Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council

Clarifying the "Advice pages" section

I've WP:BOLDly worked on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Advice pages a bit. It seemed kind of diffusely critical, instead of providing more specific advice on what makes a great advice page, and how to avoid conflicts with both site-wide standards and other projects. It also gave an out-of-place example of an embedded advice section in a main wikiproject page without mentioning that WikiProject advice can be a separate page or not, so I explained and illustrated that it can be both. There were also a couple of redundantly worded bits that I tweaked. I don't believe I changed any sort of "do"/"don't" about project pages, just provided a more useful explication of what WikiProject advice material is and how it's useful.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:46, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I have removed this: The most common source of conflict between WikiProject advice and site-wide norms is an attempt to "import" field-specific naming conventions, styles, or sourcing standards that are not Wikipedia's own, general-audience standards. on the grounds that it's not true. The most common source of conflict is trying to impose the members' Wikipedia-specific personal preferences on articles that they choose to support, e.g., demanding or refusing infoboxes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how those two items are not inclusive of the other. --Izno (talk) 19:03, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

There are no "field-specific styles" that say whether or not an infobox ought to be included. This refers to things like whether that bird is a "Bald Eagle" or a "bald eagle" and whether you should cite primary sources (beloved of academics) or secondary sources (Wikipedia's preferences). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

These are still points of style to me given how the vast majority of those editors who fight over infoboxes or preferred sources treat style. Improvement of the sentence rather than removal seems to be correct to me rather than nitpicking over the examples. --Izno (talk) 22:24, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, they are points of style. But it is absolutely impossible to "import" a Wikipedia-only style from outside (=the point of the sentence). So yes: people fight over infoboxes, but no: They do not fight over infoboxes by saying that All True™ Historians use Chicago Manual of Style, and that CMoS demands the inclusion of infoboxes, and that Wikipedia must comply with the True Style for History-related Papers in the Real World.

Removal is IMO the correct response because the actual problems are already addressed, in this statement: "However, in a few cases, projects have wrongly used these pages as a means of asserting ownership over articles within their scope, such as insisting that all articles that interest the project must contain a criticism section or must not contain an infobox, or that a specific type of article can't be linked in navigation templates, and that other editors of the article get no say in this because of a "consensus" within the project". All this sentence does is add a factual error (the unverifiable claim that fights over real-world vs on-wiki styles are a bigger problem than fights over alternate Wikipedia-only styles) and delay the reader's attention on the main point of the section (which is the statement about WikiProjects not being permitted to demand or to refuse infoboxes). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Looking for a Pet WikiProject

Surely there is a wp:WikiProject here for Pet related articles? What is the best way to find projects on a specific topic? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 13:19, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory (by User:Harej) includes Wikipedia:WikiProject Cats and Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs and Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds and Wikipedia:WikiProject Aquarium Fishes and Wikipedia:WikiProject Animals.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:11, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

There's also WP:EQUINE for horses and ponies (with a breeds taskforce), and there's a pigeons taskforce of WP:BIRDS in particular (that project is mostly about wild birds otherwise). For more farm-oriented livestock material, see WP:Agriculture, which has a livestock taskforce. For gerbils and such, there's WP:RODENTS, though there isn't a specific workgroup of it relating to rodents as pets, that I know of.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:55, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Brazil Assessment Table class=Future Request

How do I get class=Future added to WikiProject Brazil? Articles for the 2015 Olympics include Talk:Cycling at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's cross-country and others.--DThomsen8 (talk) 19:23, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Given WP:NOT#CRYSTAL, why?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:49, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

DThomsen8, I believe that you would edit Template:WikiProject Brazil/class according to the directions given at Template:Class mask/doc. If you need help (or want a sanity check on a sandboxed version), then User:WOSlinker or User:MSGJ are probably your best contacts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

initial notw

this looks like a great idea. feel free to keep me informed if you want. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 15:18, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Huh? Are you posting on the right page?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:49, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikisource related proposal

Over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikisource I suggested some sort of attempt to revive that project. User:John Vandenberg is one of the four listed members and has responded. As I think I more or less indicated there, possibly poorly, I think one of the things which that group might be able to do is help in the development of content related to material developed at wikisource. I suppose it would also be possible to have it develop articles, where possible, on some of the works there. And, of course, it could help with adding the Template:Wikisource to the various relevant articles.

A few potential bots occur to me which might help in the interaction between the projects. One would indicate which portals and single-work topics that don't yet have a directly related portal there do and don't have articles here which link to them yet. That information would presumably potentially help editors here add the template where it is missing, and also know what works are available. And, potentially, it would make it a lot easier to develop missing articles here. Personally, I think it might also be really useful if we had clear indications of which PD works are included in the bibliographies of articles in current reference works on those topics, which are more or less those works in the very few Category:WikiProject libraries pages, particularly if the list could somehow listing the number of times specific individual works, particularly like encyclopedia articles or similar overviews, are listed in those pages. So, for instance, if for whatever reason an old Scientific American article is listed as a source in 40 articles on those lists, it would be really useful to know that to make that specific article available.

And, for our use here, having a bot maybe create a list of wikisource indexes (or categories of index pages, for periodicals) or author pages which don't yet have articles here might make it easier to know what at least potentially significant material available there isn't discussed here.

Unfortunately, I have real trouble seeing that the comparatively little activity the WikiProject Wikisource has had would make it likely that they could do this sort of thing themselves. There are a plethora of more topical wikiprojects here which clearly be more directly suited to directly working with these matters on a more specific basis.

