Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council

Wikipedia:WikiProject Ageing and culture

The WikiProject Ageing and culture was created outside of the Proposals process, and I'm wondering if they should just go ahead or if any editors have any comments or objections about this. What I'm thinking is that it seems like a niche topic, and the founder is quite new here, and the other two members are completely new. Being new isn't a bad thing but I'm afraid they might not stay here long and the project will be abandoned soon. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 17:05, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Editors are free to form projects as they see fit...hopefully they are not forming a project that is already covered or has been rejected in the past. That said all-ways a good thing to see editors collaborate....give the project some time....if there is a problem because they are new...bring it up here and more experienced editors can chime in if need be. If the project never gets of the ground (abandoned) we can deal with it then. -- Moxy (talk) 17:14, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Maybe "Ageing and society" would've been a better title? — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 10:45, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Input pls

....Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Project advice for no movies in navboxes -- Moxy (talk) 17:13, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Scope of a certain WikiProject

I'm looking for some comments over here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Television_Stations#Are_you_kidding_me.3F. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 08:21, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I left a note at the talk page, but WP:SCOPEWAR is the relevant advice. To put it bluntly, unless someone is a bona fide member of the group in question, then it's not really any of his/her business which articles some other volunteers choose to work on (or choose not to work on). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, you're right. I should've probably just asked there and on WikiProject Television for their thoughts on how to tag the articles. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 16:53, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Can I join?

I would like to join this WikiProject. Please tell me if there is anything I need to know. Leave me messages on my talk page. Thanks! Writer freak Contributions 18:32, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Writer_freak! To quote Wikipedia:WikiProject Council, "we do not maintain a formal list of members, so there's no need to sign up." So, by posting this message, you can say you are a participant. Welcome! Cheers, self-appointed council member Harej (talk) 19:23, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I second that welcome...here here!--Moxy (talk) 22:19, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

@Moxy: the term is "hear, hear". --Redrose64 (talk) 22:41, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

lol :0--Moxy (talk) 02:26, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Ditto. Welcome! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 22:40, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

@Harej: What can I do to help? Writer freak Contributions 15:11, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@Writer freak:: It doesn't seem like the WikiProject Council has a lot of standing business, but it does have talk page activity from time to time. So I recommend adding this page to your watchlist and participating in conversations as you see fit. (Especially since I will be starting some conversations here soon as part of my WikiProject X work!) Harej (talk) 17:12, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Hillary_Rodham_Clinton

Please be aware that there is currently a deletion discussion regarding the above-named new Hillary Rodham Clinton WikiProject, which was previously announced at this talk page.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:14, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

New automated WikiProject directory

Hello everyone! I have been working on a new WikiProject directory that (a) automatically updates itself via bot; (b) provides information on who is participating on projects and in those projects' subject area with opt-out for individuals; (c) lists related WikiProjects based on the number of pages in common. The draft directory is located here. Note that during this demonstration phase, only 500 WikiProjects are included in the index, out of the 2,600+ in existence, so the listings may look sparse in some places. Please review the draft and let me know what you think. Thanks, Harej (talk) 02:34, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

@Harej: This is great. Is the plan to supercede this page? It seems like the main elements here that aren't built into the new system are: information about task forces and the various columns for assessment, portals, peer review, collaboration, and notes. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:44, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Ryan, I would like for it to replace the Council-maintained directory, which is often out of date. The new directory does in fact have information about task forces; they often don't show up in the topical sub-directories because they don't have the proper categories. (I am also thinking of a better way to present them in the directory in general.) As for the columns for assessment, portals, peer review, collaboration, and notes—are those needed? I don't see a reason to present all that information in what should be an overview of the WikiProjects. If people want to find out more about that project, they can visit the project. Harej (talk) 14:55, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

@Harej: Having a notes/description area might be good, at the risk of introducing something that could be outdated into what is otherwise a slicker system. Such a column could potentially take the place of all of the other columns should those aspects of the WikiProject be significant enough to mention. But generally speaking, no, I don't think any of those columns are necessary personally -- I just haven't been sufficiently involved in the organizational/administrative aspects of WikiProjects to do anything other than assume there is, or at least has been at some point, a consensus to list all of them. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:03, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I love the "membership" counts.

