Wikipedia talk:Community bulletin board

I looked up "Red Tide" - thinking that it was too colloquial for Wikipedia to cover. Guess what? There was a very helpful information under this title with some specific scientific terms associated with "Red Tide" - a phenomenon unique to some coastal areas (like Florida).

I have been impressed with how much Wikipedia covers. I think it should be seen as usable (with some limitation) by college students for their assignments and papers, and others doing research on many different topics.

Thanks Wikipedia for your good work, including on international and multi-cultural issues. My husband and I will be making contributions soon.

As they say in Hindi: Achcha kiya hain aap sub, aur dhanyawaad!

Dr. Meera & Dr. Mark

Instructions

What is it for?

It is for various kind of announcements: new projects, portals, discussions, proposals, policy changes, inititives, notice boards, fund drives, etc. etc. It is designed to help Wikipedians spread the word. News items should be of general interest of an ordinary Wikipedian. Entries should generally ask for involvement, feedback, or suggestions.

What is it NOT for?

Merely asking for help. The subject (i.e. project, portal) must be new.
Discussions or proposals. Put a link to the discussion page. NO discussions here!
Something that has not yet started or is not finished. Think about the CBB as the "Grand Opening" sign. You would not invite customers to a shop that has yet to be build. Same goes here. Announce projects that are complete and ready to be "used."
Lengthy reports about anything. Keep brief!
Your own personal use. Don't put personal messages up here.
Questions. See Wikipedia:Questions for that.
Vandalism reports. That goes to WP:ANB
Minor conflicts (e.g. about renaming a page)
Spam.

How to list?

Keep the items brief (usually under 2 lines), and provide a link to further discussions.
Include the pull date (typically seven days after posting) for your entry in comment delimiters at the beginning of the entry.
Please do not use templates on this page, so that archives present the actual historical content. Templates can be "subst"'d in.
Do not use fancy formating.
Put new items on top.

Overseers

~~I will be monitoring the entries to make sure they abide the above rules. Renata 02:50, 18 February 2006 (UTC)~~ Not any more. Renata 02:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I watch this to stay informed, but I'll look over it, too.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 03:36, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do basic maintenance and roll my eyes a lot. -Quiddity 00:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I keep an eye on this article,too. Geo.plrd 20:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Past tense

I've seen things like:

Portal:Portugal is created.

Should it be written as:

Portal:Portugal has been created.

? x42bn6 Talk 00:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think, considering that this is news, we should work in present tense.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 01:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Old discussion) But, as the portal has already been created, wouldn't it be more appropriate to use the present perfect, as above? Clearly the portal in the example is no longer being created, though it was created recently. —Cuiviénen^T|C, Sunday, 14 May 2006 @ 18:03 UTC

Discussion

While I think it's fine for instructions to be here, I think we should point everyone to Wikipedia talk:Community Portal for discussion relating to WP:CBB. Many people might not have intrinsic understanding of how the community portal is set-up with transcluded templates. If they have an issue or concern about the CBB, they're likely to raise it on the Community Portal talk page and not here. --Aude (talk | contribs) 18:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be appropriate to announce a new wiki hosted on a non-mediawiki server here? HamillianActor 21:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

replied at user page. -Quiddity 20:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Portals

In the middle of May, a portal proposal process was established at Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals. The aim of this is to reduce the proliferation of poorly maintained (or unmaintained) portals, which is indeed an annoying problem. Now, we've had a number of users propose something and then completely disregard the proposal process and create the portal anyway. (see Portal:Sega, Portal:LGBT, Portal:Guitar) And a number of others that didn't even bother to propose (Golf, Ice hockey, Tennis, Oklahoma, Punk rock, University of Texas at Austin, ...). I'm not sure what we can do to prevent creation of such portals. While I hope these portals turn out to be well-maintained, I don't think they should be listed here if they blatantly ignore the process. Thus, I removed Guitar and put up Marvel. --Aude (talk contribs) 19:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I agree this is a problem. And one of the faults of the CBB is that it encourages it. I'll remove portal:guitar from portal:browse too (especially as it's still underconstruction). -Quiddity 19:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm going through all the portals to identify the unmaintained ones, to see which ones can be salvaged and which should be put up for deletion. --Aude (talk contribs) 19:27, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Portal announcements

I think there should be a place on the CBB to make annoucements for portals that already exist, but need more participation. There are many unmaintained portals. I've been going through the portal namespace to find these, and some are salvagable (the topic is broad enough) if we can recruit maintainers. As well, other portals have only one maintainer and could use more. The announcements would be one line, such as "Portal:Archaeology has not updated in months, and needs new maintainers." --Aude (talk contribs) 21:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bounty and Reward Board annoucements

