Wikipedia talk:WikiProject reform/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Organizations WikiProject

My initial two cents - a very interesting proposal. In the context of WP:ORGZ however, an interesting problem arises. There is no doubt a need for a coordinated approach to how we approach articles and categories of organizations. Currently, we are planning to use location as one of four main categorization schemes for our grass root approach to organizations. However, if I understand your proposal correctly, each of "Organizations by country/city/province/state" would be allocated as a task force within the geographical WikiProject for that area. I'm not against that idea per se`, but there would still need to be a central focal point of categorization to coordinate standardized infoboxes, categorization standards and problem areas.Oldsoul 21:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

That's where the bit about task forces jointly operated by multiple projects comes in. In this case, you'd have, for example, a "Organizations in Canada" task force that would be under both WikiProject Canada and WikiProject Organizations. Kirill Lokshin 21:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea, particularly when it comes to the various state and national projects out there. The one major question I have would be determining the "task force" and "main project" levels. I can easily see all the projects for individual states becoming task forces of the WikiProject United States, but would, for example, the individual WikiProjects for France, Ireland, and Norway also become task forces of WikiProject Europe or something similar? And what would happen to their "child" projects? I guess my question is at what level the differentiation between task forces and main projects would take place. John Carter 21:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

On a practical level, I was assuming that the most obvious clustering would be to the country level (i.e. one project per country); that seems to be how most of the hierarchies are oriented. (You tend to have, e.g. Chinese history, Indian history, etc. projects, rather than Asian history.)

Obviously, this means that larger countries will have more articles and more task forces, but I don't really think that's going to be a problem. Kirill Lokshin 21:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Question

Would WikiProject be forced to become task forces/subprojects/etc? Similar projects (c.f. WikiProject Tropical cyclones and WikiProject Meteorology for an example) have already rejected merge requests previously, so having something force the project together is not going to fly. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's any way to force a project to do anything; I was intending that the consolidation be strongly encouraged, but the final course of action would be up to the people on the ground.

Having said that, two related points:

• WP:TROP would only fall under the third consolidation category, which is really much more open to debate as far as the exact size needed to make a separate project worthwhile is concerned.
• An adoption of some sort of project accreditation could have an indirect effect here; in other words, a group might be unable to get accredited as an independent project, and would therefore not get access to whatever the benefits of the system might be unless it merged into a larger, already accredited project.

Kirill Lokshin 23:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Just for clarification, would "accreditation" apply only to projects yet to be created, or would it apply retroactively to existing projects as well? John Carter 00:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Whatever we want it to be, presumably. Given the current glut of projects, I think it wouldn't be very useful if it didn't apply to existing projects, though. Kirill Lokshin 00:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't be helpful if it didn't apply to existing projects, I agree. How would it work? Titoxd^(?!?) 02:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Technically speaking, TROP is already a subproject of Meteorology; however, it was formed before the "parent" project, and has a structure significantly more mature than Meteorology. Last time it was brought up, a merge was overwhelmingly rejected by both sides; the Meteorology users don't want to have to deal with the hyperactive little brother. Both communities (and topics) are quite different. Titoxd^(?!?) 02:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I have an issue with these "extra powers"

Already, we far too often get Wikiprojects OWNing articles under their scope, to the point of canvassing all their members to vote a certain way in an AfD. And I was the only one to my knowledge who complained about it. I may be getting the wrong impression of what powers are intended, but if I'm not, I strongly oppose them. -Amarkov moo! 01:46, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I may be missing something obvious, but what "extra powers" are you referring to? I don't see that anywhere in the proposal. Kirill Lokshin 02:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It's part of the accreditation section; "providing some additional privileges to that project". And then later allowing accredited projects "a greater role in various processes" is mentioned. -Amarkov moo! 03:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, ok; three somewhat related responses, then:

• The whole thing is pretty embryonic; there's no concrete proposal to give anyone anything at this point.
• There's a distinction between priveledges and powers; the example I mostly focused on here—allowing accredited projects greater freedom in tagging talk pages—is fairly firmly in the former category, I think. What else an accreditation system might be applied to is entirely open to discussion (I honestly don't have any particularly good ideas at the moment); I merely thought it worthwhile to point out that, if we were to create some system that allows for community approval of WikiProjects (in whatever manner), we could find other uses for it beyond the tagging issue.
• Finally: that entire proposal revolves around community-wide approval of a WikiProject; presumably the sort of behavior you point to would simply lead to the project not getting that approval, if the results were to be anything actually significant.

Kirill Lokshin 03:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

This probably doesn't address what you are actually asking, but It may be of some "comfort" to know.. I've seen some people try to use WikiProjects to vote stack, only to have it completely backfire :) -- Ned Scott 05:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Projects I am engaged in do not do any vote stacking. Period. The projects I work in are concentrated on 1) assessment, and 2) ensuring that subjects in our scope are covered as much as possible. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The mechanics of taskforces

I've been meaning to ask how the mechanics of task forces work. I'm thinking in particular of Webcomics becoming a task force of Comics, and how to merge the article classifications. I think I've seen at milhist that each taskforce has its own classifications, but how is this set up with the classification bot if all the classifications run off the same template, in the milhist instance off the milhist template? Hiding Talk 20:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It's set up through a combination of a central assessment and the task force tags. {{WPMILHIST}}, for example, has the normal class parameter, which causes it to generate a "X-Class military history articles" category for the bot. The same parameter is used with each task force tag to create additional "X-Class something articles" categories; for example, if class is set to "B" and French-task-force is set to "yes", the template generates Category:B-Class French military history articles.

(If the project uses importance ratings, this will be a little more complex, since those won't necessarily be the same across all task forces. You'd want to introduce an explicit parameter for each task force that wants it, then; for example, Webcomics-task-force-importance.) Kirill Lokshin 20:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Biography has also successfully integrated several task forces and child projects using the same scheme. This is tried and tested and nothing revolutionary. --kingboyk 19:02, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Can one task force be under multiple projects? If we are going to combine many smaller WikiProjects under larger ones, we are going to have overlap. For instance, WikiProject Georgia Tech would fall under WikiProject Georgia and WikiProject Universities.↔NMajdan•talk 19:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces for all your task force needs!!!!! (sorry :) ) -- TimNelson 11:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Exceptions?

I like the idea, but what to do with projects that don't fit into 'country' division? For example, would WP:Sociology be a taskforce of (too general and thus rather inactive) WP:Social sciences? We need a clear hierarchical structure about what where the WikiProject line ends and taskforce beings. Next, the difference between a WProject and TaskForce is not that clear (isn't this just playing with names)? Finally, how do deal with overlapping taskforces: i.e. why Polish Military taskforce is a taskforce of WPMILHIST and not WPPOLAND? Obviously, because it was created under more active WPMILHIST first, but what if WPCOUNTRYX project will decide to have its own military taskforce not knowing WPMILHIST has them 'covered'? I can see some organizational confusion from that. Also, what about 'Military biographies' taskforc? Would WPMILHIST or WPBIO claim it? How can it be seamlessly intergrated into both?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a point here. It should be noted that projects under this model will have to be proposed before being recognized, and, on that basis, will presumably know which "parent" projects exist. And it could be that a task force might still have the name WikiProject, like the scion projects of WikiProject Australia do today. I would propose that the telling point might be which "parent" project handles any infoboxes or other templates that a scion project would use. So, for instance, perhaps a sociology biography project might use the biography infobox, making that the more direct "parent" project over sociology. This presumes that pretty much everyone will eventually have infoboxes, but having looked over the VA articles that seems to be pretty likely fairly soon. John Carter 01:48, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The discussion at WT:COUNCIL has actually turned towards a more layered delineation, using several "tiers" of WikiProjects rather than a straight WikiProject/task force division. The main distinction remains the practical one of whether a project has its own processes (most importantly, its own assessment and review), or uses a parent project's.

