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Archive 1Archive 2

Standardizing country coverage

I've been working on an utterly huge project over the past few months that, because of its structure, naturally reveals problems in Wikipedia's country coverage.

I and a team of editors are building country outlines as part of the Geography branch of Wikipedia's outline of knowledge. We're creating an outline for every country of the World! We've adopted a beehive approach, with everyone for the most part working on items on all of the outlines rather than completing one outline at a time - therefore most of these pages are developing at about the same pace. These are turning out to be a great Wikipedia navigation aid, for traversing country topics and for comparing countries. And because they share a standard format, inconsistencies blatantly stand out! Like unstandardized page names.

That's what led me to the "Cuisine of" naming problem. Another problem revealed is with the CIA World Factbook statistics added to most "Demographics of" country articles (the material needs to be wikified). See User:The Transhumanist/List of country demographics pages. Another problem I ran into is that most country adjectivals merely redirected back to each country's name - so far, I've created disambiguation pages for about half of those. Adjectival cuisine articles tie directly into them.

Since these types of things tie into the outlines as an integrated system, we've been trying to correct each problem as we encounter them to improve the usability of the whole. There's certain to be dozens more quirks in Wikipedia's country coverage.

See the complete list of country outlines we're working on at: User:The Transhumanist/Country list.

The following country outlines have been completed enough to move into article space:

Countries of the World, arranged by continent or major geopolitical region:

Africa:
Algeria • Angola • Egypt •
Antarctica:
None
Asia:
India • Indonesia • Iran • Iraq • Israel • Japan • Macau • Russia • Taiwan • Thailand
Europe:
Albania • Austria • France • Germany • Iceland • Ireland • Italy • Isle of Man • Russia • United Kingdom
North America:
Canada • Mexico • United States
Oceania (includes the continent of Australia):
Australia •
South America:
Argentina • Ecuador •

The most complete are Topic outline of France, Topic outline of Iceland, Topic outline of Japan, Topic outline of Macau, Topic outline of Taiwan, and Topic outline of Thailand. Check 'em out!

We're continuously looking for people to help on this project. We rely heavily on advanced wikitools like WP:AWB, Firefox + WP:LINKY, and WP:WikEd. If you know of anyone who likes fast-paced projects and who loves to get their feet wet (we're in up to our necks), please refer them to me.

This is a big project with important ramifications - we're trying to build Wikipedia's outline of knowledge to critical mass (where it will become so useful that it will attract in droves users who depend on it regularly to navigate Wikipedia). When that happens, its development will also take off. I'm hoping that by building the Geography section up to be as useful as an almanac or atlas, that it will attract traffic to the rest of the outline.

See the rest of the outline created so far:

Let me know what you think.

I look forward to your reply.

The Transhumanist 05:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

This is a fascinating vision. Thank you for sharing it with me. I now understand the "genesis" of the cuisine moves. I really need some time to study the examples you give and to think about the implications. Perhaps what I will do is simply take one of the countries I am familiar with (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, etc.) and see if I can fit it into your outlines. I do not know what system you propose to use when substituting your finalized outlines for the existing articles, but please bear in mind that you need to tread very carefully in Central Asia and Transcaucasia: a single word may lead to endless passionately charged discussions. The same is probably true for many other parts of the world, so do tell me how you intend to implement the change. How will you bypass the "proposal discussion" stage? With regard to CIA World Factbook, I am sorely aware of the standardization (and updating!) problems, but this is a separate discussion.
I do not know anyone whom I can refer to your project. Since the magnitude of your project obviously requires exclusive full time commitment, I cannot promise my own participation, but, as noted above, I may dabble in the margin. Will this be helpful in any way? I have no skills in using any of the advanced editing tools that you mention, but I am quick to learn if you are willing to guide me. For instance, I have picked up WP:POP from your recent comment and I now see the advantages of using it.
Best. --Zlerman (talk) 05:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
The outlines aren't replacing any articles. They are part of Wikipedia's content system - like any article or portal, the creation of this type of page does not require preapproval. As we complete them, they are added to Portal:Contents/Lists of basic topics. We've completed 29 countries so far. There are dozens of outlines completed over the past 3 years on a wide variety of subjects.
The project is in the middle of a namechange, which will take another couple months or so, and this explains why you haven't seen "Outline of knowledge" anywhere.  :)
Please keep your eyes open for prolific editors and send them my way.
And you are most welcome to help out in any volume that you like. I'll be happy to provide you with guidance on how to use the tools, and on the type of tasks we work on.
I've got to log off. See you tomorrow.
The Transhumanist 06:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Demographics of...

We're working on them. If you'd like to help, jump right in. I'm using WP:LINKY and WP:WikEd, while the others are using AWB. AWB requires registration, which you do by adding yourself to its checkpage. See WP:AWB for instructions. The Transhumanist 22:09, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Tools

If you are interested in the tools and techniques I use, see WP:OTS (which I wrote).

The Transhumanist 22:16, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, etc.

I look forward to seeing what you do to these:

Basically, it needs to be filled in. Especially the government branches sections.

Redlinks need to be bluelinked - standard article names have been used on all the pages. They should be preserved in these outlines (and developed for Wikipedia in general) by making a redirect to wherever the information is on Wikipedia.

Then a google search of Wikipedia article titles needs to be done for the country's name, and links to any essential topics found need to be added to the outline.

Then is the fun part: adding maps and images to the page.

The above development process results in a nice solid start, which others will be proud to further improve.

I challenge you to do your best, and I will be comparing your work with the Topic outline of France, Topic outline of Iceland, Topic outline of Japan, Topic outline of Macau, Topic outline of Taiwan, and Topic outline of Thailand.

Good luck, and happy developing.

The Transhumanist 01:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

You have a partial reply on my talk page

The Transhumanist 03:14, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

and another.  :) The Transhumanist 03:37, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I've replied to your message about redlinking on my talk page. The Transhumanist 04:18, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Concerning repetition

By the way, the reason the country's name is on just about every line is because all these outlines are very very similar, and one of the most useful things to do with them is compare countries (like having country outlines in separate windows and switching back and forth). When looking at more than one of these, if the country name wasn't plastered all over the place, it would be very easy to forget which country you were looking at and make a mistake, like citing the wrong population figure. The Transhumanist 03:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I forgot to mention

The outlines also serve as a development tool for each subject. By clicking on each link (or better yet, by using WP:LINKY to open each link in Firefox tabs), you can check out the status of Wikipedia's coverage on that topic. So someone looking to improve coverage and clicks on a redirect to a snippet, can expand that snippet into an article over the redirect.

The redlinks also show a lot about the coverage. Redlinks can indicate that the articles aren't named according to the standard used for most country articles. They may also show how far coverage has expanded ("Economy of x" is an expansion of "x", for example). That is, topics generally start off as subtopics of another article before they are split off into their own articles. Redlinks show how much splitting off is still left for the country.

Having fun yet?

The Transhumanist 04:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Extreme points

Leave them red.

There's at least one fanatic out there working on these. They'll turn blue in time.

You could speed this up by looking at the various "Extreme points" articles and writing one in the same format.

It might be an easy copy and paste and edit operation. Also, the data for the various countries might be coming from the same place. Check the references.

Also, the main author might be using a template. You could ask him.

The Transhumanist 04:29, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Constitution of Asia

The template you have added to the constitution articles for Asian countries have created a nasty red link in each article. Can you fix it, please? Thank you. --Zlerman (talk) 02:17, 21 November 2008 (UTC) Thanks for the messaage, I did not create the link, I only copied it from there : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Burma I do not know who created the template. --Rédacteur Tibet (talk) 12:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Re: Country outlines: energy

There is an apparent redundancy in Uzb and Taj outlines, where we have both Energy policy in ... (under Economy) and Energy in ... (under Infrastructure). This redundancy has been eliminated in France, for instance, but there Energy is under Infrastructure. Why? In my view, Energy (including policies) should be under Economy. Guidance? --Zlerman (talk) 03:46, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Energy distribution systems (power lines, transfer stations, etc.) are definitely infrastructure (like roads, bridges, dams, water mains, etc.). Infrastructures are generally considered to include the administrations that oversee them. Redundancy doesn't hurt - if something belongs in more than one section, we should include it there. The Transhumanist 23:10, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Come to think of it, "Infrastructure" should probably be moved to become a subsection of economy, as infrastructure is capital, which falls under the larger subject. But since it applies to all the country outlines, it should be undertaken on all of them in a single task so that they stay standardized (there's no sense in changing 2 or 3 only). Then energy could be moved to "infrastructure" and by doing so would still be retained in the economic section, and redundancy will have been eliminated. Thank you for the input. The Transhumanist 23:18, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Persians, Tajiks, Central Asia

Hi Zlerman, I saw that you are a member of the WikiProject "Central Asia", and I think that you are knowledgeable on the issue. There is a confusing mess-up in all Tajik- and Persian-related articles.

I was thinking of turning the article Tajik into a solely etymological one (like the article in the Encyclopaedia of Islam), and instead creatinb 3 different articles about the population:

As a first initiative, the Persian-speakers of Iran article was created. The overall general article is Persian people, mostly dealing with the historical Persians up to the modern age of nation-states.

What do you think? Tājik (talk) 01:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

  • Thank you for bringing me in on this. I need a little time to think about the proposal. Will respond later. Meanwhile, please bear in mind that there are literally zillions of links to Tajiks (in its present guise) throughout Wikipedia. Different links refer to different aspects of Tajiks and this somehow will need to be dealt with systematically if you restructure the system. I am afraid that a simple dab will not solve the problem. --Zlerman (talk) 02:21, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the respond. I thought of that too, but I think that it is still a relatively small problem that just needs some time to be fixed. The greater problem is the mess-up about "who is Persian and who is not?", "who is a Tajik and who is not?", etc. By creating three different articles about the Persian-speaking populations of the area, one could solve these problems, while keeping a general article (Persian people) as an overview. The truth is: "Tajik" has a much wider meaning than just the name of the current population of Tajikistan - historically and etymologically. Tājik (talk) 04:15, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
RE Persian-speakers of Iran: Hi Zlerman. To be honest: I have no clue. Some users simply copied that infobox from a previous version of Persian people. I believe that "Persian-speakers of Iran" should be defined as "people speaking Persian as their first language", nothing more and nothing less. I really do not know what the other numbers say. Cheers. Tājik (talk) 06:46, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
As I have already explained, I do not think that the infoboxes are a big deal. It just needs some time. One of the reasons why these infoboxes are so unreliable is because there is no standardized definition for many ethnic groups. To give you an example: the differences between Southern Pashto and Northern Pashto are - partially - bigger than between Tajik and Persian. Yet there is only one article about Pashtuns, but more than 5 articles about Persian-speakers: Persian people, Persian-speakers of Iran, Tajiks, Hazara, Aimak, Farsiwan, and some others. Some of these articles have more or less identical information (Tajiks - Farsiwan; Farsiwan - Persian-speakers of Iran). It is confusing, unencyclopaedic, and mostly politically motivated. I am looking for a way to simply this in an encyclopedic and scholastic way, for example, by creating the three articles I mentioned, and possibly a "unifying" navigation-template. Of course, I cannot do that by myself. (BTW: you can reply here, if you want). Tājik (talk) 15:27, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. I am taking all this in, but I need time to study the relevant cases and digest the information. Please bear with me. I will share one nagging concern with you already now, though. I am afraid that calling the Tajikistani Tajiks "Persian-speakers of Central Asia" may create uneasy feelings or unfavorable impressions in Tajikistan. Don't forget that their constitution explicitly says that the national language of Tajikistan is the Tajik language -- in these very words. So we have to be especially careful and considerate. But as I have noted, I need to think about all the implications before I am ready to respond to your proposal. Best. --Zlerman (talk) 17:04, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I also do not think that the "Tajik vs. Persian" thing is too complicated, as Tajiks are more and more recognizing their Persian heritage. However, we can keep small disambiguation articles, such as in case of Persian or Afghan, while pointing the main articles. Take your time to study the case. Cheers. Tājik (talk) 19:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

RE "light-haired Tajiks":

Hi Zlerman, that user is correct. Generally, people with fair complexions in Afghanistan are only found in isolated mountain regions. This is no exception for the Tajiks. Pashtuns, in general, are also of darker complexion, but there are also blond and green-eyed Pashtuns in isolated mountain valleys.

