Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 8

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Question regarding Project

I'm really not at all sure what to make of Wikipedia:WikiProject Peace. Any ideas out there? John Carter (talk) 13:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

How about nominating it for deletion? It was created by a single user with four edits in November, no work since then, it can't seem to decide whether it is a project, a portal, or a collection of templates, the only place of substance that seems to link to it is WikiProject Anti-war which is a lot more active, POV problems notwithstanding ("We don't . . . actively condemn POV" in articles we just try to make them FAs!!!? - but that's another issue).--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 16:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree per Doug. THE KC (talk) 00:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC).

So noted. Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Peace. John Carter (talk) 00:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Inappropiate Ownership Attempts

Some editors of WikiProject Classical music, who clearly state in their banner and intro that their scope are all articles related to classical music, that aren't covered by other music related projects have been going around biography pages of classical musicians removing infoboxes under the blanket claim that the single guideline on the project page Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music#Biographical infoboxes even though their very project maintains these pages are not within its scope (every biography is already covered by the Musicians Wikiproject which promotes infoboxes). The main culprit here is User:Kleinzach who appears to be effectively asserting ownership on these pages claiming a group of editors at the Classical music WikiProject have reached a "consensus" to not have infoboxes. But the discussion rarely ever involves people not involved with the WikiProject and why should it? The articles are within their scope. And yet every time an pro-infobox editor drags in editors from the outside, (See archives) Kleinzach disregards their views because the editors were notified by canvassing. The fact is there is far larger consensus with biographies to have infoboxes.

Can the council please do something to stop the WikiProject obtaining false consensus and then ownership of the articles on classical musicians. Let it be noted Joseph Szigeti passed a FAC with an infobox so it's not even as if the infobox contravenes the manual of style! 128.232.251.233 (talk) 00:24, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It sounds to me that this is basically a matter between the Opera Project and the Musicians project. Perhaps the better place to make this comment might be the talk page of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians. That project is a subproject of Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography, in which I am active, though. I am in the process of basically signing off for the night, but will probably return tomorrow to see what if anything has developed in the interim and provide what input I reasonably can. John Carter (talk) 00:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The only contact I have had with 128.232.251.233 was on Talk:Simon Rattle*. (He/she didn't tell me that this issue had been raised here.) The issue of biographical infoboxes has been discussed at exhaustive length on the three classical music projects: particularly Composers but also Opera, and Classical music, and on each and every occasion the consensus has been against using them. I can provide the links to discussions if necessary so it can be seen whether or not the consensus was genuine. I doubt Musicians has relevance here. The classical music projects cover a great sweep of history, different countries and different languages so their scope is very different from the popular music-oriented Musicians. However I note the Musicians project does specifically advise against putting their bio-infoboxes on articles where they are "opposition camps", see Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Infoboxes. -- Kleinzach (talk) 01:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC) --- *Add. I should also add that I reverted 128.232.251.233's (undiscussed/unannounced) changes to the Classical music project page (11 March, 15.03). -- Kleinzach (talk) 02:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Is the issue here that the WikiProject opposes the idea of having bio infoboxes for classical composers, or simply that they feel that the current offering of infoboxes is inadequate for their needs? I can definitely see a reason for the latter, but a blanket opposition to all forms of bio-infobox would probably not be in the long-term interest of any project seeking FAs, and possibly may contradict the MOS on bios (although my knowledge of the latter's particulars is somewhat limited). Obviously, if the issue is that there are no adequate infoboxes for their field of bios, then I would encourage effort be spent in developing such a template instead of deleting infoboxes. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 02:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed at great length and by many editors, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Infobox debate. -- Kleinzach (talk) 03:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

User IP 128.232.251.233 is probably the same person as 131.111.213.37. The latter IP has been used more often on WP and has been associated with a number of disruptions. -- Kleinzach (talk) 07:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

They are both addresses belonging to the University of Cambridge. It would be good if the user could create their own id.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

My statement

The WikiProject Classical music should IMHO do what the name implies - cover all articles about classical music. The problem is there are three similar WikiProjects – WikiProject Opera, WikiProject Composers and WikiProject Contemporary (Classical) Music, both of which are very well organised to the point that the three projects have coexisted as sister projects rather than (in my opinion) the more natural hierarchical structure of WP:Classical music being the parent project of Opera and Composers (as potentially taskforces).

This has led to the rather clumsy wording of WP:Classical music's scope. It is true that at the moment our banner only seems to appear on classical music compositions and no classical musicians. Even worse, we don't seem to cover classical music theory and classical musical terminology. There is an ongoing discussion started by me over at WP:CM that we should start a new WikiProject WP:Classical musicians to cover Classical musicians and shift WP:CM to a more compositions and the theory behind them and leave the people involved with classical music to another project. This would be the natural intersection with WP:BIO and could potentially merge with WP:Composers.

OK, enough with the WikiProject management - the issue of infoboxes. Some time ago there was a big clash between certain members of WP:BIO/WP:Microformats and WP:Composers/WP:Opera/WP:CM over whether to include infoboxes in all classical musician biographies. One user (Pigsonthewing) was so pointy about this he left a bad taste in many editors' mouths to the point of making many totally against the idea of infoboxes. It was then decided infoboxes should not be used and guidelines were put down in WP:CM saying just that. The thing is though during this discussion, an editor from WP:CM did design quite a nice infobox: User:Turangalila/sandbox/Infobox composer which seems to address the issue that the current infoboxes are geared towards popular and modern musicians rather than classical musicians. However, I think most editors are against this infobox being used as well.

My own view is slowly warming to infoboxes. Having created the bare bones to many of Mendelssohn's chamber works, I find myself repeating the same information in every stub article - name, opus number, key, date of composition, length, movements etc. - all of which would fit perfectly into an infobox (see a crude first attempt). Also given virtually every other page seems to be using infoboxes, it seems classical music articles have to come around some time. Heck, not too long ago we opposed project banners and rating systems. Now we have at least began to rate articles in our banner as stubs, GA or FA (I still strongly oppose making a distinction between Start and B-Class as I don't want an article to have to be reviewed in order to become a B-Class, that's would a third tier of reviews!).

So in conclusion, I admit our statement of project scope is a mess and the spirit of this project is to cover all classical music articles. That should not be in doubt. How we do that (one big project with taskforces or lots of sister projects) is still up in the air. But I think we really need to think long and hard about infoboxes. Centy – reply• contribs – 03:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's clarify the issue here. No-one is against infoboxes per se, or navigation boxes etc. The only problem is with inappropriate biographical infoboxes. Thank you. -- Kleinzach (talk) 03:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

So what do you think of User:Turangalila/sandbox/Infobox composer? Is it worth trotting this out as a standard infobox. Centy – reply• contribs – 03:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is the place to go into details but see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Infobox debate. I was only one of a number of editors who rejected that box after considering all aspects of the question. -- Kleinzach (talk) 03:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Why infobox is so important to some people? In my opinion, article’s quality, content and standardization are much more important than that. We have many contributors who spend their times for the betterment of the articles vs a few who come in once in a while just to add the “biography infobox”. We have been discussing about infobox for many times and to be frank, I personally do not see any value by putting it. As I said in Pavarotti’s talkpage, “This has got nothing to do with the feeling of “ownership” but it is for the standardization and the quality of the articles under the supervision of any Projects in WIKI”. I believe members consensus in any WIKIProjects are important and should be taken into account - Jay (talk) 09:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Inter-relationship of classical music projects

I think it would be useful to clarify the inter-relationship of projects. This has created a lot of problems with confusion over where conductors and classical insrumentalists fall. (Singers are treated as belonging to WP:Opera.) In my opinion, CM should really be a parent to the others just as it is a child of Music. Although opera is a stage art, I regard it is more related to classical music than to theatre. Contemporary music is again a sub-genre of classical music and reports are that Composers is largely classically oriented. In which case all should be sub-projects of CM or task forces. I would be interested in opinions of Council project members on appropriate structures, so that a formal proposal can be produced. Then the awkwardness of CM's scope could be resolved.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Just one opinion, but I think what might work best would be if it were decided to integrate all three projects into one, with two of them becoming task forces/work groups of the others. If one project, perhaps classical music, were to set up an assessment-capable banner which would also provide assessment parameters for the others, like, for instance, Template:MILHIST does, that one parent project, whichever it might be, would then be seen by all involved as being a bit more clearly the broadest scope project, and then, at least potentially, a central forum for discussion of issues relevant to all of them. Like I said, personally I think the logical "parent" or broadest scope project would be the Classical music project, and, if such were indicated as being desirable by many of the participants, I could probably set up its banner to provide separate assessments for all three projects in the next few days. John Carter (talk) 14:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree, a restructuring along these lines would probably be healthy for and in the long-term interests of all of these projects. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 23:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

As a participant in all these projects, I'm basically in agreement, however many editors are involved and it would be necessary to get their cooperation. Task forces/work groups are fine when they grow out of a project (I note WikiProject Classical music has just started a Compositions task force), but editors are generally better motivated and more productive under the project structure (see for example the descendant projects of Opera: WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan and WikiProject Richard Wagner). It's a bit like maintaining the garden when you own your own house!

