Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 3

message: I'm figuring to send out to the various projects notice of the directory so that they all can make any improvements or corrections in their listings. I also intend to subtly (as subtly as I get, anyway) mention the possibility of perhaps beginning collaborations and assessments if they have not already done so, partially on the basis of the colums in the directory. I'm also working on a similarly-organized list of portals, which I am currently developing. However, I note that many of these portals seem to exist independent of projects. Should I attempt a draft of a note to the portal managers which might not "turn off" the portal managers or not? You all have much more experience in this than I do, so I very much welcome any input in this potentially delicate matter. 
There is also questions to be asked about some of these portals. Specifically, are there any similar guidelines in place for determining when a portal is defunct? Also, I note that one portal which relates to the new Germany project is, of course, Portal:Nazism. As a person of German ancestry, I'm kind of put out by having the low point of my ancestral fatherland getting that extraordinary degree of attention. Does anyone think it might be a decent idea to create an alternative World War II portal to replace complement the Nazism portal? Badbilltucker 19:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A Portal:World War II is something that's been wanted for a long time (primarily because it can then replace the unnecessarily large  on articles); but, so far, nobody has actually volunteered to maintain it.  WP:WWII would be the logical group to get involved in the issue, though. Kirill Lokshin 19:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Nazism would be sufficiently covered under both Portal:Fascism and a Portal:World War II, were it to be created. I agree that guidelines need to be set to determine when a portal is defunct. Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals is not very organised, so any help in that area is appreciated. As an aside, is this listing of portals a replacement for Wikipedia:Portal/Directory?--cj | talk 23:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What I'm trying to do is create a listing that the projects can used which will be useful to them. Basically, it's being arranged in the same outline format with the portals specifically mentioned by specific projects as related to them or obviously dealing with the same area included. However, they'll be listed in "reverse" order, so that if a project doesn't see any existing portals that deal with their specific subject area, they can go "up" a level or two and find portals dealing with the broader areas. I regret words fail me here, but I think (this time, I really do) it'll be ready tomorrow, and everyone can look at it then. Badbilltucker 20:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questions regarding portals 

message: The list of portals which I have created to accompany the list of projects which we will be sending out to the various projects is at :User:B2T2/Portal. If there are no objections, I anticipate sending information about the new, expanded, directory out to the various projects starting tomorrow, giving them an opportunity to make any changes they see fit related to their own projects until the beginning of November. At that time, we could substitute the more recent draft of the directory in for the current draft. Badbilltucker 16:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like a sensible approach.  It might bring some more people to participate here in general, too, which would be a very good thing. :-) Kirill Lokshin 18:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Looks good, if a bit dense.  I'm not sure that we need to go into such detail about the subtleties of the 1.0 project, but I'm probably a bit jaded because I've seen so much of it. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 15:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portal list 

message: So, this isn't a WikiProject about sorting out councils then, is it? Simply south 19:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not. :)) NCurse  work 19:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's a council to "sort out" WikiProjects! Walkerma 21:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So then shouldn't this be Wikipedia:WikiProject WP Council? Simply south 18:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mmm, strictly speaking, this isn't a WikiProject in its own right, just a common place for other WikiProjects to discuss things.  Kirill Lokshin 18:11, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stupid question 

message: It looks like someone involved in :Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism and counter-terrorism merged some templates and other material from Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism into his own project. The founder of the latter project is understandably upset about it. Maybe someone with more experience than me should step in to handle this one; I don't think I'm qualified. B2T2 22:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bleh, there are some major WP:OWN issues coming into play there.  Not a pretty picture in any sense. Kirill Lokshin 23:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Referee time 