(But the non-country structure is, admittedly, more difficult to figure out; that's why the proposal concentrates mainly on the per-country projects, and leaves the others to a vaguer arrangement.)

We are still developing, in some sense, the general theory of running joint task forces under several projects; but there are pretty well-formed examples, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Korea/Military history, that show how it can be set up. With enough technical cleverness, the exact location of the task force doesn't really matter; it can function equivalently as a task force of both projects from those projects' respective perspectives. Kirill Lokshin 03:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Proliferation

I'm getting concerned about the number of small WikiProjects which are appearing, and which I would classify as "vanity WikiProjects". Quite possibly I'm partly to blame having started WP:KLF, but in my defence that was merely a formalisation of an already active effort to document that band, an effort which has resulted in 4 FAs and a general improvement - I would contend - in the aspirations of popular culture articles.

A couple of examples I've stumbled across recently:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Big Four of Thrash Metal - We have an NPOV violation in the title. The "project" has 2 members, no FAs, no GAs, no action plan, and is surely superfluous to the heavy metal or musicians WikiProjects.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject The Flaming Lips - 1 member, no FAs, no GAs, no action plan.

Now I'm sure some folks will return with "live and let live", "we can't police this", etc., but it has to be considered that hundreds of vanity projects with their tags plastered all over talk pages and very little real activity improving articles doesn't give the active projects a very good name. --kingboyk 18:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Could some of these more outlandish projects just be nominated at WP:MfD? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:50, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with that. What do others think? --kingboyk 21:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't have a problem. There's an attitude among Wikipedians, however, that crappy pages should be left "in case someone wants to work on it later". I'm fairly certain that's why we have so many right now. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 01:39, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Several WikiProjects have been taken to MFD in the past and been deleted, so I don't see why we should not nominate those projects for deletion. (hmmm, projects for deletion... or maybe Projects for Discussion... or not, just thinking out loud.) -- Ned Scott 07:45, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone have any idea how many of these projects are out there? John Carter 15:55, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

(Undent) Would it be possible to write a simpe 'what a wikiproject is and is not' guideline essay, and construct a bot to deposit a welcome banner link to it each time a WP is initiated? The banner, and essay, could contain a link to MfD, so that those who create genuinely bad projects (the Flaming Lips?), can delete them? The essay might want to note that a single band does not a project make, not even big famous bands. (I, for example edit the Rush pages. there are a few regular editors, and we know who each other is, I think. We don't, and probably never would/should, constitute WP:RUSH.) Just a thought. ThuranX 15:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this would be great. I'd be happy to write up a draft guideline if someone can come up with a decent title. Unless we are all happy with "What a Wikiproject is". Would we want a guideline or an essay though. A guideline would have force if it is approved by consensus (though I can't imagine much opposition to this) but an essay would be mainly opinion. As for the bot though, while I think its a good idea, I just don't see many project creators really caring about it, at least not the ones that create the kinds of projects this will affect. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. This already seems to exist: here. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:49, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProjects are becoming a pain in the butt. Many of the articles I've edited have been 'adopted' by some project or other that few if any of the article's editors know or care about. Often an article is appropriated by a project that isn't a good fit. Fortunately, not one of the dozens of projects that has descended upon articles that interest me has ever produced anything more than a big ugly banner on the article's talk page. What's the point? Editors will edit articles that interest them anyway, and they find them via links, categories and searches. Most projects are just froth, noise and bloat. --Harumphy 22:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

A decent idea

I think this is a decent idea (as implied by my heading). However, I have some concerns as to the specifics of implementation. At this point, there are so many WikiProjects, that if this were enacted, we would have to start a project to consolidate the projects. Second, what about objections for individual projects. Would this idea just be a completely overriding rule or would there be a discussion over each objection? Finally, although this sound like a good idea in theory, this would take a lot of wotk to implement. Hundreds, possibly thousands of pages would have to be moved, deleted, and edited. This could take months, possibly a year to fully implement (longer for contested mergers). Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• And another concern: Some parent projects have fewer members than their children. For example, Project:United States has 17 listed members, while Project:Michigan has more than 50, most individual states have few members, but many have quite a lot. What will happen to projects that are bigger than their parent? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

What would become of "disciplinary" Projects?

OK, maybe that is a bad heading. But I noted in the project page that this subject isn't explicitly covered. Do the rest of you think that it would be a good idea if, for instance, most or all of the projects that relate to medicine would possibly become recognized as sub-projects or whatever they're called of medicine or biology, all the projects relating to specific lifeforms become subprojects of Tree of Life or Biology, and so on? I can see some opposition to such already exists, but think that it might be workable, provided we don't go too far and try to make all scientific projects subjects of WikiProject:Science or anything like that. John Carter 20:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Easy instructions for becoming a task force

After reading this comment on the talk page of WikiProject Television, I realized that maybe one reason so many start a whole new WikiProject is because it's easier (in their view) than a task force. Some easy to use instructions, both for the WikiProjects housing the task forces, and for the task force seekers, would likely help much of this reform take care of itself. -- Ned Scott 05:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It's mainly the parent projects that need detailed instructions; once a large project has figured out its task force scheme, the procedure for anyone wanting to create a task force basically boils down to "ask the parent project". ;-) Kirill Lokshin 07:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, good point. -- Ned Scott 15:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Tiers versus task forces

Some (possibly rambling) thoughts: suppose we go with a tiered system and merely make the distinction that "task force" is a term used to refer to a Tier 1 WikiProject that resides on a subpage of the parent rather than a separate page.

Consider the following WikiProject tiers:

Tier 1 WikiProject

• Not responsible for maintaining its own banner tag.
• Uses assessment & review infrastructure provided by parent Tier 2 project(s).
• Default level for a newly created project.

Tier 2 WikiProject

• Responsible for creating and maintaining a WikiProject banner tag that includes support for all Tier 1 projects descended from it.
• Responsible for providing assessment & review infrastructure to all Tier 1 projects descended from it.
• Must meet certain requirements:
  • No active parent project; or
  • Covers some minimum number of articles; and is approved by the community (via some process whose specifics are to be determined).

We can take the expedient of pre-approving, say, all the top-level country projects (once they set up the needed infrastructure); this allows us to quickly get rid of all the country sub-projects' separate banners. Other projects can go through an approval process to get to Tier 2.