Up to now Classical music has been less active than the others - hence the imbalance we are referring to. I'd be happy to propose on/to the Composers Project that we make Classical Music its parent project. (The project will probably accept the idea.) The Composers Project doesn't do assessments.

Contemporary music was set up in October by S.dedalus and Antandrus. The project is well-organized and they are doing assessments. It doesn't list a parent project. -- Kleinzach (talk) 02:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Just as a note, I've never observed there to be any noticeable difference in the quality of work put out by a group whether it be a task force or a WikiProject. The only question is whether it is a practical and efficient use of the group's time to be muddling about with general project administration, the lack of which is an advantage that allows the task forces to simply get on with the real work of article writing. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 02:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree. Also, it should be noted that the proposed single banner would probably be along the lines of the Australia banner on the Talk:Sydney page of the Hinduism banner on the Talk:Hindu mythology page. Separate assessments for each project would still be possible, but using a single banner for as many relevant groups as possible would both strengthen the ties between the projects in a sense while still allowing each project, including any which to date still don't do assessments, to have their own individual article assessments for each article relevant to their individual projects. John Carter (talk) 17:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

So what is the normal procedure for starting a merger? I'm not familiar with the comtemporary music project, so I don't know if any of them are even aware of this discussion. --15:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

First, you'd want to ask for input from each of the projects. Generally, what would probably work best is to place one of the merge templates, either {{mergeto}} or {{mergefrom}} on the top of each main project page, start a section on the talk page of each of the three, probably with two of them being links to the third, and see if there is support. Once it is determined that the merger is supported by the members of the various projects, I could probably help a bit more directly from that point. John Carter (talk) 15:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this idea. Although closer ties and cooperation between music projects would be a good thing, projects such as WP:Composers and WP:CONTEMPM have far to broad a scope to work as task forces. The very name, task force, somehow implies a limited scope. This would make recruiting harder and would be confusing. WP:TASKFORCE says that a task force is a “non-independent subgroup of a larger WikiProject.” Contemporary music in particular can not fall under the banner of WikiProject Classical music. Contemporary music should not be regarded as a sub-genre of classical music. The diversity of influences manifested in the music of living composers can include popular music, world music, performance art or almost anything else. The designation “classical” would be misleading and inappropriate. (This is a work of contemporary music for instance. Lol) In fact a separate contemporary music portal might be a good idea

This proposal is misguided in another way however. Task forces generally do not have their own talk page banner. For some projects, and again I am thinking particularly of Contemporary music, this talk page banner is key to the organization and cohesion of the project. Subject which are very specialized, very large, and very detailed often use tagging and assessment to define their work and recruit new members from a very rarefied pool of potential users.

In the case of Contemporary music we have already had one proposal of such a merger. However consensus then was that we are better as an independent project. --S.dedalus (talk) 03:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that not all projects that share the same banner are called "task forces". Most of the national projects of Africa, the Caribbean, Oceania, and Western Asia, and all the projects of Australia, use the name WikiProject. Part of the purpose of using the same banner is, like with the Australia projects and some of the other national projects, many articles will deal with content relative to multiple topics, and the individual projects for each topic will want their own banner there. This leads to cases where we have ten or more banners on one article, making the talk page crowded and the banner's "advertising" function greatly reduced. By trying to combine those banners into one, generally still allowing the projects to keep the same name, it reduces both the banner clutter and the amount of work required for assessments, as one quality assessment could be used for all the projects. It would still allow individual importance assessments, though, for each relevant project. John Carter (talk) 13:06, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed new namespace for WikiProjects

I think all WikiProjects should have an interest in this, so I thought I'd bring this to your attentions. Please see the proposal and comment at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Wikiproject namespace.--Pharos (talk) 23:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Participants

It has been suggested that [the Participants] section be split into a new page.

Although the label (and the problem, in my opinion) persists, I see no discussion here. This list is taking up at least two-thirds of the page; am I the only one who thinks that it should be moved? Smaller lists of participants have had such treatment, and we have almost 150 Councellors in our rolls (although more than half of them are probably inactive).

To me, such a move does not look controversial in the least. I cannot see why we cannot do a little house-keeping around here. The place is becoming increasingly messy (and dusty—we could use a roll call). Waltham, The Duke of 22:02, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Concur on all points. Take the saw to it :D. Anyone else think a roll-call is appropriate? Happy‑melon 22:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll leave it open for a day, and then do the move if there are no objections (just for the sake of due process; I don't really think there will be objections). As far as the roll call is concerned, perhaps we should discuss first, as has been mentioned in the past, what exactly being a participant in the Council is. The concept is a little vague. Apart from that, I am fully behind it, as it will shorten the list significantly (the regulars here are, after all, rather few). On another note, perhaps we could combine this roll call with one for the Contacts page. Waltham, The Duke of 23:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

No objections here. (Personally, I think we can do away with the list entirely—it was originally created at a time when the role of the group wasn't very clear, and isn't really relevant now that we've become a pure discussion forum.) Kirill 15:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Why not just make a nested pane like we did here? – ClockworkSoul 16:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Wait, wait, Kirill does have a point there... This place is frequented by people interested in participating in such discussions, but the project does little more than hosting these discussions. There is no real need for participants' list, and its deletion would emphasise the Project's character as a non-official body, or even as a non-body (funnily enough, one called council).

On the other hand, we could retain a small list of people frequenting here and possibly tending the various Council pages; as a sort of contacts for the Council itself (I'll come back to that later). Such a short list could remain on the main page.

Furthermore, there is this nagging little voice in the back of my head asking "What about the guide?". Then I go to the WikiProject Guide for the first time in a year and realise that it has reached guideline status (!). I suppose that participants were, to an extent, necessary for the development of this guide, but its completion has removed this requirement. Although I must add that the Task Forces section has several under-developed parts which could use some help.

In every event, I believe we should throw some weight on the Contacts list, which needs updating and expanding. If half our contacts have left their WikiProjects, or even Wikipedia, they are useless, and so is the list. That list has a lot of potentials if used properly; a communications network could be established between us and the projects, allowing us to easily notify projects through the contacts any time this is necessary (that was the idea in the beginning, I suppose, but it seems to have been forgotten along the way).

Note that if we do retain the long list, ClockworkSoul's idea is a very good one, and I will keep it in mind for other cases, too. However, I am not certain that it will work well here because we might want to categorise the list somehow.

Bottom line: we have several options to choose from, so it seems that this matter will be discussed for a little longer than initially anticipated. But again, that's all we do in this talk shop. ;-) Waltham, The Duke of 00:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

<outdent>You're right: if the list can be cleaned up and maintained, it would have quite a lot of potential. I'm thinking that if we put a little effort into updating and maintaining the list, it could pay off in the log run. – ClockworkSoul 02:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that a contacts list is certainly a good idea in general, regardless of interaction with this forum, and probably should be folded into the Directory in one way or another. But having been an early proponent of scrapping the participants list (I'm too lazy to rummage through the talk archives right now...), I must agree, there doesn't seem to be a point to the list - at least not in its current state. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 04:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you looking for this? It's the latest discussion on the issue (if you can call it a discussion), from 23 August 2007. Your views are quite obvious. :-) I'm still unsure about deleting the list, though; the guide still has gaps (the two subpages for WikiProjects and Task Forces), and there are regulars here one might want to know about. As I said, a short list of people tending to the Council itself and making sure that it runs smoothly might be the way to go. Most of us are already here, actually...

As far as the directory is concerned, it might be a good idea to include a "contact" column there and have the projects decide for their contacts when fine-tuning the directory. On the other hand, contacts might not fit there, and it certainly won't work for portals—and we have contacts for both projects and portals, you know, and there is not a complete overlapping between the contacts of the two. I say we simply keep the contacts list, link to it from the directory, and have the projects and portals go there to register their contacts. Waltham, The Duke of 18:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

As I have the feeling that this discussion will take some time, I put the list of participants in a nested pane as suggested. I don't pretend this to be the final solution, but at least now I can view this page without tiring my scroll-finger... -- StevenDH (talk) 01:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

And it will take even more if there is no participation (no pun intended) in the conversation (no rhyme intended as well). Anyway, I think it is a good provisional solution. Waltham, The Duke of 02:29, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I propose we just go ahead and enact the suggestion above: let's do a roll call. Those who respond in the negative, or decline to respond at all with a week should simply be scrubbed from the roster. – ClockworkSoul 16:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

One week might not be long enough. I would suggest two at least. Also, there is always the possibility that individuals will "reactivate" themselves later. But otherise I tend to agree to it. Maybe we can have those who respond add an "*" or suchlike next to their names so we can know who responded. John Carter (talk) 16:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I propose a period of a month (there are editors on Wikibreaks, editors who have forgotten about this page, and all sorts of other situations we ought to take into account). I say we set the deadline on 30 April, 24:00 UTC.

I also propose that we should modify the asterisk system mentioned by Mr Carter and do what we did in SBS's roll call: add asterisks to all names and ask editors to remove them. That way, when the deadline passes we shall simply remove the names that still have asterisks, and run a lower risk of making mistakes when that happens (removing all the names without asterisks and then removing the asterisks from the rest is certainly more complex, even though just a little).

