Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines

This is a WikiProject, an area for focused collaboration among Wikipedians.

Shortcuts: WP:LOBT WP:OLS WP:TOPOUT WP:WPBT WP:WPOOK

Shortcuts: WP:WPOUTLINE WP:WPTOP

Wikipedia's goal is to provide knowledge. But knowledge is only useful if you can find it. The main limitation of a search box is that it can only look for what you already know exists. Our mission is to show what exists and provide easy access to that knowledge.

For examples of well-developed outlines, see those on anarchism, ancient Rome, Buddhism, canoeing and kayaking, cell biology, chess, forestry, Iceland, and Japan.

[edit] List of outlines

[edit] Other outlines

Wikipedia:Outline of Roget's Thesaurus

[edit] Scope

Each outline article is a list of a subject's topics arranged hierarchically to show the relationships between them: those that are the most important, general entries and those that give more specialist detail. Outlines show the structure of articles about a subject, opening a whole new way of navigating it. They could be considered Wikipedia's equivalent to Brittanica's Propædia.

Each outline is intended to help the reader become familiar with the subject it presents, and also serves as a table of contents or site map to that subject's coverage on Wikipedia. Outlines are different from portals or indexes. While a portal focuses solely on well-developed featured content, an outline's main purpose is to direct readers through a subject's related articles. Indexes are intended to be comprehensive alphabetical lists of articles related to subject, but finding something in an alphabetical index can be difficult if one does not know the article title (and if one does, one hardly needs the index). Outlines might not list every article in a subject, and often their links lead to lists or other outlines to provide further detail. For an example, compare Portal:Japan, Index of Japan-related articles, and Outline of Japan.

[edit] Article alerts

This project is now served by Article alerts, which can be seen at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Article alerts. This will allow us to know about any AfDs or other such discussions without having to rely on manual notifications. The Alerts page is easily transcluded into userspace if desired.

No Article alerts at this time.

[edit] Guidelines

For guidelines (under development) and instructions on building outlines, see Wikipedia:Outlines.

Related guidelines

Related projects

[edit] Open Tasks

See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of Knowledge/open tasks

[edit] Add pictures

Examples of outlines with good picture support include:

[edit] Start a new outline

To start a new outline...

See also: Helpful tips (read it!)

First, decide which topic you'd like to outline. It could be as broad as Outline of mathematics, or as narrow as Outline of chocolate and start the page. The title should be in the format of Outline of $x$
Write a little introduction before outlining to get warmed up, this will also become the introductory paragraph of the outline.
Start listing articles on your topic. You can find them by using Special:PrefixIndex and a site allintitle Google search.
Organize links in a way that is accessible so that people can find the articles linked to. You might use an {{Outline generator}} template, like this: {{subst:Outline generator|topic uncapitalized|topic capitalized}} or, if you're outlining a specific country, {{subst:Template:Outline country|country name}}.
After that, you can add a few pictures to make the outline look nicer. Try using different ones than the ones on the article by searching on Wikimedia Commons.
Once you've finished, take a look back and see if you were able to outline the subject successfully and then post your work here so that other editors are aware it exists and can review it.

[edit] Work on an existing outline

Most outlines are incomplete, because subjects change over time, and so does Wikipedia's coverage of them.

See Portal:Contents/Outlines, and choose a subject that interests you, and start adding links.

[edit] Work on a draft

Here are some draft starts waiting to be developed enough to move to article space.

[edit] Start a new draft

List of academic disciplines: This article should be restructured into an outline.

Ideas: Outline of Fields of study, Outline of academic disciplines, Outline of organizing knowledge

[edit] Culture

Sports

[edit] Geography

Branches
- Outline of human geography
- Outline of physical geography

[edit] Health

Outline of disease
- List of diseases
Branches of medicine

[edit] History

[edit] Natural science

[edit] Philosophy

The following two core branches are missing:
- Outline of ethics
- Outline of metaphysics
sub-disciplines and major philosophies

[edit] Social science

[edit] Technology

[edit] Biology

[edit] Unsorted

(place the following links in the sections above)

[edit] Watch over the outlines

Wikiproject Watchlist - WikiProject Outline of knowledge

[edit] Templates

{{Outline footer}} - (placed at bottom of all Outlines)

For talkpages

{{WikiProject Outlines}} - (placed on talkpages of all Outlines)
{{Outline of knowledge coverage}} - (for main articles covered by an outline, talkpage banner)
{{Outline of knowledge coverage WPT}} - (for country WikiProjects covered by an outline, talkpage banner)

For building outlines

{{Outline generator}} - (template for outline creation)
- {{Outline country}} - (template for outline creation)
- {{Outline U.S. State}} - (template for outline creation)

Userboxes

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/userboxes

[edit] Other project subpages

/Directory
- /List of discussions concerning outlines

[edit] Participants

Active participants in WikiProject Outlines should:

Place their user name on the list of active participants below.
Place one of the following Wikitext expressions on their user page.

Wikitext

Userbox

[[Category:WikiProject Outlines participants]] no userbox

{{User WikiProject Outlines}}

	This user is a member of WikiProject Outlines.

{{User WP Outlines}}

	This user proudly participates in WikiProject Outlines

{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Userboxes/User member}}

	This user understands the importance of outlines, and is a member of Wikiproject Outlines.

Each of the expressions above will display the userbox shown and will add the user page to Category:WikiProject Outlines participants.