Is any of that more-or-less sensible? Kirill Lokshin 04:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I think most of it is good, and a good starting point for discussion of the "tiers". I might go for Tier 1 as being the top level project, with 2 being the "child" project. Doing so might also allow for Tiers 3 through whatever somewhere down the line as well. I know the Saints project I work with might potentially in the past have been seen as being potentially a Tier 3+ project (Religion-Christianity-Saints or something similar), and think it might be a good idea to prepare for further levels like that somewhere down the line. John Carter 15:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to view the tiers as being tied more to a project's role rather than the nesting of its scope; broader-scope projects are not necessarily going to be higher-tier, because the idea is to produce active cluster projects rather than inactive umbrella ones. Consider, for example, the following descent tree:

• Telecommunications
  • Audiovisual telecommunications
    • Television
      • British TV shows
        • Blackadder
      • Anime and manga
        • Gundam

There are a number of different arrangements possible; but looking at, say, activity levels and editor clustering, we might attempt the following:

• Telecommunications (Tier 2)
  • Audiovisual telecommunications (Tier 1, uses Telecommunications infrastructure)
    • Television (Tier 2)
      • British TV shows (Tier 1, uses Television infrastructure)
        • Blackadder (Tier 1, uses Television infrastructure)
      • Anime and manga (Tier 2)
        • Gundam (Tier 1, uses Anime and manga infrastructure)

Note that we would now have descendant WikiProjects that are higher-tier than their (logical) parents, because they're more natural clustering areas for editor/article coordination. Kirill Lokshin 15:41, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Points gratefully acknowledged. I do see one possible stumbling block in implementation, however. Right now, I can't see how we could prevent someone who works with a Tier 2 bannered project adding entirely on their own volition parameters for a task force tab without any sort of approval from anyone else. Someone from Wikipedia:WikiProject Southern California could just create a Buena Park, California task force with no outside involvement, for instance, even if that individual were the only interested party. Are there are ideas what if anything would be done if that situation were to arise? John Carter 14:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Use of name "Tier 1" to refer to the "more junior" project, and the name "Tier 2" to refer to the "more senior" project, seems counter-intuitive to me. It makes more sense to me to have "Tier 1" refer to the senior-level project, "Tier 2" to the more junior-level project, "Tier 3" to still more junior-level project, etc. For example:

• Tier 1 - Texas
• Tier 2 - Southeastern Texas
• Tier 3 - Houston

Using "Tier 2" to refer to the senior-most level limits us to just one junior level ("Tier 1") - is that the intent? Spamreporter1 22:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

That is the intent, actually; as I said just above, I'm viewing the tiers as referring to the project's role rather than it's scope. "Tier 1" refers to projects that uses a parent project as a facade for its interactions with the community; once that's done, it no longer really matters to anyone outside the projects what the exact internal structure is, since people outside the project will see a single project "cluster" rather than a bunch of individual projects. In your example, if we just have a Texas tag on talk pages (with some combination of sub-project labels indicated), a Texas assessment system, etc., then nobody outside the Texas projects really needs to be concerned with what the exact relationship between the SE Texas & Houston groups is; as far as the rest of the community is concerned, they're organizational groups internal to the core Texas project rather than completely independent groups that merely happen to share parts of the same scope.

(In other words, the question of which of the projects handles some particular concern is no longer really relevant to anyone not involved in them; we can now go directly to the Texas project with an issue, and rely on it to figure out which of its sub-groups, if any, should be dealing with it.) Kirill Lokshin 22:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The only reform needed

The only reform that's needed is a technical one, like used on Talk:Abraham Lincoln, where project banners are wrapped up into a kind of collection tag, so they don't take up much real estate. Otherwise, I think projects work well as-is and "reform" isn't necessary. There's no need to rein in what's actually working well for the Wikipedia and its development, as any "reform" that's overwrought may well push out of the Wikipedia many experienced and dedicated editors. There is no need for micromanagement; projects are already doing a good job of following de facto standards and policing themselves. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not with projects that are working and doing a good job. Those projects will, of course, be left alone if that makes sense. You might want to see my response to a similar concern at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Why not work with the current parent/descendent/similar project organization?. -- Ned Scott 20:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The projects I work on are already cooperative with parent/descendent/etc. projects. No reform necessary, just common sense and the willingness to discuss boundaries. The bottom line is that we should generally encourage good etiquette, and the rest should fall into place. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 20:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of problems that I don't think you are aware of.. -- Ned Scott 20:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, a few disputes that people will eventually work out, without the need for new rules or guidelines. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 20:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The consensus seems to not support your view. -- Ned Scott 22:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Appeal to consensus never convinces me of anything, just like appeal to credentials (a la Essjay) doesn't. If you have examples to back up your position, I'll take a look at that. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 00:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I think a careful reading or Template talk:WikiProjectBanners would be instructive here. Suffice it to say that a substantial number of people have a quite low opinion of WikiProject efficacy. Kirill Lokshin 03:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Back to left...

To Kirill, I read through more than half the page, and I discovered that all of one person is expressing a deep antipathy toward WikiProjects and the usefulness of banners (I don't see *anything* wrong with advertising a WikiProject or wanting project coverage of any article that might be related to the project scope). Otherwise, everyone else appears to be conscientiously seeking out a solution to the "banner derby" on some talk pages. I support that effort. The main projects I work on have 'small' parameters implemented. I'm also open to the one-liner banner idea. Heck, I don't even really mind Template:WikiProjectBanners too much, as it seems to be used very sparingly so far. I just don't think it ultimately matters that most talk pages would continue to sport full-figured project banners, while the rest would need reduced versions. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 05:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The reform proposal is about more than just banners. -- Ned Scott 19:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have already indicated that I think the only reform needed is to technically deal with the "banner derby" issue. That's my position. Otherwise, most WikiProjects are dealing with various issues with aplomb on their own. Every problem doesn't need a new governance solution. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 19:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Non-league football

Same logo the football project. Same subject matter, but a subset thereof. Currently plastering talk pages with banners, when it's blatantly obvious they should be a task force sharing a banner.

The question is do I shut down the AWB user and have a word? --kingboyk 19:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I did just that (or at least, asked him to stop). For an example page of this farce see Talk:Hemel Hempstead Town F.C.. --kingboyk 19:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Formal Proposal?

It looks like the majority of respondents are agreed upon the existing text. Should the page now be put up for formal adoption, however that is done? John Carter 16:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The existing text is still rather lacking in practical detail, no? It's a bit premature to try to adopt something that lacks implementation details; think that we need to come up with some more concrete proposals for:

1. How to set up the tier/task force schema
2. Which projects would fit in where
3. What community approval process, if any, is needed

before this could really go forward. Kirill Lokshin 19:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Remember, I'm a homicidal maniac who just recently returned to this planet (and also honestly rather new here). My knowledge of the conventions here is rather limited. It is nice to see that it did reignite interest in the proposal, though. John Carter 13:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

As I don't trust myself to insert the following ideas into the proposal page itself, I'm putting them here:

1. Tier 2 Projects (those with specific banners) will be determined by a consensus vote of active editors with a predetermined minimum history of activity. Certain guidelines, yet to be determined, for what would qualify a project for Tier 2 status could be made later, but at least initially the predominant guidelines would be (1) whether the Project deals with a "core topic", such as perhaps a standardly recognized academic discipline, and (2) whether there are a given number of other projects whose scope is such that they are clearly "sub-projects" of the proposed Tier 2 project. Proposed Tier 1 projects will also be subject to consensus approval. This process will be rather quicker, however, and will serve primarily to ensure that duplicate projects are not created.

All proposed Tier 2 projects will have to have a specific, detailed draft project proposal page. The consensus approval vote will be specifically about the proposed WikiProject page as proposed. Tier 2 projects will be discussed a minimum of two weeks before explicitly being accorded Tier 2 status and will require consensus approval by no less than 20 editors, at least half of the approve votes must come from individuals who are not recognized members of a directly-related project; proposed Tier 1 projects will be subject to a one-week approval period, and also be required to receive consensus approval. They will have no minimum number of required votes, however.