message: May I recommend that certain templates be made that classify a WikiProject by Activity so new users will not join a dead project? I think that much can be done to improve the WikiProject system, perhaps even limiting their creation to where a critical mass has already formed. I fell strongly on the issue of the large amount of inactive projects; see my essay.--HereToHelp 01:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The new directory does show the project's status.  As far as templates for the project pages themselves, I don't think it's the best approach, as they tend to get removed by occasional visitors even if the project stays inactive.  In the long term, merging the inactive ones somewhere may be the best approach, I suspect. Kirill Lokshin 01:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Relating to the inactivity of projects, I now have a new bot which has been created for me to determine if any activity has taken place on project pages in the past 90 days, which also lists the day of last activity on the project page(s). I intend to be using it on a monthly basis to determine which if any projects have been inactive over the past month or more, and will be tagging projects appropriately. Also, at least one merger based on inactivity has been proposed. Wikipedia:WikiProject Cat breeds, which has been inactive for some time, has been suggested to be merged with Wikipedia:WikiProject Cats.  The only responses I have seen to date have been good, and I think that merger may take place shortly. I think we can expect that any projects which have not been active for 90 days may well be either considered for deletion or merged into other projects, if there are other projects which cover the same basic area. B2T2 13:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That'll be very useful, I think. Kirill Lokshin 16:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Status templates 

message: Anyone else think we should discourage the use of people labeling themselves as a "founder" of a WikiProject? I don't think we should "forbid" it or anything like that, but it just rubs me the wrong way whenever I see someone make that claim. It sends the wrong message about WikiProjects, as WikiProjects have no hierarchy. -- Ned Scott 02:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Meh, I can't really see any reason to get involved in this.  If they try to use the label to push other editors around, we can deal with it as a garden-variety ownership issue; and if they don't actually try to do anything with it, why forbid them from noting it? Kirill Lokshin 02:28, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't force the issue, but I thought it might be just good advice to avoid hierarchy labels. But, as you said, if there's no issue then.. there's likely no harm. -- Ned Scott 11:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Founders 

message: I worked up a rough idea of how we could handle proposal submission.  Please see User:Aguerriero/Proposal.  The idea is that this would be at the top of the new proposal page, located at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals.  So if someone wants to submit a new proposal, they use the inputbox.  All they have to do is append the name of their project to the end, click Create, and it gives them a template to fill in.  When they save, it creates a subpage to /Proposals named whatever their project is.  I think.  ;)  We'd have to have a bot check for new subpages and transclude them to the main list, which is under the heading Current Proposals.
Possible issues:
* I'm not sure if we need to include the date in there somewhere for the bot to recognize it as new, or to be able to archive it after 30 days.  Perhaps a "Proposal date" field in the template that automatically pulls in the current date.
* I couldn't figure out a way to take them to a default error page or something if they try to click Create without actually typing anything in the box, or try to break the rules in other ways.  I think that's probably necessary.
Anyway, let me know what you think. --Aguerriero (talk) 21:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Neat!  Can we get a continously-running bot for this, though? Kirill Lokshin 22:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean, can we get one written, or can we get permission to operate one?  I don't see much problem on either - it would run once every 10 minutes (or whatever else we decide) and check for additions to a category.  If any, it would add them to the main list.  Thoughts? --Aguerriero (talk) 18:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beta proposal submission page 

message: I have proposed to members of WikiProject Hard Rock that the WikiProject be expanded to include rock music in general, as there isn't one that exists. The creator is all for it, and I haven't gotten any other response as the WikiProject is inactive. So I would like to get going on expanding it, so how would I go about that? Is it possible to move all the related pages to new names, or just start a new project? -- Reaper  X 23:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Moving the project pages to a new, more suitable, name would probably be the easiest option here, given that there's no real need to retain the old project. Kirill Lokshin 01:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Expanding/Changing Wikiprojects

message: I'm trying to organize something like this in nl:, but what i miss is an elaboration on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Common_pitfalls. Aleichem 13:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiproject council 

message: See Wikipedia:WikiProject/List_of_proposed_projects#Relativity --plange 19:24, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another overlap in the making? 

message: It seems that people are starting to tag actual WikiProjects with this thing, which seems to be a rather bad idea.  Given that we've basically moved (or are in the process of moving) all the pages of interest to us under the main project as subpages, do we actually need this?  If it's going to cause problems, it seems better to just get rid of it. Kirill Lokshin 14:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{tl|WPCouncil}} 