I think that it might be useful to the WP:1.0 team to list participation in article assessments. It should be possible to identify that from the banner/categories alone, or to link to the stats pages that the 1.0 team's bot updates (e.g., User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Medicine). If the bot hasn't needed to update the assessment stats in a while, then perhaps that would indicate that the group "participated in" rather than "is participating in" assessment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, participation in assessment is currently implied by the existence of articles-in-scope and active-subject-area-editor metrics. Projects that don't participate in assessment just have the middle column on WikiProject activity. Harej (talk) 02:51, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

It shouldn't be. "Participating in assessment" means that someone in your group assigns quality and priority ratings. Just editing articles is not the same thing. Banner tags can be placed without assessing anything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Excellent page! It's a great improvement over the original. Certainly having it automatically maintained is vital. I also like the 'last updated' indicator which gives greater confidence that the page is reliable. It could be useful for the 'articles in project scope' statistic to wikilinks over to a list of those articles. Will the data be archived at regular intervals? It could be nice to see how projects grow and contract over the years. Either way, very well done. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 04:00, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo): The data will be archived insofar as the old versions of the pages will always be available in the edit history. I am also interested in creating a more structured, accessible archive of this data; that will be a future project. Harej (talk) 15:03, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

And one that could be mined for dead projects. Zero participants for a year could mean that it's time for MFD or merging.

May I suggest three edits to the project page during 90 days (or two edits that are more than an hour or two apart)? One note plus one typo correction = two edits, but isn't really an active participant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, the current rationale is that one edit is a passer-by leaving a note, while two edits is someone following up or engaged in conversation. That aside, it's still fairly arbitrary, and intentionally meant to include a large number of people (since WikiProjects don't always warrant more than occasional participation). Do you think increasing the count from two to three, or perhaps two non-minor edits, would make the data more useful? Harej (talk) 02:51, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Harej, I like your idea of two non-minor edits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

How much does the accuracy of the directory suffer due to WikiProjects that are poorly categorized? Some WikiProjects(' categories) are only categorized inside other WikiProjects (like Category:WikiProject Cryptozoology was only categorized in Category:WikiProject Paranormal and Category:WikiProject Tree of Life -- I recently added it to Category:Science WikiProjects so that it would be properly categorized somewhere, although the relevance to science is a bit questionable in that case... do we need additional WikiProject sorting categories?) — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 16:03, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Jeraphine Gryphon, the lackluster state of WikiProject categorization is a problem but it's getting better. I have a script that generates a report listing uncategorized WikiProjects, which helps toward sorting projects into the right buckets. There is also more I need to do to infer categorization from membership in other categories, like that Cryptozoology example you brought up. But now that there is a practical reason to keep the WikiProject categories in good order, I think that will serve as an incentive to properly categorize WikiProjects. And we will most certainly need more categories. Harej (talk) 02:51, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for this innovation. I have two requests. Please hyphenate values and units used as compound modifiers (for example, "90-day" in "90-day span"), according to MOS:HYPHEN, sub-subsection 3, point 8. Please add a column for popular pages (many of which are listed at WP:POPT and CAT:POP).

—Wavelength (talk) 00:02, 17 June 2015 (UTC) and 00:38, 17 June 2015 (UTC) and 05:48, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Mobile viewability (tables vs columns)

I've noticed that a lot of WikiProject pages are formatted using tables. This causes unreadably narrow columns on any mobile device. It'd be useful if sections could be reflowed into vertical sections in mobile view (e.g. using {{col-begin}}). I've done it in WP:MCB, although it took quite a bit of reformatting to get it to work. Perhaps there's a better way to do it than using columns, but it might be useful for other projects as a possible solution. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:36, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

With WikiProject X we're working on a design that is supposed to work on mobile devices. It may require some adjustments to MediaWiki:Common.css, but in the meantime, some of the CSS classes intended for two-column portals are quite helpful. (They don't impose any designs, but make it so that you have two columns collapse to one.) Harej (talk) 18:40, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Confusing guideline

