Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 4

message: I am confused, between A and GA, what is better? Please advise. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 00:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A-Class is higher in the scale than GA-Class.  The extent to which there's a difference in practice varies depending on which project's assessments you look at. Kirill Lokshin 00:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! -- Ganeshk (talk) 00:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A little background: GA began after the A/B/Start/Stub and initially standards were fairly loose.  Since then standards have tightened and most GAs are now pretty similar to A. Walkerma 17:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Many WikiProjects won't like that idea. Titoxd(?!?) 02:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  While I'm not advocating abolishing it at all, is there any reason if an article has attained GA to even go for A? It would seem more logical to go the whole hog and go for FA straight from GA - although there may be exceptional cases I haven't thought of. Orderinchaos78 09:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It's up to your project, really; but, generally speaking, no. Kirill Lokshin 17:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So then shouldn't the order be like B, A, GA, then FA. I am asking this cause when i first saw the scale it looked as if A was higher then GA and if that is true, then all A articles should be GA articles, only a bit better. which is not the case for Comics's A articles. Phoenix741 17:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope.  The order was originally B, A, FA, but then GA was shoehorned in; but a number of projects feel that the GA system is not reliable enough, leaving the requirement for a pre-FA level that the projects can use internally. Kirill Lokshin 17:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: wow ok, truthfully this system just seems way to confusing. and it seems that the GA has no meaning, but whatever, ty for the help.Phoenix741 18:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Personally, I equate GA to A. Some WikiProjects have A higher than GA. It really doesn't matter and its up to your WikiProject. GA does need to work on getting its credibility up but many are against any type of beaurocracy.--NMajdan•talk 15:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's inappropriate to talk about "going from GA to A".  An A-Class assessment not an "award" in the way GA or FA is; it is an internal judgement by a WikiProject that the article is pretty well written and complete.  A GA or FA designation indicates that external reviewers judge that the article meets certain specific criteria.  So A is internal, broadly defined; GA and FA are external and more sharply defined. Walkerma 17:30, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, by that standard, GA isn't much of an "award" either; and, in some cases, A-Class assessment is done rather more rigorously than the GA process. :-\ Kirill Lokshin 17:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Has anyone considered contacting the GA people and possibly suggesting a change? Maybe, like Military history is doing now, it could change the official designation to "A" and maybe require two reviewers, not one. Or maybe some other criteria could be used. It could still be a bit less rigorous than the FA standards, but could be changed so that either the GA or A status becomes unnecessary. Badbilltucker 18:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That kind of defeats the purpose GA was supposed to serve, although that point has been lost somewhat.  GA was initially a process whereby people just tagged or detagged articles they thought were or were not good.  Overtime it has become more elaborate.  There would be some opposition to establishing more rules around it, to be honest.  Really, I'm not sure why we have it in the assessment queue, and my move would be to take it out. Hiding Talk 19:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: There is that discussion right now.--NMajdan•talk 19:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A or GA 

message: A single purpose account User:TriviaGood has created a project (Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia) to protest a real project (Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia Cleanup).  This seems to me to not only violate WP:POINT but to be at cross purposes with WP:AVTRIV, WP:TRIVIA, WP:V, WP:OR, WP:WAF, and WP:EPISODE.  I've tagged it prod for speedy delete but I'm not sure if that is the proper way to go about it.  Would someone be so kind as to give me a little direction here.  Thanks and cheers. L0b0t 22:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion is what you're looking for, I believe. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:24, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done and done.  Thank you very much for the help.  Cheers. L0b0t 22:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How does one delete a project? 

