Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council

Proposed WikiProject: Memphis

Is there anyone who is interested in starting a Memphis WikiProject?

It would cover the Memphis metropolitan area, with counties in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. It can't be a task force of a state project because it covers territory in multiple states.

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It can maybe be a taskforce of all three states? Rich Farmbrough, 19:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC).

Lyrics

I suggest a WikiProject Lyrics.--155.54.178.240 (talk) 11:51, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Well lyrics are not on Wikipedia, as that would be a copyright violation. Therefore, the project wouldn't work. Acather96 (talk) 18:23, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Not all lyrics are copyright limited, and fair use/fair dealing allow reasonable excerpts to be quoted from those that are. A WikiProject consisting of agents who understand the copyright law, and with enthusiasm for music could help ensure appropriate and consistent quoting. Rich Farmbrough, 19:56, 3 November 2010 (UTC).

You are right. For example, there are lyrics in the public domain. --155.54.178.240 (talk) 23:38, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Moving a project title

Is there a way to hold a move discussion to move a project to a disambiguated title when the membership refuses to rename it themselves? I'd rather not mention the project uintil getting some responses first. - BilCat (talk) 18:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

In principle, I suppose anything is possible. In practice, however, trying to force a move on an existing project (presumably so that another project can take the name?) is almost certainly a bad idea, as it will lead to years of bad blood between the editors involved. The usual convention is that project names are taken "first come, first served", similar to how shortcuts are assigned.

Having said that, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some way we could resolve this amicably and leave everyone more or less satisfied; but you'd really have to describe the specific case in question before I could offer any concrete advice. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure. WP:Football is only about association football/soccer. Quite misleading. I'm just inquiring at the momnent, and I probably won't take iot any further. I wouldn't mind seeing a coordinating project for all the fooball codes as a geneal place for discussing related issues for the codes, but I've not raised that anywhere as yet. - BilCat (talk) 03:39, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Coordinating projects tend to do quite poorly, in my experience. They never reach the critical mass of membership and activity that a successful project needs, since most of the interest is concentrated in the child projects; and anything they do tends to breed resentment in their child projects, who believe (usually correctly) that they don't need the coordinating project's help.

Getting back to the more general point, I don't think that the potential existence of a new project would be sufficient reason to push an existing (and active) one out of the name it's used for more than five years. If there were a coordinating project, and if the coordinating project were active and productive, then an argument might be made to give it priority of naming; but, as things are, we'd be disrupting the work of the child project without any real evidence that the project we'd be giving the name to would actually go anywhere. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 13:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

There is a hat-note, anyway, although it could be more comprehensive. Rich Farmbrough, 19:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC).

Parent project hierarchy in page tagging

Is there a guideline regarding a child project's banner tag overriding the parent project's? Specifically, I'm looking at cases where an article is tagged by both WikiProject Ireland and WikiProject Irish music, where the music project is a child of the national project. Should I remove the national project's tag? Ask WikiProject Ireland to formulate a stance? Leave well enough alone? Dereksmootz (talk) 18:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

No real guideline that I know of. I suppose which tag should be higher would depend somewhat on whether the article is more central or important to Irish music or to Ireland in the broader sense. One option might be, if one or more child projects is inactive, to adjust the main Ireland project banner to include assessment parameters etc. for the various inactive direct descendant projects, and then perhaps replace the inactive project's banner with the new multi-functional banner of the parent project. Alternately, one could, potentially, develop the new multi-functional banner and ask the descendant projects if they would find the use of one such multi-function banner as an acceptable way of reducing banner clutter by removing the then somewhat redundant different banners. John Carter (talk) 18:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The two typical conventions, in my experience, are:

1. The parent project has a consolidated banner that includes the child projects' assessment; or
2. The child project has a banner that automatically generates the parent project's assessment.

In either case, the important thing is that both projects have their respective assessment categories generated, allowing them to correctly track articles within their scope. If the parent project's categories are simply removed, then the parent project's statistics/logs/etc. will be incomplete, since they will be missing the child project's articles. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:17, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok - since I'm not savvy regarding editing banners it seems like the short term solution is to live with the clutter in order to

preserve the statistics' integrity - works for me. Thanks for the feedback Dereksmootz (talk) 13:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Encapsulating the banners in the banner shell, with collapse turned on will reduce clutter. Rich Farmbrough, 20:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC).