Of course, due to a high migration rate into larger cities, one can also find ligh-haired Tajiks and Pashtuns in Kabul, Herat, and so forth. But usually, they are only found in and around Badakhshan, in the isolated mountain valleys to the north of Kabul, or in the Ghor region (in case of Tajiks). Tājik (talk) 20:16, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Zlerman. Iranian peoples is a totally different article and topic. It is about the speakers of Iranian languages and has, to sum it up, not much to do with Persian-speakers of Iran. The relation between "Iranian Persians" and "Iranian peoples" is like the relation between Germans and Germanic peoples. So, while a Non-Persian, Iranian-speaker (for example Kurds or Pashtuns) is by definition "Iranic", he does not have to be a citizen of Iran. That's comparble to the english people: English-speakers or Skandinavians are "Germanic" by definition, but not necessairily citizens of Germany.
As for the other question: yes, I still think that a separation in 3 different articles is the best solution. Central Asia has no fix boundaries, but the southren border is commonly defined as the Amu Darya. As such, the Persian-speakers of Afghanistan do not have do be defined as "Central Asians". Tājik (talk) 16:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I know. But "Iranian peoples" is the term that is used by scholars. Please note that the article is an FA, and we had a long discussion in this regard. That's why the intro says:
  • The Iranian peoples[1] are a collection of ethnic groups,[2][3] defined along linguistic lines as speaking Iranian languages.[4] They are spread across the Iranian plateau, stretching from the Hindu Kush to central Anatolia and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf - a region that is sometimes termed Greater Iran.[5] Speakers of Iranian languages, however, were once found throughout Eurasia, from the Balkans to western China.[6][7] As Iranian peoples are not confined to the borders of the current state of Iran, the term Iranic peoples is sometimes used to avoid confusion with the citizens of Iran.
"Iranian peoples" is simply the academic expression. The term Greater Iran is also academic. Please watch this CNN interview with Harvard Professor Richard Nelson Frye. However, we have the same problem with "Turk", "Turkish", and "Turkic". It's a big mess. ;-) Tājik (talk) 17:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

SSR

Hi! Nope, it looks like the correct name was Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia. See various constitutions in this article's references. Alæxis¿question? 20:34, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Abkhazia infobox

The dates are sourced by the citations given at the top of that section. I agree that this may not be immediately clear now, but I'm concerned that if I move these notes down, it gets confusing with the remark-notes that are already there, and also it would create a lot of duplication, since these three sources cover all 9 events. sephia karta | di mi 19:16, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Armenia

Sorry, my contribution was just to wikify the text that was already there. My interests are more Central Asia, though the Armenian version sounded delicious, as does the Latvian. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 11:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Roof of the World

Dear Professor -->W has been done as you suggested. At first I hadn't been aware that there were two entries, one "world", one "World", because the link from Tibet led to "world". So I put my text there, and after discovering the "World"-entry with another "REDIRECT Tibet" I changed that as well. Now I've simply transferred the whole Editing material per 'Copy' and pasted it in "...World". As I'm a bl... beginner at the computer, I'm quite pleased with myself.
And THANK YOU for the lovely compliment! --Marschner (talk) 22:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Rolgn

Yes, the "account creation blocked" is a setting that we can apply in addition to a user's block from editing. Rolgn is actually the indefinitely blocked sockpuppeteer Koov (talk · contribs), who reappears under a new account (whose name is usually 4-5 characters in length) every few days to edit articles relating to foreign relations. I applied the "account creation blocked" setting in hopes of preventing him from creating future accounts for disruption on Wikipedia. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 07:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages

Hi. Please don't “wikify” disambiguation pages, as you did to Kishka. Some of the guidelines for disambiguation pages are summarized above the edit field when you edit a disambiguation page, and explained in detail at WP:MOSDAB. —Michael Z. 2008-12-04 16:40 z

Badagnani and his opposition to the Geogian cuisine move

Badagnani is for the status quo and as a general point of contention opposes any changes to existing articles, templates etc...

He also does it to spite me sometimes as he opposes just about every proposed move, proposed deletion or change to articles I make, but that is only my opinion. In this case he cut and pasted a boiler plate oppose on every article that I proposed moving to the Country cuisine format from Cuisine of country format, seven in all.

Just thought I would let you know, --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 05:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Requested moves

As with the Georgian cuisine articles, please contribute to these discussions:

These pages will be reversed, with the redirect being placed on the Cuisine of Country page.

--Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 05:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

שלום מעיט

So you'll undoubtedly remember me for my tireless support of Iran's efforts to annex Tajikistan. I have posted a suggestion about adding the Russian and/or Cyrillic Özbek to the top box of the Özbekistan page. No one, however, has responded, and you do seem to be the guy to go to with these sort of questions.

1. Why doesn't Russian belong on the Özbekistan page? Doesn't Özbekistan, like Kazakistan, have a large number of ethnic Russian Özbekistanis as well as the native Özbeks? 2. Why doesn't Cyrillic Özbek belong on the Özbekistan page? Didn't most Özbeks grow up in a country where learning Russian was a necessary part of their education and you would greet your mates with a "Салом" rather than a "Salom"? For that matter, don't most Özbeks still speak Russian when speaking to non-Özbeks?

Thanks in advance סרסלי, קײק פּלז (talk) 11:43, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Dear Ayit (is this how I should call you?), in Kazakhstan Russian is an official language, so in addition to the name in English and in Kazakh modified-Cyrillic alphabet we also show the name in Russian. Plus the respective English transliterations -- a total of five lines in the infobox. Awkward, but that's life according to Wikipedia guidelines. In Uzbekistan, Uzbek is the only official language (Russian has a special status for "inter-ethnic" communication, but it is not an official language). So we should show the name of this country in English and in Uzbek (only). But in 1992 Uzbek officially shifted from modified-Cyrillic to modified-Latin (modified-Turkish) script. This means that we show the name in English, then the name in Uzbek in Latinized Uzbek script -- and that is that, just two lines at the top of the infobox. Now, in practice (or de facto, as they love to say on Wikipedia), the modified-Cyrillic script is still widely used in Uzbekistan and for this reason the name of the country is shown also in this script -- but only in the body of the text (not in the infobox!!!!) I hope this clarifies the situation (and also explains why I rudely removed the Perso-Arabic script from Tajikistan). Write if you need more explanations. Best, --Zlerman (talk) 12:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, that clears most things up. PS, you didn't rudely remove the Perso-Arabic script while I was around. I still think we should add it, but I'm just debating on the talk page. Anyway, an other question:
  • Is it possible to type the "O'" in "O'zbek" the way they officially have it in the country? (IE, attached to the letter?) Isn't it approximately the same as the Vietnamese? Like, "Ơzbekistan"?

PS, the title of this is in Yiddish orthography pronounced as "Śolem mejt" the "mejt" representing the English slang word "mate". My name is דניאל, and my user name is a joking representation of the internet slang "PLZ" combined with the American slur for Jews "kike" (rendered in Yiddish orthography again) and again, as a joke, internet slang "srsly" (סרסלי)

To the final effect of "Seriously, kike please!" (For more information, ask black people why they say "Nigga please" סרסלי, קײק פּלז (talk) 13:43, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Aragh

In the Republic of Armenia aniseed-flavored distilled alcoholic drinks are not consumed and most people don't even know that such drinks exist. Aragh is a synonym for vodka in Armenia. -- Ευπάτωρ Talk!! 14:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Np. I should mention that the opposite is true for Armenians in the Diaspora.-- Ευπάτωρ Talk!! 14:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Zlerman. In the Armenian diaspora, 'oghi' is used to refer to arak/raki/ouzo and not 'aragh', see the Google results here for example [1]. However in the RoA, aragh seems to be a more popular term than oghi and there, these words mean 'vodka'. - Fedayee (talk) 01:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's the link to the book by Hacikyan et al. [2] - Fedayee (talk) 04:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Kishka

I created a second kishka article, so please don't panic when you see the existing version of the old one. There a now two articles that can coexist peacefully with sausage for all. I went ahead and disambiguated both on the kishka page, and I even put the Jewish one first. I used the existing article for the more generic version since it had a long edit history, but neither has greater standing in the encyclopedia as far as I can tell. I hope this satisfies your concerns so we can move forward on building a better encyclopedia. I also added some notes on both article discussion pages with some suggestions for improvements. Take care. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

About Laz Population

Hello Zlerman, i can't speak very well English.But i must say you spmethings.

Three of the four sources you give in the fist line above are music-related sites and therefore cannot be used as a reliable source for demographic estimates.
The fourth source states clearly (and professionally) at the bottom of the table: "All figures above are estimates, due to the lack of independent data. Real figures may differ substantially." So we cannot really use it as a reliable source either.
Your last source is an advocacy group for minorities. It is therefore not objective and cannot be regarded as reliable in matters relating to the demographics of minorities.
Finally, you can reproduce reliable sources from Turkish and Georgian Wikipedias (if they appear there), but you cannot cite them as a source for your changes.
You may not like the numbers in the article, but they are the best we have from reliable sources and must not be changed until better reliable sources are identified. Incidentally, these issues have been previously thrashed out on the Laz people talk page, so there is no need to start the whole cycle again. --Zlerman (talk) 08:00, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Advice needed

I would use the article Arak (distilled beverage) as a reference. But lets ask the Mixed drinks WikiProject for their input. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 19:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Berber Y

That section should be used to compare data, between the diff populations, I added the data but they just removed it :) Cadenas2008 (talk) 17:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

RE: Automatic lead

Hi there,

The leads certainly weren't automatic - I had to substitute each name for each article. Anyways, I was following instructions from User_talk:Thehelpfulone#Back_to_demographics. The Transhumanist is the user who gave me the instructions, can you confirm with him the vowel change then I'll make it to around 200 articles! :)

The Helpful One 10:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Zlerman, I've replied on his page. The Transhumanist 03:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Avicenna's notability

Please vote on this issue. Thanks! --Enzuru 03:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Demographics of CIS countries

I would like to try and standardize the "Demographics of" articles for the 12 CIS countries that I am familiar with. Unfortunately, even the articles that have been recently "done" (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia) do not have a standard structure. Could you please direct me to an example of an ideal layout or template that I should follow? Thank you. --Zlerman (talk) 05:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The only parts Thehelpfulone and I have been working on are the lead and the CIA demographics statistics section. I would suggest you develop one of the twelve articles first, and once you have it to the structure you feel is ideal (feel free to ask others, including me, for feedback) then change the structure of the others to match.
The biggest problem we've run into is that two approaches have been used with the CIA statistics. Some have expanded it to include statistics from other sources, while in some articles the statistics are kept in sections by source (which I think is preferred, because it makes it easier to update them in the future).
Keep up the good work, and feel free to ask me anything, and I'll answer to the best of my ability.
Sincerely,
The Transhumanist 03:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Laz

He's a banned user, you can see who here. If you see him again please let me know -- banned users may be reverted and blocked on sight. If he persists I can semi-protect the articles. Khoikhoi 20:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Re:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Of course, we could start writing in sandboxes. I suggest the following:

Feel free to edit these sandboxes. I will also ask others for help. Tājik (talk) 02:53, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know the problems. However, I am not much concerned about it. Afghanistan is variously treated as part of Central Asia, South Asia, Middle East, and so forth. Since the definition is very humble in regard of Afghanistan, I've suggested to create a separate article for the Persian-speakers of Afghanistan. As for Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and so forth, there is not much controversy and these nations are universally accepted as "Central Asian states". Of course, Persian-speakers of Central Asia could also deal with Persian-speakers in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and so forth - assuming that there are any. Additionally, I also suggest to create an article Persian-speakers of South Asia about those living in Pakistan and India. But since Iran and Afghanistan are the most important Persian-speaking countries, I believe that they need two separate articles. Tājik (talk) 03:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
That's not a good idea. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, which is scholastic source, gives for "Tajik" only an etymological article and explains its various meanings in the course of time. "Tajik" is not a nationality, it is just a name for a wide range of Persian-speaking peoples who do not belong to any tribal society. They are not even necessairily related to each others. It is just a loose term. All of this can be explained in the article Tajik (not Tajiks). Historically, the Persian-speakers of Iran were also known as "Tajik". Read this article in the Encyclopaedia Iranica: "... military and political power in Persia was generally in the hands of ethnic Turks, while ethnic Persians, called Tajiks, were dominant in the areas of administration and culture ...". My aim is to bring in some order and end the confusion about "Persian", "Tajik", "Farsiwan", and so forth. Tājik (talk) 03:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I have nothing against other sources, but we should stick to the Encyclopaedia Iranica and Encyclopaedia of Islam, because these two scholastic sources are the two most important and most trusted standard reference works of Iranian studies. Please feel free to ask Tajik contributers about their thoughts, but keep in mind that Wikipedia is NOT a democracy. Tājik (talk) 04:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Of course the Tajiks say "Tajik" to their language, the same way Germans say "Deutsch". The point is: because of the lack of understanding, Western sources have blindly copied Soviet literature. And since Soviet textbooks defined the language as "Tajik" (and that's the main reason why Tajikistan still calls the language "Tajik") and not "Persian" (which is the common English name for the language), this has somehow entered Western books. The same goes to "Dari", a name that was virtually non-existing 50 years ago, but has suddenly become an all-known "official name" for the Persian-language in Afghanistan. Our this discussion proves that there is certainly a need for a systematic change in here to finally get rid of the confusion. BTW: please read Tajik language, just case you have not done it yet. "Tajik" and "Farsi" are not two different language. Actually, there are fully mutually intelligable. See this joint TV show by Iran and Tajikistan. Regards. Tājik (talk) 04:39, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Tajiks in Central Asia, yuo may find this helpful. Regards. Tājik (talk) 05:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Pyrohy

Firrstly, I would like to congratulate User:Zlerman for his dedication and excellent contribution in trying to sort out the mess in Wikipedia relating to pyrohy, pierogi, vareniki, pelmeni, and pirozhki! This has been a tremendous effort, because the more I do research, the more I realise that the terms are used inconsistently and interchangeably even in the traditional countries of origin and use!

I think that the current article on pierogi is very close to being as accurate as is possible. I have done further research and offer the following summary points relating to pyrih and pyrohy and varenyky:

Ukrainian Dictionary

  • The Universal Uk-En Dictionariy (160,000 words) in Lingvo 12 explains that pyrih (пиріг) relates to the baked pie version, but does not mention varenyky. It gives translations for these terms:
    • м'ясний пиріг — meat-pie, pasty
    • іменинний пиріг — birthday cake,
    • пиріг суфле — meringue
  • The Explanatory Dictionary Uk-Uk (over 200,000 words) in Lingvo 12 explains that pyrih (пиріг) relates to the baked pie version, but also that it relates to a varenyk in some dialects (usually dialects in Ukraine refers to Western Ukraine dialects).
  • The Dictionary of Synonyms by Karavansky states that a pyrih (singular) can be synonymous with varenyk (singular) in the Western regions of Ukraine.
  • Summary: pyroh = varenyk in some areas of Western Ukraine.

Pyrih/Pyrohy in Ukraine

  • Overall, it seems that in Ukraine, the majority of all references to pyrih (sing.) relate to the large baked pie. This is based on all of the web searches on Ukrainian web sites for recipes on pyrih/pyrohy. for example if you do a Google image search for пироги (pyrohy) you only get the baked version: see here
  • However, there are some Ukrainian pages that do mention that pyrohy (plural) are an alternative name for varenyky. eg: Recipe for varenyky (In Ukrainian] but mentions the song about pyrohy with cheese and that often pyrohy is used to describe varenyky.
  • There is a monument to varenyky in Cherkasy (city south of Kiev) as is mentioned on the varenyky page. See the picture and an article here — there is no mention of pyrohy here (unliked the pyrogi monument in Canada).
  • It seems that the song "І з сиром пироги" (pyrohy with cheese) does refer to the varenyky.

Cookbooks

  • In the Ukrainian cookery book "Українські страви", Державне видавництво Технічної Літератури УРСР, Київ, 1957 (Ukrainian cuisine, State Publication of Technical Literature, Kiev 1957) — all references to pyrih/pyrohy are to the baked pie version. This book is important as in the Soviet Union there were few Ukrainian cookbooks, and this book could be considered to be an 'official' Government pubication.
  • In the Canadian publication: Stechishin, S. (1989). Traditional Ukrainian Cookery. Trident Press, Canada. ISBN 0-919490-36-0 (in English, first published 1957), this author also refers only to the baked pie version in recipes for a pyrih. However, in the section on varenyky she has titled it "Varenyky (Pyrohy) and thereafter for every recipe with varenyky she has (pyrohy) in brackets after the title This book could be considered a 'classic' and an authoritative book on Ukrainian-Canadian cooking (I have the 16th edition). Stechishin was actively involved in the Ukrainian Women's Association of Canada, and canvassed widely through the branches of this association for the recipes that were eventually published.

Derivation Perhaps the reason for the interchangeable use or pyrohy=varenyky in some areas, is that pyrih, pyrohy is an older word - there are written 12 century texts mentioning it. Although archeology has unearthed very early pictures of varenyky, we do not know what people called them.

The first mention of the word varenyk ("Варенички пшеничнi, бiлi" = small white varenyky made from wheat) is in Ivan Kotlyarevsky's Eneyida , written in 1789. Confusingly, though he also mentions pyrohy ("До сирних в маслi пирогiв!" = cheese pyrohy served in butter) — so therefore they must be varenyky in this case. However, he again mentions pyrohy ("Живитись тими ж пирогами, Якi кажу пекти я вам." = sustain yourselves on the pyrohy, which I tell you to bake) — so here they must be either pyrizhky or pyrohy (pyrih plural)!

As this is the first book written in modern Ukrainian language, it is significant that he mentions both, but unfortunately, it doesn't clarify the situation for us. So maybe the term pyrohy was applied to both. One article mentions that the meaning of varenyk is boiled pyrih ("вареник", тобто "варений пиріг"), and this seems to be the most logical reason why both words are used interchangeable - both foods are pyrohy, but one, more specifically, is boiled.

Summary (according to the available evidence)

  • Pyrih (sing.) = large baked pie in all cases
  • Pyrohy (plural) = large baked pies in central regions of Ukraine and in Australian diaspora.
  • Pyrohy (plural) = varenyky in some cases (by a lot of people in Western Ukraine, Ukrainians in Slovakia and North America — but not by all people in these regions).
  • To put in another way: all varenyky are pyrohy, but not all pyrohy are varenyky!

(P.S you seriously need to archive this talk page - I don't know how it is done, but I can barely edit this page due to its size. To be continued... --Pkravchenko (talk) 09:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Recognition of the Armenian Genocide

Уважаемый Zlerman! Спасибо за ваши иъзяснения. С чем связано это искажение ? Как могу его исправить ? --Taron Saharyan (talk) 08:15, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

What is your opinion?

Now that you've had a chance to familiarize yourself with the country outlines, and specifically with

  1. Wikipedia:WikiProject Topic outline/Drafts/Topic outline of Azerbaijan
    Wikipedia:WikiProject Topic outline/Drafts/Topic outline of Tajikistan
    Wikipedia:WikiProject Topic outline/Drafts/Topic outline of Uzbekistan

What is your impression of the set of country outline pages?

What's missing that should be presented on them?

Is the order that the information is presented in sensible?

Is there anything else that comes to mind about these?

Do you have any questions?

I look forward to your reply on my talk page.

Happy holidays.

The Transhumanist 01:43, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


Hi.

What's up?

You around these days?

I was wondering if you've had a chance to take a look at the set of country outlines.

I really need feedback on how to improve them - my brain is pretty tapped out of ideas on how to improve them at the moment.

The Transhumanist 03:57, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Chee kufta

I did a Google search, and had no hits for Chee kiufta; only for Chee kufta. I heard the food mentioned on a TV show last night and thought it would make an interesting article.--Gen. Bedford his Forest 17:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

יִשְׂרְאֵלִי

Hi,

To check the niqqud of many Hebrew words, you can use Morfix: http://milon.morfix.co.il/

It's far for perfect, but good for basic stuff.

יִשְׂרְאֵלִי indeed has two Shwa's. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and now i see that you are a academic at HUJI!
It's great to know that there are academics are writing in Wikipedia.
Consider adding {{User HUJI}} to your user page :) --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 21:21, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Moldovan cuisine

I didn't rename it because I missed it on the first round. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 21:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Administrative divisions of

I am sorry but I have forgotten your guidelines for this problem: in cases when there is no page for "Administrative divisions of" (say), I can insert a redirect from the red link in the country outline (pointing to the relevant section of another page), or alternatively I can create a new page for "Administrative divisions of" and put the redirect on the new page. Which is the preferred solution? --Zlerman (talk) 15:35, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

First, let's make sure we have our terminology correct in order to reduce confusion. Linking directly to a page is called an "internal link" (a link to somewhere within Wikipedia, as opposed to an "external link" which leads to another web site). An internal link that leads to a section of a page is called a "section link". A link to a page that only leads to another page is called a redirect - the page that leads to the other page is called a "redirect page".
The best solution is to create and write an article called "Administrative divisions of", providing a good description, and links to the various administrative division types. The next best thing is a redirect and a redirect page. That way, the link is the same for all the countries, which supports searching and link lists.
By the way, there will be a link list for all the standard links on the country outlines. Many of these lists already exist, but they currently lack standardization (their naming and formats vary) - see Lists by country.
The Transhumanist 00:03, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Consistency?

This is what you wrote to me on my talk page in November 2008:

Concerning repetition

By the way, the reason the country's name is on just about every line is because all these outlines are very very similar, and one of the most useful things to do with them is compare countries (like having country outlines in separate windows and switching back and forth). When looking at more than one of these, if the country name wasn't plastered all over the place, it would be very easy to forget which country you were looking at and make a mistake, like citing the wrong population figure. The Transhumanist 03:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Now look at what Rich Farmbrough did to Wikipedia:WikiProject Topic outline/Drafts/Topic outline of Turkmenistan‎ (and a bunch of other country outlines) on 16 January 2009. Which is the "right" system? --Zlerman (talk) 15:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Such matters are determined by consensus. Consensus is often decided by default - for example if someone creates something and nobody complains, after awhile it is considered consensus by simply being there for awhile ("consensus by silence"). The established standard for this type of page is to include the country name in the headings to make these pages easy to discern from each other (since their formats are almost identical). We've been doing it that way since these things were created last spring!
Also, see the guideline for headings, which states: "Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer." With respect to the set of pages as a whole, including the country names makes them clearer.
Rich might not be aware of our reasons for including the country name. He may just think it's a mistake.
The Transhumanist 01:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that is exactly the reason. These pages are very dense with headings and links, almost every section has {{main}} so it shouldn't be a problem. Rich Farmbrough, 01:35 17 January 2009 (UTC).
On my talk page you also wrote, "Rich might not be aware of our reasons for including the country name. He may just think it's a mistake." So are you going to discuss this with Rich? At the moment a huge inconsistency is developing between the headings in your original country outline layouts and those that Rich has been changing. --Zlerman (talk) 01:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
He's already in the discussion on my talk page (I've copied his reply above). For what it's worth, I like the way the country name stands out in the headings. I access these pages by section a lot, and I jump between them a lot, and it sure helps to have the country in the headings because it stands out so well. Without it there, it takes the eyes a second or two to adjust to check which page you are on. Also, these outlines are so long, that having the country in the headings gives each page continuity. What is your opinion? The Transhumanist 00:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough

Based on the discussion on my talk page, I've posted a request to Rich on his talk page to revert his changes to the headings.

My internet access is just too slow to be able to do the reversions myself in a reasonable amount of time.