In any case, we still don't know what we shall tell them. What exactly are we expecting them to renew their membership for? Waltham, The Duke of 18:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If nothing else, being listed here is an indicator that an individual sees themselves as being a significant contributor to some other WikiProject and interested in being someone who might be contacted regarding issues with a given project. Maybe we would indicate that they would want to "remain members" if they feel that they would like to remain the latter, and possibly the former as well? John Carter (talk) 19:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Do you want me to ping the talk pages of everyone on the list? MelonBot is approved to to so. Happy‑melon 19:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. John Carter (talk) 19:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I have received the message, and I find it perfectly satisfactory. The roll call, the results of which have already started manifesting themselves, will be, amongst other things, our opportunity to get rid of the long-striken entry for The Random Editor. I was really tired of seeing that one. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 18:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Templates in wrong namespace; non-WikiProject-template?

The 'internal templates' used in the Directory are not in the Template namespace, I would like to move them but they will need new names. How about:

Template location/name now	Proposed
Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide header	do nothing with this redirect
Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Header	ProjectDirectory Boilerplate
Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Links	ProjectDirectory Links
Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/WikiProject	ProjectDirectory Entry
Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/WikiProject footer	ProjectDirectory Footer
Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/WikiProject header	ProjectDirectory Header

, or something like that.

And while I'm at it, I could put stuff like Template:WikiProject in Category:WikiProject Council templates, right? I've also been looking in Category:WikiProjects (but that's stuff for another day), there seem to be a number of users who have subpages which are built from Template:WikiProject but are not actually WikiProjects. Is there something akin to Template:Project but usable for announcing that a page is not in fact a WikiProject? Okay, that's actually three questions, what do you think about them? -- StevenDH (talk) 02:08, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It's actually fairly common for formatting blocks that are only used on a single (set of) project pages to be placed as subpages rather than as standalone templates. Kirill 14:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't see any benefit to moving these pages to the template namespace - they're not very much use outside Council-space. Happy‑melon 16:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree... there's no reason to go mucking around with the placement of these templates. – ClockworkSoul 19:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't aware of the template-in-subpage-putting, I just thought all templates belong in the Template namespace. Indirectly it causes some strange things like pages in the nonexistant Category:Wikipedia documentation. Anyway, that leaves the questions of filling Category:WikiProject Council templates with stuff that's got {{WPCouncil}} on its talk page; and the non-{{Project}} template (see below). -- StevenDH (talk) 22:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Style bots

I just saw the general call for folks from wikiprojects to sign in on the participant page here, and that might be the solution to a problem we face at WP:STYLE1.0. We have the mission of seeing where we have broad consensus to run "style bots" for simple formatting matters that are tedious to conform by hand and that no one would mind. (Candidates are: hyphens and dashes, making sure "External links" is at the end of articles when it exists, and checking citation formats; if you can think of other things in the same category, please respond here or at WP:STYLE1.0.) After we do a poll, we've got a few more steps, then we'll report back to WP:VPP where we started.

So ... the problem you might be able to help me with is, I'd like to contact a lot of people because we don't want to run a bot of any kind without wide agreement that the goals are non-controversial, but I don't want to post notices on 200 wikiproject pages for simple style questions, that's spammy. I noticed you guys just made notifications all around for people to check in here ... possibly we could post a notice somewhere here where people would see it as they check in? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:31, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be in line with Council's evolved function as a discussion forum - I think we should probably create an advertising billboard which we can transclude in strategic places around the WP:COUNCIL pages, and add interesting discussions and notifications as they arise (and as they relate to WikiProjects). Kind of like {{cent}} but more WikiProject-oriented. Any objections? Happy‑melon 11:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No objections from me, sounds great. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 23:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I also agree (the first idea that comes to my mind about potenial locations is the top of this very page). We just have to see how and by whom it will be maintained. Waltham, The Duke of 12:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I am very dubious that simply posting a notice here can be taken as giving fair notice to all Projects (let alone all editors). At the very least the village pump should also be used. Johnbod (talk) 12:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the idea is that visitors to the Council are encouraged to take any relevant issues and raise them at their own WikiProjects, as a filtering system that prevents project talk pages from being deluged in announcements for discussions that aren't really relevant. Happy‑melon 14:25, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support all the comments so far. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've cooked up an idea for a noticeboard at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Noticeboard. Anyone welcome to add their own discussions (and get rid of my facetious example). I know it needs restyling, but I'm not sure how best to acomplish it. Do feel free to have a play. Happy‑melon 15:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:WikiProjects

Actually the reason I got here in the first place: this category is an utter mess. I suppose a system of categories for WikiProjects could be useful besides the Directory, but not if it's in its current shape. I complained about the messines here, but we didn't actually do anything. Do you have suggestions as to how to proceed? If we would clean out the whole thing, we'll come across userpages claiming to be WikiProjects when there's a 'regular' WikiProject about that subject available, that's where we could use a {{this is not the real WikiProject, look here instead}}-template to prevent forking. As a side question, do all WikiProjects have to be located like Wikipedia:WikiProject Foo? I have the impression that some people are really working in those userpage WikiProjects.

Oh yes, excuse my accusations that the Directory is messy too if it isn't. But I do think it could use at least some kind of visual legend for the impatient (like me). -- StevenDH (talk) 23:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

You haven't realised the half of it yet. There are 1456 WikiProject banners listed in Category:WikiProject banners, but only about 650 projects in Category:WikiProjects and its subpages. There are about 800 projects which aren't even in the category, let alone in the right place. There's a massive amount of work to do there to get that category in order. It doesn't help that we don't even have a consistent policy on what to do with inactive or never-active WikiProjects. Happy‑melon 23:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Further, Igor finds 1228 projects (including a number of taskforces) listed on Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Index. I hope to use the directory for an upcoming Igor feature, so I too would like it to be as clean as possible. – ClockworkSoul 23:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on setting up a new version of the directory now, although so far I've only really finished the "Africa" page of the geography part. With any real luck, it might be finished in about a week or so. It would help to know exactly what you mean by "clean", though. John Carter (talk) 23:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

One aspect of 'clean' is without any doubt the structure of the Directory/Category. I would suggest to use the same structure for both, Geometry guy suggested on the Category talk page to use WP:1.0 which seems to make sense as 1.0 does a lot of work via the WikiProjects, if I understand correctly. Also found some thoughts that may be familiar to you here. By the way, what would be the use of a Category with the same structure as the Directory? Only containing active projects or something? (A good answer to this question may be motivating in helping it get up to shape.) -- StevenDH (talk) 23:22, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that following the topic structure at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Hierarchy would be a good way forward. Categories are useful things to search, especially now that they display the number of entries. I would say that we need to have within Category:WikiProjects, the subcategories Category:Active WikiProjects and Category:Inactive WikiProjects, each with the subcategory structure from the 1.0 page (with "Inactive" tagged onto the front of all the inactive subcats, naturally). I could potentially create a template to replace {{Project}} or similar, which would automatically categorise into one of the active subcategories, but would switch to categorising into an inactive category if a timestamp was not regularly updated (say once a month or so). A warning could be introduced a week before the recategorisation occurred, whereupon the banner could switch to looking more like {{Inactive}}. Thoughts? Happy‑melon 12:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The new version of the directory, most of which is still at User:John Carter/Directory, does follow the 1.0 categorization. Having said that, there are going to be a few questions as to exactly where a given project will have its primary listing. I'm hoping to move the remaining pages of the new directory into main space shortly, as soon as I finish ensuring that they're basically accurately structured. John Carter (talk) 14:24, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

TfD of {{WikiProjectBanners}}

This is definitely relevant to the Council - I should have posted this last night. Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 March 26#Template:WikiProjectBanners. All discussion welcome (the more sensible, the better - you'll be fighting an uphill battle :D) Happy‑melon 14:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Bivalves

Is there a WikiProject for bivalves? (There is one for gastropods). GrahamBould (talk) 07:25, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Fishing and fisheries

I put a proposal to the WikiProject Council suggesting that WikiProject:Fishing be renamed Fishing and fisheries. User:Iwilleditu added a fatuous comment and then seems to have deleted the proposal.

Anyway, I'm not sure whether this procedure needs to be followed for a simple rename. The project is already well established. If the project members agree on a name change, can that change just be made without wider consultation? --Geronimo20 (talk) 19:48, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Easily. It's no one else's business when and if a project renames itself. Also, if you want to restore the listing on the proposals page, that could be done as well. Just let me know and I'll put it back. John Carter (talk) 20:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --Geronimo20 (talk) 21:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposals page

A party has recently initiated discussion regarding the existing structure of the Proposals page be changed. A summary of the discussion to date can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Proposals#New proposed changes. Any interested parties are welcome to voice their opinions so that we can arrive at consensus regarding this matter. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 14:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject traffic statistics

I've created a traffic statistics page for WP:VG, and thought that similar pages for other WikiProjects could be benefitial. One way in which these statistics have been useful for our WikiProject is that we've now realised that our much-neglected Portal:VG is in fact the most viewed page in the entire WikiProject, so we're now discussing ways to improve the portal on WT:VG. What would truly be fantastic would be to get a bot to generate such reports for every WikiProject automatically. Would that be feasible? JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 21:42

That would probably be requested at Wikipedia:Bot requests, but I agree that it would be very useful to have those numbers available for everybody. You'd probably have to give an indication of where you got the statistics from to the person attempting to do the work, but I don't think it would be particularly difficult to arrange, probably with monthly updates. I'd love to have something similar myself for the various groups I work most closely with. John Carter (talk) 14:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

In development: A WikiProject Management Tool

Igor is a tool standalone multi-funtional WikiProject management tool. Shown is Igor 0.1 article management interface, as sorted by priority.