2. Here, I'm not really sure what exactly you meant, so I'm going to say what I think you might have meant. Projects will be organized, whenever possible, in a hierarchical system similar to that of the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory, with individual Projects listed according to their scope. Given the ever-changing number and scopes of projects, there will be no hard and fast rules regarding which specific projects will be recognized as "parent" projects. However, any projects which have already been accorded Tier 2 status which clearly significantly overlap the scope of the other proposed projects will probably have to be mentioned on the proposed Tier 2 WikiProject page for it to receive consensus approval.

3. As everywhere in wikipedia, there will be no specific rules about who can and cannot indicate an opinion. However, at least one active member of each active WikiProject will be encouraged to join the WikiProject Council. The approval process per se will take place on a subpage of the WikiProject Council, although individuals indicating an opinion will not have to be members of the Council.

I know the above has more than a few weaknesses, but it is at least a starting point for the discussion of details. John Carter 13:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this is probably over-bureaucratized a bit; in particular:

• I think the Council should be kept out of this, if only for the practical reason that this is meant to be an explicitly a community-oriented process.
• The idea of formal proposals is probably not going to work, given the enormous number of projects to be grandfathered. In most cases, the discussion can simply evaluate the existing project, so a separate proposal page won't really be helpful.
• I don't think there's any real reason to require proposals for creation of the lower-level projects, since they won't be causing tag proliferation issues and so forth under this model. Presumably the relevant parent projects will be able to deal with such ideas and keep anything silly from happening, as well.

More generally, we need to avoid setting up a chicken-and-egg scenario where a project can't get approval to do things without a history of already having done them. On the most basic level, this will mean that projects with no usable parent will need to be given (at least provisional) higher-tier status, as they'd presumably be completely dead in the water otherwise. Kirill Lokshin 15:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Clearly, you know a lot more about this subject than I do, so I defer to your greater experience. For what it's worth, though, I more or less based the proposal on the guidelines for "featured portals", which I just recently noticed, and thought that maybe it might be best to make the banner WikiProjects the effective equivalents of Featured Portals, including having to meet substantially similar quality criteria. And, out of curiosity, would there be any advantages to creating a "Featured WikiProject" nomination and approval process? John Carter 14:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Small WikiProjects

There is a problem here, but it isn't WikiProject size, it's WikiProject activity. WP:KLF (44 articles, 4 FAs) may be small but it is obviously highly effective. Turning it into a task force wouldn't help it; the best you can hope is that it wouldn't hamper it. On the other hand, I have no doubt that there are WikiProjects out there that are an appropriate size according to this proposal, but are utterly disfunctional because they were created on a whim and no-one is working towards their goals or even doing basic maintainance.

Still on small WikiProjects, I disagree very strongly with the assertion that "a project covering a hundred articles... gains nothing by creating (and expending significant effort to maintain) its own peer review process." I work on a WikiProject that until recently had only a hundred articles, and I found the ability to track article quality to be exceptionally helpful and well worth the effort. I'm curious whether the authors of this proposal have actually worked on small WikiProjects?

These issues aside, I broadly agree with the description of the problems, but disagree with the proposed solutions. Is the situation really so grim that we have to start accrediting projects? Is the harm that someone can do by creating a stupid WikiProject really on a par with the harm they could do with a bot or the admin tools?

Hesperian 00:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, the question of size versus activity is somewhat oversimplified, in any case. It would be somewhat more correct to say that the two are correlated (at least insofar as useful activity is concerned) near a "natural" clustering size for a project that's largely dependent on matching a pre-existing community of users sharing some concretely identifiable interest; in other words, the closer a WikiProject's scope is to some X such that an arriving editor is likely to intuitively belive "I am interested in X" beforehand, the more raw editorial energy is available, which generally translates to productivity.

As for your specific comment, I'm a bit confused about how a peer review process is tied to "the ability to track article quality"; I would have thought that the latter would be done through an article assessment process instead. In any case, my comment above is also applicable here, I think; while it's certainly possible for a small project to be situated on a natural enough topic cluster such that the available manpower concentration warrants separate processes, this isn't that common.

For a more concrete example of what I mean, consider the hypothetical WikiProject Parrots and WikiProject Hawks. If each maintains its own separate peer review, then people who are interested in birds generally—and we would expect these to be substantially more numerous than the people interested in either parrots or hawks but not in other types of birds—must now keep track of two separate processes. Conversely, if the projects are made task forces of a WikiProject Birds, they can now use a single central peer review, which is much more convenient for the bulk of the editors involved. (Obviously, this argument hinges on the point that the number of editors interested in both parrots and hawks is significantly greater than the number of editors interested in one but not the other. In cases where this isn't true, it no longer holds.)

As far as the grimness of the situation is concerned: the real problem is that, unlike bots or admins, WikiProjects don't have any formalized status, and are basically permitted to function only at the community's whim. The harm of stupid (or dysfunctional) WikiProjects isn't that they do any sort of immediate damage to Wikipedia, but rather that their actions are detrimental to the reputation of WikiProjects in general, and thus hinder the ability of the actually effective projects to operate without rousing the ire of the community at large. Kirill Lokshin 00:31, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Re peer review: my apologies, I misread you. I was thinking of article assessment. I agree that it would seem redundant for small projects to run their own formal peer review processes.

Your comments about needing a critical mass to translate into productivity are perfectly logical, but they don't fit the data. Some of the most productive projects are ones with smaller scope. WP:KLF is the best example, but it is by no means an outlier. WP:BANKSIA has 220 articles but is very active and has 3 FAs. WP:CPLANTS has 250 articles but is having no troubles with enthusiasm or activity. These are just the small projects on my radar - I'm sure there are plenty more.

Can you explain to me how stupid or dysfunctional WikiProjects hinder the ability of effective projects to operate? I once watched a new-ish and very immature editor launch into starting up a WikiProject. I knew he would run out of puff and the WikiProject would flop, and that's exactly what happened. But as far as I'm aware, it didn't hamper my WikiProjects.

It concerns me that this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is claimed that "stupid or dysfunctional WikiProjects hinder.. effective projects", so we bring in a whole lot of rules and regulations to lock out stupid or dysfunctional WikiProjects, so the next time I want to start up a WikiProject, I am hindered by a whole lot of rules and regulations, and the blame for that is placed on the stupid or dysfunctional WikiProjects that would exist if there weren't rules and regulations to keep them out.

Hesperian 00:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Trying to follow along both trains of though here:

You're confusing, I think, "productive" with "needing extensive internal structure". The three projects you've noted are, of course, highly effective in terms of article-writing; but this doesn't mean that they need a lot of structural features (and, indeed, they're pretty much totally lacking in them). What, for example, would be the drawbacks if WP:CPLANTS were to use the tagging/assessment infrastructure of WP:PLANTS instead of maintaining its own? As far as the small project is concerned, it would be keeping the functionality it currently has (its own tracking of article status), and simply having the associated infrastructure/template coding/etc. taken off its hands by the larger parent project. Is there any benefit to CPLANTS having to maintain its own formal process, rather than using a centralized one? (And what happens when WikiProject African plants, WikiProject Vines, WikiProject Flowers, etc., all start up their own parallel processes and go through the same articles?)