Bibliography pages

Just as a thought, regarding something that has come up elsewhere, I think that, in general, it might be a good idea to establish separate bibliography articles and/or project pages for many projects. Such pages would assist editors who might not have immediate access to a lot of the material, by perhaps pointing out which books or articles to request as loans, and/or help editors find out which topics within that field might be notable enough for a separate article. Also, they might be very useful if they included lists of books which have been found to be "standard sources" in that field and/or sources which have been found at RSN or elsewhere to be not particularly reliable or useful here. Like I said, just a thought. John Carter (talk) 15:32, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot. See the tool's wiki page and the tool itself. Svick (talk) 18:39, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much. If each listing by categories had its own table of contents, that would be helpful.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:42, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Done, listing by category now contains a TOC with a number of articles for each category. Svick (talk) 22:15, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for those additional features.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:49, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Most watched/edited WikiProjects

We have two new reports on WikiProjects:

• Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes, which totals the number of edits to any page in the project's space during the last 30 days. About 1200 WikiProjects are listed. WP:WPSPAM leads the list, which doesn't surprise me.
• Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProject watchers, which counts the number of editors watching the WikiProject's page (the main page, if there are multiple pages). The list appears to omit pages with fewer than 100 watchers.

Thanks to Svick and Wavelength for making this happen.

From the first list, I wonder whether we should review the couple hundred at the end (with only one or two changes to any page during the last 30 days) and see about having them tagged as {{inactive}} or {{semiactive}}. Some of them are doubtless already tagged that way. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I favor not tagging them, because that might discourage (rather than encourage) edits to them, but editors can visit pages in those WikiProjects and look for things that need to be improved.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:29, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Tagging the projects as inactive isn't particularly useful in terms of getting them to be more productive, in my opinion; I think we should really be looking at longer-term solutions (e.g. merging them to an active project, transforming them into a task force, etc.) for the terminally catatonic ones. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 02:36, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The list is also missing the totally inactive projects with 0 changes. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:03, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I support the Kirill's idea of merging, either into an active project or as a task force. --Kslotte (talk) 10:43, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

"last 30 days", could the report be made on a bit longer time period? maybe a year? would give better information about Wikiprojects that really are inactive. --Kslotte (talk) 10:49, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The usefulness of a project doesn't bear any great relation with edits or watchers. Tagging projects as inactive isn't tremendously helpful; it just puts off people who might get involved. Merge if necessary, but don't underestimate the organisational value derived from projects with no visible activity on the project pages. (For example, project assessments made on talk pages don't show up on the project page as an edit.) Rd232 ^talk 11:26, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The report has been updated to include changes in the past 365 days and projects with 0 edits too. Note that if the table contains a redlink or a redirect, it means there is some non-redirect sub- or talk-page under that name. Svick (talk) 15:03, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I've tidied up some of those redlinked projects by moving some pages to the correct locations. -- WOSlinker (talk) 16:27, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

What do you think about talk pages such as Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Art or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Web Animation? They contain some discussion, but the corresponding non-talk pages are redirects to some actual WikiProject. I'm asking because they show up in the list as if they were a WikiProject with 0 edits. Svick (talk) 17:36, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Could the talk pages just be edited and changed into redirects as well? -- WOSlinker (talk) 18:55, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think redirecting (or archiving and redirecting, if there's significant material there) is probably the best approach for pages like that. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 02:26, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Would some updated SQL help? Adding another column to the report could show if the projects mainpage is a redirect. (Haven't actually tested the SQL below though) -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:01, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