This guideline says: "If your area fits neatly within an existing group with a larger scope (e.g., your favorite video game vs WP:WikiProject Video games), then please join that project, rather than starting yet another WikiProject." This makes no sense to me given that there seems to be no problem with WikiProject United States presidential elections being a sub-project of WikiProject United States. Can someone please explain? Thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:29, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Anythingyouwant, while there is an informal recommendation to not create redundant WikiProjects, people certainly have done so anyway. This isn't inherently a bad thing; a more focused WikiProject can offer more specific guidance particular to that topic. The United States WikiProject for example covers an extremely large base of articles and is meant more as a central portal for "all things U.S." while a project focused on U.S. presidential elections can provide help on matters specific to the elections, for example the presentation of polling data or which primary candidates to include—questions that may be too specific for a generic U.S. project. Harej (talk) 15:00, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Harej, assuming that it's a good idea to have a WikiProject for US presidential elections, even though that topic fits neatly within Wikiproject United States, I don't understand why there is a guideline asking not to do it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:10, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Because creating a taskforce inside an existing WikiProject is in such cases a better idea? — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 15:57, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Rather than a rule, think of it as a guideline for a recommended practice. Having a separate WikiProject really has more to do with building a separate community with its own talk page. (There are a number of tools that work with WikiProjects, but you can make use of the tools as if your, say, task force were a Wiki Project without actually having a separate WikiProject page.) So many WikiProjects have been started and not gotten off the ground, so unless you have a sizeable number of interested editors right off the bat with a lot of topics to discuss that would swamp the talk page of a parent project, it's probably better to just start your work within the scope of the parent project, where you can attract the attention of more editors and build a community of people interested in the topic in question. Then if it seems advantageous to separate discussion into a separate page, a new WikiProject can be spun out. isaacl (talk) 16:06, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Can you think of a way to rephrase this sentence so that it no longer discourages people from ever doing what you say it's okay to do? "If your area fits neatly within an existing group with a larger scope (e.g., your favorite video game vs WP:WikiProject Video games), then please join that project, rather than starting yet another WikiProject." Thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:22, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Can you tell me how this advice came to your attention and whom it's preventing from improving Wikipedia? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:31, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Sure. Above on this page (here), I mentioned that there was a deletion discussion for a new WikiProject: Hillary Rodham Clinton. During that discussion (which is now over), I pointed out that the proposed project fits neatly into WikiProject:United States Presidential Elections. So, I spent a lot of time arguing that the project was against the guideline that says "If your area fits neatly within an existing group with a larger scope (e.g., your favorite video game vs WP:WikiProject Video games), then please join that project, rather than starting yet another WikiProject." Ultimately, someone pointed out that a lot of WikiProjects violate this guideline, and they gave the example of WikiProject: United States Presidential Elections which exists despite the fact that it would fit neatly into WikiProject: United States. So, I switched my !vote to keep, after wasting a ton of my time (and other peoples' time) trying to comply with this guideline that does not even seem to be applicable a lot of the time. Anyway, if you people would be willing to clarify the guideline, I'm sure it would save other people lots of time in the future.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:46, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

It's hard to do without discouraging new editors. Based on past experience, the appropriate guidance would be to try to find an existing community of users who are interested in the given topic area, start conversations within that community, and after a period of time, have a discussion to see if the interested editors would benefit from separating their discussions from the larger group. Unfortunately often new editors don't like to hear that they should wait before creating a new WikiProject. isaacl (talk) 18:33, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

It would be easy enough to add a few words to the guideline: "If your area fits neatly within an existing group with a larger scope (e.g., your favorite video game vs WP:WikiProject Video games), then please join that project, rather than starting yet another WikiProject, unless you are sure that there is sufficient interest, and even so you may want to first try setting up a task force within an existing WikiProject." If the guideline had said that, then I wouldn't have wasted a ton of time mistakenly opposing a new WikiProject.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:49, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

As I think was mentioned in the deletion discussion thread, almost all potential WikiProjects have an encompassing parent scope covered by an existing WikiProject, so personally I'd just focus on the community aspect: Try joining an existing community first, and if it becomes unwieldy, consider the benefits of setting up a separate discussion page. isaacl (talk) 20:26, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

isaacl, you mean setting up a separate discussion page within the existing WikiProject, or in a new WikiProject?Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:32, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Both are possible options that can be pursued; the interested parties would have to weigh the pros and cons of each. isaacl (talk) 02:20, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay, maybe this is what we're aiming for:

“ If your area fits neatly within an existing group with a larger scope (e.g., your favorite video game vs WP:WikiProject Video games), please consider joining that project rather than starting yet another WikiProject, and if that turns out not to work well then consider forming a separate discussion page or task force within that existing WikiProject before deciding to set up a new one. ”

Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:00, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

This is sounding WP:CREEPy.