The immediate issue, in some sense, is article tagging. WikiProject tags are now so routine that a new project—however misguided and small—can produce enormous numbers of them in a relatively short time. This ease of large-scale tagging and the proliferation of projects that tag redundantly (typically parent and child projects, but sometimes clusters of related projects that heavily overlap) is now getting on people's nerves sufficiently that "solutions" are being proposed which are equally harmful to both productive projects and unproductive ones. (The various discussions revolving around {{WikiProjectBanners}} strayed into this area, more often than not.)

Beyond that is a broader issue of WikiProjects' role in the community. If they're to be regarded as more than incidental collections of editors, but as natural and legitimate places for things like guideline formation, decentralized processes (e.g. the various proposals for farming out AFD to WikiProjects), and so forth, then there needs to be some mechanism for ensuring that the projects—or at least those projects that take on these roles—are respectable, policy-abiding, and generally responsible structures. The pernicious effect of ill-behaved or dysfunctional WikiProjects is that they provide ready arguments against giving any sort of greater role to WikiProjects in general, due to the (quite legitimate) concern that they'd misuse it.

My idea with an accreditation system, then, was not to place limits on creating WikiProjects, per se, but rather to allow for a distinction between "trusted" WikiProjects—those, in other words, with whose scope, goals, and operations the community at large is comfortable, at least to the extent of taking a hands-off approach to them—and the ones that the community feels aren't (yet) up to that level.

(It may well be that I'm being entirely naive with respect to how loose a leash the community would be willing to permit to any WikiProject, of course.) Kirill Lokshin 02:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the crux of the matter for me is that projects really do lose functionality when they hand over their infrastructure. WP:BANKSIA manages its own assessments, and as a result gets this useful page and this useful box. WP:WA lets WP:AUS handle article assessments, and as a result it has absolutely no capacity to track the status of articles within its scope. And in return we get to type {{WP Australia | WA=yes}} instead of {{WP Western Australia}}! So it boils down to this: in the current technical environment, merging small projects into larger projects as taskforces will kneecap some small but highly effective WikiProjects. As long as that's the case, this proposal is broken IMO.

I'm also not convinced that upmerging highly specific WikiProjects would address the banner proliferation problem. If WP:BANKSIA didn't exist as a WikiProject with its own banner, then there would be 200 Banksia article talk pages that would be tagged into WP:AUS and WP:PLANTS, rather than just WP:BANKSIA; so sometimes upmerging means more banners not less.

I agree that people shouldn't be allowed to create WikiProjects willy-nilly if those WikiProjects are then to be given (or claim to themselves) roles in formulating policy, guidelines, convention, processes, etcetera. WP:STUB is a good example - I still can't figure out how WP:STUB gained the authority to demand people ask permission before creating new stubs. I can see why you might want a system whereby the wider community can endorse and authorise the guidelines and processes put in place by such a WikiProject. I'll reserve my judgement on the accreditation aspect of this for now.

Hesperian 02:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as the practical issue of functionality is concerned, that's a technical problem that can be (easily!) solved by a more intelligent template design. See, for example, WP:MHA#Task force statistics; each of the 30+ task forces gets their own set of statistics/worklists/logs, even though all of them use the same banner. (I was actually assuming that this was going to be the case for any rearrangements under this proposal; it certainly wasn't my intent to take useful functionality away from smaller projects.)

The template proliferation issue is, of course, open to debate. Keep in mind, though, that there's nothing preventing AUS and PLANTS from adding their banners in addition to the BANKSIA one, in the current system; and, indeed, that's the only way those projects can get those articles into their assessment lists, unless BANKSIA's banner is given the ability to generate the needed categories for parent projects (which is, frankly, a horrible mess to code for all but the simplest relationships). So instead of having three potential banners, you'd only have two if the child project used one (or both, even) of its parents' banners rather than having a separate one.

Kirill Lokshin 03:07, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:BANKSIA's banner does indeed manage its parent project obligations. But 90% of Banksias are from WA, so it turns out we need an explicit {{WP Australia}} so that we can do the |WA=yes. An example of the complexity you're talking about I suppose. This raises another problem but: how do you propose to handle the situation where a small WikiProject has more than one parent project? e.g. WP:BANKSIA is a child of both WP:PLANTS and WP:AUSBIOTA.

Thanks for taking the time to work through this stuff with me. Hesperian 03:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, presumably it would be a subgroup of both; see, for example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Korean military history task force and Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Australian military history task force. Obviously, if it were to be completely task-force-ified (i.e. by moving to a subpage of a larger project), you'd need to choose one of the parents as a host, but this is pretty arbitrary, and becomes basically irrelevant once the corresponding redirects are prevented; and if it stays on a separate page, the issue doesn't even come up.

There are, of course, different possibilities as far as the technical implementation is concerned—I would guess, for example, that the "parent" in terms of tag usage would be AUS rather than AUSBIOTA (i.e. articles would be double tagged with the PLANTS tag and the AUS tag, both of which would support parameters for BANKSIA), as I suspect AUSBIOTA isn't going to be maintaining its own tags—but the details are quite flexible. The only real requirement is that at least one of the parent tags generate the needed assessment data for BANKSIA's articles. Kirill Lokshin 03:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

WRT to talk page tagging, {{WPKLF}} contains the necessary code to allow it to replace {{WPBiography}}, {{album}} and {{song}}. I put the same functionality into {{WPBeatles}}. Of course I wouldn't recommend this solution to most folks as I happened to be active in all the projects concerned and was sure I knew what I was doing (and, I ran the bot which did most of the tagging for WPBio, and it skips pages which contain either of those templates ;)). Just to point out that WP:KLF don't even contribute to talk page clutter... :) (See e.g. Talk:The KLF or Talk:The White Room). --kingboyk 00:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite

I've tried my hand at rewriting the proposal to take into account some of the discussion that's taken place since the first draft; comments would be appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 15:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

We haven't had much discussion that relates to the document at hand in the last 11 days. I've started wondering, what's the process from here? Do we do another rewrite? If so, would Kirill prefer to do it himself, or should I move some of the consensus points across into the main document? -- TimNelson 04:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

guideline forking

Should we add something about guideline forking? I've noticed a few times where a WikiProject seems to reinvent the wheel (in good faith and all that) but results in conflicting guidelines with over-all Wikipedia and/or other projects. Even if the forks don't conflict, we could also note that it's simply more efficient to help smaller groups find existing discussion rather than having to figure it out all over again. This is, of course, different than revisiting a situation, which is always an option, as well as splitting a discussion to avoid group think. -- Ned Scott 04:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Good idea, and something that is sorely needed. >Radiant< 10:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I've added some notes on this to the section on redundancy. The wording can likely be improved on, though; I'm not sure if I've covered all the relevant points here. Kirill Lokshin 22:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Not sure how to address it, but there is also the possibility of two projects not otherwise related (Biography and Physics, for example), having a common interest in an article but having different guidelines. The example above might not be the best one, but something to address an article having multiple different skew proposed article structures could be included as well. John Carter 14:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Tier 0 projects

I'm not entirely sure that these projects should be kept from having banners. Looking at several of the articles in the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/VA tagging#History section, which include several of our most important articles, I found over 10 articles which are important to wikipedia which I couldn't really find other appropriate history banners to place on them. These include History of the world, History, Historiography, European colonization of the Americas, and others. Maybe we could rather try to talk these projects into restricting their scope, so that they cover primarily those articles which by their nature are such that they don't comfortably fit into any of the smaller scope WikiProjects? John Carter 14:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

A number of those will be covered by the Core Topics project; but I suppose you're right in that there will be some slipping through the cracks. Perhaps a neater solution would be to have Tier 0 projects tag only articles that have no other, more specific WikiProject tags? I was mainly trying to avoid the situation where WP:HIST would suddenly decide tag a few hundred thousand articles with tags redundant to all of the more specific ones. Kirill Lokshin 15:34, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Having these projects tag only the articles that wouldn't otherwise be tagged sounds fine by me. John Carter 17:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The Issue of OWNership

The complaint lodged against some WikiProjects seems to be their tendency to want to OWN certain artciles/topics. Yes, this proposal does appear as though it will help with that some, but it will also undercut exactly what makes the good wikiprojects work.