Feel free to make the reversions if you want.

The Transhumanist 22:20, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


Cuisine of

I haven't had time to work on the renaming of the "Cuisine of" articles. (Page loads are incredibly slow on this server).

Would you please pick up where I left off?

For your convenience, they're all listed at User:The_Transhumanist/Cuisine_by_country_list.

If you have WP:POP installed, you can use it to easily see which ones have been moved and which ones have not.

Country adjectivals are listed at Template:Adjectivals and demonyms for countries and nations.

Have fun!

I look forward to your reply (please reply on my talk page, to activate Wikipedia's message alert feature). Thank you.

The Transhumanist 20:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Jeremy is usually the one who deals with "Cuisine of" renaming on a massive scale. Perhaps you should write to him, if you have not done so already. Still, I will look at your lists and see how I can help.

re: Country outlines

It is much more important for me to get your feedback on my edits in country outline pages for Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and also any additional conceptual information about the overall scheme of country outlines and what editors (like myself) are really expected to do there. What is the end product going to be? Where can I see examples of finished country outlines? --Zlerman (talk) 02:49, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, I'll check in with Jeremy. Thank you for the referral.
In answer to your questions/request...
There aren't any country outlines that are completely finished. But the most complete ones are listed at Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge, in the "Geography and places" section.
A "topic outline" is an outline comprised of topics (rather than made of sentences as are "sentence outlines"). Outlines include the essential elements of their subjects. The country outlines are hierarchical breakdowns of each country as a subject. What we need to do is add links to the relevant essential topics.
Does that help?
I've started to write some instructions on developing outlines. I'll keep you posted.
The Transhumanist 22:38, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

the model

The page all these were constructed with is Template:Topic outline country.

As the design evolves, I update this template even though it is no longer being used to generate country outline pages (we've created them all already).

You asked what the end product will be.

Well, as I eluded to above, these pages are evolving. Once they are all moved to article space, they'll evolve even faster.

They are already starting to evolve from topic outlines (outlines comprised of topics) to a hybrid form that combines elements of topic and sentence outlines and wiki-list elements (such as annotations). For this reason, I would like to rename them all to simply "Outline of", but at this time that would cause way too much confusion/opposition, which can be avoided with the development of some good articles on outlines (explaining what an outline is, what "topic outlines" and "sentence outlines" and other variants are), and a good instruction/guideline page that describes Wikipedia's outlines and includes instructions on how to develop them. (I'm working on these).

Another cause for confusion is that these outlines don't include numbering. The MediaWiki software does not support outline numbering schemes, and manual numbering is very cumbersome to maintain as it wreaks havoc with MediaWiki's auto TOC feature. Therefore, we've left numbering out of these outlines, which happens to result in a bonafide outline variant (though unfortunately the vast majority of Wikipedians seem to be unaware of this type of outline - but users of outliners know the various variants very well).

The important thing to keep in mind is that the defining characteristic of outlines is that they are hierarchical lists of the topics or points of a subject, paper, plan, article (see World Book Encyclopedia), etc.

immediate goal: get them ready to move to article space!

The outlines are already extensive enough to be useful.

But, there are three reasons why most of them have not yet been moved to article space:

  1. The region section is incomplete. Each outline needs lists and maps of administrative subdivisions added.
  2. The government branches sections contain temporary template-generated data, that may or may not be accurate. I did it this way to generate the outlines quickly using the data that matched the most countries, in order to minimize the amount of editing we'd have to do to complete those sections. For example, for "head of government" most countries have a prime minister, so I included that. We only need to change the heads of government for those countries that don't have prime ministers as heads of government. The same thing applies to parliaments, etc.
  3. There are a bunch of blanks that need to be filled in.

Once #1 and #2 above are complete for a country outline, I generally do my best to fill in the blanks in #3 and move the page to article space. The reasons we move them before they are complete are because they are useful in their current form, and in article space more editors can find them and when they do some of them may decide to work on them.  :)

Once the move is made, a link to the country outline is added at Portal:Contents/Geography and places, and the appropriate banners are added to the country outline's talk page, the corresponding country article's talk page, and a section is added to the corresponding country WikiProject main page.

Then what?

When a country outline is moved to article space, our work is far from done...

The outlines won't be complete until all the redlinks are turned blue, and links to all essential topics are included. One very important task is to do a Google site-specific search of Wikipedia for articles with the name of the country in their title. That really helps to find essential articles missing from the outline. I try to do this for every country outline moved to article space, but it's really hard to keep up - it takes 3+ hours on a fast server to conduct each search and add the missing links in.

Maintenance

And as information changes over time (the names of incumbents, etc.), each country outline needs to be updated!

Article support and country coverage

As you know, many sets of articles are linked to from the country outline set ("cuisine of", etc.) The outlines are only as good as the articles they link to, and so we have set about cleaning up those that are in the most need of help ("cuisine of", "demographics of", adjectival disambiguation pages, etc.).

The outlines map out Wikipedia's country coverage, and because they do such a good job of this, they have become a tool for country coverage development. With one of these country outlines, you can see at a glance the state of development of the topic coverage of that country, and you can easily browse those topics to see what state they are in.

So, these outlines tie directly into the development of country coverage in general. For example, if you want to develop a country outline and you come across a redlink, you may decide to write an article to turn the redlink blue! That improves both the outline and Wikipedia's coverage on that country.

I hope this helps

Please let me know if the above explanations help at all.

I look forward to your reply.

The Transhumanist 01:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Jeremy

In case you are interested, I've posted a message to Jeremy concerning the "cuisine of" renames/redirects.

The Transhumanist 22:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Feedback on the country articles you have been working on

As per your request, I'm looking over your edits to the following outlines:

Pronunciation

The pronunciation doesn't show up right. It looks like the font you've cut and pasted isn't supported in Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) for details.

Geographical features

I screwed up on the entries for geographical features (rivers, etc.). I piped those, when I really should have used redirects. For example, we should have the link Glaciers of Tajikistan, and then create a redirect page leading to List of Glaciers#Tajikistan. That way, the links are standardized for all the outlines, and wherever else the redirects are used. Then to update the articles that have the redirects, all you have to do is update the redirect, and the links will all automatically lead to the update. This approach could save a lot of work for a lot of editors in the future. It costs more work in the short-term though.

I didn't realize my error until I started looking at your outlines.  :) Thank you.

Another benefit of standardizing the link names is that it makes link lists very useful for working on the set of links (for finding redlinks, checking for renames and redirects) and for working on the set of pages the links lead to. For an example of a link list, see User:The Transhumanist/Cuisine by country list.

The reason I piped them was because the "List of ____ in ____" links matched the most countries and therefore resulted in the most bluelinks. I didn't have a very good view of the big picture back then (as the project had just started and nobody knew what the ramifications were). This has resulted in a mixture of pipes and redirects, which has caused confusion for editors new to the project.

I think we should convert the pipes to links to redirect pages.

When a country has no World Heritage Sites, that term should be linkified.

Regions of

When there are 100 or fewer of a particular region type, I generally add the list to the outline.

But some countries have thousands of some types of administrative region types (counties, cities, villages, etc.), and adding these to a country outline would make it unweildy. 100 seems like a good cut off, and if there are more than that a link to the list should suffice - but if a country has only one type of subdivision, we could go higher than 100 (like for islands where districts and villages are the same thing).

The Transhumanist 02:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Form of government

The form of government is usually presented in the lead section of the "Politics of" article for each country.

The [[Capital]] link needs to be fixed in all the outlines in the set, and changed to [[Capital (political)|Capital]].

I'll post it to WP:AWB/Tasks the next time I log on.

I'm out of time now.  :(

more to come...

The Transhumanist 02:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

AfD on Cuisine of Dominica

The article, Cuisine of Dominica has been nominated for deletion as being non-notable. You can participate in the discussion here. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 03:25, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

reply - just change your position to merge and redirect, if enough prople say that, that is what will happen.--Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 15:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

country outline headings

I'm adding the country names back into the country outlines that they were removed from, being careful not to revert any other changes of course. It's slow going, and I could sure use a hand.

The Transhumanist 23:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I need some feedback from you!

What do you think of the standard design of the country outlines?

Is there anything missing (links, or data items, or something else) that we should add to all the country outlines?

Are there any topics covered in the Lists by country that should be added to the standard country outline design?

Are there any problems with the outlines' design? (Order of presentation, or anything else you've run across).

Criticize these outlines!

Praise these outlines!

Or both!!!

What do you like about them?

What do you hate about them?

My brain is running dry.

Need input.

The Transhumanist 23:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


Oh well. If you come across anything or come up with any ideas, please let me know. The Transhumanist 01:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Turkmenistan

Hi buddy, good to see you still working well on countries like this. One thing if you are doing mountains/mountain anges please use the infobox mountain not settlement as that is for towns. See Kugitangtau Range now, it also features as a mountain icon too. Keep up the good work. Dr. Blofeld White cat 15:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It is exactly the same requirements, in fact the mountain box is more simplified than the settlement! Yes I've started the main reserves, great work too. I'm just expanding Kaplankyr now. Dr. Blofeld White cat 15:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I've made several flickr agremeents of late, one is with Alan Cordova for images of mountains and that in countries like Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. File:Kevron.jpg, File:Khorog panorama.jpg etc. If you require a list of images of mountains or whatever please let me know and I'll do my best to find images on flickr and make some further agremeents. Dr. Blofeld White cat 16:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Uh, excuse me sir. These images were taken by my good friend Alan from flickr. I went out of my way to make a flickr agreement with him and for him to upload his considerable amount of images to the commons. See Vanj, Khorugh, Kevron for his images Dr. Blofeld White cat 15:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

They were taken in March 2008, three months before it was razed in June 2008. Sad sight to see. Dr. Blofeld White cat 15:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Category:Country outlines

Category:Outlines (in which the country outlines are being put) is extremely long and messy. Wouldn't it be better to organize Category:Country outlines as a subcategory of Category:Outlines? This would improve readability and ensure greater user-friendliness. --Zlerman (talk) 04:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Maybe it would be better to start all outline categories the same, with "Outlines of". Such as Category: Outlines of countries.
That way, all the outline categories would show up together in the alphabetical index (in the special menu).
The Transhumanist 04:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Excellent idea. How do we go about implementing it? --Zlerman (talk) 04:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
In AWB, make a list from User:The Transhumanist/Country outlines. Then use AWB's search/replace feature to change the category on all those pages. The Transhumanist 04:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm about to be logged off. If you have any more questions, I'll probably be on tomorrow. The Transhumanist 04:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


Image permission problem with Image:TajDistricts WBatlas.jpg

Image Copyright problem
Image Copyright problem

Thanks for uploading Image:TajDistricts WBatlas.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the image (or other media file) agreed to license it under the given license.

If you created this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

  • make a note permitting reuse under the GFDL or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
  • Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here.

If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the image to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the image has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.

If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the image's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Images lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Anatoliy (Talk) 13:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Tajikistan, Uzbekistan

Видел, ты ссылаешься на карты, а также на данные по населению (напр. здесь). У тебя есть все эти карты? А они в электронном виде?--Anatoliy (Talk) 18:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Please send me data of cities and towns of Khatlon Province. Templates with RRS and Sughd are already maken.--Anatoliy (Talk) 20:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Сделал шаблони ru:Шаблон:НП Хатлонской области и uk:Населені пункти Хатлонської обалсті. Вот только непонятно из таблицы: какой поселок является цетром Бохтраского района: Исмоили Сомони, Бохтариён или Бустонкала. Кроме того, в Rumi district сказано, что Колхозабадский район переименован, но в таблице он Колхозабадский.--Anatoliy (Talk) 13:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

demographics pages

We're dead in the water on the "demographics of" page set, until we get those headings and section leads put in place.

We should just keep picking away at them until we're done. They're done up through Demographics of Rwanda.

Once these elements are in place it will give us something to key onto, and so it will then be an easy matter to break the rest of the chore down into simple AWB search/replace tasks (and some regex).