I'm posting here to announce that I'm currently developing an application called Igor, a Java-based standalone WikiProject management tool that will allow its user to more easily maintain the often tedious and laborious tasks of managing a medium to large WikIProject. Upon its completion, it will provide a straight-forward and user-friendly GUI allowing:

• An intuitive GUI interface for viewing all articles that have been tagged as being in the domain of the project, including their current class and importance rankings, and a relative priority based value on the same.
  • There will be support for sorting and searching and filters based on several criteria (class, importance, type [article, list, category]).
  • This will provide a simple mechanism for the manipulation of the class and importance values of all such articles, individually or in batches. (1200 unassigned articles? Not anymore!)
• An interface for adding messages to that talk pages of all members of the project, or subsets of members in the form of multiple mailing lists.
  • Support for members to "opt out" of any or all of these lists.

I have started a page for screenshots and information on Igor's features and progress. I'm also very early in the development phase, so suggestions and ideas are very welcome (and encouraged!). I will hopefully be making Igor available for testing in the next couple of weeks. Cheers! – ClockworkSoul 21:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Hoo hah! This looks great, and might be particularly useful for the projects which engage in assessment drives, like Military History and Biography. John Carter (talk) 21:53, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

That's how it started, actually. I began this because I was pulling my hair out (what's left of it, at any rate) trying to manage the 12,000 or so articles that are part of WP:MCB. Truly, laziness is the mother of invention. – ClockworkSoul 21:57, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

This does indeed look good. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 22:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Version 0.1

The first release of Igor will be available for testing within two days (as soon as I can get the SourceForge account set up). Take a look if you're interested! – ClockworkSoul 05:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Looking forward to it! This looks to be a great tool. -- Ned Scott 05:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm already finding it pretty invaluable, and it's really only very partially completed. Take a look at my edit history... you can tell I've been testing it a bit, eh? :D – ClockworkSoul 05:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

No, not really... Did you say it's called "Igor"? (evil grin)

By the way, where does the name come from? If I am not too indiscreet, that is. Waltham, The Duke of 17:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Yup, it's called Igor. ;) This started out as an application to help us over at WP:MCB rank our 12,000 or so articles on various proteins and genes and whatnot. It was originally called the "WikiProject Management Tool", but TimVickers proposed "Igor". Very evil-sciency! It stuck and I renamed everything that night. – ClockworkSoul 17:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea, and I think that a related image should also be found (like this) in order to further the in-joke. It would help illustrate the tool, although it wouldn't be suitable for all WikiProjects (but does that really matter?). Waltham, The Duke of 02:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Now available

The first release of Igor (v0.1) is now available. Take a look at its page for more information. By the way, Duke, I think you'll enjoy the temporary splash image. ;) – ClockworkSoul 22:28, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I only saw this now... Well, congratulations on the release, but I have no idea what you are referring to, in the sense that the external links don't seem to work for me. I only see an error message (the same in both of them). Waltham, The Duke of 08:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC); corrected 22:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Guide commentary on coordinator retirement

We have recently found a situation in which the leading coordinators of two large, actively coordinated projects have stepped down from that position. This may be a situation which hadn't been anticipated very clearly in the Project Guide, but I think is something that we would reasonably want to cover. If anyone has any idea how to give it a try, I think we would all welcome it. My own idea, for what little that might be worth, would be to maybe include some sort of section indicating what sorts of things would be good to have done before such a retirement, and maybe indicating somewhere a couple of pointers for new managers, like maybe at least reviewing the Top and High importance articles to the project. Any other ideas, which would probably be better than mine, would be welcome, particularly in the guide. John Carter (talk) 15:20, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Meh. There are a few things to be found at WP:MILESSAY from the transition; but I'm not convinced that each project isn't a unique case. The entire system of coordinators is more a function of individual personalities than of standardized approaches, at this point. Kirill 04:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the big lesson is that it is undesirable to change all the coordinators every six months. It might be better to have coordinators in two overlapping tranches, ie half elected Jan-Jun, Jul-Dec; the other half Mar-Sep, Oct-Feb. This provides continuity. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:44, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the correct terms for the second tranche would be April–September and October–March. But yes, the idea is interesting overall, although I could not know well how such a "diarchy" would work. If this system is deemed not to be viable, perhaps a lead co-ordinator – assistant lead co-ordinator configuration could be used instead (with the same staggered terms). I am thinking of a flexible system, where the assistant lead co-ordinator could apply for the lead co-ordinator's position on the latter's retirement, taking that post if supported and having their own position filled in for the remaining three months by the runner-up, or remaining in their post if losing (although that might be awkward). All right, this scheme might need some work, but it's food for thought. Waltham, The Duke of 07:39, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

No need for that. Just have two leads, appointed at different times. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Pardon my ignorance, but who's the second lead to step down recently? I'm only aware of this happening at MilHist. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 08:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Kevinalewis has announded that he isn't a candidate for the post as coordinator in the recent Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels elections. In general, though, if nothing else, maybe it might be possible to arrange the set-up such as Roger has perhaps done over at MILHIST so that the former lead coordinators became "Emeritus coordinators", maybe for life, so that the former lead can provide a bit of advice and guidance for the existing lead. Somewhat like all the people who have held the office of US President are once in a while consulted and retain some sort of semi-official status on that basis. Granted, if someone retired in disgrace or is blocked/banned, maybe they wouldn't be given that status, but I don't think that sort of situation is likely to arise very often. John Carter (talk) 14:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Project banners

Hi. We're discussing the introduction of project banners on sv.wiki but we currently seem to lack the possibility of collapsing these templates. Could anyone tell me where I can find the two classes collapsible and collapsed that are needed in order for the template to work? /Lokal_Profil 16:00, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The code is spread between MediaWiki:Common.css, which holds the class implementations, and MediaWiki:Common.js, which has the code for the actual collapse function (look for the function collapseTable). Happy‑melon 18:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. So this template uses different "collapse" code from the NavBoxes? /Lokal_Profil 22:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No it's the same code AFAIK. Happy‑melon 15:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Revamp of the WikiProject assessment description

Seeing (Un?)Happy-Melon's post above, perhaps this is quite an appropriate time to cross post on this. We are considering a clarification and rewrite of the assessment scheme description, please comment/help here. Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 20:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Signatures, please... Signatures... Waltham, The Duke of 20:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Assessment categories cleanup

The new PagesInCategory feature has shone some possibly unwelcome light into the darker reaches of Wikipedia: glancing at, say, Category:Start-Class articles and Category:GA-Class articles, it is now immediately apparent that there isn't the same number of subcategories in each, which of course there should be. Some "X-Class Foo articles" aren't in the appropriate master category, some are in the wrong category, some are even in more than one class mastercategory at the same time! I've compiled a list of projects Foo for which the numbers of "X-Class Foo articles" don't add up: User:MelonBot/1.0 assessment, and I'd very much appreciate any help in fixing these. It's too fiddly and individual to automate: I've already persuaded the members of one category that they really can't be FA, A and B all at the same time (:D) and cleaned up a handful of category typos that were never deleted, but I'd welcome any assistance. In that table, the number indicates how many of that project's assessment categories are in the master category for that class: a zero means the category either doesn't exist (I've restored a couple that were CSD#C1'd!!) or isn't categorised properly, and a number greater than one means that at least one of the project's assessment categories is double-tagged. Happy‑melon 18:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, this sort of thing is very useful. I'll alert the WP:1.0 bot people, to see if they can flag these sorts of things. Is the problem coming from an error in the posting of the template (perhaps typing class=B|class=Start), or in the template code itself, or in the category names/hierarchy? Also, can you give us any specific examples of article talk pages to look at? Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 18:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The problems are invariably within the category structure - I can't think of a way to misplace a banner on an article talk page to cause an error like this, except where the banner places the article in a redlinked category which the editor then create to tidy up. These are some examples of ones I've fixed recently: most of these are fixing things on this list. For instance, there's a whole set of homeschooling categories which had a (very nice) template on them which categorised all the "X-Class homeschooling articles" categories into Category:B-Class articles. It's usually little mistakes like this when editors are creating the categories by copying code around and forgetting to change parameters. But I expect it's causing havoc with stats like these - have you noticed that you've got 300 phantom FAs on there? Happy‑melon 19:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, that helps! I'll see if the bot can be amended to catch things like that. If that can't be done, we'll just have to replace the person's user page with #REDIRECT [[Gulag]] - unless you can think of a more constructive solution! Walkerma (talk) 01:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Guidance on Inactive Project Cleanup

Over at WP:VG, we're currently having a discussion on inactive project cleanup. We'd like to reduce the number of sub-projects in order to reduce confusion and encourage new editors to join in centralised discussion and debate. As a number of projects have been tagged as inactive for some time, we feel it's now appropriate to downgrade them and redirect editors to a more centralised point. We've taken the approach that a project should be downgraded to a taskforce first before being removed comepletely.