I support the addition of the annoucements about the bounty and reward boards; there's no need to link to MyWikiBiz, but (AFAIK) these haven't been mentioned on here before, and so are useful, at least to me. In any case, it's not vandalism. (I do wonder why whoever added them felt the need to do so in such an obvious sockpuppet, though...) JesseW, the juggling janitor 20:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Quick question

We have just created a formal WikiProject for Wikification from Category:Articles that need to be wikified, as its new I'd like to stick it on here as a notice BUT then I boticed the rules above (see I read them first) about new projects only. Well it is a new project - people in the past have never really indentified as being regular wikifiers - yet it isnt a new topic, what do you all reckon to it going on there? We do need to drum up support somehow though as there are now 7000+ articles to go through!!!! --Errant Tmorton166^(Talk)(Review me) 13:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Look fine to me. Add it :) --Quiddity 18:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

K cheers --Errant Tmorton166^(Talk)(Review me) 18:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikipediaWeekly

I reverted the addition of {{WikipediaWeekly-subscription}}, primarily because it overwhelmed the section with the logo's size/color, and the misfloat to the left of the Signpost. Can it be replaced with a minimal version (Just a header link to Wikipedia:WikiProject WikipediaWeekly and the contents of {{WikipediaWeekly-textonly}} would be good), floated under the Signpost? That might work better. --Quiddity 04:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've created Template:WikipediaWeekly-subscription-small as per your minimalist/logo removal suggestion (although Signpost gets to keep its logo, but i guess it is black and white...). As for floating it under the signpost subscription box, I'm not sure exactly how to do that even after some tinkering. Do you know how to? I imagine it might be similar to stacking images (at least that is what i'm picturing). If not i'll ask around. JoeSmack ^Talk 07:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Think i got it by simply using a userbox template to stack the two subscription boxes. Hopefully this is what you were asking for! :) JoeSmack ^Talk 17:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, thanks :) I tightened it up a little more, and removed the excess spacing and the duplicate link from "see also". Hopefully that all works for everyone. (and hopefully WikiZine doesnt ask for a box too! :) --Quiddity 21:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever works is fine by me - thanks for the touch of formatting. You did edit the new Template:WikipediaWeekly-subscription-small though which i kinda liked as is, so i created Template:WikipediaWeekly-subscription-compact for your version and made the appropriate changes to the community bulletin board. Templates everywhere! JoeSmack ^Talk 22:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adoption

Would anyone mind if I put up a request for contributors (under New project pages seeking contributors) for WP:ADOPT.

Also two question would under "New project pages seeking contributors" be the right please to put it?

And could we have a two week pull date for this project - new but potential high impact/

Cheers Lethaniol 18:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As no one has complained I am going to do as above - leave a message on my talk page if their is a problem - Cheers Lethaniol 17:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

HELP: Hi there, I can't edit the semi-protected page even though I'm logged in. I'm new to this, so please don't blow my head off. I'm probably posting this in the wrong place. I'd like to add www.payorwiki.com to the list of new wikiprojects needing contributors and assistance. Can you help? If so, please do. Thanks. contact AT payorwiki DOT com

Have had a good response - but ideally need more - so have added on another two weeks to Adopt-a-user program - have left at bottom of list. leave a message on my talk page if their is a problem - Cheers Lethaniol 14:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this. Certain programs warrant being included longer. —Centrx→talk • 23:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again I have put the Adopt-a-user program up - and extended it for 2 weeks. We have had a good response, but more Adopters would be great. I will not be extending it/adding it again in the near future. If you disagree please remove or shorten. Cheers Lethaniol 14:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pulldate

In general, there should be flexibility for the pull date, especially if there is a shortage of items. A discussion for designing the main page, or a viable proposal that affects the entire Image namespace is important and should remain longer, whereas a new favorite essay, etc. would not be. Anyway, if there is nothing to put on the announcements list, there is no point in taking things off to make space for new items that aren't there. —Centrx→talk • 02:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support the Youth

I have added a notice under the notice area. It's asks people to add their name if they support the support editting Wikipedia. Asher Heimermann 05:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Like User:JoeSmack, I don't think this does not belong here. It's not that I'm against the petition (I'd be happy to see a petition that I don't agree with featured here), it's that I don't even know what it's about as the page you link to has no information on its background and you seem to be not willing to discuss it on-wiki. Therefore, I removed it. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]