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • As for topic lists - we already have the categories. Rather than duplicate them manually, let's just use them. --NThurston 15:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Looking good... as for the lists - the categories only show what is already there, not what is missing... for example, there needs to be a Guiding article which is an analogue of the Scouting article, but you don't see that by looking at the category (currently it redirects to the Girl Guides disambiguation article). There are also many articles in some categories which aren't necessarily needed in the topic (for example, the UK Scout Counties). Horus Kol Talk 16:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I see. Would we want to use the Category descriptions as a place to document what's missing? I'd rather consolidate everything in one place, and since we already have a place, let's just use it for everything. --NThurston 16:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • That makes sense - I'm not sure how you'd go about doing that, though... Horus Kol Talk 17:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
What a cool template! Chris 21:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Oldest living GSUSA Girl Scout

There was a blurb on the 101 year old oldest living Girl Scout on the local Fox TV station tonight. Her name is Marianne Elser Crowder (spelling?) born in Colorado Springs in April 1906, joined Troop 4 in 1918 and got her Golden Eaglet, which was then the GSUSA highest award. She now lives in California. Since there are always articles on the oldest living person in different countries and so on, would such an article be worthwhile? Chris 04:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think she really warrants her own article, since she probably won't always be the world's oldest girl scout, and there probably isn't enough on her to keep an article. However, it probably deserves a spot in GSUSA. Darthgriz98 04:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
That's the correct spelling of her name. I've just come across a newspaper report here with it in. Kingbird 20:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Scouting Topics & Categories

I have added an example on Category:Scouting. A subsection like that could be added on the category pages that correspond to topics we are trying to develop. Take a look and let me know if you think it will work. --NThurston 17:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure we need a separate article on Guiding. It and the boy side of the movement are already in Scouting. How would a Guiding article be significantly different? Look at Boy Scout and Girl Guide and Girl Scout, they're not that much different. If we create Guiding, we'd have to create Boy Scouting or rewrite Scouting as boy only. I very strongly feel we should keep the Scouting article as is and not create a separate Guiding article. We had a similar debate before. I'd like to know what Kingbird has to provide as input here.Rlevse 18:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe that wasn't the best example, but it was the one Horus mentioned. Anyway, can you think of an obvious gap in one of the proposed topics that needs to be filled with an article that I can use an example? --NThurston 18:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I have finished the formatting for {{Scouting}} and have added it to Scouting. --NThurston 16:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Nice work!Rlevse 17:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure about having every topic in the same template, even if it is collapsible... for one thing, having the Scouting in the UK and Scouting in the US topics there gives scope for all 200 or so countries to be in there... its not hard to see how that can get rather unwieldy...
Is it possible to split the templates, like I have done in my sandbox:

Horus Kol Talk 17:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course that's possible. Initially, I was going to do something like that with a "cross-topic" footer on each of the six templates. However, it turns out that it's not an easy thing to program, and this ended up being much easier, while accomplishing the same end. It's especially useful if we employ the show/hide parameters so that articles in the same topic(s) are shown, while those in other topics are hidden. I also think that with our current five fledgling topics we'll be ok for a while. As it really grows that would be an option to consider. --NThurston 17:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough, but if we use a single template in all of those articles, then its going to cause a lot of work later on if we split the topics into seperate templates... don't get me wrong - I do like what you have done, and it loks pretty swish - I'm just trying to save work in the future... Horus Kol Talk 17:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Thinking forward, my plan to reduce the work would be to employ a parameter switch on the existing template instead of creating multiple new templates. That would make it pretty simple as it would just be changing a parameter using the "What links here" or even the templates themselves to find the articles. We could probably find a bot-owner that would automate it for us. By the way, your input and comments really helped make this better than what we started with. And I think we will end up with several FT's out of this. --NThurston 18:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay - I think I'm pretty much sold... now, about the actual articles - shall I post in the template talke page? Horus Kol Talk 18:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes. I think that's the natural place to have that discussion. If it's something obvious, just be bold. --NThurston 19:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


We've been picked out in a discussion on Featured Topics about "obvious gaps" - which might be useful when it comes to determinig the final list of articles in the various topics we are building up... Horus Kol Talk 12:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scouting in Vatican City (2nd nomination)

See this debate. Article speedy deleted and suggestion that all other "Scouting in X" where Scouting does not exist in X will be deleted also. My suggestion is to let them go and write them again when we have real information that Scouting does have a presence and we can write something about it. --Bduke 01:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone already deleted it.Rlevse 02:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and man, aren't they vitriolic about it? Jerks. You'd think we'd written an article for canonization of Osama. Does anyone have a contact at WOSM, so we can put this to rest? Chris 03:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Why wasn't the article simply made a redirect to Scouting in Italy? Horus Kol Talk 11:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I think a safe solution is to make an article on "Countries without Scouting". I have merged the info into the Scouting in Italy article.Rlevse 12:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
The thing is, what they're talking about is countries without _recognized_ Scouting. There are only six countries actually without Scouting, and of those, all but North Korea have articles on the periods they actually _did_ have Scouting. Chris 14:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Good point, one option is of course to leave them alone and see what happens.Rlevse 15:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
There is only one user proposing the deletion of other articles.
Some of the articles on Scouting in countries without recognised organaization were really in bad shape. I tried to improve some of them:
There are some other articles with very little content that could be proposed for deletion; we should not wait until this time but try to expand them (with good references); I changed the existing references to scout.org:
and surely some more. --jergen 22:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Randy, the "leave them alone and see what happens" would work if either outside Wikipedians were enlightened and allowed our vision for this Project to come to fruition, or were not so virulent when they _do_ come after Scouting articles. Neither is the case, sadly, as you have seen recently, and thank you so much for your assistance on that, brother. Jergen is right, we cannot wait for someone to junk them just because they have a bee in their bonnet. There's about half a dozen of us that routinely work on the international Scouting articles, but we have several dozen members. I invite all BSA members and indeed all members of our project to check out the List of World Organization of the Scout Movement members, where the list stops at "Non-sovereign territories...", pick an article and just see if you can improve it graphically, even, though you may not know anything about the organization. Treat it like it was an article on your local Scouts, how you would dress it up... Would it help to add the {{infobox WorldScouting}} box to all of them? We really probably should do that to all World Scout org articles. Thanks for listening, sisters and brothers. Chris 04:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Chris on this one - we should look to at least put the infobox on each national Scouting article... Horus Kol Talk 11:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
If we include the infobox in articles with very little content - isn't this like stating: There is no relevant information avalaible? --jergen 11:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Guiding, Scouting, Boy Scout, Girl Guide and Girl Scout