Question is, is this approach valid? As the group here is focused on good project use, I wanted to ask for further insight, advice and expertise on our approach. Is it appropriate to remove out of date project banners from article talk pages? What about userboxes/barnstars/other templates? Is there anything we've overlooked or that we should be doing as part of this process? While we're keen to go through this, we don't want to break anything in the process. In addition, if there are any tool suitable for making this easier please let me know.

Many thanks for your responses and taking the time to help out! With a bit of luck, we should be able to improve the inclusiveness of WP:VG going forward as a result of this exercise. --Gazimoff (talk) 22:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Surely, we could say something useful about this. I've already been thinking about specific templates for inactive projects and duplicate projects (usually on someone's talk page). They would resemble {{project}}, but with another picture (those are already made) and a message that would include a useful pointer other WikiProject(s).

As for your question, I don't think it's much progress to change inactive projects to inactive taskforces. I'd simply declare the subprojects inactive and if noone responds to that leave them so, and otherwise discuss whether a 'downgrade' would be in order. After a while you could replace the banners of the positively inactive projects where the appear by the banner of the mother project on the talk pages. I suppose taskforces don't have their own banners, so you could do the same for them. Automation is indeed recommended but you'd have to ask someone else how that would work.

Also, take note that I'm not a seasoned WikiProjecter, so if this solution has been 'tried 'n fail', I wouldn't know about it. -- StevenDH (talk) 15:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, currently we're going through the process of raising MfDs just to make sure consensus exists and putting redirects if there are any problems. It seems to be working quite well, although we'll be about ten projects lighter by the end of the process. Some projects (where there is some interest to) are being downgraded to active taskforces of a more active project, while others are being removed completely. Many thanks for the guidance, it's much appreciated. Gazimoff ^Write_Read 17:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Another option, which I do a lot of, is to propose merging the inactive project into the active projects with the templates {{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}}, placing a discussion for the reasons on the talk page of one or another. If, after a week or so, there's no significant opposition, then mergers can be easily completed. And merged projects almost always use the parent project's banner. The most often accepted reason for such mergers is that merging the groups and banners tends to clean up banner clutter and draw eyes from the merged-to project, and generally those factors tend to be decisive. John Carter (talk) 17:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Banners - the need for more standardized names

I think WikiProjects really need to have more standardized names for their banners. Stuff like 'ArthropodTalk' and 'EvolWikiProject' are too unpredictable. I think it should be made a standard that every project's banner can be reached via 'Template:WikiProject [Project's Name]' (directly or via redirect). For instance I have just created Template:WikiProject Physics and Template:WikiProject Engineering - both were red links. If the same name less the 'WikiProject' part (e.g. Template:Physics, Template:Ecology are available, they should be used too, though they may be wanted for navigational templates in the future. Richard001 (talk) 01:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

From an automation perspective, I would strongly support any move to standardise the naming of WikiProject banners: as you can see from Category:WikiProject banners, there are a lot of different styles in use. A really dramatic proposal would be to suggest (with appropriate consensus and discussion) that all project banners be moved to "Template:WikiProject PROJECT", leaving appropriate redirects, but this would only solve half the problem if the (millions) of talk pages were not updated. Like so many thing on wiki, this is something which could easily have been standardised at its start, but fixing it after it's grown up causes huge problems. I recommend that names like Template:Physics etc, should not be used, but kept for navboxes etc in the mainspace. It's no hardship to require all project banners to follow a set naming convention. Happy‑melon 18:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the need for standardisation, and not just for the benefit of bots. When I'm assessing a page, I try to add banners for related projects, and it can be a pain in the neck trying to figure out the banner names for some projects.

However, it's not enough to standardise templates, there's also a matter of redirects. Some of these are highly confusing {{WP IR}} is not the same as {{WPIR}}), but in general there should be an alias at shortcut from WPPROJECTNAME and WPProjectname, with excessively short names such as WPIR deprecated. I quite agree that the likes of Template:Physics should not be used; project banners should be named in such a way as to clearly indicate that they are project banners. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. We also have stuff like {{ArchaeologyWikiProject}} for Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology (just to pick one of several). --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 23:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC

I was thinking the same thing a few days ago. I agree with the banner being named after the project, like Template:WikiProject United States for Wikipedia:WikiProject United States. Branson03 (talk) 01:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Repeating the comment I've made the last few times this was proposed: this is what redirects are for. Making sure all the appropriate redirects are in place is a good thing; actually moving around hundreds of templates that aren't even reader-visible, however, strikes me as work for its own sake. Kirill 01:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Having just created a redirect or two for such banners, I agree with Kirill. It's a lot easier to create redirects than to rename a banner already in use for hundreds or thousands of articles. John Carter (talk) 01:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. If there are no plans for the "unacceptable" (in this context) names to be used for other templates, then there is little gain to be made from a move. Waltham, The Duke of 11:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

No, there is no overwhelming need to run amuck with AWB changing stuff. Move the template to the proper place and let redirects do the work. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd rather we left the templates where they are and let the redirects do the work, if it is all the same. Hiding T 12:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Well there's no particular benefit to moving them over not moving them... except that it will be much easier to see which ones are still problems if we use redirects. If we planned to move them, then it's a piece of cake: the job is complete when there are no inconsistent templates in Category:WikiProject banners. With redirects, it's much more complicated to work out, particularly in an automated or semi-automated fashion, which templates need redirects creating, and which ones don't. Happy‑melon 15:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't quite follow your reasoning. Wouldn't a quick list of WikiProjects and a list of banners in your preferred version swiftly identify any missing redirects by virtue of redlinks? Hiding T 16:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah but therein lies the problem... could you point me to our comprehensive, up-to-date, accurate list of wikiprojects please? :D Happy‑melon 17:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Still don't follow you. You seem to be saying that we can identify all the non-standard banners and move them, but we can't identify all the non-standard banners and create redirects to them. This seems unlikely to me, I would assume if we can do one we can do the other, so I ask, what am I missing. The list of WikiProjects can be found in Special pages if nowhere else. Hiding T 19:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not by any means saying it's impossible, but it's more difficult. Neither Category:WikiProjects or Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory is a complete list, and compiling a list from Category:WikiProject banners is unnecessary extra work. The easiest way is simply to look at CAT:WPB, click on a banner which is not at the standard naming convention, and move it to its correct title (the project it is associated with is invariably stated on the banner). Clean up any double redirects, then go back to the category; rinse, lather, repeat until there are no more wierd names in the category. Simple and easy. The redirect method requires a considerable amount of preparation, involving working out 1) which projects exist, 2) what banner each project currently uses, and 3) whether creating a redirect is needed. More work for us, for essentially the same result. Happy‑melon 21:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, Voice of All has just informed me that moving templates does not add to the job queue, so there is no server-resources advantage to either method, aside from the negligible difference in the number of redirects in existence. Happy‑melon 21:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

No, you're losing me. You're saying we can look at CAT:WPB, click on a banner which is not at your preferred convention, and move it to your preferred title, but we can't look at CAT:WPB, click on a banner which is not at your preferred convention, and create a redirect to it from your preferred title? Is that correct? Why is the second option not possible? Hiding T 21:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

It is possible, I'm not trying to say it isn't. What I'm trying to say is that, given that that requires substantially more clicks and effort, and that just moving the pages has no impact on the job queue, there's no reason to choose the partial solution over the complete one. Essentially the problem is that you can't predict which templates would need redirects created - some may already have them, some many not, and you can't see which ones are which without creating a list - wheras it's obvious which ones would need to be moved. Plus the fact that it would be a more complete solution, and make it easier for automated scripts to edit the templates, not just to transclude them, and the absence of any server-side downsides, and I can't see why we'd want to use redirects when we can clear this mess up completely with a few moves. Happy‑melon 22:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

How does it make it easier for automated scripts to edit the templates, and why would they want to? And I am still finding it unclear as to how it is more work to create a redirect as to move. If you can't predict which templates need redirects, you can't predict which pages need moving, because both positions require the same facts, surely? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "you can't see which ones are which without creating a list", and I fail to understand how it is so obvious which ones need to be moved. If it is not too much trouble, can you please clarify this point for me. How will I know which pages need moving when I look in a category? I tend to agree with Jon Carter and Kiril, I just don't see the problem this solution is looking to fix. Hiding T 22:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, the technical details are not that important IMO. To fix the problem by the redirect method, you go through CAT:WPB, and click on each template that is at a non-standard name. You look to see which project it is used by, and manually navigate to Template:WikiProject Foo. If the page exists and points to the correct target, abort (false positive), else create it as a redirect to the wierd banner name. You couldn't predict which ones already have redirects (and hence ones which you don't need to look at) without creating a list of all pages like Template:WikiProject Foo, with Foo being the names of all WikiProjects (because we don't have a comprehensive list of wikiprojects). The move method, by contrast, doesn't throw false positives. You look at CAT:WPB, click on the first template at a non-standard name, and move it to the correct name, over a redirect if necessary. Clean up double redirects, and return to CAT:WPB. Continue until there are no more templates to move.