message: We now have a :Wikipedia:WikiProject Counter-Jihad Education Taskforce. So far as I can tell, the purpose seems to be to cover articles relataing to Islamic terrorism. It also has the "little green footballs" picture which I have learned to have reservations about.  It also seems to intentionally, potentially be a POV fork. The scope, "all topics about Islam and about terrorism". seems to be wholly inapprorpriate to the other stated goal, Islamic terrorism. To quote Sergeant Schultz, "I know nothing" about this and sincerely hope that one or more of the rest of you might be able to help this editor and his project, one way or another. Thank you. Badbilltucker 21:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like someone has listed it for speedy deletion as an attack page. The creator seems to have also have a history of NPOV disruptions. Looks like this little mess will be quickly thrown in the trash, where it belongs. -- Ned Scott 22:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The tag's been removed. I am now proposing it for Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion on the basis of it being both NPOV and clearly redundant to a number of existing projects. Any and all comments are welcome, as I may be opening myself for attack on this one. Badbilltucker 23:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And it's been snowballed -  (yes -- as delete).  Martinp23 13:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Project 

message: I feel that WikiProject Trivia Cleanup is very much a POV project and the actions taken by its members should be assessed to determine whether the project is necessary and should continue as it has.  The members seem to have a very narrow viewpoint on what constitutes "too much trivia", and I believe that if they apply this viewpoint to Wikipedia as a whole, they will leave a significant number of articles "gutted" in their wake.  This is especially true for articles whose subject matter is by nature trivia-heavy, such as articles for pop-culture-referencing entertainment such as episodes of South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, etc., where noting such references are an integral part of the description.  Just one man's opinion, of course, but I thought this should be noted. -- Pennyforth 16:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Power to them. Trivia should be extirpated from this encyclopedia. Joelito (talk) 16:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The question of how, precisely, to distinguish "trivia" being one of those we've never been able to solve, of course. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked at it briefly the other day, and I thought they were simply cutting down on trivia sections, utilising information within the body of an article where it could be better contextualised. A lot of these pop-culture references border on original research, to be honest. Hiding Talk 20:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Trivia Cleanup 

message: I hope that got your attention. This morning, I looked at the list of Wikipedia CD selections, and the first one I pulled up, Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, had yet to have any of the relevant project banners placed on it. Now, it has one. But this does bring into focus just how many articles have yet to be assessed, even important and relatively high-quality ones. If this situation continues, it will be much harder for many of these important or relatively high-quality articles to get any attention. I will try to start tagging the CD selections, but there's a very big limit on what I will be able to do on my own.
I wonder what the rest of you think of the following proposals. Right now, there still exist significant areas of human knowledge which do not have any specific close ties to any projects. These include radio, the nations of Russia, France, Italy, and, yes, the UK, anthropology, and many of the families and species of organic life. Do any of you think it might be a good idea to maybe list on the :Wikipedia:WikiProject/List of proposed projects these projects which seem to be conspicuous by their absence, maybe under a different section? Also, if and when most of the big areas are covered, what would you all think of creating a different group, maybe one listed on the community portal, which would have the function of basically performing triage on as-yet unassessed articles, determining their relative quality and placing the appropriate banners on them? IF, and that is a big if, both of these things could be done, it would be a lot easier for everyone else to know what's out there and what needs most improvement.
I, of course, can and will do nothing really useful, simply throw out questions which I myself cannot answer. However, I would be very interested in the responses, if any. Thank you. Badbilltucker 20:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there a good reason why regional noticeboards haven't been merged with/migrated to WikiProjects? Girolamo Savonarola 21:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's probably best raised at the village pump.  The noticeboards are, I think, older than the WikiProject structure, so they're well established in their current format.  there may be feasibility issues. Hiding Talk 22:29, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It can be a bit tricky identifying the lines between the noticeboards and WikiProjects. However, it's my experience that they compliment each other. For instance, Australian Wikipedians' Notice Board and WikiProject Australia.--cj | talk 16:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are some subtleties involved with noticeboards as far as whether they're for, say, "Australian Wikipedians" specifically, or all "Wikipedians interested in Australia".  (This isn't a big deal for Australia, I suspect, but there have been concerns in the past that some noticeboards were adopting very nationalistic trappings.) Kirill Lokshin 23:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For reference, such concerns were discussed at Wikipedia talk:Regional notice boards.--cj | talk 14:08, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Demented ravings 

message: I love the new template, and wonder whether the rest of you think that the list of proposed projects should be included on it. I would think so, as it would both serve as a link on that page to the council guide, which a lot of project proposers could benefit from reading, and so that the members of this group can more closely monitor activity on that page. Badbilltucker 19:32, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the idea was that the proposed projects page would wind up getting moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals (which is linked from the navigational template).  Would there be any problems with doing that? Kirill Lokshin 19:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: None that I can see. Badbilltucker 21:28, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