message: Do normal article naming rules apply to WikiProjects? Would, for example, a "WikiProject Giant Robots and Colossal Monsters" be a bad idea? (Not the concept, the capitalization!) -ryand 15:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, they do. I think that one might be a bad idea on both counts, but that's just me. :) Badbilltucker 15:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The convention that I'm aware of is to consider "WikiProject" a pseudo-namespace and put everything after it in sentence case; thus, "WikiProject Giant robots and colossal monsters".  There are some exceptions to this, though; I've seen a few projects go for full capitalization.  It's not really a big deal either way. Kirill Lokshin 16:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Aw, damn. Thanks! -ryand 16:58, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Titles and capitalization!

message: just something to point out. I don't think it is such a good idea in the template to use User:Name as an example as they have been blocked indefinately for vandalism a while ago. Simply south 20:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template:WikiProject 

message: :User:Kusma, a highly-regarded (by me, anyway) admin and right now the driving force behind WikiProject Germany, has asked me if there is any way to set up a project banner so that it can display two different "Importance" rankings, on for the parent project and one for the newly-created Mainz task force. Personally, I don't know if it can be done, and certainly don't know how to do it. If anyone does, I would be fawningly grateful for the information. :) Badbilltucker 17:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's pretty trivial if you add a second importance parameter (e.g. "importance-mainz"); then you can just copy over the existing importance-rendering code into the #if: block for the task force. Kirill Lokshin 18:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Er, I already have implemented the secondary importance level, see Template:WikiProject Germany. I just need help getting the subproject article categories parsed by a bot :-) Kusma (討論) 19:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you need to create all the possible categories, and nest them under something like :Category:Mainz articles by importance and :Category:Mainz articles by quality, just like what happens with the main project. Kirill Lokshin 19:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple importance rankings in a project banner? 

message: I think Wikipedians who are interested in WikiProject Council will also be interested in creating a similar things for Learning projects in Wikiversity. Join us in Wikiversity. Srinivasasha 02:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiversity Learning projects 

message: So, what do we want to do with this page? Last time I checked, I thought we were going to do an internal newsletter (a la WP:MILHIST, WP:BEATLES and WP:WPTC) but it seems that the page was created as part of a dispute currently on WP:RFM. So, do you guys want to start an internal newsletter? What content should we have, if we decide to have one? Titoxd(?!?) 01:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First off, what is going on with this edit warring? I have no idea what the controversy even regards. Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola 01:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  What I understand is that Nathannoblet was using the page as a sandbox for work in the Wikipedia Signpost, then Ral315, the Signpost's editor, rejected it. Then Nathannoblet filed an RFM, as can be seen on Ral315's talk page. But that doesn't tell us what to do with the page in this project space: do we nuke it, or do we just use it for something else? Titoxd(?!?) 01:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd say nuke it. It's just the latest in a string of troublesome contributions by Nathannoblet.--cj | talk 17:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Getting rid of it seems to be the best approach.  (Which is not to say that either a newsletter, or a way of getting WikiProjects featured in the Signpost, would be bad ideas; but this isn't a working version of either.) Kirill Lokshin 00:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Maybe that would be a good use for the page being discussed above... Titoxd(?!?) 06:47, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I got BOLD and edited the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Signpost page as I described. Comments? Feel free to rv. if needed. Also wikiprojects can be notified to deliver their newsletters straight to the page. Still the current name "/Signpost" for the subpage doesn't really describe the content? Suggestions? feydey 20:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Signpost]] 

message: Since many wikiprojects are releasing newsletters G-hits, wouldn't it be a good idea to gather them all to one page (say under WikiProject Council). This would help outsiders (relative to the project) to see what's going on with wikiprojects, and maybe get them interested in some projects. The page could be a overview of new newsletters published in one month (or depending on the volume). Usable idea? Doable? Ideas? feydey 03:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe that would be a good use for the page being discussed above... Titoxd(?!?) 06:47, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I got BOLD and edited the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Signpost page as I described. Comments? Feel free to rv. if needed. Also wikiprojects can be notified to deliver their newsletters straight to the page. Still the current name "/Signpost" for the subpage doesn't really describe the content? Suggestions? feydey 20:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Newsletter collection

message: For the newsletter collection to work best, I would think we want to ensure that each of the larger projects, and maybe most of the smaller ones, have a member or two who are specifically requested to add updates to it. To do so, these people would probably be optimally members of the Council. Does anyone think we should try to actively recruit such members from as many projects as possible? Badbilltucker 22:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Actively recruiting new members of the Council?