This sounds like more work, and in some senses it is. However, the move process is very easily automated (because there are no exceptions), wheras it would be much more difficult to write a script to do the redirect process. More important, however, are the benefits of having all the banners at a standardised name. If all documentation is updated, it will become increasingly common for the "wikiProject Foo" form to appear on article talk pages, which will improve the reliability of bots which work with banner templates. For instance, there have been proposals floating around since forever for a second article Talk: page, to hold metadata like banner templates. If that is ever created, all WikiProject banners will need to be migrated to the new namespace: that will require a bot to know which templates on a talk page are banners, and which aren't. If all the templates follow a similar nomenclature, that process is more reliable, so less work for humans. Similarly, if a change is ever agreed upon to the |nested= code that appears in all project banners, a bot would have to alter the code on all project banners. Again, this would be easier to code if all project banners were named similarly. This isn't so much a "solution to a problem" but trying to make things easier for ourselves in future: if we'd had {{ambox}} from the beginning, we wouldn't have crashed the servers in standardising article warning templates. Having things standardised wherever possible is of enormous benefit to automated processes, because if it takes a human a few minutes to work out that {{AARTalk}} is a project banner, how the hell is a computer supposed to work it out? Happy‑melon 22:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The computer will presumably check to see that the template is a member of Category:WikiProject banners? Kirill 02:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

You're confusing me. You say the page moving is easier to automate, but you indicate a computer wouldn't know where to move {{AARTalk}} to. Would I therefore be correct in saying that to automate the move process you would have to list all the templates and the pages to which they would have to be moved to? Hiding T 23:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, another point. You say a bot would have to edit all the banners if we decide to change the "nested" code. On what do you base this assertion? Hiding T 23:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

If I were to write a script to do the move system, it would deduce the project by looking at the links in the banner code: it would assume that if a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Foo is in the template (or better still, Wikipedia:WikiProject Foo/Assessment etc) then "Foo" is the name of the project. Of course this same process would be used for the redirect system, that's not the difficulty; the tricky part is coding for all the possible exceptions ("redirect exists" = abort, but "redirect exists but directs to a different page" = ??). As I said above, I'm not trying to say that it's not possible to work around these problems - of course it is - or that it's impossible to do bot work with project banners without the standardisation, because it isn't. What I'm saying is that it will be infinitely easier to do so if the names are standardised. In the same way, you are quite right Kirill, the way it would currently check to see if a template is a banner would be category inclusion. But that means that either the category must be checked every time the script encounters a template (massive server load), or the script would have to parse the entire category, and hold a list of all templates and their redirects in memory throughout its operation (large memory load). If a script can just say "if the orginal template name starts with "WikiProject", assume it's a banner", then that makes it much easier to code and less resource-intensive. Again, not impossible now, just harder. Not all changes we make have to be fixing problems - making genuine improvements is also a good idea when it makes sense.

As an example of when all banners might need to be edited, consider this test I made. With a small adjustment to the nested code in each project banner, the ratings can be made to align vertically (compare before and after). This sort of change could be easily automated... if the bot knows which templates need to be edited. Once again, yes, the list could be assembled from other sources, but it would be easier to code if the names were standardised. Happy‑melon 09:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

But what happens if the automated edit messes up the template? They tend to vary drastically in their coding. On the issue of the mass renaming, okay, I now get that it might make matters somewhat easier for a bot-coder. However, what strain do redirects put on the server? For instance, if a template is transluded 15,000 times, and it is moved, how does that affect the servers? I remember there used to be worries about transclusion back when I first joined, although it is likely that our capabilities have expanded since then. And to be honest, a shorter standardised name would probably be preferable than a long one, to aid human editors. If consensus is to standardise. I'd think this sort of decision would need a quick straw poll of affected projects, just for input and awareness. Otherwise you may get editors simply reverting, which will be counter-productive. Hiding T 10:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

This would be a task where the possibility of mistakes would be very remote: no pages are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Foo which are not WikiProjects (that I am aware of), certainly none that would be linked to from a project banner. If the script encountered links to more than one possible project name, I would have the bot skip that banner and do it manually (although it would be possible (although extra effort again) to code an exception to deduce which is the most likely project. Since the script would not be actually making any changes to the banner code, just to its name, the worst thing that could happen is that the banner ends up working properly, but in the wrong place, where it would have to be moved again by hand. I can't think of any way the process could actually corrupt the banner. I've heard various figures thrown around, but IIRC the devs have estimated that following a link which is a redirect is about 1.1 times as server-intensive as following a direct link, which is inconsequential compared to the processing power required to parse and expand the template once it works out where to get the code from. I asked on WP:VPT about moving templates, and it turns out that, as long as neither the template nor the redirect is edited, the move process will not cause all the pages where the banner is transcluded to be recached, so there's no more server resources involved in moving the template than in moving a normal page.

Certainly before starting on a process like this, we need consensus for the precise naming convention to be used: we should drop (or rather, a bot should drop) a message on the talk page of those projects which are likely to be affected (WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles, for instance, is likely to get {{AARTalk}} moved no matter what convention we decide on!). The Template:WikiProject Foo nomenclature has the advantage that it is already used by a narrow majority of the banners in CAT:WPB, although Template:WP Foo is also popular. Happy‑melon 11:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Out of curiousity, can a bot follow a redirect? Hiding T 13:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

They can be trained to be easily enough, yes. – ClockworkSoul 14:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, a bot can easily follow redirects, so it won't be a problem that many of the templates transcluded on talk pages are actually redirects - the bot can still see the name of the underlying banner. It's actually harder to have a bot not follow redirects in some situations, and harder still to vary whether or not it follows them. Happy‑melon 19:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

A (nearly) complete list of wikiprojects

I just wanted to point out something that may come in handy here... the newest feature that I'm currently working on for Igor is the "Wikiproject Browser" which compiles and merges the information from the following sources:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory
• the V1ET index
• Category:WikiProject banners
• Category:WikiProjects

The result is a list of all but a few Wikiprojects (as far as I can tell), their relationships (or absence thereof), and a plethora of other bits of information, including all of the project banners they use. I'm considering also creating a bot to compile this list on a nightly basis and upload it to a server as an XML document. Whether we decide to move or create redirects for banners, or even just allow the status quo to persist a while, such a list would make anything we need to do quite a bit easier to automate. This feature will be available in the next couple of weeks. – ClockworkSoul 03:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Now that is a useful tool! A complete and accurate list of WikiProjects and their associated banners would be invaluable for any script. Adding a list of the redirects for each banner would make it doubly so (pretty please? :D). Happy‑melon 09:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

But of course! – ClockworkSoul 12:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Quick question - if' we're closing down wikiprojects that form part of WP:VG but they're still on your list, would you like us to let you know? Many thanks, Gazimoff ^Write_Read 17:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

We'd be very glad to receive notification of any wikiproject-related activity (creating a new project, merging projects, making a project a taskforce or vice versa, marking a project active/inactive, or MfDing a project), as it helps enormously with our administration if we don't have to be constantly searching for these things. Happy‑melon 19:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

If they're listed in the directory as inactive, Igor already makes note of that. Perhaps it might also be a good idea for it to also check for an inactive template for projects not in the directory, or MfD templates for projects being subjected to that process. Other details may need to be added over time, and probably won't make it into the initial version, but I can see this eventually becoming quite a full-featured list. The only real limits are what we can successfully data mine and how clean the source data is. – ClockworkSoul 19:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll do my best to keep you updated as we cleanup the inactive subrojects of WP:VG. Some of the old wikiproject pages will become redirects elsewhere as a result of this process, but anything that's either downgraded to a taskforce or closed down will get a mention here. Do you want me to let you know when we raise MfDs for projects? Gazimoff ^Write_Read 20:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

For now yes, at least until I can train Igor to read the MfD template form the project pages themselves. – ClockworkSoul 20:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Current MfDs are as follows:

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/WikiProject Warcraft Cleanup
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject TimeSplitters

Also, Wikipedia:WikiProject StarCraft has been redirected to a taskforce page. No MfDs have been raised to cleanup yet. Hope this helps, Gazimoff ^Write_Read 22:01, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Progress, example, and request for comment

Okay, I have Igor merging data from several sources, and although it isn't quite complete it should be by this time tomorrow. Below is a small snippet of actual data showing information for different projects.