This is what needs to be added:

== CIA World Factbook demographic statistics == The following demographic statistics are from the [[CIA World Factbook]].

(end of sample - see the wikicode for proper spacing)

Be sure to place the population chart for each country (if there is one) at the top of the section, setting it to right alignment and its size to 300px.

For an example, see Demographics of Rwanda.

The Transhumanist 20:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

  • Please note that, beyond Demographics of Rwanda, I have already worked on Demographics of Tajikistan, Demographics of Turkmenistan, Demographics of Uzbekistan, and Demographics of Ukraine, taking a shot at standardization in line with your general guidelines.
  • Another point is the location of the population chart: the chart is not based on CIA World Factbook data, and there is no compelling reason to place it at the top of the CIA statistics section. If possible, it should be placed at the top of the article, within the lead, so that it fills some of the blank space created by the table of contents and is the first thing that readers see.

--Zlerman (talk) 05:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

You are right - the chart should go at the end of the lead (with right-alignment) so it sits next to the TOC. The Transhumanist 21:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

demographics update

Thehelpfulone has expressed interest in doing simple AWB search/replaces. Therefore, he will be helping out once we can break the CIA World Factbook statistics formatting task down into simple steps.

Blackadam2 will be picking up where I and Thehelpfulone left off on the heading & section lead task.

I've quoted you on both their talk pages.

By the way, I've touched up the demographics pages you've been working on. Let me know what you think. I've asked Thehelpful one to add "unless otherwise indicated" phrase to the demographics articles that have already been standardized. That covers the contingency of non-CIA data being added.

Keep in touch.

The Transhumanist 23:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Re Thank you!

Thank you for stepping in to protect my user page against these persistent outbreaks of vandalism by one person. --Zlerman (talk) 06:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

A very notable copyright violator who became an edit warrior before delving into racist vandalism. I, and many other users such as Hmains, am keeping an eye on him. One day he'll get tired. We'd got a couple of similar cases before and we are here to stop their acts thanks to the admin tools (blocks and page protections plus the checkuser tool of course in case they'd use new usernames). Contact me in case he comes back vandalizing your talk page. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 08:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Headings standardized again

FYI...

I've restored the headings in the country outlines.

I've also moved the rest of them to Category:Outlines of countries.

The Transhumanist 00:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Progress report: Country outlines

Development has been slow but continuous:

Penubag has done a fantastic job on the images for the awards we'll be using for our project's collaborations and contests. We now have 3 awards: a medal, a trophy, and a race ribbon. They all look tight. The trophy needs a small adjustment, but other than that, all 3 awards are complete and ready to use.

Spartaz has warned us of (threatened to take) G4 (speedy delete) action if we run a competition that resembles the previously deleted Awards Center page. So whatever we do, any contests we run must differ substantially from the methods used there.

One type of competition I've been exploring is edit racing. I'm in the process of working the bugs out of this concept - the first race didn't work as expected - you see, because we only had an award for first place, the opponent didn't think it worthwhile to continue once it was clear who the winner would be. And since editors are in different time zones and usually need to start the race at different times, we need to base winning on personal start times - he who completes his assigned edits in the least time (rather than first), wins. And last but not least is quality control. What good is winning if your edits are ripe with errors? So I'll be exploring possibilities such as using a referee (whoever is overseeing a particular race), having participants watching each other for errors to knock them back, etc. I'm not sure yet.

Rich Farmbrough has been applying his bot expertise to filling in blanks in the country outlines (the population and area entries). I'm amazed at the number of edits he pumps out each day on a myriad of projects - ours makes up but a small time slice of his activity, and yet he has saved us many hours of manual work. Perhaps we should look into how he gets so much done.  :)

Zlerman has chosen to work on one outline at a time, and is taking on Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. He also has been keen on noticing and reporting design issues pertaining to the whole set of country outlines. Keep up the good work!

Highfields has been filling in the names of capitals, and is our first race winner. Check out the award on his user pages.

As you probably know, this project has expanded to include working on any and all sets of pages that are linked to from the country outlines. Once the set of country outlines go live (in article space), traffic will likely increase for all the links included on them. The quality and usefulness of those pages will reflect heavily on the country outlines (the outlines, which are essentially lists of links, are only as good as the links they present), and therefore we've branched out to solve the biggest problems with those as well. So far, we've taken on:

  • The creation of disambiguation pages for country adjectivals ("German", "French", "Taiwanese", etc. About half done.)
  • The clean-up of the CIA World Factbook statistics on the "demographics of" country pages. We've been renaming those sections to provide a key string that AWB can use for targetting (for skipping and filtering). Once that's done, we'll be able to break the clean-up down into simple AWB search/replace tasks, because we'll be able to target just those pages that include the CIA stuff.
  • Renaming the "Cuisine of" articles to their adjectival forms ("Chinese cuisine", "Italian cuisine", etc.)

Blackadam2 and Thehelpfulone have been helping out with the "demographics of" pages mentioned above.

And we have a couple speed addicts (addicted to wiki-velocity, not drugs)...

Both Robert Skyhawk and Thehelpfulone prefer (and excel at) simple AWB search/replaces. Robert hasn't actually joined our team yet, but he has been helping out quite a bit from the sidelines (via the WP:AWB/Tasks page. Unfortunately, there has recently been a non-AWB chore that has been holding things up on the AWB front - an edit to all the the headings which had to be reverted before too many new edits were made, because any new edits would make the reversion more difficult. The headings have been restored, so now the way is clear for AWB operations, and there are many search/replace tasks in the queue. AWB assignments have started again!

There's a similar bottleneck on the "Demographics of" pages (the "keying" mentioned above), but that's almost cleared too.  :)

With my internet access somewhat crippled, I've been finding it difficult to keep up with you guys. However, I expect to be accessing a Linky-capable workstation on a faster server (I'm on it right now, as you can probably tell from my contributions list for today), and so I should really pick up speed. Feels goooooood.  :)

Recruiting has been a bit slow (but steady), due in part to my crippled access, and because we've been waiting for the images for the awards to be completed. I expect the team to grow more rapidly as the bottlenecks are removed.

Well that's what's been happenin', and here's what's in the pipeline...

I'm about to begin work on a set of lists that corresponds to all the standard links on the country outlines, and these will be presented on the Topic outline of countries which will be organized exactly like the country outlines. Aside from being an extremely useful navigation aid, it will allow editors to easily see the state of country coverage on Wikipedia. I'll provide you with a link once I get up to speed on this.

In the meantime, keep up the good work!

Cheers,

The Transhumanist 05:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

You're a wonderful editor, but...

"this is the standard layout of the opening sentence"

That's your rational for reinstalling an unreadable intro?

I really don't care what the standard layout is; this intro sucks. It is unreadable. It makes people nauseous and abusive to their house plants. It is so bad in fact that this, with its improperly punctuated, capitalized and parenthesized last sentence is better. By an order of magnitude. --TungstenCarbide (talk) 11:31, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, maybe I'm yelling at the wrong person. I'm looking through the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and see that it's engorged nearly to the point of explosion, with dozens if not hundreds of subpages. Since you've been around for a while, can you point me to the relevant subpage regarding intros for countries? I'm feeling a powerful urge to raise some bloody hell. (sorry for my earlier outburst) TungstenCarbide (talk) 11:48, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Update: See Wikipedia_talk:Lead_section#Headache_inducing_clusterfuck TungstenCarbide (talk) 23:23, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Update II: see Talk:Kyrgyzstan#Intro TungstenCarbide (talk) 16:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Dear TungstenCarbide: what is your suggestion then? My advice is to take a deep breath and wait until some sort of a consensus is reached: there is no point in smoothing out the intro of one country if dozens of others suffer from the same "defect". In a project such as Wikipedia, consistency is of paramount importance (in my view, at least). Best. --Zlerman (talk) 16:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

what is your suggestion then [4]. Just an idea - something to mull over and compare. I guess I'm expecting it to be improved upon.
I too think consistency is important, but if you go look at Kyrgyzstan's neighbors which have the same layout, some read easier than others. That's not consistent. There is a point where too much crap loaded into the first sentence is counterproductive.
Dictionaries typically put some of this data in the first sentence, but Wikipedia isn't a dictionary. What makes this even crazier is that not even dictionaries put as much crap up front as some of our Wikipedia articles. By the way, go look at how our our Wictionary entry handles translations. Much cleaner. Maybe something like that would improve the readability of the introduction.
Is there a name for this stuff; pronunciation/etymology/translation/transliteration/and so on? Metadata? Most of it should be moved out of the first sentence, leaving just the pronunciation and official name in English. The rest should moved aside, put in a collapsible box (like wictionary) or moved into the info box which excels at containing this kind of data. Just some more ideas.
So go ahead and revert me if you like - I'm not trying to be belligerent, just trying to work the problem. But as a new user I find it unfathomable that the community would choose introductions that chase readers away screaming in terror, rather than introductions which smoothly glide them into the article. Especially when there are so many really neat tools that could help; infoboxes, collapsible sections like wiktionary, references with smart links ...TungstenCarbide (talk) 17:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Districts of Uzbekistan

Сравнил эту карту и эту и заметил, что границы некоторых районов отличаются: Элликкалинский район (3) на нашей карте не граничит с Хорезмской областью, граница Амударьинского района (10) проходит выше. Наша карта неправильна или другая карта просто устаревшая?--Anatoliy (Talk) 23:40, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Ты обещал прислать НП для Хатлонской области.--Anatoliy (Talk) 23:40, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

To your message, I've posted a reply on both Robert Skyhawk's and my own talk page (eom)

Country outlines project update

There has been a flurry of activity on the project as of late - so much so that I felt compelled to write another progress report...

More racing award graphics!

Penubag has completed 4 more award graphics for our upcoming edit races. They look great!

New outline developer

Buaidh has joined the effort to develop country outlines. Like Zlerman, he has chosen specific outlines to work on. Which ones? All the countries of the Americas!

Bots!

User talk:Thehelpfulone now has a bot, and User talk:Robert Skyhawk has requested approval for one. Work on the country outlines using these should start soon. I feel the technological singularity approaching.  :)

Regex

Several of us have been trying to figure out how to use regular expressions (regex), in AWB, and once we have done this, we should be able to insert country names into entries for all the outlines using a single search/replace regex.

User talk:Thehelpfulone has successfully used AWB and regex to complete a 2-line search/replace using the \n command.

Regex repository - please add to it!

As a reference aid, I've set up the page User:The Transhumanist/Regexes for reporting the regexes we use. Please post regexes you've used successfully to that page. That way, everyone on the team can learn from each others' successes and we thereby leverage our experience collectively. Thank you.

The Transhumanist 22:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Agriculture in present-day nations and states

This list-type article, which you may need for your country outlines, has been tagged "orphaned", presumably one stage before AfD. You may wish to react. --Zlerman (talk) 01:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've de-orphaned it. Thank you for the heads up. The Transhumanist 00:21, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: `"Deletion of redundant page"

Please see Talk:List of lakes in Uzbekistan. You may wish to respond in addition to my comment. --Zlerman (talk) 05:36, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Done.
By the way, does Uzbekistan have more than 4 lakes? If so, maybe you could add them?
Also, if you'd like to enhance the list, one way to do so is to add a picture.  :)
The Transhumanist 01:36, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Location maps of Tajikistan districts

Загрузил карты для всех районов (см. commons:Category:Districts of Tajikistan). Нужно подобавлять их в статьи.--Anatoliy (Talk) 11:57, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Districts of Tajikistan

Сделал статью в виде таблицы. Проверь названия районов на таджикском и районные центры.--Anatoliy (Talk) 14:31, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Cyprus

Hi

I been having a similar problem on the Talk:Cyprus page - looks like the same user is updating the figs on both

It seems a reliable source (Republic of Cyprus census) but, as the ref he gave me was not available for me to download and, as I don't think it would do me any good to tell him of the new problem at this precise moment, I will try and get his consensus on the main page before getting him to cite refs on the demographics page

I will mention the prob tho so he is at least aware

Cheers--Chaosdruid (talk) 20:34, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I think we have it mostly sorted out now, we reached consensus earlier tonight - Woohoo !! - although I did point out that if someone reads the document and sees he had misquoted it they would probably change the text.
I tried three different ways to get that PDF and I have a 20mb connection, it just kept giving me a "Document not found" message as if it wasn't there, but like I told him, he just needed to change it to a book ref rather than a web one if others had similar probs. Anyway, I am glad I didn't get it if it's that big !! (I did get some xls spreadsheets, though I haven't had time to look at them yet, I should get the chance in the morning)
He did say that he would change the Demographics of Cyprus page to match the input on the Cyprus page and he's going to propose his amended text tomorrow (well today as its 03:00 here lol)
Cheers--Chaosdruid (talk) 03:05, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

PS He did say they had included an estimate of the Turkish Cypriots in the north and we discussed including (est.) on the figure.