Wikiprojects work because a person is interested in a specific topic that related to their life/interests, etc. They spend a great deal of time editing in that given area precisely because they are passionate. The very ways that this would diffuse the issue of ownership would also diffuse the level of interest. And so -- for example -- WP Christianity is not very active. It is a broad topic, and theoritcally should be covering thousands of articles. But no one is interested in doing too much -- because it is too broad. But many WP that would be task-forces under this proposal are very active and effective -- precisely because they are specific. Take away the specificity -- take aay the interest.

Yes, there are "vanity wikiprojects" (nice neologism, I like it). THe solution -- make the process for starting wikiprojects a little more formal. There are guidelines on the WP Proposal page (5-10 interested editors, etc), yet I have seen people pop up with wikiprojects without even listing them there. Circumventing that process allows this proliferation of such vanity wikiprojects. I would firm up the guidelines for starting wikiprojects before I would support this major change of the whole wikiproject system. -- Pastordavid 02:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Your second paragraphs seems to be making the same point that the critical mass section here does, so I suspect we're not actually disagreeing. The proposal here—particularly in its current form—isn't meant to necessarily cause any projects to be merged, so the smaller projects would retain their identities under it. The major change here is that these smaller projects would use a larger project's banner template rather than a separate one; but I don't really see that as substantially affecting their internal dynamics. Am I missing something obvious here? Kirill Lokshin 04:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

While I do think some projects can be too broad in their scope (well, not necessarily broad, but a scope that includes a great many articles), that doesn't always cause a lack of interest. For example, WikiProject Anime and manga is very active, but fans of anime and manga have a very large range of tastes and preference. As much of an "anime dork" as I consider myself to be, I'd say that I don't like most anime, and I'm not very interested in manga. However, since the project is able to focus greatly on common issues, (such as translations of titles, language formatting, listing multiple sets of voice actors for different languages, common production elements, terminology, etc) the project is very active, even if you only edit a very small amount of the articles the project covers in it's scope. So depending on the project type, a large number of articles might not be an issue.

At the same time, WikiProject Television isn't nearly as active, and likely because people want to edit specific articles and do specific projects. However, that's a prime example of how the concept of task forces can work with large scale WikiProjects. By making show-specific projects into task forces then editors can have that show-focus, while still having a place to talk about things that can apply to any show. In many cases existing projects already do this very thing, but still call themselves both WikiProjects because the task force idea wasn't well known when the projects started. For example, one project I'm very involved with, WikiProject Digimon could be a task force of WikiProject:Anime and manga without having to change how we did anything. It would be a change in title only, but would help people understand how we're connected to other projects, thus making projects easier to find. (a better use of time when someone sees that they can address many shows in the same time they can address one show, etc). -- Ned Scott 15:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

If the issue is diffusing WikiProjects by making them part of broader-scope projects (how I first read the page), then the criticism above stands -- I believe it will be counter-productive. If this is not the purpose, then the only real reason for this restructuring seems to be the issue of banners on talk pages. I think that restructuring a system that appears to be working just to deal with banners seems like overkill. There are technical solutions to that "problem." As to inactive Projects, I still think that actually making people use the proposed project process, rather than starting a project without any process, would help that problem. -- Pastordavid 20:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The whole idea of this is to reduce counter-productive activity. Banners is only one of many .. (pardon the pun) red flags.. that shows this issue needs to be addressed. The majority of projects that we are hoping to reduce/fix are not productive at all, and are likely not the same projects that you have in mind. This reform will only be applied to projects where it makes sense, and healthy projects will likely be left alone (although might become involved in helping other projects, sharing advice and such on why they are successful, etc). I have a lot of faith in the advice and insight by Kirill Lokshin, and he has a very accurate grasp of the current situation. -- Ned Scott 00:27, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Additions to the Directory?

Would it be asking too much if maybe we put some sort of protection on the various pages of the project directory, and made it a point that only those projects which have received some form of accreditation could be listed there? Otherwise, many people create, shall we say, unimpressive projects and list them immediately, making the directory unwieldy in the extreme. Just a thought. John Carter 21:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Council

There is already a page at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council where much of what is being advocated here seems already to have been organized. Is this proposal meant to replace them? I think it would not be th best of ideas to replace a function group here, and it might be better to discuss improvements in how it works and what it does. DGG 21:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The Council was intended to be only a central discussion and planning forum; it doesn't really have either the needed infrastructure or—as far as I know—the support of the community to actually set up any sort of general system that individual WikiProjects might be expected to adhere to.

(Or, in somewhat more practical terms: there's no reason why the Council couldn't be worked into this somehow; but I avoided proposing such an arrangement so that this proposal wouldn't hinge on what the community at large thought of the Council.) Kirill Lokshin 21:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Many of us on this talk page are also apart of the Council project. Also, the Council is an idea that hasn't actually taken off yet, and is simply the current version of our over-all WikiProject organization efforts. Regardless of the name of the project or which talk page we are on, it's all the same effort and usually the same group of people. -- Ned Scott 00:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree. It's essentially the same people, but at the Council we talk about day to day issues, whereas here we're actually working towards reform (and, who knows, maybe some guidelines or policies). I'd have no objection to moving this into the Council's project space, but it may have more resonance if it stands alone. I don't know. --kingboyk 13:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Life cycle?

Perhaps some of these should be seen as something of a life cycle and thus retiring or upmerging should be seen as part of a natural process that happens when a WikiProject either completes its objectives or sinks into oblivion (Many are large and active, have a huge scope or are evolutionary and hence will never complete objectives). Maybe the process should be to raise a proposal on the WikiProject's talk page and, if being upmerged, link to that proposal on the WikiProject's talk page. This allows things to be done in an orderly fashion. Orderinchaos78 22:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

In addition to retiring and upmerging, I'd like to see userfying as an option. Hesperian 00:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Given that WikiProjects are (supposed to be) collaborative enterprises, whose userspace would they go into? And what role would they play once they had been userfied? Kirill Lokshin 00:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, context. I'm currently dealing with a user who has an unhealthy obsession with his school. We're constantly deleting articles on non-notable alumni, non-notable former headmasters, non-notable house systems... we recently deleted an article on the school oval, for cripes sake! This user's latest bright idea is to create a WikiProject. I've managed to convince him to keep it in his user space as an "informal" WikiProject. Had I failed to do so, the outcome would have been a fine example of the kind of WikiProject that is squarely in the sights of this reform proposal. In this specific situation, I think the most appropriate course would be to userfy that WikiProject rather than deleting or upmerging it. Therefore I would like to see userfying as an option. Yes, of course it is only an option where it is obvious whose userspace it should go to, and where that user is not precious about other people editing in his user space.

