Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Archive 7

message: I've been running rampant through the infrastructure of the League of Copyeditors and, having made a new set of templates for the listing mechanism, turned my attention to the woefully out-of-date members list.  On the talk page, I've outlined a skeleton system I've created and tested to improve the project members list.  It adds enhanced functionality to flag up users that haven't "checked in" for more than an arbitrary time period.  The relevant code is included at Template:LOCE/T, Template:User LOCE and the members list.  The point is that this system could be fairly easily ported to become a standard set of templates that could be used by any WikiProject to enhance their members list.  I'd be interested to hear from members of the council whether this system would be useful, and if there are any improvements/additions to suggest to it.  Probably the best way to respond is on the LOCE members list talk page.  Happy‑melon 17:07, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Member lists 

message: Can anyone help fix a strange glitch in Template:WikiProject_Unionism? I have explained it at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 135#Help_needed_with_Template:WikiProject_Unionism. (Maybe I should have posted here first, sorry if I started in the wrong place). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help with strange glitch in project banner 

message: Right now, just about every recognized national entity and/or overseas territory has at least a separate work group page, although creating the banner specifications is still ongoing. Do the rest of you think it would make sense to create separate banners for each national entity, and maybe some of the overseas territories, or not? The disadvantages include possible banner proliferation, but it would draw more attention to the subproject, not just the main project itself. Any ideas? John Carter (talk) 22:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Horrible idea, in my view; it'll kill off much of the progress we've made towards consolidating projects. Kirill 22:15, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Good god no. Banner sharing has to be the way forward. The alternative as I see it is talk page clutter getting so bad that the entire concept of WikiProject templates is endangered. --kingboyk (talk) 13:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

text: The last point above is more a function of banner construction, which I can try to work out later. One problem remains which might become serious, particularly under the current setup. The Africa Project banner right now would cover most of the articles related to that continent and 45 subprojects, most of them national. In time, it'll probably get transcluded into more pages than the Biography banner. Any ideas on what to do with that situation, like maybe regional banners (Northern, Western, Southern, Eastern, Central)? John Carter (talk) 22:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I really don't see the problem here, though; what's wrong with having a single heavily-used banner? Kirill 22:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

text: The one basic banner which always displays them all is the Australia banner. As soon as I determine how it's different from the others, which keep it hidden until it's requested that they be displayed, I'll make the appropriate changes. I'm also going to at least try to see if in some cases I can try to hide the "main" banner entirely, and display only information on the individual country's group, although that might not be as easy as I hope. John Carter (talk) 14:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Banners for separate work groups? 

message: I have just been on Wikipedia: Village Pumpto propose a new WikiProject: Gerontology, and some one said I can make this proposal here. This could be a good interdisciplinary WikiProject; any offers? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can try proposing it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals to check if there is interest. Greeves (talk • contribs) 22:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for a new WikiProject 

message: I've noticed an interesting class which i am not sure how this fits with the current classification. It is possible to have a High-class article (i am not meaning high-importance). This may possibly also fit with mid, low, etc 
For example
Simply south (talk) 17:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course, you could have such a rating, but they generally aren't used because I don't thik the statistics provided by WP 1.0 bot (See here) work for stuff other than the current widespread rating system.--Phoenix-wiki 20:02, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is it there in the first place? Simply south (talk) 20:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It actually isn't there, but by typing "High" you're telling the template to use Template:High-class. You'll note at the bottom of this page that it's put in the unassesed category, rather than the high one. It's just the way the template's been set up, but that class doesn't exist on this template. Of course, that doesn't mean someone couldn't come along and come up with a different assesment scale and use that.--Phoenix-wiki 20:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  An interesting class 

message: Are there any practical limitations for how many bytes a project banner can or should be? John Carter (talk) 20:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really, no, as it'd only be that size on the talk page if all the parametres were used at once (Ie. the article was every class and every importance and within the scope of all task forces) which is impossible. So the banner can be as big as you like on the template page, as it won't all be included.--Phoenix-wiki 20:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a limitation, actually, since the pre-expand include template size is restricted; see Wikipedia:Template limits. Kirill 21:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Practical limitations to Project banner size 

message: It may have been made before, but there is a proposal for a radical change to project banners at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject reform#Single Banner?. Any interested parties are more than welcome to express their opinions there. John Carter (talk) 18:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Radical proposal on banners 