I'd like to know more about why you opposed that particular WikiProject. If the guideline hadn't existed, would you still have thought that the new group was a bad idea? (There's no right or wrong answer to that question.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:15, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I opposed it (for a long time before ultimately !voting to keep) because the guideline as it's presently written forbids any new WikiProject that fits within an existing one: "If your area fits neatly within an existing group with a larger scope (e.g., your favorite video game vs WP:WikiProject Video games), then please join that project, rather than starting yet another WikiProject." If this guideline hadn't existed, then I would have !voted a lot earlier to keep the new one. I basically had to ignore the guideline to !vote keep, per WP:IAR.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:39, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

As I said, since the first portion of that statement is essentially redundant, I'd prefer focusing on what the community believes is the best approach, more along the lines of the proposal I made earlier. For example:

WikiProjects can only survive with sufficient participation, and having too many can spread interested editors too thin. If you have an idea for a new WikiProject, you should first participate in the existing active WikiProject whose scope includes your topic of interest. After a few months, the existing WikiProject's community can evaluate the pros and cons of creating a separate discussion area, task force, or WikiProject for the topic.

Note, though, that the ultimate decision always lies with the general community. If someone decides to skip this step and creates a vibrant WikiProject from scratch, failing to incubate the project within its parent first would not be a reason to support dissolving the new project. isaacl (talk) 08:51, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me, and it much better reflects and reinforces actual practice than the current provision of the guideline. If there are no substantial objections, I hope we can swap the current provision for the one isaacl has drafted. Thanks. The only tweak I'd suggest is perhaps to remove the first sentence for conciseness and because there may sometimes be other considerations in addition to whether editors are spread too thin. And instead of "should" it might be better to say "should probably" if we want to leave open the opportunity to skip that step. But even if those tweaks are not accepted, I would still support Isaac's language as a big improvement.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:42, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

For me, the reasoning is more important than the process, which can be adapted to suit each specific circumstance. The key bit to understand is that there are costs in trying to create a new community that affect related communities, and so editors should seek the best approach overall (at the current time; in future things may change, and new decisions can be made). There are other contributing costs beyond dividing editors' time, but I think this is the easiest one for everyone to understand and won't offend. isaacl (talk) 16:32, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I think we are now here:

“ There are costs in having too many WikiProjects, such as spreading interested editors too thin. If you have an idea for a new WikiProject, you should probably first participate in the existing active WikiProject whose scope includes your topic of interest. After a few months, the existing WikiProject's community can evaluate the pros and cons of creating a separate discussion area, task force, or WikiProject for your topic. ”

For me, that works fine, and is not too long. This would replace the current inflexible language:

“ If your area fits neatly within an existing group with a larger scope (e.g., your favorite video game vs WP:WikiProject Video games), then please join that project, rather than starting yet another WikiProject. ”

Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:33, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the problem is widespread enough to warrant weakening the advice. (Our bigger problem is that WP:Nobody reads the directions, and even when they do, then they don't that that advice seriously enough.)

If I'd been asked for advice by one of the would-be founders, I would have strongly advised against creating a separate group to deal with such a narrow topic. In short, I would have cast a virtual !vote to delete (although once a project is formally launched, my usual approach is to let them die a natural death, because the cost of withering away is lower than the cost of discouraging an enthusiastic group).