text: So, shall we go ahead and move it, then? Kirill Lokshin 18:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template 

message: Specifically redirects such as WikiProject Tulips redirecting to Wikipedia:WikiProject Tulips (and the like). Join the discussion! Girolamo Savonarola 21:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia-wide discussion on WikiProject redirects 

message: I've found two recent joiners are having some troubles with Wikipedia:WikiProject Silver Dollar City and the new proposed WikiProject Africa. Should we maybe contact those who join to see why they're joining? Badbilltucker 02:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe some sort of welcoming message that would suggest a place to ask questions explicitly? Kirill Lokshin 03:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I know that several projects have a template they use to welcome new members, but I personally can't think of what one for this group would say. It probably would be a good idea to have one though. Anyone who has any experience with this sort of thing out there willing to put one together? Badbilltucker 01:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anyone check with the new members lately? 

message: How do I go about editing this project template: . I'm just working out how to create a project with a view to possibly starting one in the future. Or would I be better off copying the code from another WP page and trimming as required? Thanks RHB 21:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The directions are given on the Template:WikiProject page, you subst: it onto the page you wish to create, and then edit it as needed. --tjstrf talk 23:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Speaking from a lot of experience here, though, make sure that the page you edit is your new project page, not the template. Trust me on this one. :( Badbilltucker 01:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quick question 

message: It is a good idea for WikiProjects to use the rating system, but this inludes having that rating information in the WikiProject banner. The problem is that coding WikProject banners to inlcude this rating system requires quite a good coding experience (just see ). Could it be possible to set up a small directory of volunteers willing to code templates to inlcude the rating system, maybe a list of users that you could contact? NauticaShades 17:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is of course another possibility. One of them is to just go to one of the templates that has the required code, like the Beatles template above, copy the original text and coding onto your new templage, and then replace the words specific to the old project with the words specific to the new project, in this case, maybe "Steely Dan articles" would replace "The Beatles articles". Speaking as someone who has done that several times for a number of projects, I can say that it works quite well. Badbilltucker 17:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Could be done. I guess the problem there might be finding the exact location for the insertion of new text. One advantage to copying an existing banner (I pilfer the Virginia banner a lot) is that you know where the words you have to put in are, because that's where the word "Virginia" already is, and you just replace the one with the other. There is one other possibility which might reduce the amount of space taken by the banners, though, which also might reduce some occasional confusion. Generally, it's agreed that the quality assessments are pretty much uniform across projects. Would anyone think it might be a good idea to simply separate the quality assessments from the project banners, maybe in a banner of their own or maybe with a symbol like the small star on the pages of featured articles? Doing this might also make it possible for articles which do not fall in the scope of any projects engaged in assessment to get assessed too, something I think most of us would approve of. Badbilltucker 17:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is an idea, but I believe this is out of the hands of the Council, and is more up to the Village Pump. NauticaShades 17:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

text: That would make it impossible for (a) projects to rate articles differently and (b) make other changes to their banner based on the rating, though. Kirill Lokshin 17:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

text: The other option will be following the "Advanced project banners" section of the guide (which should be written sometime Real Soon Now (tm)—maybe I'll get a chance to fill it out today).   isn't a particularly good place for someone not highly familiar with template coding tricks to copy things from, as it's one of the most complicated of the banners around. Kirill Lokshin 17:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added an annotated example of a project banner to the guide.  It needs a bit of cleanup to avoid having the code samples force so much scrolling, but I think it should be at a point where copying it will produce a reasonably useful banner.  Comments? Kirill Lokshin 18:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's very detailed, and quite easy to understand. The only question I had was that if you don't want a peer review section, then you can just remove that part from the code? NauticaShades 06:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep.  For that matter, you can remove the assessment code too, going back to the very basic template used as an example at the start of the guide.  I'm not sure whether it's worth explicitly mentioning this in the instructons, though. Kirill Lokshin 07:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Rating System - WikiProject Banner 

message: I added  to :Category: WikiProject Council templates and added the  banner to its talk page, but I was wondering if this template should have a link to the Council, just like  links to The Village Pump. What do you think? NauticaShades 17:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{tl|Inactive}}