message: There is a bot available at User:SatyrBot/WikiProject new pages which can periodically tag new articles which appear in a category in which all of the articles should fall within the scope of a given project. Personally, I think this bot would be extremely useful for pretty much every project. If you would like to have the bot work for you, please contact it's creator. As an additional question, does anyone know whether we could maybe have this bot placed on a server and running regularly for all projects which have such "dedicated" categories? That would be even more useful. John Carter (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: *We could, but we'd probably want to know if we can get the bot placed on a server first, because then we could work it to death use it as frequently as we'd all like to. With any luck, someone who knows about placing such programs on the server should be responding soon. John Carter (talk) 19:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: *You'd might want to ask the owner, he'd have to set up something for the average layperson to use. I don't know much about the toolserver but as I far as I do know, it's not that hard to get a bot on it. Don't know much apart from that.--Phoenix-wiki 20:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potentially really useful bot 

message: Hello, I recently tried to set up the taskforce Wikipedia:WikiProject Catholicism/Great Britain task force but for some reason, say for example the taskforce tag is on Talk:Roman Catholicism in Great Britain it doesnt add the category for "x-Class Catholicism in Great Britain articles" at the bottom. Is just lists the importance. Please can somebody help so when a tag is added to a talkpage it shows the taskforces class and importance.
These may be helpful to navigate if something needs to be fixed:
*Class: 
*Importance: 
I haven't set up a tasforce before so I don't know what might be wrong, but User:ProveIt added cats into the importance sections set up. - Yorkshirian (talk) 08:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It probably would be a bad idea to alter the banner before one knows that the task force is one which the parent project wants to see exist. To date, I haven't seen that. I have thus reverted the banner to the prior model. Please establish that the parent project is amenable to having such a task force before making such changes again. You might ask on the talk page of the Project whether they would be agreeable to such a subproject, and if there are any others which they believe might be called for. Once you've gotten approval from them, just contact me and I'll set up the banner accordingly. John Carter (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have already had contact from people who wish to be involved and have already starting a thread on the project page and agree it is an area which needs attention, hence the creation of the tasforce. So whatever you can do to fix it, please do. - Yorkshirian (talk) 10:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help need to fix taskforce 

message: I've searched around, and I hope that this is a proper place for the suggestion. If you feel otherwise, please forward the suggestion to the appropriate place or disregard it, and attribute it to my ignorance that it was not done correctly in the first place.
Could you, the ones most motivated to facilitate consensus, find a way to "lead" article topics and especially their talk pages so as to facilitate communication, in a manner that does not conflict with Wikipedia's egalitarianism and lack of pre-structuring?
If so, Wikipedia would be well-served, and so would its readers. Please don't be too quick to notice the obvious contradictions in this suggestion. Leadership is not always a matter of control, and the best leaders are the ones who take us to where we already want to go.
A major problem, IMHO: any contentious topic (as defined by Wikipedians themselves) has a talk page that bloats into a randomness of unusability that belies its stated purpose for existence, and often results in articles with a POV (claims to the contrary notwithstanding), or a bloated and unuseful article.
In support of this suggestion:
       
: Talk pages are almost always a "forum for general discussion about the article's subject", and naturally so. In genuine good faith, OR remains, NPOV is not followed, and Verifiability itself is often contentious. Add to that the emotional charge of some topics, and Wikipedia can go to a place that is not worth visiting.
: Examples that I won't cite, since they're obvious - anything nation-related, wars and the like, peoples with a common history but conflicting histories, etc. These are bait to well-intended Wikipedians who are highly motivated, resulting in edit-wars and POV-pushing (as defined by someone with a different view). Some impartial and disinterested leadership here would be a help for everyone, providing a framework that gives vent to all sides, and leading to the objective of everyone of good faith: a good article. It might also reduce the number of arbitration cases.
: An innocuous example - the use of "Slovenian vs. Slovene". The result was Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Slovenian vs Slovene). It's a convention, not a matter of correct or incorrect, and not a matter of great emotion, and Wikipedia needed to pick one for the sake of consistency. Reading the talk pages shows that Wikipedians saw it in that light, and the issue was contentious but not acrimonious. But the talk page for this convention has 5 (count 'em, FIVE) long archives, spanning years (count 'em, YEARS) of discussion, consisting of only 2 comments that are each interspersed infinitely (plus a "don't care" from time to time). The talk pages were not useful even if one cared about the ultimate result, so just toss in your 2 cents worth. Communication (not to mention the best use of Wikipedians' time) would have been improved by some leadership here (and revised if objections arose).
: An up-and-coming example - King Arthur. I emphasize: this is an example applicable to all projects, not a particular that should have been aimed to that particular project. It has all the hallmarks of contention without resolution, in both the related articles and in their talk pages, and is guaranteed to result in the very problem that motivated this note. Without regard to the merits of any perspective, some leadership here would be useful. Editors and talk page contributors have some good ideas. Build on those and suggest a framework, and back off if necessary.
As to why anyone would mention these two specific examples in the same note, don't even bother to think about asking.
With admiration for where Wikipedia has gone and is going,
Regards,
24.178.228.14 (talk) 01:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:WORKINGGROUP, for start... Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 03:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, Girolamo. I'm pleased to see that Wikipedia is ahead of me, and plans to extinguish the biggest fires first. 24.178.228.14 (talk) 17:47, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Non-insider's Suggestion 