As for what role it would play, it would have to be restricted to informal article tracking and communication between a small group of contributors. I've used this model myself a number of times; e.g. through the first half of 2006 I collaborated with one other user on the convict era of Western Australia, coordinating at User:Hesperian/Notes/Convicts; it worked well. I suspect that, faced with a threat of closure and deletion, many users would choose to have their WikiProjects userfied in this way.

Hesperian 01:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd hesitate to call such an enterprise a "WikiProject" at all, and userfying it does indeed sound correct. Might you provide a link to said userfied "project"? Don't worry, I don't want to overturn you or list it for deletion, just fancy having a look :) --kingboyk 13:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Another WA user and myself have a similar task force to the convict one at User:DanielT5/Wheatbelt Scope (the naming indicates its former status as a scope proposal which somewhat burst its own boundaries in the end) for improving articles in a particular region of Western Australia - once the improvement has been done the thing will most likely be shut down, as every one of the pages falls within the scope of WP:WA. The matter Hesperian raised is quite an amusing if frustrating ongoing situation that has resulted in more AfDs, MfDs, CfDs, RfDs and failed FACs than I care to count. Orderinchaos 11:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Another ridiculous example

Talk:Buckingham Palace is tagged by (amongst others) :

• WikiProject England
• WikiProject British Government
• WikiProject London

Why these 3 aren't organised as taskforces of a UK Project and banner sharing is beyond my understanding.

It will also be interesting to see if any of these groups attempt to save the article's Featured status (Wikipedia:Featured article review/Buckingham Palace). --kingboyk 11:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Screenwriters#Please.2C_not_another_project_banner. I'm starting to wonder whether new projects should require approval from some technical committee before they are allowed to tag talk pages. Then we might be able to bring some order where currently there is chaos. --kingboyk 13:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Good question. My only answer is that there has been, to date, apparently little interest in setting up a UK project, because of the sheer number of more focused projects which are apparently resistant to the idea of sharing banners. Many of the projects for specific cities and US states have the same problem. And I would agree that maybe creating some formal process for recognizing projects, which might be required for a project to have a banner and/or a separate listing on the Project Directory, would probably be a good idea. John Carter 14:22, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not at all clear—to me, at least—whether we could devise such a process that would be accepted by the community at large, though. Kirill Lokshin 21:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I can see that maybe if we protected the Project Directory and ensured that only project pages that met at least a certain minimum standard of quality would be included that might be acceptable to the community, particularly if some individuals occasionally offered help in setting up the project pages which get rejected simply on the basis of poor page quality. And, considering that the average person has no real clue how to set up a functional banner, many of the designers of these new projects might be willing to accept use of another project's banner if someone from that project (or at least someone other than themselves) revised the banner so that it could be used by the new project. John Carter 21:44, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

And another

Talk:Alfa_Romeo_in_motorsport is tagged by Wikipedia:WikiProject Formula One (fair enough). It's also tagged by Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorsport, whose banner reads:

“ This article is part of a parent project - WikiProject Motorsport - which brings together motorsport-related WikiProjects. It aims to co-ordinate the projects and improve the common aspects of various categories of motorsport. Consult the project page for further information ... ”

So now we have co-ordinating WikiProjects tagging articles too?! <kingboyk sighs> --kingboyk 23:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The scope

Banners and scopes, another example of what I think is people getting the wrong idea: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canadian TV shows#Anime conventions. I don't know if they've actually been tagging pages yet, but people are missing the point on work and task distribution between projects. Here's another example situation: User talk:SatyrTN/Archive 4#Banners. WikiProjects of geographical locations also have a bad habit of tagging articles for any person place or thing remotely related to that area, like a person who was born there but had no other significant ties (such as a government official, etc) to the location. Then you have WikiProject Dogs or Cats tagging articles for fictional animals. And when you try to bring attention to it people get defensive. This is a major element of what's wrong with both tagging and over-all project scopes.

WikiProjects should not categorize, but rather be a method of work load (for a lack of better words). -- Ned Scott 00:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

And I should add, nothing has to be "separate". Projects can always work together, and people can always be apart of more than one project, or just drop in one whenever they have an idea. One idea that came up in WP:ANIME a long time ago was the idea of a "see also" for WikiProjects, where we could still link and connect without having to get off track with project scopes. -- Ned Scott 00:43, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I've initiated a similar discussion here. JACOPLANE • 2007-04-21 00:44

It seems to me this is a problem with specific projects, not with the concept of projects as a whole. Perhaps we need something like:

-- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 00:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, its shouldn't really be directed at editors, but just the project pages (tools) we use. -- Ned Scott 00:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - I should have explained my thoughts better. That banner could be added to a project's page, stating the article that a particular editor found outside of the scope. This has the advantage of letting an editor talk/warn/express concern to a project. That lessens the possibility of specific people's feelings getting hurt, while fostering some community within the project as they (hopefully) discuss whether or not the article really does fall within the scope. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars would apply here, though. Kirill Lokshin 01:19, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't really think it applies, unless the warning was used "to attack experienced editors."

That aside, the point I was trying to make is that if you have a problem with a particular WikiProject, bring it up with that WP. This group, and even WP:COUNCIL, really don't have any authority over any WP. In fact, since there aren't even any/many guidelines for WPs, the most effective way you can deal with a project over-tagging is to actually bring it to that project. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 04:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

(after three edit conflicts...) Well, one obvious point here is that the WikiProject system, as currently envisioned, is totally decentralized. Each WikiProject is autonomously responsible for deciding what the bounds of its scope is; we have no central authority that divides articles up between WikiProjects. (Nor should we, for that matter; the only results will be hurt feelings and needless bureaucracy.)

Once a project has decided that article X is of interest to it, then, there's a perfectly legitimate desire to get said article into the project's assessment/monitoring infrastructure. The "tags" themselves are a bit of a red herring in this regard; here, they merely happen to be the most obvious way of arranging a decentralized assessment system, given the sheer numbers involved. Kirill Lokshin 00:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we've grown to a point where we should start thinking about who's standing next to us, what projects are also around. Someone doesn't need to expand a scope just to work on an article. Think of it like discussion boards. Too often we think of WikiProjects as people, and we don't want to say "YOU can't edit that". It's not about people, it's about our tools. -- Ned Scott 00:56, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProjects do, fundamentally, function as groups of editors, though, regardless of what one may wish to say about how they should; and they will see it as someone telling them what they can't do. Kirill Lokshin 00:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion splitting from my talk page: -- Ned Scott 01:00, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I think you're going after the wrong thing here; we need tagging reform, not scope reform. Kirill Lokshin 00:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

But they tag that which they think is under their scope. I'm tired of hurt feelings and all that nonsense, I want to make WikiProjects into a real tool for getting stuff done. -- Ned Scott 00:52, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, because we've given them no alternative to said tagging. Turning projects into task forces (at least as far as tagging is concerned), for example, reduces the number of tags without interfering with the scope itself in any way.