But what I'd like you to do, in the future, is to remember that WP:IAR is an important protection against creeping bureaucracy and unintended consequences. You should never make any edit or take any action that you personally believe is suboptimal, and especially not solely on the grounds that some policy or guideline tells you what The Right Answer™ (on average) is (even if it's a not-so-average situation). It's better to take no action than to take an action that you believe is undesirable "because the rules say so". A guideline can stand up for itself at MFD. We need editors like you to stand up for everything else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:09, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

A Wikipedia guideline or policy is a bit more that advice, despite WP:IAR. After all, !votes are often discounted when they fail to comply with policies/guidelines, and editors are often sanctioned by citing rules and guidelines against them. The guideline in question is not phrased as a mere suggestion, but as a clear request: don't make a new WikiProject if it fits into an old one. I'm just asking to rephrase it so people don't have to resort to WP:IAR all the time. It would be better to get rid of this specific guideline than let it continue to mislead people and gobble up tons of discussion time.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:22, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

You're concentrating too much on the trees and missing the forest. Volunteer editors choose the topics they wish to work on, and with whom they wish to consult. WikiProjects are a framework to make it easier to find the interested communities for a given topic. The purpose of the guideline is to try to avoid the creation of WikiProjects with little activity right off the bat, particularly if it would result in siphoning off activity from a fledgling parent project. Naturally, I support my own words being used for this page, as I think it makes the reasoning apparent and so it helps with avoiding a mechanical "follow this procedure" approach. But I don't think it will have a significant impact on avoiding extended conversation during future WikiProject deletion discussions; I think the value will be in trying to get people to re-consider if a new WikiProject is necessary before they create one. isaacl (talk) 15:49, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

It will at least have that value. The present guideline is simply wrong, and any discussion of a wrong guideline is too much.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:53, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

These things are like an air bubble under wallpaper: try to push it down in one spot, and it pops up in another. If someone tries to treat this guideline as a written-in-stone recipe to follow, then discussion will inevitably ensue, no matter how it's written. So while eliminating any extraneous discussion is, I believe, an elusive goal, maybe some editors can be headed off at the pass from spending time on creating a WikiProject destined to be inactive from the start. isaacl (talk) 15:24, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Anythingyouwant, have you seen this particular problem elsewhere? It's usually not a good idea to re-write a guideline when exactly one editor has ever misunderstood it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:51, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree that I misunderstood it. It said, "If your area fits neatly within an existing group with a larger scope...then please join that project, rather than starting yet another WikiProject." That is an unambiguous request to not start new WikiProjects that fall within old ones.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:47, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I believe that most people interpret please as not being a synonym of must. You are still one (1) editor. have you ever seen this particular problem involving any editor except yourself? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I think it's generally understood at Wikipedia that when a policy or guideline says "please don't do X" it's just a polite way of saying "don't do X". For example, see Wikipedia:Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers. As to whether others besides myself have viewed this WikiProject guideline similarly to the way I have, sure. WP:WikiProject Cricket exists, and so objections were raised as to WP:WikiProject Bangladesh_Premier_League and WP:WikiProject Indian_Premier_League, as discussed here. If I had been contemplating a new WikiProject that's a subset of an existing one, I wouldn't have even bothered discussing it after seeing this WikiProject guideline, because it really doesn't leave much room for discussion.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:40, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I suspect most people understand the guideline to mean that if the topic of your proposed WikiProject is manageable enough in scope that any related discussions and tasks can easily be accommodated by the talk page and other pages of the parent project, then it's not worthwhile to create a separate WikiProject. I believe editors appreciate that the circumstances of the specific topic in question have to be considered, and more than just a simple arithmetic set operation (A is a subset of B, so all discussion of A must be contained to the WikiProject of B) should be done.

I apologize for not having read the surrounding context of the instruction you sought to change prior to now. I don't think my proposed wording integrates well into the context. If there is consensus for adopting this type of change, then I can make some additional copy edits so the overall text is more cohesive. isaacl (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Accordingly, I have reverted my edit to the guideline, and simply changed "then please join that project" to "then please consider joining that project".Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:57, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Your collegiality is appreciated! I have made an edit to the guidance on starting a discussion on the prospective parent project's talk page to emphasize the desire to determine what works best for all interested groups. If anyone has feedback, please let me know. isaacl (talk) 23:08, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Looks okay to me, thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:10, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Categorizing WikiProjects and their categories

WikiProjects are often sorted into categories of the variety "[Something] WikiProjects". WikiProjects also frequently have their own categories; for example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography has a corresponding Category:WikiProject Biography. I tend to refer to the former categories as "meta-categories" and the latter as "self-named categories". I have found that categorization of WikiProjects into appropriate meta-categories is inconsistent. Some projects have meta-categories on both the project page and the self-named categories; others have them just on the self-named categories, and some projects have different categories between the project pages and the self-named categories. It varies from project to project, and I apologize for contributing to this inconsistency.