  <Wikiprojects>
     <Projects>
        <Project id="BEER" name="Beer">
           <Status active="yes" igor="yes" />
           <V-1-membership-info member="yes">
              <Category>Category%3ABeer_articles_by_quality</Category>
              <Statistics>Wikipedia%3AVersion_1.0_Editorial_Team%2FBeer_articles_by_quality_statistics</Statistics>
              <Log>Wikipedia%3AVersion_1.0_Editorial_Team%2FBeer_articles_by_quality_log</Log>
           </V-1-membership-info>
           <Banner-templates>
              <Banner name="WikiProject Beer" redirect="yes" />
              <Banner name="Beer" redirect="no" />
              <Banner name="WPBEER" redirect="yes" />
           </Banner-templates>
        </Project>
        <Project id="MOLECULAR_AND_CELLULAR_BIOLOGY" name="Molecular and Cellular Biology">
           <Status active="yes" igor="yes" />
           <V-1-membership-info member="yes">
              <Category>Category%3AMCB_articles_by_quality</Category>
              <Statistics>Wikipedia%3AVersion_1.0_Editorial_Team%2FMCB_articles_by_quality_statistics</Statistics>
              <Log>Wikipedia%3AVersion_1.0_Editorial_Team%2FMCB_articles_by_quality_log</Log>
           </V-1-membership-info>
           <Banner-templates>
              <Banner name="Wikiproject MCB" redirect="no" />
              <Banner name="WikiProject MCB" redirect="yes" />
              <Banner name="Wikiproject mcb" redirect="yes" />
              <Banner name="MCB" redirect="yes" />
              <Banner name="WPMCB" redirect="yes" />
           </Banner-templates>
        </Project>
        <Project id="TIMESPLITTERS" name="TimeSplitters">
           <Status active="no" igor="no" mfd="yes" />
           <V-1-membership-info member="no" />
           <Banner-templates>
           </Banner-templates>
        </Project>
        <Project id="BASEBALL" name="Baseball">
           <Status active="yes" igor="no" />
           <V-1-membership-info member="yes">
              <Category>Category%3AOld-time_Base_Ball_articles_by_quality</Category>
              <Statistics>Wikipedia%3AVersion_1.0_Editorial_Team%2FOld-time_Base_Ball_articles_by_quality_statistics</Statistics>
              <Log>Wikipedia%3AVersion_1.0_Editorial_Team%2FOld-time_Base_Ball_articles_by_quality_log</Log>
           </V-1-membership-info>
           <Banner-templates>
           </Banner-templates>
           <Warnings count="1">
              <Warning>Project page collision: "Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball" (Baseball/Old-time Base Ball)</Warning>
           </Warnings>
        </Project>
     <Projects>
  </Wikiprojects>

Its final version will also include a <Project-tree> section below the <Projects> section that'll detail the relationships of the various projects more or less as laid out on the WP Council directory. I think I have just about everything in there, but does anybody have any thoughts about how it might be improved? – ClockworkSoul 01:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

<bow down/><worship>What can I say? Perhaps "OMG thankyou sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!!!" would be appropriate? That is quite possibly the single most useful thing I've ever seen added to Wikipedia.</worship> :D Happy‑melon 11:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you like it! Just remember that it still won't be 100% perfect since it relies to a great degree on human input, but it'll be better than what we currently have, I think. I'll keep you updated on my progress. – ClockworkSoul 13:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup listings

There has been a lot of discussion about the massive backlog of Wikipedia articles flagged for cleanup, and how to remedy this. My hope is that the topical WikiProjects could play a larger role in the cleanup process, if they can become aware of articles in need of attention within their scope (which is currently not that easy).

In an attempt to improve the situation, I offer to generate project-specific listings of articles flagged for cleanup. See further details here: User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings

I am currently looking for some WikiProjects that would be willing to give this new method a try. Volunteers are welcome. --B. Wolterding (talk) 10:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'd been doing this for WP:COMICS on some of my user sub-pages using AWB, so I'm happy to volunteer the project as a test case. Hiding T 10:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:VG has two cleanup lists that we're aware of - one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Cleanup/Automated, which is a list generated by Krator on all cleanup-tagged videogame articles. The other list is Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Assessment/Notability, a list snippet that may be somewhatr familiar, where unnotable articles are either sourced and referenced or prodded/AfD'd It's a slow process as we're trying to make sure that cleanup is done before AfD rather than during it, but we're getting there. Anything that could automate or refresh this information on a periodic basis, such as automatic project-specific category entry would be incredibly helpful. Many thanks! Gazimoff ^Write_Read 10:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Inactivity by project members

I've created a bot request for something that could move inactive people (the user/project can set the time limit) to an 'inactive list', so as to avoid giving the impression of more activity than there really is. Richard001 (talk) 11:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

See User:MelonBot/Member lists, although it's a fairly inefficient tool and runs very infrequently. Happy‑melon 17:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Participants deadline

I just cleared out all the members starred removing those possibly no longer interested. Hopefully i didn't remove others as well, please readd yourself if i did or still interested. Simply south (talk) 16:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject XML document

I've posted the first machine readable wikiproject document at http://igor.sourceforge.net/data/wikiprojects.xml. So far it contains the merged data from Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory, and in the next few days will also include a scan of Category:WikiProject banners and all WP namespace pages beginning with "Wikiproject" and "WikiProject". The data it contains is based in large part on user-edited pages and templates, so it may be a little quirky in spots, especially in places where it had to guess (like the project banner templates), but I'm hoping that'll just motivate us to clean up the sources. I'm going to update this document at least once every couple of days with a compressed (wikiprojects.xml.gz) and non-compressed version. If anybody has any recommendations or requests, I'm all ears! – ClockworkSoul 02:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have it recognize subpages and thus construct a hierarchical tree of integrated task forces for each main project? Kirill ^(P) 02:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Subpages, no, because there's no way to distinguish between TF subpages and non-TF subpages. However, have you looked at the bottom of the document yet? There's quite a tree down there. – ClockworkSoul 02:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That's built from (some version of) the project directory, no? It doesn't seem like it's purely dynamic.

As far as identifying task forces goes: I didn't mean that it should identify arbitrary subpages, but rather that when a listed <project> had a page that was a subpage of another listed <project>, the former should be placed as a nested element of the latter, and not as a separate project. Kirill ^(P)

It's based on the directory, yes, so it's not very dynamic at all regarding the hierarchy. I don't know of any way to construct a hierarchy based on the very non-standard information we have, so the best I can offer right now is to sanity-check the directory we do have. Oh, I know what you're saying now about the subpages. Yes, I was planning on doing that. :) – ClockworkSoul 03:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The document is updated, and there's also a gzipped copy in the same directory. I've added some improvements, specifically:

• The scan now includes all WP namespace pages beginning with "Wikiproject" and "WikiProject".
• Improved discovery of projects marked as inactive.
• If projects are tagged as inactive but are not listed as such in the directory (or vice versa), a warning is generated for that project.
• Projects that appear to be task forces based on their project page are now automatically placed as task forces of their apparent parents in the project hierarchy.

There are still a few glitches I want to fix, and improvements I want to make, but it's well on its way. – ClockworkSoul 07:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Quick notice: there's a glitch in how the code tags for activity. I fixed the bug, and I'm running it again with some corrections. I should be done in about seven hours. – ClockworkSoul 15:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

It just gets better and better! Any idea when the data from CAT:WPB will be added? No rush of course, it's just the stuff that will be the most useful to me personally... Happy‑melon 21:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

It kind of already does include it. While it doesn't yet directly parse CAT:WPB, it does try to guess the banners by using Special:WhatLinksHere on the project page and pulling out all non-redirect templates that contain the text "Category:WikiProject banners", and then finding the redirects to those templates. This weekend I'll be adding a scan of CAT:WPB just to be sure that the bot isn't missing anything, but it's really just a scan of the same information from the opposite direction. – ClockworkSoul 00:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

{{PageStatus}}

I would like to advertise the new template {{PageStatus}}, which makes WikiProject lists of articles easier to manage. Some WikiProjects may find it quite useful! --Aquillyne-- (talk) 20:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

There are some extremely useful features in there, but I think you've succumbed to feature creep - remember that Wikipedia's post-expand include limit is 2Mb, while your template is over 1Kb each time it's transcluded. For projects which maintain a large article list, this will be too much for them; the list will take an age to load and render, with greater strain on the servers. I could think of several ways to reduce the code size, but the most obvious is to realise that some of the features are more useful than others. In the real world, few if any projects are likely to maintain their index with enough care to note MoS violations, merge proposals, etc; even AfDs might be pushing it (although I can see the utility there). The article grading levels are by far the most useful: I would suggest that the template would be much more useful if it was kept simple and just had a switch for the five article classes, or possibly including things like redirects, disambig, etc (the expanded 1.0 assessment scale). I'd also suggest that you have a think and make sure that each option has (as far as possible) the same syntax - I think I saw several instances where the ordering or functionality of the unnamed parameters varied from case to case. However, don't let me make you downbeat: it's an excellent idea and its display is very elegant. With some more work, it will be an extremely useful template. Happy‑melon 21:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Standardising WikiProject banner names (cont)

Ok, I think we have come to an agreement above that standardising all the WikiProject banner templates on some consistent naming convention, whatever that might be. The question now is, how to proceed? We need to decide, probably in consultation with the WikiProjects, which standard to adopt, and how thoroughly to adopt it. Should we recommend, for instance, that all the redirects be deprecated and ask each project to change their assessment documentation to encourage people to use the raw banner? I think this might be excessive, but I'm just throwing it out for comment.

I have some statistics which might be helpful in choosing a convention: of the 1129 banners in CAT:WPB, the possible conventions currently occur with the following frequencies:

Syntax	Frequency
WikiProject_	544
WP	148
WikiProject	51
WP_	39
Wikiproject_	16
Wikiproject	11
Wp	6
Wp_	0
Other	314

I would recommend WikiProject_Project be chosen, if only to minimise the number of projects affected. But I think we need to hear comments from Council members and possibly from WikiProjects as well. How should we proceed? Should I have MelonBot post a message on the talk pages of all the "other" projects (which will be affected no matter what convention we adopt) to seek their input? Happy‑melon 13:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

As much as I would like to get this going, this could represent a large set of changes. We should probably draft a proposed style document, and let others comment on it who haven't been involved in the discussion here. Do we even have a wikiproject style document at all yet? – ClockworkSoul 15:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the template itself should be at WikiProject Foo, but that there should usually be a shortcut version (i.e. a redirect) at WPFOO and possibly WPFoo. It seems sensible that there should also be redirects from other capitalisations, e.g. Wikiproject Foobarasusual to WikiProject FooBarAsUsual.