More to the point: any systematic attempt to tell WikiProjects what they must and must not cover will, in my opinion, be seen as unwarranted and authoritarian, and will lead to an immediate and substantial drop in editor morale and project effectiveness. Kirill Lokshin 00:57, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that, I'm suggesting we improve advice on how people should consider project scopes when there are other projects around them. -- Ned Scott 00:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

But you're still approaching this backwards; you're trying to get projects to change scope in order to prevent them from tagging articles, not because you actually want them to consider those articles beyond their scope. This is really a technical problem, and requires technical solutions, not social ones. Kirill Lokshin 01:01, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we need to have a discussion about how WikiProjects enable discussion that leads to featured articles. Wikipedia:WikiProject Final Fantasy is a fantastic example of this. Why does this project have the correct scope to "get things done", whereas Wikipedia:WikiProject PlayStation gets nothing done? One thing we've noticed at WP:CVG is that task forces with an overly generic scope get very little done. This has little to do with projects tagging talk pages and more with defining what the best scope is for collaboration efforts. JACOPLANE • 2007-04-21 01:02

Meh. Scope tends not to matter as much as one would think; certainly there are quite broad projects that produce FAs. Kirill Lokshin 01:03, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Like the Video games project does.. But those featured articles are produced most effectively by more focused subprojects, much like the MILHIST project I presume. We have a few subprojects with the correct scope that do this effectively, and many others that do little other than add more bureaucracy. JACOPLANE • 2007-04-21 01:09

In my experience, most FAs tend to be produced by individual editors or small groups; the project (whether the core project or the subgroups) is there more to provide resources (e.g. peer review) than to engage in focused collaboration directly. I don't think that less-than-highly-active task forces are a problem; their existence is largely hidden from people outside the project, and they do serve as good staging areas even for infrequent discussion. Kirill Lokshin 01:19, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, there has been some dispute at Talk:Megalith since the article was recently tagged by project paranormal - there is concern from those outside the project that the article will be the subject of undue weight on aspects that may not be on-topic (including things like pop culture references to megaliths). The discussion there may be of interest. --Minderbinder 01:21, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I laugh when I see an article that makes FA such as Michael Jordan—all of a sudden a ton of WikiProjects, who had little to nothing to do with making it anything, come and slap their tag on it. I would say if a WikiProject doesn't do significant work on an article that should serve as a factor also, here's a tool that can help determine that:[1] That should also be a factor in some way, especially if the connection is tenuous. Quadzilla99 01:42, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Editors make FAs, not WikiProjects, but editors may still use WikiProjects to aid in that. So you can't really measure something like that, so it would be impossible to make it a "requirement". I don't care if some WikiProject comes after the FA status, but I do care if a WikiProject doesn't have the potential to add anything. For example, lets say WikiProject Shoes tags the MJ page because of his line of shoes. In all reality, that won't be of much help to the article. -- Ned Scott 02:01, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Not really scope related, but what's with Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors tagging talk pages? -- Ned Scott 02:08, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

They tag pages which have been requested for copyediting and if they are in the process of copyediting it (or haev copyedited portions of it) they add the tag to the talk page. After it's done it goes in side the banner. Quadzilla99 02:31, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, I disagree with your comments above, if several members of WikiProject Chicago got together and collaberated on the Jordan article based on conversations had at the WIkiProject, then it would be deserving of the project banner obviously, which is what I'm referring to. If a fringe project has done no work on the article their banner should go. Quadzilla99 02:34, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with "deserving". If WikiProject Chicago is working as a tool that helps that article, then great. At the same time I don't think it's fair to say that projects should be proven tools ahead of time before tagging, only that they realistically be likely good tools. -- Ned Scott 07:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, the wording on that sounds all retarded now that I look at it, but hopefully you guys get what I was getting at. -- Ned Scott 08:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Is what I said that hard to follow? I meant deserve in the sense that it rightfully belonged on there—as in the Project had improved the article and hence the article was part of the project—not that it doesn't deserve to be on there because it's an honor to be on an FA page. By your logic the Chicago Project could make Jordan their collaberation of the month and get it to FA and it wouldn't belong on there. Quadzilla99 15:51, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The only question that comes to mind is whether the given projects might do something other than improve articles. For instance, as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Saints, I have performed several reversions of vandalism or POV edits on the Martin Luther page, almost exclusively because the article appears on the project's recent changes page. (He's included in the Calendar of Saints (Lutheran), if you're wondering how he qualifies as under the project's scope, by the way.) The question that comes to mind is whether any of these other projects might be engaged in the same "oversight" activity. If yes, then I can see no real objections to their adding a banner, even if on a practical basis there may be few if any such oversight actions to perform on a given page. If no, then clearly there is a problem. Also, if any page is to appear on a list of articles which a given project maintains, then that project would reasonably have some interest in maintaining and tagging that article. And I do think that maybe creating a few "categorical" banners, like someone has done for several religious projects on the Talk:Jerusalem page, might be a good idea as well, if we can talk people into making such banners. John Carter 14:38, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been giving more thought to Kirill's comment to me, where he said "...we need tagging reform, not scope reform." While I still think the ideas and concerns being expressed are valid, calling this a "scope" issue probably isn't accurate (well, maybe for some situations, but not as a broad fix). I would still like to get WikiProjects to think more about their neighbor projects, and to avoid needless double tagging when a page is barely under one project, but definitely under another. At the same time we could still make it easy to find both WikiProjects from the talk page of the said article, but hopefully without stuffing the directly relevant project in a box with everyone else. And get WikiProjects to think about their neighbors not just for tagging, but collaboration and seeking similar issues and ideas, to make us more efficient. -- Ned Scott 06:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I can certainly see how, for instance, using my previous example, the Martin Luther talk page should have the Lutheranism banner as the top banner, with the various other projects which have an interest in the article (Biography, Christianity, Saints, Germany, whatever else) below that. Maybe, in those cases where the most applicable banner is clearly obvious, we could even "single out" the top priority banner as the display banner, and place the remainder in the {{WikiProject Banners}} template. The only questions that come to mind are when the most applicable project either doesn't have a banner, or doesn't engage in assessments. However, as it is apparent that not all projects which are created and engage in assessment either actively edit all the articles they tag, or even really stay active, and it is unfortunately difficult to know in advance which projects will become inactive, I can see how having the banners in place provide a "back-up" system in the event that the primary project becomes moribund or is even deleted. John Carter 14:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

As a possible solution. In this case, I will continue to use Martin Luther, which might well be the least effective example of what I am proposing, but I would welcome any input on how to address the possible problem. Perhaps we could propose as a guideline that only those projects which have either through their banners or otherwise declared a given article to be of "Top" importance (or the equivalent for Biography and other groups) would have their banners displayed separately. In this instance, given that Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team is less a project in the traditional sense than a banner indicating that a given article has been included in a release version, its single banner might not be included in this grouping. Anyway, by doing so any projects which are tied to a specific subject, however tangentially, could still have their banners on the page, with relevant assessments or whatever, but only those whose interest in the article is such that they have allocated it "top importance" or the equivalent would be displayed individually. By doing so, someone interested in editing articles dealing with that article's general subject would first see the Projects whose work most closely deals with the given article, and also see the others, if, for whatever reason, they are interested in a given article on the basis of its ties to that particular subject. I acknowledge that there might be difficulties in enforcing such a standard, particularly for newer projects, and in the case of articles like Martin Luther it really doesn't solve anything, given that importance of that article in a number of areas, but it is at least a step toward resolving that problem. John Carter 00:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea. I can see this working for the majority of multi-banner situations. -- Ned Scott 01:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)