So, any ideas about whether there would be any interest in some projects in doing this, and/or whether such bots are even possible? John Carter (talk) 15:16, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

John Carter, I think you should ask for advice about the bots at WP:BOTREQ.

Also, do you know whether Wikidata has figured out which Wikipedia articles match up with which Wikisource pages? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 5

Newsletter • October 2015

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

We did it!

In July, we launched five pilot WikiProjects: WikiProjects Cannabis, Evolutionary Biology, Ghana, Hampshire, and Women's Health. We also use the new design, named "WPX UI," on WikiProject Women in Technology, Women in Red, WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health. We are currently looking for projects for the next round of testing. If you are interested, please sign up on the Pilots page.

Shortly after our launch we presented at Wikimania 2015. Our slides are on Wikimedia Commons.

Then after all that work, we went through the process of figuring out whether we accomplished our goal. We reached out to participants on the redesigned WikiProjects, and we asked them to complete a survey. (If you filled out your survey—thank you!) While there are still some issues with the WikiProject tools and the new design, there appears to be general satisfaction (at least among those who responded). The results of the survey and more are documented in our grant report filed with the Wikimedia Foundation.

The work continues!

There is more work that needs to be done, so we have applied for a renewal of our grant. Comments on the proposal are welcome. We would like to improve what we have already started on the English Wikipedia and to also expand to Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Why those? Because they are multilingual projects and because there needs to be better coordination across Wikimedia projects. More details are available in the renewal proposal.

How can the Wikimedia Foundation support WikiProjects?

The Wikimedia Developer Summit will be held in San Francisco in January 2016. The recently established Community Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in investigating what technical support they can provide for WikiProjects, i.e., support beyond just templates and bots. I have plenty of opinions myself, but I want to hear what you think. The session is being planned on Phabricator, the Wikimedia bug tracker. If you are not familiar with Phabricator, you can log in with your Wikipedia username and password through the "Login or Register: MediaWiki" button on the login page. Your feedback can help make editing Wikipedia a better experience.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 09:03, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Unassessed-Class versus Unassessed categories

I've made a request at CFD to reverse the March 2007 discussion and to rename Category:Unassessed-Class articles back to Category:Unassessed articles. Please comment there. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:16, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

@Ricky81682: Can you explain to the dummies (me) here what this is all about? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 03:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me

There's a number of categories titled "Unassessed X articles" for when a project is added but no assessment (that's the default under the template I believe). However, some projects have "Unassessed-Class X articles" as well (see Category:Unassessed-Class comics articles by work group versus Category:Unassessed comics articles by work group. The majority are Unassessed not Unassessed-Class so I think the parent should reflect that. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:36, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Unassessed articles by quality and importance

I notice this earlier but there is a distinct Category:Unassessed-Class articles and Category:Unassessed articles (one redirects to the other at the moment). Most WikiProject have just Unassessed X articles but projects that do separate quality and importance subcategories have to have a separate Unassessed-Class articles I think. I presume it's a default from Template:Class or whichever template is doing that but I wanted to see if there's interest in renaming things like Category:Unassessed-Class India articles of High-importance to Category:Unassessed India articles of High-importance to match Category:Unassessed India articles where all unassessed articles are (therefore the child subcategory and the category are alined). -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:24, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Important WP:TAFI discussions

Important discussions regarding the TAFI Wikiproject are happening atm. Please weigh in at discussions like: Should TAFI return to the main page?.--Coin945 (talk) 18:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Tom Powers Musician

I really want to create an article on my deceased husband and his illustrious musical career. I have the articles (newspapers and media/billboard etc) to prove he is who he is and has accomplished what he has in his time with us. Can I get some one-on-one help? I would greatly appreciate it...as this is more than overwhelming... Joannpowers (talk) 21:42, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I found http://deathnotices.michigan.com/view-single.php?id=34675015, and I acknowledge that the article "Tom Power (musician)" (whose surname is spelled differently) is about a different musician. Perhaps someone listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians#Participants can help you.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:57, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, JackofOz, who is not presently listed there, might be able to help you.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:07, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, but I cannot help. I'm sure the Project members will be able to. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:09, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Considering Article for Creation has been rejected a number of times, I cannot see it pass WP:MUSIC. Karst (talk) 16:12, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't know much about this area, but the obit suggests that he qualifies for a biography under WP:MUSBIO due to having a single on a national music chart. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Mongols live in Mongolia?

Mongols do live in Mongolia, but they were a conquering people centuries before the modern country existed. We need a separate WikiProject for Mongolia, and not lump it into the Mongols WikiProject. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:10, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

@Dthomsen8:Good comment. The last time I saw the issue of country wikiprojects addressed was in the now defunct Signpost Wikiproject Report: Where in the world is Wikipedia? back in 2012. Ottawahitech (talk) 19:28, 20 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me

19th Century Music

I am putting out some 'feelers' here about a new project. This genre is quite significant, has its own core of composers, musicians, lyricists, publishers, archives, festivals. This time period is quite fascinating and it includes the creation and performance of abolitionist songs, temperance songs, the songs of Stephen Foster and his ilk, and civil war songs. I believe this grouping of articles could very well use some improvement and collaboration for improvement on this topic. Any feedback is welcome. Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 00:42, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Please see MOS:HEAD (sentence case) and WP:CENTURY.—Wavelength (talk) 04:00, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• Hi Barbara, Just wondering if this proposed WikiProject is US-centric? Ottawahitech (talk) 04:09, 21 November 2015 (UTC)please ping me