message: I have been looking at categories more closely recently.  Today, I decided that there are a lot articles that would be more easily navigated if we developed a Sports family hierarchy (in :Category:Families).  I have started to fill in what I could not find out there in the section that follows: User:TonyTheTiger#Categories_Created.  Can you tell me if anyone at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture/Sports would be interested in getting involved in Sports family categorization or if there is a good way to proceed in such an endeavor.
:I'm not sure that there is an easy answer here. The people who would be in the best position to help you would probably be at :Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Sports and games, given the scope of their group. I can personally see the value of having such categories, but they are probably the group most directly and closely involved in these articles, and would probably be best able to give you any assistance. Badbilltucker 18:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sports Family Categories 

message: Hi, my bot PockBot has recently been authorised for use. It is a tool I developed primarily with a view to helping wikiproject members better manage parts of their project.
The bot runs for any given category and returns a list of all articles in that category, as well as the current status of each article (ie FA, stub, start etc). I hope the potential benefit of this bot is clear in helping those trying to keep tabs on the status of articles within categories relevant to their wikiprojects. For example, for the wiki military history project, classical warfare task group, the bot ran a list of every article under the category (and all sub-categories) of :Category:Military of ancient Rome.
I am not sure of the correct and efficient to publicise the availability of this bot to help out wikiproject members. Can anyone advise? - PocklingtonDan 10:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New bot available to help wikiproject members 

message: I've created Template:Subprojects for use on WikiProjects pages.  How should I tell them? It looks like this:
Work in Progress:	[ edit] · [ history]  · [ watch] · [ refresh]
                 	
Adam Cuerden talk 01:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh, I'm not very technically "ept"... How does it work? - AdelaMae (t - c - wpn) 01:21, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just add  to any WikiProject page. It handles the title, et al, and then, using the edit button on it, you can change the listing. It's based off the To-do boxes. I'm probably going to change it from Subprojects to Work Groups or suchlike, since it was originally intended to house current projects of WikiProject Opera. There's a couple extra features: can change the image in the corner, might add more, but I've set it up to be as much as possible functional without tweaking. Adam Cuerden talk 01:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh, duh... I missed the edit button. I saw the bit about changing the image, though. Thanks! - AdelaMae (t - c - wpn) 01:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't like it.  It's quite crude, visually; and quite redundant, as most (all?) projects that have such structural features already use a real navigational template for them.  (More generally, full-width boxes should be used sparingly, as they're visual overkill in most cases.) Kirill Lokshin 02:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't full width. In my opinion, it's hardly "crude" either. Mike Dillon 02:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's certainly full-width in the sense that there can't be anything else next to it on the page.  (The crudeness is, admittedly, a matter of personal opinion.) Kirill Lokshin 02:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought you meant 100% width. Mike Dillon 02:19, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New Template

message: I'd found Template:CatDiscuss and Template:CatMaintain and (aside from they seem to be named backwards) wasn't entirely happy with them for WProj purposes.  So for your WikiProjectifying pleasure:
* Template:CatMaintainPageWP
* Template:CatMaintainTalkWP
These can come in handy for when your project is overhauling a messy bunch of categories, or if people keep doing boneheaded things in them even after you've cleaned it up. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 12:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mmm, the text there might be a little too WP:OWNy to work well, though. Kirill Lokshin 18:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New WProj-oriented Category & Category talk header templates  