I propose that for the WikiProjects that have their own categories, that meta-categories are only sorted into the category and not the project page itself. For example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography, currently sorted under Category:WikiProject Biography and Category:Society WikiProjects, would only be sorted under Category:WikiProject Biography, and that category would be sorted under Category:Society WikiProjects. It makes the (much-needed) categorization effort easier, since categories will only need to be assigned in one place. I am volunteering to write a bot to enforce this.

I open this up for discussion. Harej (talk) 03:19, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

• I'm a bit dubious about this plan. The outcome might be desirable in some respects, but the process of getting there could cause confusion and stress. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:10, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Confusion and stress are a natural part of the life of a Wikipedian. :v — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 15:52, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
    • If it would mitigate the confusion, each edit done as part of the category migration could have a link in the edit summary that explains what is happening. Harej (talk) 18:25, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
• I see no problem with this. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 15:52, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
• This is logical. It's a good idea. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:01, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
• It's been 30 days. Shall I go ahead with writing the bot? Harej (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea (although some people argue that it's not worth time doing any category maintenance, since categories are rarely helpful). A few months ago, I cleaned up the WikiProject category structure a bit, but a bot would be nice. Generally, I think the WikiProject category structure should follow these rules:

1. Most WikiProjects should have an eponymous category ("self-named")
2. All pages of a WikiProject, including the main page, should only be categorized in this eponymous category
   • The main page of a WikiProject should have the sort key of " " (blank) in its eponymous category
3. The WikiProject's eponymous category should be categorized in a "meta-category" (ie "[Something] WikiProjects")
   • If the WikiProject does not have its own eponymous category, then the main project page should be categorized in a "meta-category"
   • If the WikiProject's name is the same as the name of the "Something" in "[Something] WikiProjects", then the WikiProject eponymous category should have the sort key of "*" in the "[Something] WikiProjects" category
4. Eponymous WikiProject categories should generally not be categorized within a different WikiProject's eponymous category
5. "Meta-categories" should be categorized within other "meta-categories" in the Category:WikiProjects by area hierarchy, with a sort key beginning with a " ", followed by the category's name

Using this logic, there won't be any circular categorization, which has been a problem in the past. Also, it should make category navigation easier, as you don't have to look in any WikiProject's categories to find other projects that would otherwise be difficult to find. All projects are strictly categorized according to type. --Scott Alter (talk) 07:34, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Sounds great to me. Someone should have a look over the meta-categories we have now, to me it looks like the current main categories are not very helpful. I can't really tell the difference between "Society", "Culture", and "Humanities" categories. I'd vote for getting rid of the Humanities category and turning the "History WikiProjects" category into one of the main meta-categories. Other "humanities" can probably fit in the existent ones. (Also history isn't all about humans.) — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 09:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I really like your idea, Scottalter. It covers all the bases. (To cover your specific point on category maintenance not being worth it, WikiProject categorization is being used to generate the WikiProject Directory, so having a good category system is now necessary.) Jeraphine Gryphon, I have more on the overall category structure below. Harej (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Overall category structure

I'm more than open to the idea of changing the top-level categorization system. As Jeraphine pointed out, "Culture" and "Society" seem like such interchangeable categories (indeed, a lot of projects are sorted as both), and "Humanities" is fairly duplicative. The Council-maintained directory has:

• Culture and the Arts
• Geographical
• History and Society
• Science, Technology, and Engineering

as top-level categories. Compare to the current category system of:

• Culture
• Humanities
• Regional
• Science
• Society
• Technology

I think the former is a clearer grouping. What does everyone else think? Harej (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Looking over this, I would rename "Geographical" to "Regional" and make it exclusively a category for projects of regional character (countries, continents, national subdivisions, cities, etc.). The elements of geography that include earth sciences would be put into an Earth Sciences category that would be sorted under Science, Technology, and Engineering. Harej (talk) 21:19, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 4

Newsletter • May/June 2015

Hello friends! We have been hard at work these past two months. For this report:

The directory is live!