Thanks for splitting that off - I have added my proposal with the corrected totals etc
Just noticed that he changed some of the posts in the chat above demographics (enosis etc) which misrepresented the sequence of events - have added a hidden warning--Chaosdruid (talk) 02:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

How goes it?

It's time we start pushing ahead on the country outlines - I'd love to see the ones you are working on moved to article space soon.

  1. Wikipedia:WikiProject Topic outline/Drafts/Topic outline of Azerbaijan
    Wikipedia:WikiProject Topic outline/Drafts/Topic outline of Tajikistan
    Wikipedia:WikiProject Topic outline/Drafts/Topic outline of Turkmenistan
    Wikipedia:WikiProject Topic outline/Drafts/Topic outline of Uzbekistan

Did I get this list right? Are these the outlines you are working on, or is there a page missing?

To see exactly what has been done to these pages, go to User:The Transhumanist/Zlerman tasks and click on "Related changes" in the toolbox menu on the sidebar on the left side of the screen.

The Transhumanist 22:41, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Please upgrade your AWB usage to include a bot!

Slowly but surely, our team members are upgrading to bot usage. So far, Robert Skyhawk and Thehelpfulone have added a bot (AWB, activated to be a bot) to their tool set.

Bots are incredibly useful, since you don't have to sit there and press the "Save" button for each edit - it just does all the edits and saves automatically, so it can do the work in another window while you are doing something else. The more people on our team who have bots, the better. There is a great deal of bot-work on the country outlines, and you'll find many other uses for your bot after you get up and running.

Please take the plunge and go for bot approval. I'm sure the two guys above would be happy to assist you through the approval process.

The Transhumanist 22:52, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

New team member

Be sure to welcome our newest member, User talk:NuclearWarfare, to the team!

See his talk page for the task he's taking on.

The Transhumanist 00:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Chremzl

I saw this new article and thought you might be itnerested. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The project may be catching on. Take a look at this!

Someone not on the team has come along and moved one of the country outline drafts to article space. This is a great sign, as it means the set of pages is attracting attention.

It's Topic outline of Romania.

Please help complete it ASAP. Here's why:

It's got some awkward stuff in there, including blank links, redlinks (that need to be bluelinked by creating redirects), and apparently irrelevant entries (kept for comparison purposes, that need to be filled in with "none"), etc.

Many editors tend to remove awkward stuff instead of complete it.

We should finish up Topic outline of Romania before they remove anything.

Thank you.

Good luck.

Have fun.

The Transhumanist 03:47, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Image size

Hi, I've been following the edits done to Pelmeni and Pierogi, and you sure do keep busy re-editing other people's poorly considered changes! I noticed, however, that you questioned another user's seemingly arbitrary change to the image size in an article (from a fixed sized to none). Actually this is the preferred Wiki way of displaying images: that is, it is better NOT to force a particular size, but to allow the default=thumb to be displayed in the resolution that is set by each individual web user. This normally defaults to 180 px, unless overriden by a web user in their browser settings.

You can see the Wiki recommendations here: Wikipedia:Images#Forced_image_size
--Pkravchenko (talk) 06:10, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

In case you are interested

I've recorded much of my wiki-know-how at WP:OTS.

The Transhumanist 00:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Cyprus

Hi

Sorry but have been away for couple of days. I will try and catch up tomorrow as just got back and am a little tired now and off to bed

cheers--Chaosdruid (talk) 03:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Article of, Population of redlinks

1) What is your ultimate strategy for dealing with "Area of" and "Population of" items in outlines? They all appear as red links in the drafts. 2) In preparing "my" countries for a move from draft to article space, can I use Topic outline of Russia as a good example? Or would you prefer that I use a different country outline? --Zlerman (talk) 09:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

  1. All redlinks will eventually be bluelinked, mostly via redirect. The redirect should lead to whatever article section presents the link-indicated information in its prose. For population, it's often Demographics of x#Population. For area, it might be Geography of x#Area. To see the status of these two redlinks for all the countries in the set, see User:The Transhumanist/Population of present-day nations and states and User:The Transhumanist/Area of present-day nations and states - we use WP:LINKY on lists like these to tackle all the redlinks of a particular type at one time. While creating the redirects we also have the opportunity to standardize the section names that they lead to, if desired.
  2. The subject of country outline development is somewhat involved, so I'll cover that below, in the next section...
The Transhumanist 19:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Country outline development

There are two issues here:

  1. What needs to be done before a country outline should be moved to article space
  2. Completing a country outline

Preparing a country outline to be moved to article space

Country outlines should be moved to article space before they are completed.

That way, more editors will notice them and help complete them.

However, there are certain things that should be finished before moving them, and these are covered in the subsections below.

Lead section

The lead section should be condensed down to a single paragraph including just enough for good solid country identification. Unfortunately, we haven't developed a standard for this yet (perhaps general location, main distinguishing characteristics, and something the country is famous for) - more thought is needed on this. It was never intended to leave the full article leads in these outlines. We simply copied and pasted the leads from the articles to provide an easy starting point for editing. Some of the leads are monstrous - these pages are supposed to be outlines, not articles or article forks. I'll get back to you on this. Though any topics in the lead that are essential to the country as a subject should be converted to outline entries and included in the body of the outline (if they are not already there).

The country outlines placed in article space so far were done rather hastily in order to provide feedback (to see if the community wouldn't just want to burn these with fire, but also to generate comments, and to see how editors developed them further - for ideas on how to improve and expand the standard format), to get readers used to their presence, and to attract editors to this project.

In our haste, and since, we never got around to condensing the leads.

By the way, an editor, on his own initiative, condensed the lead in Topic outline of Indonesia down to the bare bare minimum. I guess he wasn't aware that outlines are still lists, and it is normal for lists to have a lead paragraph more than a single sentence long (see WP:LISTS#Lead section or paragraph). Oh well.

Administrative divisions

The administrative divisions sections for many countries are incorrect on the drafts, and the sections are empty. These need to be corrected and filled.

If there are way too many divisions to list, provide a link instead.

Provide a map if you can find one (for each admin div section).

Government branches sections

These too start out in error for many countries. They must be corrected before the outline can be moved to article space.


Once the above 3 things (lead, administrative divisions, and government branch sections) are completed, it's time to move the outline to the main namespace. There, you can go about finishing up the outline (see the next section)...

Completing a country outline

There is some awkward stuff in the incomplete outlines:

  • redlinks
  • empty brackets
  • apparently irrelevant entries (e.g., "fjords" for a landlocked country)
  • blank entries

When encountered in article space, many editors tend to delete the awkward stuff instead of complete it. You need to be on the look out for this. One way to check for this is to compare the outline against the template:Outline country. That will show you what standard items have been removed.

That aside, here's the basic order that I generally complete an outline in:

Maps!

Each country outline should include:

  1. Location map
  2. General map (with roads, rivers, cities, etc.) - usually placed next to or below the table of contents
  3. Satellite photo or topological map - usually placed in the Geography section
  4. Map(s) showing administrative divisions - one for each administrative division section, if available
  5. Population density map (or some other demographics-related map) - in the demographics section
  6. Etc.

Look for these at Wikimedia Commons. A faster way to get to what you need is to click on the atlas link in the country outline.  ;)

Sometimes the selection to choose from is pitiful. Do the best with what you have to work with.

The best examples of map support so far are Topic outline of the Isle of Man and Topic outline of Japan.

Fill-ins

All blank entries and empty link brackets need to be filled in.

Generally, either move a page to the name of the redlink, or click on the redlink and create a redirect to the article and section where the information is.

Entries that don't seem like they belong, we still keep for comparison purposes. These outlines serve as profiles, and the standard entries and the standard order they are in let you compare country profiles easily. So rather than remove "Glaciers" for countries that have none, instead add a colon and type in "none". This also helps remove ambiguity. If the glacier item is missing, the reader may not know whether it means that there are no glaciers, or if the outline just isn't complete yet. We're trying to make these outlines as unambiguous as possible.

Finish the coverage

These outlines were created using a template that had all the links most likely to be found for most of the countries of the world. But countries are highly individualized, and there are lots of non-standard topics on Wikipedia about them. We need to find them for each country. Here are some searching tips:

Be careful not to go beyond the essential topics

These outlines are not indexes, and they shouldn't include every article related to the country. We have alphabetical indexes and specialized lists for that. For example, in the outline of the United States, don't include the name of every municipality in the country, because there are thousands of them. That's too much data!

But small countries might only have a handful of cities, towns, and villages. Sure, add them in.

Google

Use Google to search Wikipedia (yes you can use Google to search specific websites - Google is actually much more useful for searching Wikipedia than Wikipedia's own search box is.)

Basically, in Google you type in "of x" (including the quotes!). (Where "x" is a country name). Then click on Advanced search, and configure it to "title only" and add Wikipedia's URL to the domain field. As you get up to speed with this technique, you'll probably start editing the url directly in the url field at the top of your browser, but you could skip to an advanced method and make an url list of google searches on a user page and load them with Linky (this technique speeds up multi-Google searches immensely).

In the results, you'll recognize a lot of the article names on there (guess how I found the article names for the country outlines in the first place!) Look over the results, keeping an eye out for article names that are not already included in the country outline you are working on.

(Using "-subject", where "subject" is the name of a subject, you can eliminate a lot of the standard subjects already in use, to make it easier to spot new ones in your results).

Then repeat for "in x", and look them over as above.

Other search terms that may be useful include the country's name (without "of" or "in"), the country's adjectival(s) (e.g. "German", "Germanic"), the country's demonym(s), etc.

Check the country's categories

You can usually find blatantly missing topics in Wikipedia's category system.

Browse the subject's articles on Wikipedia

By this point the outline itself is already a powerful research tool. Click on its links to find more links for the outline. For example, History of Russia is a great place to look for links for the history section. And don't forget to read the main article on the country!

Images

Images are best saved for last, because once you've added all the links and maps to the outline, then you know how much room you need to fill with images. But it's OK to add them sooner or as you go - pictures are worth a thousand words and they liven up the page. Just keep in mind that as more links are added, so is more space which needs to be filled with images.

For images, the standard size we've been using is 300px. If the image can't be seen at that size, make it bigger. Placement is usually to the right, but large images usually work best centered at the top or bottom of a section. Be creative, but make it look good.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Try to find pictures that are not already in use in the main country-related articles. You can usually find some at Commons, and in more-specific articles (like place articles, or animal type, etc.). Go a few clicks deep.  ;)

The best examples of image placement are Topic outline of France, Topic outline of Iceland, Topic outline of Japan, Topic outline of Taiwan, and Topic outline of Thailand.

That's all I can think of for now

I hope you find the above suggestions useful.

Good luck.

Have fun.

The Transhumanist 19:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for these detailed and extremely useful guidelines. I will start by applying them to one of "my" countries later today. We will see what happens. --Zlerman (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
You are welcome! The Transhumanist 02:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Endonyms, demonyms

Please check my treatment of endonyms and demonyms in Draft Outlines for Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and tell me if this is how it should be done. --Zlerman (talk) 06:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

They look good. Though I'm not sure we should include multiple terms in link pipes. The Transhumanist 18:28, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Archive Talk:Cyprus

This is not a mistake.

Using Archive 4 and 5 links at the top of the talk page (Archives 1,2,3,4,5) they are clearly different.