SELECT REPLACE(SUBSTRING_INDEX(page.page_title, '/', 1), '_', ' ') AS project,
       SUM((
         SELECT COUNT(*)
         FROM revision
         WHERE page.page_id = rev_page
         AND DATEDIFF(NOW(), rev_timestamp) <= 365
       )) AS count,
       page2.page_is_redirect AS project_is_a_redirect
FROM page
LEFT JOIN page AS page2
 ON (REPLACE(SUBSTRING_INDEX(page.page_title, '/', 1), '_', ' ')=page2.page_title AND page2.page_namespace=4)
WHERE page_title LIKE 'WikiProject\_%'
AND page.page_namespace BETWEEN 4 AND 5
AND page.page_is_redirect = 0
GROUP BY project, project_is_a_redirect
ORDER BY count DESC, project

Femto Bot

Is now taking orders for "recent changes" pages to maintain similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Hawaii/Hawaii_recent_changes and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Bacon/Recent_changes. Rich Farmbrough, 18:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC).

Essay

Just what we need, another userspace essay of at best dubious quality, right? Anyway, User:John Carter/Wikipedia:The Next Generation is a rough, and I mean rough, idea of some things which it might be possible to do which might make some things a bit better around here. Maybe. The downside is that, right now, the essay really is, well, bad. Any input anyone might want to make in maybe making it more useful and suitable for wikipedia space is more than welcome to make any changes which might help it be more fitting there. John Carter (talk) 20:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Northern Cyprus

Is Wikipedia:WikiProject Northern Cyprus an official Wikiproject? I noticed it while looking for one on the location, but it doesn't look like a real wikiproject. 76.66.194.212 (talk) 05:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Nope, that's not really a WikiProject; it looks like someone tried to set one up but never followed through. Given that the creator is indefinitely blocked, I'd suggest we either redirect it to an existing project (if there is one covering the topic) or delete it; of course, if someone wants to take it under their wing and turn it into a real project, that would work too. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 05:24, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

There is Wikipedia:WikiProject Cyprus. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:34, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

-I think it would be better if it was redirected to Wikiproject:Cyprus since I don't see it going anywhere by itself. Wikiproject:Cyprus represents the country as a whole which is not that large of one so again, it would be better of if it was redirected to to Wikiproject: Cyprus. -- DubaiTerminator (talk) 06:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I have turned the page in question into a redirect to WikiProject Cyprus. However, if the subject does ever become one in which multiple editors are interested in, it might make sense to create a subproject for Northern Cyprus. John Carter (talk) 18:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Possible "annual meetings"

What would the rest of you think of the idea of maybe, perhaps starting in January?, having something like across-the-board "annual meetings" of editors to discuss how they would like to see the WikiProjects and related groups in their field go forward in the next year, perhaps discuss any new sources or developments in their fields which might not yet be completely reflected in the related content, discuss any problem areas of content, like areas of POV pushing or COI, which they might be able to address, and any other related issues? They might, potentially, be broken down into major topical headings, like maybe perhaps for the broad areas of Arts, Language and Literature, Philosphy & Religion, Economics and Business, Hobbies and recreation, Humanities, Science, Technology and Places, which are the current headings of Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/List of WikiProjects, and, perhaps if there is sufficient interest and related discussion, separate more focused discussion for those topics? John Carter (talk) 18:51, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about some sort of on-wiki gathering, and not an actual face-to-face meeting? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 20:37, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, probably something like special pages created explicitly for the purpose, maybe either subpages of the directly relevant WikiProjects if they exist or some sort of one-time group of wikipedia space pages specifically created. I would think that certain projects, maybe the more smoothly functioning ones, like Film and MILHIST, might not necessary need such pages, but a lot of the other projects, particularly those which are subtopics of the topics listed above, might benefit from getting a bit more focused attention on them, at least once a year. John Carter (talk) 20:46, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Canada

Can WPCanada just declare that related wikiproject banners (not WPCanada) should be removed without consulting with the subprojects? I noticed at WP:Montreal a change in our instructions that removed our banner from our own instructions and at template talk:WikiProject_Canada that the members of WPCanada want to eliminate our banner without consulting us about it. We have an open poll that shows disagreement on the issue, and were not even advised that our own instructions were being modified to eliminate our own banner from them. The change occurred during a raft of changes to update out of date info. 76.66.202.72 (talk) 07:41, 1 December 2010 (UTC)