For the first time, we are happy to bring you an exhaustive, comprehensive WikiProject Directory. This directory endeavors to list every single WikiProject on the English Wikipedia, including those that don't participate in article assessment. In constructing the broadest possible definition, we have come up with a list of approximately 2,600 WikiProjects. The directory tracks activity statistics on the WikiProject's pages, and, for where it's available, statistics on the number of articles tracked by the WikiProject and the number of editors active on those articles. Complementing the directory are description pages for each project, listing usernames of people active on the WikiProject pages and the articles in the WikiProject's scope. This will help Wikipedians interested in a subject find each other, whether to seek feedback on an article or to revive an old project. (There is an opt-out option.) We have also come up with listings of related WikiProjects, listing the ten most relevant WikiProjects based on what articles they have in common. We would like to promote WikiProjects as interconnected systems, rather than isolated silos.

A tremendous amount of work went into preparing this directory. WikiProjects do not consistently categorize their pages, meaning we had to develop our own index to match WikiProjects with the articles in their scope. We also had to make some adjustments to how WikiProjects were categorized; indeed, I personally have racked up a few hundred edits re-categorizing WikiProjects. There remains more work to be done to make the WikiProject directory truly useful. In the meantime, take a look and feel free to leave feedback at the WikiProject X talk page.

Stuff in the works!

What have we been working on?

• A new design template—This has been in the works for a while, of course. But our goal is to design something that is useful and cleanly presented on all browsers and at all screen resolutions while working within the confines of what MediaWiki has to offer. Additionally, we are working on designs for the sub-components featured on the main project page.
• A new WikiProject talk page banner in Lua—Work has begun on implementing the WikiProject banner in Lua. The goal is to create a banner template that can be usable by any WikiProject in lieu of having its own template. Work has slowed down for now to focus on higher priority items, but we are interested in your thoughts on how we could go about creating a more useful project banner. We have a draft module on Test Wikipedia, with a demonstration.
• New discussion reports—We have over 4.8 million articles on the English Wikipedia, and almost as many talk pages as well. But what happens when someone posts on a talk page? What if no one is watching that talk page? We are currently testing out a system for an automatically-updating new discussions list, like RFC for WikiProjects. We currently have five test pages up for the WikiProjects on cannabis, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and Ghana.
• SuggestBot for WikiProjects—We have asked the maintainer of SuggestBot to make some minor adjustments to SuggestBot that will allow it to post regular reports to those WikiProjects that ask for them. Stay tuned!
• Semi-automated article assessment—Using the new revision scoring service and another system currently under development, WikiProjects will be getting a new tool to facilitate the article assessment process by providing article quality/importance predictions for articles yet to be assessed. Aside from helping WikiProjects get through their backlogs, the goal is to help WikiProjects with collecting metrics and triaging their work. Semi-automation of this process will help achieve consistent results and keep the process running smoothly, as automation does on other parts of Wikipedia.

Want us to work on any other tools? Interested in volunteering? Leave a note on our talk page.

The WikiProject watchers report is back!

The database report which lists WikiProjects according to the number of watchers (i.e., people that have the project on their watchlist), is back! The report stopped being updated a year ago, following the deactivation of the Toolserver, but a replacement report has been generated.

Until next time, Harej (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright Violation Detection - EranBot Project

A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest.--Lucas559 (talk) 22:42, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

questions regarding project banner add

Hello,

I am a participant in WikiProject Organized Labour. Currently I am working on taking Americans for Prosperity to GA. Americans for Prosperity is included in Category:Labor relations in the United States. I added our project banner to Americans for Prosperity in March 2015. The article is bannered for WikiProject Conservatism, and the article content reflects that, but the subject has diverse stakeholders including Organized Labour and Environment/Climate Change.