Archive 4 starts 1. Enclaves, (unsigned) 2. Mistakes 23 April 2007 (last entry June 2007)
Archive 5 starts 1. Different "Military"... 19 July 2007 2. Southwestern Asia 14 November 2008

It would have been very easy to correct as it appears the link in the archive box was not correct - hidden link [[Talk:Cyprus/Archive 4|Archive 5 - Archived on February 25 2009]]

Bit late to correct now as magick has added comment but done

--Chaosdruid (talk) 00:36, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that - I only checked it by the top box and I forgot that the archive box was manual not auto so didn't check it in there as I assumed (and I know that one should never assume lol) it was ok
Hopefully Magick can see now that it is about facts and not about detail that confuses and can be divisive
Anyway - hope we can put that one behind us now
I have just caught up with the past three days so am starting to look at the Cyprus dispute page and will probably get another long series of comments about that next
Good luck with your other projects, looks like you have a lot on your plate --Chaosdruid (talk) 02:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Sourced and unsourced photos

As ı am new in wikipedia, could you teach me what is a sourced photo and what is not? I do not see why MY own pictures I took all by myself like a grown up should be considered "unsourced"... --88.254.132.139 (talk) 15:27, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Now that said can you tell me how do I "source" my own pictures, so ı can put it up online instead of your "picture" of a "Döner Kebab"?
Also the fact that there is not a lot of Turks out there editing wikipedia in Culinary Sciences does not give you a blank check to interfere with our region's cuisine (friendly said, as you are disrupting an article by putting in some newsreels as sources that are not academic at all and can not be sourced in return.
I counsel you (since you claim to have a PhD) to read some more academic sources on the Cuisine of the Ottoman Empire and the Levant, such as Musa Dağdeviren, Marianna or Stefanos Gierasimos (Yerasimos), or Renan Yaman, who them CAN trace their sources back. If you disrupt the article again to your personal agenda, I will nonetheless report you, as I see you as the sole reason why the article on "döner kebab" is in such bad shape. --85.99.39.91 (talk) 21:41, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Meze

Hi Zlerman, I deleted the other language information in meze as per etymological information given in the reference. So far as I know, we should give only etymological information, or else the article will be like a list of languages, because I know that at least 30 other languages are waiting in line :) Thank you. --Chapultepec (talk) 02:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem, I got your point, but I will make a small addition according to the sources, I hope it won't be a problem. --Chapultepec (talk) 03:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

About images

Причиной удаления тех изображений может быть то, что они маленького разрешения и не содержат метаданных, соответственно есть сомнения, что это действительно собственная работа участника, а не изображение, найденное где-нибудь в Интернете. Если смущает наличие людей на фото, то их можно обрезать.--Anatoliy (Talk) 14:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikiquette alert

I have opened a Wikiquette alert concerning TungstenCarbide's behavior here. Otebig (talk) 15:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Doner kebab

See my talk page for response. --Macrakis 08:11 2 March 2009

Category:Outlines of countries (a suggestion)

This category does not look very reader-friendly. Please consider splitting off a subcategory with draft outlines. In this way, the category screen, showing only the article space outlines, will become uncluttered, while the drafts will be on a lower level. They will be moved "up" as they are released to article space. --Zlerman (talk) 03:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

No need. We'll be moving all those outlines to article space starting immediately. It's time to shake things up and shift this project into hyperdrive. The Transhumanist 19:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with this. I also wonder if starting the outlines project with countries is the most helpful thing -- since country pages are already quite well outlined (you're moving from a level-3 outline to a level-2 outline, perhaps; but most topic articles are only a level-5 outline of the subject, where the benefits of a higher-order outline are more immediately obvious). I know you've been doing this for many moons, so are not about to change, but I'd like to see more effort go into pages like the outlines of science... +sj + 23:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow what you were saying about levels - were you referring to heading levels? The outline's hierarchy goes down into the list itself - each level of bullets in the list counts too.
About shifting focus, we've been working on the country outlines for a year! I think it would be best to finish these up before moving on to the rest of the outline collection. I plan to focus on Health and fitness next, but right now it's time to roll up our shirt sleeves and get these done! The Transhumanist 23:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Call to action

Alarm! Alarm!

We've been working on the country outline drafts for a year now.

Therefore, I've moved them to article space.

All of them.

It's time to finish them up!

The only accuracy problem they have are the government branches sections.

Those need to be completed right away.

I've been working on them and will continue to do so...

But, this task needs everybody working on it now.

Please click on some outlines and fix the government branches sections.

The Transhumanist 00:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Country outlines project update - 2009/03/08

Things have been slowing down again, so it's time for a big push...

We've gone live

This project needed a shot in the arm. Also, its draft pages have been littering Wikipedia's categories for months. The time seemed right to move all the country outline drafts to article space.

WHAT???

Well, the drafts had been sitting in Wikipedia space for a year.

WHAT???

Development has been moving at a snail's pace and we could use the help of the Wikipedia community at large (who are more likely to find these if they are in article space).

WHAT???

Yes, we've gone live.  :)

This puts pressure on us to get the blatantly incomplete elements of these outlines done. The only glaring problem is the government branches sections. These need to be corrected ASAP.

I've mentioned THE GOVERNMENT BRANCHES SECTIONS many times to many people over the past year, but the problem just doesn't seem to have been taken seriously. So let me put it another way:

HELP!!! I need your help on this now. Almost all the countries have a government with an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. The links for these branches need to be completed for each country outline:

Here's a convenient list you can use WP:LINKY on to access and edit these quickly. Please copy the list's link to the top of your talk page so that you can access it easily.

If you spot any standardization in links, and ways we can automate parts of this process, or for groups of countries that have links in common, please let me know!

Administrative support for outlines

There has been growing pressure on me to write up the administrative pages for outlines - their instructions, guidelines, etc. Therefore, I'm now in the process of composing these. Fortunately, it is mostly a matter of gathering material from messages I've written to you guys over the past year. Still, this is taking up most of my time, and I will be buried in these for the foreseeable future.

Traffic control

The next big task after the government branches sections are cleaned up is link support for the outlines.

There's quite a list of links and notices that need to be put in place around Wikipedia, providing access to them to readers, and alerting editors to the need to develop and maintain these pages. This will keep our bot people very busy (and happy).

But the most important thing right now is to get the government branches sections completed.

The Transhumanist 02:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Zlerman,

Recently I edited "External Links" section of article about Uzbekistan in order to add a new link to source of Uzbekistan Photos which were made summer 2008: 

* Pictures of Uzbekistan, East-Site.com

Noticed that you've reverted my changes and wondering why. It's the first ime I'm editing Uzbekistan, so not sure whether "External Links" is a right place for this link, but being naturally born in Uzbekistan I have confidence that pictures of Uzbekistan from my source have professional quality and might greatly contribute to the wikipedia's article about this beautiful country. Besides, articles about cities of Uzbekistan: Tashkent and Samarkand contains links to some parts of this photo collection in the "External Links" section.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks.

PS. I could not find any external links to photos of Uzbekistan on this page Uzbekistan

--Farkonix (talk) 13:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Cyprus#Cuisine

Yes I read your message, but the actual image of that cypriot cheese show a very small content of cheese, I prefer as you say searching for another cheese, with a high view. What you think of this? Image:Anari Limassol.jpg NIR-Warrior (talk) 18:30, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Outline of knowledge project update - 2009/03/11

Allow me to shift focus for the moment from the country outline project to outlines in general...

Where's the Outline of knowledge project headed?

It's growing fast, so fast that it is catching up to portals.

I just stumbled on to a subset of 50 more outlines (one for the history of each state of the United States), and have added them to the top of the outline. Buaidh has been busy - it's nice to meet another fanatic outliner.  :)

That brings the total number of outlines in article space to about 450.

It won't be long before there are more outlines than portals (which number about 600).

How long before outlines outnumber portals?

Four months, tops.

Then what?

I don't know. Do you have any ideas?

Of course the set will continue to grow. Which branch of knowledge should we tackle next?

And...

Perhaps we should push for Main page coverage?

Need for traffic analysis

We need to begin taking a deeper look at outlines and how they are integrated into (linked to from other pages on) Wikipedia, to optimize their usefulness.

The Traffic counter is useful for monitoring page traffic on Wikipedia.

Though I'm not sure exactly what it measures. Do you know?

What interests me most is the difference between outline traffic and portal traffic. Use the above counter on various portals and the corresponding outlines, to see what I mean.

Is the traffic volume of portals related to the structure of their links?

Where is portal traffic coming from? Can the answer be found in "What links here"?

And what about the portal menu bar at the top of every portal page? Does that account for the huge number of hits the main portal list gets each month?

I also wonder how much of the traffic comes from the Main page. Is there any way to tell?

If you have any ideas on this subject and how we should proceed, please visit my talk page and let me know!

And if you know of any other traffic analysis tools that we could make use of, please let me know!

The Transhumanist 19:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Mazanderani cuisine

Hello, Zlerman. You have new messages at Jerem43's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Tajiks of China

Hi Zlerman. The article Tajiks is about the Persian-speaking people known as "Tajiks", it is not an etymological articles (as I wanted it to be). Therefore, the "Tajiks of China" are somehow irrelevant, since they are not Persian-speaking (the paragraph had it all wrong).

I still insist that there should be 4 articles: Persian-speakers of Iran, Persian-speakers of Afghanistan, and Persian-speakers of Central Asia. Tajik should be an etymological article only, like in academic encyclopedias.

Tajik (talk) 10:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I do not think that the section is neeed, because the article's intro already explains: The Persian-speaking Tajiks are, at least in terms of language, culture, and history, closely related to the Persian-speakers of Iran. The Tajiks of China, although known by the name Tajik, speak Eastern Iranian languages and are distinct. Regards. Tajik (talk) 19:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Geography WikiProject update - 03/15/2009

The award images are complete!

After months of toil and attention to detail, Penubag has completed the set of images for this WikiProject's awards!

There are five race ribbons:

There's an engraved medallion:

And by far the hardest to create, a golden trophy:

If you are interested in the contests and collaborations that will feature these awards, or have some ideas on they types of such events that could be run, drop me a note.

And be sure to pop by Penubag's talk page to let him know what you think of his graphics artistry.

The Transhumanist 22:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

food barnstar

Thank you, for that.

I am how ever the third, Caspian got the second and the first went to the photographer of many of the great food images.

--Jeremy (blah blah) 08:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


Gorno-Gorno

Thought I'd fixed 'em all. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 02:29, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I've caught the last of them now. --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 02:41, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for catching them. That'll teach me to be a bit more careful how I replace templates with AWB in the future... --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 02:45, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll be developing the Jamoats of Tajikistan soon. I created that page the other day. Dr. Blofeld White cat 19:44, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I did add the source. Dr. Blofeld White cat 16:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I've sorted that now. I have dabbed the articles for Sughd, I just need to add infoboxes to the district and added the tables to the districts. When done I'll build up some templates and aim at getting the articles started. I noticed I started a few a while ago anyway before I had any data. Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:02, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've also asked User:John Carter if he can set up an assessment thing for Highways. At present we seem to have no assessment in place, stubs start class, GA class etc. Dr. Blofeld White cat 19:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Protected areas of ...

"Protected areas of Turkmenistan" has just been moved to "Protected areas in Turkmenistan" citing naming conventions as the reason. The change from "protected areas of ..." to "protected areas in ..." may have implications for all outlines of countries. Please consider. --Zlerman (talk) 03:20, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

"In" is slightly more semantically accurate, so we should use that, but both links should work ("in" and "of"). If we use "in", "of" should have a redirect. The Transhumanist 21:09, 22 March 2009 (UTC)



Compare User:The Transhumanist/Lists by country/Protected areas in x and User:The Transhumanist/Lists by country/Protected areas of x.

The Transhumanist 00:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


On second thought, which is more appropriate: "States of the United States" or "States in the United States"?

Protected areas are usually a part of a country, rather than merely being in it. They are designated areas protected by law, therefore, they are different than say rivers or mountains which happen to be in the country. Protected areas also belong to the country, strengthening the term even further.