I know that redirects need not be considered at the same time as the template names, but I do think that it would be helpful to reassure projects that their familiar shortcuts would not be deprecated. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Certainly we must ensure that all existing redirects continue to work, so fixing double-redirects will be an integral part of the script that does the update. I'm not so sure about creating new redirects. Happy‑melon 18:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I'm still not sold this is a move that has to happen. Hiding T 18:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Ditto. I think this is just work for its own sake (and not really helpful work, either, as the longer template names will make the banners more time-consuming for normal editors to use). Kirill 18:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly not work that I, as a human, would want to carry out, but given that a bot can be written to complete the process with negligible server-load, and that it will result in easier future maintenance for both bots and humans, I would say that there are significant upsides. As for your second point, as I've said above, all existing redirects should be maintained (and of course a new one will be created from the banner's old title), so it will actually have no effect whatsoever on human use of the tag - they can still use whichever name they preferred beforehand; it's just the underlying architecture that's changed. Happy‑melon 18:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like to echo Kirill that I can't see any sufficient rationale for standardization - what, again, is the problem if the templates stay where they are and redirects to them exist for the "standard" name? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 20:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Again, there is no "problem" with this option, or even with no option at all. It is not a requirement that every change made to wikipedia be an attempt to solve a problem. However, both options will consume a similar (negligible) level of server resources and human time, and the complete standardisation option confers more advantages than the redirect option, hence my support for teh standardisation effort. Happy‑melon 21:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Given that the redirects tend to already exist, how is to more work for me to do nothing as compared to re-editing the 40k+ talk pages which have {{Film}} on them, to give one example? {{WikiProject Films}} already redirects to {{Film}}, and therefore needs no more effort. Presumably, any automation requiring standardization would need far less time for code tweaking as compared to what would be needed to change hundreds of thousands if not millions of talk pages, either by hand or bot. Am I missing something? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 02:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

It would be foolish in the extreme to propose a change which required edits to article talk pages, as you quite rightly point out. The pressing need is to ensure that, if someone types {{WikiProject Foo}}, they get the project banner for WikiProject Foo. What we're saying is that there are two options to do this; option 1 is to go through the list of WikiProjects and create any redirecs of the form Template:WikiProject Foo which don't exist already, to the appropriate template. Option 2 is to go through and move any WikiProject banners which are at odd names ({{AARTalk}} to {{WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles}}, for instance) to their correct locations, which will create redirects from the old location to the standardised one automatically. Both options will consume a similar quantity of server resources and human time (just moving the templates wouldn't require editing the talk pages or even add them to the job queue). However, the move option has several other advantages that I can see, mainly from the perspective of future bot- or script-based work with WikiProject banners. From the perspective of the person who'll probably end up writing the script to do whichever option we decide on, I would also say that the move option will be significantly easier to program. I hope that clarifies things as I see them, anyway. Happy‑melon 10:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

My take, redirects are cheap and there for this kind of reason :) -- Ned Scott 09:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Both options involve the creation of redirects, but in the move option, they are created automatically when the banners are moved, which circumvents the need to write the code to work out where the redirect is supposed to point from and to. Happy‑melon 10:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the purpose either. Renaming templates en masse has a non-negligible potential to alienate some WikiProjects, and is overall unnecessary work for everybody. Redirects were created for these situations. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 10:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm not taking a "move or bust" approach, so I'd be happy to do either, although I maintain that the move approach is both easier (a bit counterintuitive perhaps, but true) and more useful. Either way, when I type {{WikiProject AIDS}}, I want to get the banner for WikiProject AIDS - that is, of course, the most important issue. Happy‑melon 11:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Happy-melon: the move approach is much easier to do, and a lot easier to monitor afterwards. ----BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not married to either option, but I'm also leaning towards moving the templates to meet a standard naming scheme. First, it's not much different from the redirect option with respect to effort input. Second, the result of the moves is a much more homogeneous set of templates, rather than a hodgepodge of templates and redirects. Finally, moving articles is - as far as I remember - how such issues are usually resolved on the Pedia. – ClockworkSoul 23:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Let me add two notes on the WikiProject banner standardization. First, thinking of automation, it would be really beneficial to have the banner template names standardized. For example, it is currently impossible in the notability listings to include links to the associated WikiProjects, or even to list the projects by name - it's just impossible to infer the name of the project from the banner template. Second, a note about redirects. When working with mass data, it is often impossible to retrieve data from the live Wiki, but one needs to work with database dumps. Actually, for performance reasons the actual text of the talk pages etc. cannot be parsed - one needs to work with the "templatelinks" table which stores the template associations. That works fine with template redirects as long as the "shortcut template" redirects to the "canonical template" - but not vice versa. And as long as the "canonical template" is listed in CAT:WPB. With "canonical template", I'm refering to something like {{WikiProject Yellow tulips}}, while the "shortcut template" might be {{WPYTtalk}}. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Lest this discussion die from inactivity, I say again: what are we doing, and what convention are we using to do it? If we have (finally :D) agreed to move the banners, I will start writing the script to do the updates. Happy‑melon 08:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Even if I may be repeating myself, I prefer the following: Move {{Film}} to {{WikiProject Films}}, and keep the redirect {{Film}} → {{WikiProject Films}}. Talk pages will not be affected. The other option (having a redirect {{WikiProject Films}} → {{Film}}, and similar for all projects) does not improve much, or rather nothing for my purposes; we could as well leave everything as is. --B. Wolterding (talk) 08:50, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This is also my preference. Happy‑melon 08:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

If that's how you want to go, I think you have to sell it to the masses. Hiding T 10:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The way we "sell" it is to point out that it will have absolutely no effect on them whatsoever :D! In all seriousness, as long as all the double redirects are fixed ASAP, only the people with the template watchlisted will actually notice. Of course that doesn't mean we can get away with not telling them; but I can't think of any reasons why a project might object, except on the principle of the thing (which is, IMO, a fairly pointless reason). I'll start working up an explanatory subpage; then we can spam the affected projects with a link to it. Obviously if there are howls of sensible protest, we can rethink. Happy‑melon 11:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I see a significant possible disadvantage to this, which is that it will encourage people to treat the templates as generic tags that can be applied without thought. The Math project tag, Template:maths rating, is not intended to be a generic marker for math pages. As its name says, it is intended only for rating articles, and it should only be added if all the assessment information is filled in. We have had issues in the past with people adding it to thousands of pages without assessing them - those bot edits were reverted by consensus of the math project. Every once in a while someone has to go through and assess the article where a tag was mistakenly placed without assessment info, and we don't want to encourage more of those. That's why Template:WikiProject Mathematics is the way it is. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

There's some merit to that argument, certainly. In this particular instance, I would certainly code the script such that, if a page with content (as opposed to a redirect) existed at Template:WikiProject Foo, the banner would not be moved; so the script would simply skip this instance. I think this would be the case generally as well - although I think WikiProject Maths is a minority in using the banner in this way, if there are other projects, they are likely to have come to use the same solution of a warning notice at the standard name. In fact, having the project names standardised will support projects which wish to use their banners in this way: a good-faith tagger is much more likely to place {{WikiProject Maths}}, see the warning, and revert; whereas currently they would quite probably go to CAT:WPB, find {{maths rating}}, and place it without further thought. I think it's fair to say that 99% of WikiProjects don't use their project banners this way, and would very much appreciate uninvolved editors tagging pages for them; for those projects which don't want that, well, we're not trying to prescribe what has to be at Template:WikiProject Foo, only that something should be :D. Happy‑melon 11:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I do think the maths project is a minority in the way it uses the templates, but I think we can make a case for why we do it the way we do. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, and I do not see any problems with the standardization approach; just leave the as-is situation for this particular Wikiproject). Bots / database queries that try to find all articles related to WikiProject Mathematics will break at that point; but that's unavoidable, given that you do not tag all your articles. One might however consider removing {{math rating}} from Category:WikiProject banners (if the way you're using it is not like a standard WikiProject banner). --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:59, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's reasonable, I will remove it right now. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that that would be necessary - it is still very obviously a project banner, however it is used. It marks pages that are of interest to WPMaths, it serves the dual purpose of advertising the project and of holding metadata, and it looks very much like a project banner. But of course it's your choice; either way, don't worry about this little project in relation to it: I'll make absolutely sure that the way you use your banner won't be affected by the standardisation drive. Happy‑melon 21:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I've created an explanation page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Banner standardisation. Any comments on layout, clarity, etc, would be very welcome. I think step 1 is to ask 20 or so projects (including WPBio) for input, then (assuming all is well) notify all the remaining projects, then finally go for it. Happy‑melon 11:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I did a little minor copyediting, but it looks to be in order for the most part. However, I think some projects will wonder if this document is asking them not to use redirects to the standard templates, though. The reason for this is simple: my main project, for example WP:MCB, ends up with the rather awkward Template:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology as its standard, but most of its 12,000 or so articles were tagged with the much shorter Template:WikiProject MCB or Template:WPMCB redirect templates. Perhaps we should clarify? – ClockworkSoul 15:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)