I was reverted in June. I sought feedback from my fellow project members at our project talk page, at which time I discovered that the reverting editor had nominated the article for exclusion, please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Organized Labour#Americans for Prosperity. I nominated the article for inclusion, briefly summarizing the evidence for inclusion. A fellow project participant concurred for inclusion, as did a third editor, not a project participant. Subsequent to an explanation of WP:PROJSCOPE from another editor at article talk, please see Talk:Americans for Prosperity#Article Wikiprojects and rating.3F, and subsequent to a consensus for inclusion at project talk, in which both threads the reverting editor participated, the reverting editor reverted the project add five more times.

I filed with WP:EWN, please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Onel5969_reported_by_User:HughD_.28Result:_Page_restriction_applied.29. I did not ask for a block, I was just hoping I could get someone to explain WP:PROJSCOPE and ask the reverting editor to please stop. The EWN report resulted in page edit restrictions, but no action regarding the reversion of the project banner, which was deemed out-of-scope and referred to WP:ANI.

I re-filed at WP:ANI, please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Onel5969_repeated_removal_of_WikiProject_talk_page_banner. An admin at ANI told me I failed to invite article talk participants to project talk and told me to do an RfC at project talk.

Questions

1. An RfC is our mechanism for assessing community-wide consensus on a issue. A thread on project talk is our mechanism for assessing project-wide consensus. My humble read of WP:PROJSCOPE is that it is in effect us saying to each other, look, guys, adding a project banner to an article is way too trivial to edit war about, and it is way too trivial to RfC. WP:PROJSCOPE does specify a project's consensus mechanism but neither does it require an RfC. Is it appropriate to require an RfC for a project banner ad? Is this common? I could not find any such RfCs in the central archive. Might asking a project participant to RfC to add a project banner to an article conflict with the principle that scope is at the discretion of project participants? Does requiring an RfC for a project banner add imply that it is community, not project, purview?

2. What is the appropriate forum for reporting repeated reversion of a project banner add?

Sorry if this is a FAQ. Thank you for your time and attention and advice. Hugh (talk) 21:03, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

With WP:PROJSCOPE, if the project decides it wants to include any particular article in its scope, then that is that. If an editor keeps reverting, and they have been served this guideline repeatedly already, then the first course of action is to tag the user's talk page with a "disruptive editing" tag. Hopefully, if the editor gets enough of those, they will be blocked by an admin. You shouldn't have to do a special RfC because the guideline is crystal clear on this. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:26, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Hugh, Stevie is right here. I would leave a message on their talk pages, telling them what WP:PROJSCOPE says. WikiProject Organized Labour has as much right to tag the AFP article as WikiProject Conservatism has to tag Eugene V. Debs. Harej (talk) 22:32, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

On further review of the situation, despite accusations of canvassing being made, I think the basic issue is whether the project did "decide" to include the subject article. Of the people involved in the related discussion on the project's talk page, only one was a long-term/significant member. I would say the decision rests with that individual at this point. If the decision is 'yes', then push forward with what I said before here. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 11:10, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Gadget for doing WikiProject assessments

I've created a user script to provide a nice user interface for adding WikiProject assessments to article talk pages and have proposed it as a gadget. To try it out, add ...

mw.loader.load( '//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Kaldari/assessmentHelper.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript' );

... to your common.js. If you have any feedback or want to support it being added as a gadget, please comment at the Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals discussion. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 18:54, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Kaldari, my guy. That would go great with my new assessment-related reports. See User:Reports bot/WikiProject Ghana/Assessment/Assess for quality for articles not yet assessed on quality, and User:Reports bot/WikiProject Ghana/Assessment/Not tagged for articles/categories not tagged by the WikiProject but are potentially in scope. (A third report for assessing importance is in the works). Harej (talk) 18:59, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I noticed your reports. Very nice work! Kaldari (talk) 19:58, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Husqvarna Group - wrong logo on the page

Hi, The logo on the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husqvarna_Group is unfortunately old (used between 1973 and 2012). Would it be possible for someone to change? I have added the correct logo in the logopedia, and of course I cans end it to you directly.

Best regards,

Cathrine Stjärnekull Corporate Communications, Husqvarna Group