I'd go with "of" in this case, as it is more grammatically correct.

The Transhumanist 00:48, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Outline of knowledge WikiProject update - 04/02/2009

Hi everyone.

Things are going slow again. Where have you been?!

Maybe what you need to get you going is a little competition...

Who are we competing with?

Encyclopedia Britannica. Specifically, with its Outline of knowledge (presented in its volume called the Propaedia). Currently, they're kicking our asses. You've really got to check out their Outline of Knowledge (available only in the encyclopedia's paper edition - not the online version).

Portals. Informally, of course, just for the fun of it. There are around 600 portals. We're about 100 behind them, with about 500 outlines. Let's blow past them and leave 'em in the dust!

Confusion in editors at large

Now that the country outlines have been moved to the encyclopedia proper (article space), recruiting help on these is of high priority -- it will soon be time to alert all relevant editors to the nature and function of these and how they relate to other country coverage on Wikipedia.

However, I've noticed instances in which editors do not understand the nature and function of outline pages, and complain that they are redundant to articles. Well, ya. (That's the point of an outline - to provide the essentials in a structure for greater understanding, for easy viewing and faster reading, and to provide a topical guide).

A few editors over the years have viewed outlines as redundant to portals, not understanding the purpose and scope of outlines, nor the benefits provided by their structure and standardization.

These problems of misunderstanding need to be solved before "going public", to prevent their expansion as the community's awareness of these pages increases. Consider the response we'd get now if we announced these pages on the talk pages of 500 WikiProjects, 500 article talk pages, and placed links in 500 see also sections, etc.

That could be a nightmare.

So...

Encyclopedic and administrative support

I've been working on a couple things that will help alleviate confusion and hopefully reduce the need for editors to ask questions and seek advice. They're drafts, still under construction. Please look these over and jump in and help complete them (directly or by providing feedback):

First is an Outline article draft, intended to replace the current Outline article.

Next is a guideline on the Outline of knowledge and its outline pages.

Let me know what you think. Do they help you understand outlines better and how to develop them on Wikipedia? What is missing? How can they be improved?

The Transhumanist 04:54, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Outline of knowledge WikiProject update - 04/06/2009

As the country outlines have been approaching completion and more attention has been given to the non-country outlines and the Outline of knowledge as a whole, I've run into this...

Topic lists

As you know, we've been cleaning up sets of pages the links of which are displayed on the outlines.

One of the most prominent of the sets presented are the "List of x topics" (including "List of x-related topics) pages, and they are in a sorry state.

There's actually 2 different kinds mixed together in the same set: most of them are alphabetical indexes.

The others are non-alphabetical hierarchical lists. That is...

outlines!

So, I've been renaming the indexes to "Index of x articles" or "Index of x-related articles", and wikifying them (especially their lead sections). So far, all the country-related topics lists that are indexes have been renamed. It appears the new name fits so well that nobody favors the old name over the new. It's been over a week since that was done, with no complaints, so I've started on the rest.

As for the topic lists that are outlines, those can be absorbed or merged into the OOK. Even though this would entail a lot of renaming and reformatting, and cutting and pasting, these pages might still save us some work! I'm not sure how many there are, but that should become clear once the index pages are all renamed.

Feel free to join in and help. It's hog's heaven!

The Transhumanist 04:49, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


Uzbekistan Provinces

everything was corrected - previously added data were from labor population column. One hour later I've fixed problem. It is ok now - your message was a little bit late. Thanx a lot anyway.Bogomolov.PL (talk) 12:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

at my computer link [5] brings Statistical Review of Uzbekistan 44 pages (133 - 176). The problem was with 146 - it was erroneous? It is net problem - I guess. You can try Russian version [6] Bogomolov.PL (talk) 12:40, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Outline of knowledge project summary, and future direction

In response to a friend on Wikipedia who was wondering about how I've been and what I've been up to, I got to spewing about our little endeavor, and well, I got so carried away I pretty much told him everything.  :) The message turned out to be a pretty good summary of what we've accomplished so far and the overall plan.

See User talk:The Rambling Man#What's up?

The Transhumanist 23:05, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Cuisine of Burkina Faso

Is the correct name for this Burkinabe cuisine?

(please reply on my talk page - thank you).

The Transhumanist 04:29, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

After looking through the various links on Google, the people from Burkina Faso are called Burkinabe (French: Burkinabé) so Burkinabe cuisine would be the correct term. The reason I never changed it was because I didn't know that fact. --Jeremy (blah blah) 01:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Armenian cuisine

I started Chechil by copying over the article from... Russian is it? I didn't look closely. Anyway, hopefully someone can translate it and it can be brought up to speed. Please let me know if I messed up or there was a better approach. I hope you are well and had a happy holiday. :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Update on the Outline of knowledge WikiProject & Geography WikiProject (Country outlines workgroup) - 04/16/2009

Momentum in the development of the outlines is continuing to build, even though we haven't added any new outlines lately. Plenty of work is being done on the outlines we already have.

Keep up the good work everyone!

Inspiration!

Kudos go to Buaidh, who has dived head first into outline development, continuing improvement of the country outlines, and doing so vigorously. Take a look at his contribs. He has taken the initiative and has been expanding those outlines' design and coverage. Be sure to let him know what you think of his work!

Coming soon: the Super Huge Expansion (it will be really really big)

Excitement (mine at least) is building as we approach the Super Huge Expansion, during which notices will be placed on thousands of subject talk pages and their corresponding WikiProjects (see below concerning which ones). Though not all on the same day! - this will take place over a period of weeks or months, because it's best not to open the flood gates all at once.

The existing outlines should serve as strong examples for editors who wish to develop new outlines, and so we need to complete them as much as we can before we start to take this to the next level (in about 3 months). The rewrite of the outline article (the draft, which explains outlines in detail), and the guideline on outlines and outline development, also need to be completed before the transcendence begins. These will help guide the decisions and actions of editors, and reduce confusion.

Projected outline, at the OOK WikiProject page

What's next? Where is the Outline of knowledge headed?

Well, it will grow, to encompass all of human knowledge.

But, is there a plan?

YES!!!

Currently under construction on the Outline of knowledge WikiProject page is a version of the outline that will display links to all the outline pages currently in the encyclopedia proper, links to all outline drafts, and redlinks to all planned outline drafts.

You can help. Please place links to the remaining drafts in there (with complete pagenames so we can easily tell they are drafts). Once all the draft pages are placed, please look over the overall outline for gaps in coverage, and add missing subjects. I expect there are thousands of missing subjects extensive enough to benefit from being outlined. New subjects should be included as red draft links. Thank you.

But it's not just an editing task list...

During the upcoming "Super Huge Expansion" (mentioned above), the article talk page and WikiProject for each of the subjects listed on the projected outline will receive a notice requesting the creation and development of the outline page for that subject. Each notice will also explain how a subject's outline will integrate into the Outline of knowledge and into Wikipedia's navigation system as a whole.

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of knowledge#Projected outline.

Topic lists

The nice thing about a reverse outline is that it turns up problems that exist in the publication being outlined, which provides opportunities to fix them. Since we get very little or no opposition to fixing problems even on sets of hundreds of pages, we've been plowing through them.

One of the biggest problems in Wikipedia that our work on the Outline of knowledge has uncovered so far is with the set of topics lists. Their titles, in the forms "List of x topics" and "List of x-related topics" are ambiguous, and they are not the most common terms for describing their content. See WP:COMMONNAME. To make matters worse, the set is divided between 2 competing types/sets of pages: alphabetical indexes, and outlines.

In an effort to sort out this mess, the indexes are being renamed, and the outlines are being reformatted and moved, or merged, into the Outline of knowledge.

So far, almost 300 topic lists have been renamed to indexes. Nobody has objected to the names chosen, but one editor has expressed reservation on the approach - he was concerned it would cause confusion by having 2 title standards in place at the same time for these. Though he himself was not confused, nor did he object to the titles. And nobody else has expressed confusion or dissatisfaction with the new titles either. It has been over 2 weeks since the renaming has begun, and since no confusion seems to have been caused, and since there is no opposition to the new names, I plan to continue with the renaming.

Also, one topic list has been merged into its corresponding outline so far: List of transport topics was merged into Outline of transport. It turned out very good. List of cell biology topics is currently being merged into Outline of cell biology (see the link dump in hidden comments at the end of the outline).

I'm not sure how many lists have "topics" in their titles, but Google turned up 788, and these appear to include the ones that have already been renamed to indexes. Subtracting those renamed so far, there are about 500 more to go.

Watching tips

I thought you might want to compare notes on the methods we use to watch over the outlines. Here's how I keep an eye on things...

My watchlist had so many thousands of articles in it that I finally just deleted them all. Now I have it set so that I have to manually add pages to be watched, and I use it only to watch trouble spots and collaborations I'm participating in.

Because I like to watch specific sets of pages at a time, I use "Related changes" on list pages. That way the results are not watered down with edits from pages I'm not immediately concerned with.

I always use WP:POP and Related changes together. With POP installed, you go to a link list, like User:Buaidh/Country outlines of the Americas, then click on "Related changes" in the toolbox menu, and then hover the mouse cursor over the diff and hist links so you can look at those without clicking on them.

It's pretty fast.

The technique turns Wikipedia's list system into a crystal ball.

Update Scanner

Penubag recommends Update Scanner, which is a Firefox add-on that periodically scans pages and pings you when a change is detected. You can even set its level of sensitivity for each scanned page (e.g., "ignore changes of 100 words or less").

I'd use it, but I don't have a computer.  :(

See also WP:OTS for more power tools and techniques, and User:Penubag/optimum toolsets for some more nice addons, that do a variety of things.

I'm always looking for new power tools and power skills, so if you know of any, please share (let me know)!

The Transhumanist 04:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Do not read this one - The Hunt - Outline of knowledge WikiProject - 04/17/2009

While surveying libraries, their outline-related resources, and our coverage of them, I came across something funny...

What subclass is the Bible in the Library of Congress Classification?

Do you think they'd like this one at WP:DYK?

(Nope. They didn't.)     :)

Libraries

For months, I've been sitting at a terminal in one of the largest libraries in the country, and I haven't even looked around at the available resources.

Until a few days ago.

I'm overwhelmed.

When compared to libraries, Wikipedia is small. (See Digest of Education Statistics 2008, Chapter 7:Libraries and Educational Technology Libraries, and turn to page 617).

But is that a fair comparison?

Yes.

Why?

Because we have growth potential.  :)

And we cover everything, including libraries!

Guess what else I found?

Hunting for outlines

I began to study libraries and librarians, since they are experts in organizing knowledge. And of course I turned to Wikipedia to see what we had on the things I came across...

And while doing so I kept running into outlines on Wikipedia that are not (yet) part of the Outline of knowledge.

When I come across non-OOK outlines, generally I rename them, and reformat them to our standard outline format. But there is the occasional exception.

Here are some outlines I just added:

  1. List of energy topics --> Outline of energy (it converted great)
  2. List of Dewey Decimal classes --> Outline of Dewey Decimal classes (no conversion)
  3. Library of Congress Classification --> ??? (no rename, no conversion)

The last 2 are outlines by their very nature, and so our standard outline subheadings didn't seem to fit. So I left them as is.

I renamed the first 2, but the last one is the name of the outline, that is, the topic itself is an outline, and that outline is presented as the article's content, so I left the name as is. For now. This needs more thought.

Of course, that's not all. Concerning those last 2 outlines above...

Alternate outlines of knowledge

...not only are they outlines, but they are outlines of knowledge! Well, the top few levels, at least.

Uh, so?

What happens if we linkify them?  :)

That is, what happens if we linkify their classifications to Wikipedia's outlines?  :)   :)   :)

They become alternate top ends to the OOK

Yep.

What can you find?

I challenge you to find some "hidden" outlines.

I dare you to take a look around Wikipedia for hidden outlines (that is, outlines not yet hooked into the OOK), and add your kills to WP:WPOOK#The hunt for hidden outlines.

My trophies are already there.

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