message: Hi, guys. I was asked in my talk page whether it would be advisable to change the  template to accept non-article classes. Currently, it just ignores them, which may or may not be the best idea (I have no opinion on it, to be honest), but I wonder if making the change would affect any markup that other WikiProjects use. Several WikiProjects use that code directly, so I'm a bit hesitant to make changes without knowing if I break things for anyone else. So, would adding extra classes break anything for any of you? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 03:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changing defaults for {{[[Template:WP1.0/assessments|WP1.0/assessments]]}} 

message: Would anyone object to me working on the neglected Portal:Rapid transit?--MrFishGo Fish 20:29, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks!  I will give it a shot.--MrFishGo Fish 15:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Decayed portal 

message: Copied from WT:1.0
I just thought i'd add a small note in that i noticed an anomaly in that there were capitalised and uncapitalised versions of many of the other classes except this one, so i created a redirect. Now it is possible to do class=FL and class=fl whch produces the same result. 
Simply south (talk) 15:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So, they are all case insensitive now? I suppose this simplifies things, although I prefer the capitalised versions myself; I find it contrary to good style to use lower-case letters for acronyms and initialisms. Waltham, The Duke of 16:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  fl 

message: At ,  :category:WikiProject Dance articles has :category:WikiProject Ballet articles as a subcategory. An editor at the Australian WikiProject has raised questions about this approach creating problems when he noticed that I had started putting :category:WikiProject Australian history articles as a subcategories of the relevant :Category:WikiProject History articles cats. See the question at Australian Noticeboard. Paul foord (talk) 12:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sub-categorisation of WikiProject article pages 

message: I've set up an RSS feed to filter only video-game related articles from the new pages feed. Maybe other WikiProject want to do the same. See: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games#New articles RSS feed. JACOPLANE • 2007-12-17 22:19
Please help writing article about multi-level internet marketing radio show keep getting deleted need help65.11.48.203 (talk) 23:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Filtering Special:Newpages 

message: Stunned as many of you might be by seeing this, I actually wrote something. It's just a few ideas regarding what I think might be the situation regarding WikiProjects in general, but if nothing else, it might provide a bit of a springboard for future discussion. It can be found at Wikipedia:The Problem with Projects. I know that it has serious problems, consider it was me who wrote it, but would welcome any comments anyway. John Carter (talk) 18:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I love your sense of humour, even if I disagree with almost everything you're saying there :D.  My first thought on the subject is "remember no one has to be here".  The essay I pay most attention to is WP:CREEP, with a few caveats - at no point should we ever be making it harder for Joe Smith to improve Wikipedia.  I can see where you're coming from - as a whole, WikiProjects would be more organised, more durable, and probably more effective if they were restricted along the lines you suggest, but that assumes that there still as many John Smiths willing to join them.  And if you restrict WikiProject in any way, you've meant that at least one John Smith can't contribute in the way he would have liked - by joining WikiProject Questionably Notable TV Program.  I am of the opinion that we should be more willing to blank (not remove, but blank) WikiProject banners from projects that have clearly flopped, to make inactive projects less messy, but as long as inactive projects don't keep sprawling over into other namespaces, I don't think that another collection of like-minded editors is ever a bad thing.  If they make just one co-ordinated edit to one article, it's better than nothing. Happy‑melon 21:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Remember, however, that allowances are specifically made for merger into larger projects. And, in a sense, by creating so many projects, with so many categories and templates and so on, we basically might already be making it harder for someone to edit. Certainly, inactive projects can and should be merged, if they've shown any degree of success, like the IROC project above. And, by allowing people to spend more time on the articles, and less on the project pages, we would be making it easier to edit. The one thing I am most interested in though is the potential basis for collaboration in the future. Clearly, at this point, there's virtually no chance of getting to many individuals collaborating on a single article of less than the greatest importance. Everybody's already got enough to do as is. But by maybe making "topical" rather than article collaborations, I think the chances of getting more cooperation on given articles would increase. John Carter (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly do anything that gives people more opportunity to work with articles, but in general, pre- or proscribing certain methods of collaboration is not something I would advocate.  Happy‑melon 21:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Essay, maybe proposal, I'm not sure, regarding WikiProjects 