message: I've revived WikiProject Climbing over at WP:CLIMBING. However it's a relatively broad topic and I have never created a wikiproject before so I could use some help on the technical aspect of things. If anyone has some free time (bwahaha, no really), I'd appreciate it if you stopped by and lent a hand. ⇒ SWATJester On Belay! 11:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The thoughts that come to mind are:
(1) Did you mean bi-monthly or semi-monthly collaboration? It's hard to tell from the text. Bi-monthly generally means every two months, semi-monthly twice a month.
(2) You might want to list the project on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals before you start the project in earnest, maybe waiting for at least five members to join. That's generally enough to indicate that the project would be viable.
(3) There are a variety of other suggestions available in the WikiProject Guide, which was written by the developers of the more successful projects in wikipedia. It would probably be a very good idea to review it and see if any of the suggestions included could be applied to your project.
That's about all I can think of. I hope anyone who thinks of anything else feels free to add their comments as well. Badbilltucker 14:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  new project/revived project 

message: Would anyone oppose to that? I want to also organize out the specific field of every participants, so that it makes easier for anyone that want to seek specific assistance in a area. AQu01rius (User • Talk) 18:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no problems with it.  If you're going to be fiddling with the list anyways, you might want to look at figuring out some standard way of linking to WikiProjects there (as just about everyone has formatted the links differently). Kirill Lokshin 18:56, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Only comment I might have is some people belong to several projects, with some only minimal involvement in some with major involvement in others. I would love to see maybe at least one link listed to every project that has a member who is also in the Council, but think in some cases listing all of a persons membership might be somewhat of a disadvantage. Badbilltucker 19:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Such a page has been started at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Contacts. All members should feel free to add their names to the list if they count themselves a primary contact for a given project. Also, if there is someone outside of the Council who serves as a primary contact for a given project, members should feel free to contact that person to add their name to the contact list, as well as to join the Council if they so desire. Come the end of December, I will be contacting the various projects which do not yet have listed "contacts" to ask them which member should be listed. Badbilltucker 17:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separate page for Participants 

message: See my query on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Proposals#WikiProject proposal.
Simply south 16:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A query on WikiPrject proposals 

message: User:Zora is accusing my bot to be a nationalist bot. Please find her post at Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Nationalistic_bot. All the bot did was to auto-tag "Stub" class and add Indian cinema project tag (a project she started) to Indian actor pages. I have tried to explain many times in the past on why talk page tagging helps with WP:1 and also helps assess the quality of articles. But she does not seem to understand it a bit. I would really appreciate if someone from this project, please comment at WP:ANI and help explain this to her. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 00:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Commented there.  Kirill Lokshin 01:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nationalist bot 

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention.  Badbilltucker 19:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards 

message: Can anyone tell me what's the point in those comment subpages that can be found on many WikiProject banners (like this and this)? These templates say that people should comment on the article ratings and its quality, which is good, of course. But they are directed to a /comments-subpage of the talk page, which doesn't make any sense to me. Why should we create a new subpage to say what someone thinks of the article, instead of using the article's talk page? This just seems to create a second talk page for an article, it seems. --Conti|✉ 18:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So the comments can be easily transcluded into the project work lists.  For an example, see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Rail transport articles by quality/1.  These work lists are generated automatically by a bot.  Slambo (Speak) 18:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, I see. Maybe it just should be made clearer that these subpages are not for discussing the quality of the articles themselves. At least I got the impression that the subpages were supposed to be used that way until now. --Conti|✉ 19:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments subpages for WikiProject banners 

message: I do like the idea of maybe issuing only one overall project newsletter per month or two, maybe something a bit more detailed and changing than many of the current newsletters, given their size and scope, may often be. It would also probably involve less man-hours in the development of just one such newsletter. Would anyone be willing to maybe help create and produce such a newsletter? I guess I see it basically introducing the new projects, maybe with descriptions of them, and maybe some centralized discussion of how to deal with new proposed or contemplated projects or workgroups. That last part might be particularly appealing, as it could help prevent creation of new projects which only get abandoned or deleted for lack of support shortly later. Badbilltucker 19:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Where would it be released or how it would be published? feydey 03:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At this point, both questions would be unanswerable, as it's still just a basic proposal. However, I think that it might be fairly easily possible to have a link to it on the Wikipedia:Community portal, and certainly the existing newsletter distribution system could be continued for the larger, more inclusive newsletter. Also, I think we could probably have it linked on the WikiProject Council sidebar above. Badbilltucker 16:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monthly Projects Newsletter 