I'm making a case for a Guiding analogue to Scouting because, at the moment, the content of the Girl Guide and Girl Scout article has a lot of generic Guiding information - unlike the Boy Scout article. I don't think having a Guiding article necessarily needs Scouting to be rewritten, but the general history and development of Guiding needs it own article seperate to the Scouting and Girl Guide and Girl Scout articles... Horus Kol Talk 11:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting idea. I can see some sense in it but I can't predict how acceptable it will be to the Project at large. Kingbird 20:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
There's been a bit of discussion at Talk:Girl Guide and Girl Scout about this matter since I last posted. Might I tentatively suggest a solution? Move the offending information in Girl Guide and Girl Scout to Scouting. I don't think that Scouting entirely reflects this project's policy that Scouting covers a large number of organisations/movements/groups yet, but in time it may well do so. Moving this information around and saying "Hey, this should go somewhere!" could help us work out how Scouting can cope with the great diversity of situations it is trying to cover. One of those coping strategies might be that we need more side articles, like a Guiding and Girl Scouting, but I think that this is going to be a decision that is going to evolve over a period of time. Now I'm going to hide behind the parapet while the bullets fly! Kingbird 20:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
No bullets... I think its an elegant solution. My only comment is that when it comes time to ge a topic together, we will have Scouting but a Guiding article will be conspicuous by its absence... now the fact that Guiding is Scouting may be appreciated by people familiar with Scouting, but for people not familiar with it, they will come looking for Guiding and not find it... even if the Guiding article is only a stub to start with, that will be better than the current situation. Horus Kol Talk 22:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Horus Kol, but point out that anybody looking for Guiding will find that is a perfectly useful redirect to a disambiguation page. --Bduke 23:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Featured Topic - BSA?

It seems to me that Boy Scouts of America is close to meeting the criteria to be a featured topic. --NThurston 19:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

it's definitely the closest. Maybe we should ask a FT regular for input on that one before we submit it.Rlevse 21:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Don Bosco Catholic Scouting Movement

Can anyone familiar with Scouting in the Philippines comment on whether this is a major organization or is it the equivalent of a single troop? The yahoo group linked in the article has a grand total of two members, so that doesn't inspire confidence. Unless I'm missing something, this looks like the equivalent of the Virginia Tech campus Scouts. If it is significant (and not just a single troop), a source needs to be found for the logo and some external sources of information need to be found. --BigDT 11:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Local Scout group, member of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines. --jergen 16:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
then likely should be deleted.Rlevse 17:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Need Input - Scouting Topics

I invite all to recommend articles that should (or should not) be included in the several Scouting Topics that are beginning to coalesce. The discussion should happen at Template talk:Scouting. Please keep in mind:

  1. Only 'mature' topics that have enough articles to be considered a topic are included. New topics can be added later, when there are enough articles to justify a topic.
  2. Not every article has to be part of a topic.
  3. Articles can be part of more than one topic.
  4. The end goal is for a topic to be a featured topic - a collection of good articles on a subject that leave no obvious gaps. This process may help us identify needed articles as well as articles that should be prioritized for improvement.

--NThurston 20:28, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Scouting project style and content guidelines?

I can't find a link to the style and content guidelines for Scouting articles? Horus Kol Talk 07:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

See the second gold bar on the navigation pane: "Rules and Standards". Is this what you're looking for? Rlevse 09:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
can't believe i missed that... cheers Horus Kol Talk 10:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Naczelnik ZHP

Hi guys, just been sorted through some stub articles (as part of the StubSensor project), and I was just wondering if you guys could look into the above mentioned article, personally it looks like something that should be included in a master page or something, never the less, I think it's appropriate to remove the stub template, but I'm wondering if a 'Scouting Personnel' article might be more appropriate and then combine this and the other lists. (Maybe include more information of the Personnel ranks). --NigelJ talk 00:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

We need a Polish Scouting expert for that.Rlevse 19:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Surprised

... at the Support votes on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Boy Scouting (Boy Scouts of America). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know that your comment warrants a response. Why would there not be support from the parent project? Chris 04:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Oreland Boy Scout Troop 1

Another troop article, at least this is well written, but still no notability outside of its local area. If it was the oldest troop in Penna.... Chris 04:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no assertion of notability whatsoever, so it atleast needs a notability tag. Project rules do not support local unit articles unless extremely notable. It'd probably also get deleted if afd'd.Rlevse 09:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Its has it own scout camp (Hawk Mountain Camp) so it can be merged with that article and/or Scouting in Pennsylvania. If project rules support local scout camp articles.--Egel Reaction? 10:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)