message: If a proposed WikiProject is about a fictional series, they can propose it at WikiProject Fictional series/Task forces. That could help reduce the amount of proposals here. - LA @ 09:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In general, the original intent of the task force proposal process would be that such proposals would go directly to the parent project anyways.  Certainly, if there's a project willing to deal with all of these, that'd be great. Kirill 13:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Kirill...Since I am so involved with this proposal, it would be best if someone else did the porting. Also, if the Council would like these types of task force proposals to go right to [[Fictional series, a link to WikiProject Fictional series task force proposals could be added to the WikiProject Council's proposal page. That way the proposals don't have to be made twice. I hope that made sense. - LA @ 10:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal regarding fictional series WikiProject proposals 

message: These current proposals could be ported to the Fictional series WikiProject. - LA @ 09:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current proposals that could be ported 

message: There's a thread somewhere in the archives, and a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads. It's ridiculous what "friendly" competition can do to people when they have the opportunity to remove stubs from projects to boost their project over others on "wikiwork". --NE2 03:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Please help even though you have no idea what I'm talking about. --NE2 03:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

text: WikiProject U.S. Roads was poorly named, but everyone supports including city streets in its scope to properly reflect its name.  The state highway subprojects were properly named and have always had clearly defined scopes which exclude streets that are not state highways.  I honestly don't see what the confusion is. -- Kéiryn talk 03:27, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So why does California state highways have a county route task force? --NE2 10:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe because the earlier Wikipedia:WikiProject California County Routes became inactive and as turned into a task force. John Carter (talk) 14:14, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  U.S. road projects again trying to define scope narrowly for leaderboard games 

message: Am I correct in believing that every single project banner is plagiarised from some other project, and that there is no central meta-template for project banners? Happy‑melon 11:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually there is a central template in which other projects are adapted from. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide/WikiProject especially Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide/WikiProject#Initial setup, so in answer to your question, mainly no. Simply south (talk) 15:29, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmn, OK thanks for that.  I was trawling :Category:WikiProject banners for something to plagiarise for WP:DISCWORLD, and noticed that, while almost all the banners were nearly identical in practice, they were all hardcoded rather than instances of a meta-template.  As someone who works a lot in the template namespace, I immediately saw the potential for simplification and encapsulation, but I wanted to check that there wasn't already a poorly-utilised metatemplate floating around.  I think I will at some point attempt to create a useful metatemplate for WikiProject banners, as it would greatly simplify the organisation of existing banners (for instance, it would guarrantee that all project banners were nestable inside ), as well as making it much easier for new projects to develop their own banners without having to steal someone else's, and realise six months down the line that they forgot to change some wording and they've still got quotes from Template:WikiProject Ballet in some rarely-used corner of their own banner. When I've got something going, Council will be the first to know.  Happy‑melon 16:11, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at  and tell me what you think.  If no one can spot any hugely glaring bugs I'll convert a few small projects' banners over and see if anyone notices :D Happy‑melon 19:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good, except you might want to insert a few links in the "sentence" to the main project page and maybe open tasks, although many projects don't have those. I could probably help you find a few banners to convert in a few days, when I get done with what I'm doing now. John Carter (talk) 19:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, seems decent enough, at least for the banners that don't do anything too complex internally. Kirill 20:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, even with extra features, I prefer brief banners like that, with additional functions hidden with a hide/show button. There's still room to fit in a preview of rating, such as the class, with the show/hide containing detailed information. While it doesn't use any ratings, I quite like the banner I set up for WP:DIGI at Template:WikiProject DIGI. -- Ned Scott 03:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

text: OK, I've converted a handful of banners, including , which uses quality and importance assessment.  The latter flagged up a load of bugs, which I've now fixed.  Anyone see any others?  If not I'll convert a few more. Happy‑melon 18:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You know, if you wanted to, there are a number of project banners which don't have assessment parameters yet. A lot of them can be found on the various pages of the new directory I'm gradually making, at User:John Carter/Directory and its subpages, regarding the projects that don't yet have assessments. It would involve possibly creation of some of the categories for assessment too, but if you were to ask them whether they wanted assessments, change the banner if they do, and then tell me which you've set up for assessments, I could do so. John Carter (talk) 22:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's funny: I was thinking of this today. Why don't we create a "meta-banner" template that allows any project to create its own customized banner without having to rip off another project's or muck around with all the various arcane codes? It would make like quite a bit easier: for example, WP:BEER wants to use the meta-template, all it would need to do is create a new template, say . This would contain text along the lines of  (and probably a couple of other arguments I'm not considering as well). Not only would it be very straightforward to create, but it would standardize the banners and quality/importance implementation. – ClockworkSoul 16:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, you mean like  User:Happy-melon created above, right ;) ? John Carter (talk) 17:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Doh, how embarassing! Well, gee. I guess that'll teach me to skip the body of the conversation in all my giddy glee, thinking I have something original to say! Seriously, for a second I was like a kid at Christmas. Thank for telling me Santa isn't real. ;) – ClockworkSoul 17:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject banners