message: The Religion project has just created a Left Hand Path task force. I'm trying to adjust the  banner to accomodate, and getting no luck. The basic founder of the group has requested this image be added to the tab for the work group. Any and all assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Badbilltucker 01:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly fixed?  I'm not entirely sure what the intended functionality was here. Kirill Lokshin 01:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Definitely fixed. Thank you, O great one! Frankly, I just tried to copy another banner (Germany) and screwed things up in the process. This should work wonderfully. Thanks again! Badbilltucker 02:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assistance from people who know banners and task forces requested 

message: Is anything happening with  the exemplar projects? I'd like more successful WikiProjects to nick ideas from examine for inspiration. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Best projects? 

message: I was wondering if I could get the approval from the council to move the project to WikiProject Assyria, as me and User:Nareklm have decided to include everything about Assyria in the project, and not just people. Chaldean 20:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was recently involved in a dispute over this, and I will just say two words without antagonizing anyone. The problem is that Assyria is not a recognized state or entity. In the same way the stubs for such unrecognized states/entities have been deleted (the Tfd for Abkhazia-stub just closed couple of days ago, and TRNC-stub is always speedily deleted), there is a fundamental problem with such unrecognized and undefined entities. However, it is very legitimate to have a WikiProject for Assyrian people, and I just think that the name should stay at WikiProject Assyrian people. Cheers! Baristarim 20:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: On a side note, I am also interested in this project and have joined it. Baristarim 20:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The point of the move is that the project's aim is not just involved in Modern Assyrian pages, but all Assyrian pages, from Adiabene and so forth. Their is very little info on the Assyrian empire on wiki, and every Assyrian king page is a stub, with the exception of a couple. The project will have two "groups" where one will work on ancient Assyrian related articles, and another group working on modern Assyrian issues. Chaldean 20:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As there is no conflicting project with a similar name, I can't see any reason why the project shouldn't feel free to be bold and move the page. I might also add it to the former countries section of the geographical page of the project directory, to emphasize the point that this project intends to deal with the old states identified by the name Assyria. I personally can see no real objections to such a move, anyway. Badbilltucker 21:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Assyrian people]]

message: I and another user have expressed concern about the apparent entry condition for WikiProject Rational Skepticism.  Other projects are open to everyone.  WikiProject Christianity, for example, is not a project for Christians, but a project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Christianity.  WikiProject Paranormal is not a project for believers in the paranormal, but a project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the paranormal.  WikiProject Rational Skepticism, in contrast, casts itself as "the central hub for Skeptical Wikipedians to get together and work on improving Wikipedia" and seeks to "serve as a nexus and discussion area for skeptically-inclined contributors".  The members emphasized in response to our concerns that their goal is to improve Wikipedia, but are project entry conditions an appropriate way to do so? Tim Smith 02:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In one sense, no. Clearly, we don't want anyone violating the WP:OWN guideline. However, it is certainly possible that the members of the project might think that people of their opinion are outnumbered in wikipedia, and don't want fervent believers of any stripe joining in to "undermine" the project's work. Personally, I think it would be best if the project page were just changed to use more neutral phrasing. As I am somewhat peripherally involved in the project already (I'm one of the three most recently joined members), and also an active member of just about every religion project out there, I think that in this case it might just have been someone using "overenthusiastic" and POV phrasing, not necessarily implying rampant POV behind the project though. Badbilltucker 18:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project entry conditions 

message: comments please --Larry laptop 00:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Special interest groups