Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Water

message: :::: Just to share my views. I'm fully with the above proposal. Just a quick question to Ajpolino, User:Qzekrom, and whoever is leading the merge, is it possible to update the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Water (this page) instead, while marking the other two historical? There is barely a visible difference, other than that we would then continue to use the original project (created 14 June 2005), rather than a spinoff (if you want to call it). It's just for historical purposes. If it's too much trouble, then you may let it go, but I just want to know if you're willing to take that route instead? Thank you for your help. Rehman 09:05, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's certainly not too much work. I have no strong feeling on which project should be left standing. None of them are particularly active (I think when I had looked earlier, none of the talk pages have ever needed archiving? Could be misremembering). I think the rationale for Sanitation as the home of the merged project was that it is currently somewhat more active than the others (thanks largely to EMsmile's efforts I believe). That said, whatever makes folks happy is fine with me. Anyone else have a problem with having this page be the final one (we would just move the project page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Sanitation and water and update it from there. The other two would be marked historical)? Ajpolino (talk) 22:31, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks Ajpolino, having the oldest page standing seems like a sensible way to go and is what I support in this case, considering that all 3 are similarly inactive. Any needed changes could be made over that. Rehman 01:25, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  oppose. I strongly oppose using WikiProject Water as the base (which only User:Rehman is pushing for strongly at this point). Like I said above it makes more sense to use WikiProject Sanitation as the base. Just for "historical" reasons is not a good argument for favoring WikiProject Water in my opinion. Also I disagree that "all projects are similarly inactive". The WikiProject Sanitation is far more active than WikiProject Water (thanks mostly to me, but still). We haven't heard from any of the members of WikiProject Water, have we? Also there are at least two tools that we set up for WikiProject Sanitation and that work but don't have for WikiProject Water (namely this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation/Popular_pages and also this one: https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Sanitation&namespace=&pagename=&quality=&importance=&score=&limit=250&offset=1&sorta=Importance&sortb=Quality ). Let's not create more work than necessary just for "historical" reasons. Furthermore, keep in mind that the WikiProject Water was already renamed 3 times in the past. So it is obviously "ill fated". The WikiProject Sanitation has never been renamed and was better thought out from the start (I think). It is also included in the offline version of WikiProject Medicine (see here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med/App). This is another sign that WikiProject Sanitation is the more important one at the moment and this should be recognised by making it the base of the merger. EMsmile (talk) 02:47, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Um, could you please elaborate as to why you oppose this other than because of the project being "ill fated"? It was created in 2005 - much earlier than the others; there would obviously be more history in that. The is no additional work as you claim, as one of them needs to be moved anyway. At the end of the day, you still get exactly what you wanted. Like I said, the action does not have a visible result. Rehman 02:57, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I gave several reasons above. Like I said above, the fact that at least two of the tools not working for "WikiProject Water" is important as it will create extra work for someone to make them work. Why waste that person's time. I call it ill-fated because like someone said above the project started as "water purification" then was changed to "water supply and sanitation" then "water". That last move was perhaps the silliest one as "water" is so broad and it would overlap with all the other water wiki projects (hence the long list of hatnotes what this project is NOT about). You really wonder what this project WAS meant to be about exactly (the goal description is completely warped in my opinion). It is also ill-fated because all its original members seem to have gone silent, or have you seen any of them write here? Actually, looking at that short list under "sign me up" I see one user name that I recognise. I wonder if he/she has been following this discussion. If not, let me ping User:Thewellman. Your only reason for wanting WikiProject Water to be the base of the merger is that it's older. How does that make it more important? And I think it IS important which one the base is, as it makes a difference for the amount of work involved (like getting those above mentioned tools to work) and merging the project descriptions into one. - Anyhow, none of the history from 2005 onwards would get lost, as probably all the talk pages would also be merged, right? EMsmile (talk) 15:32, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you for soliciting my opinion.  I favor a broader focus on water; but there seem to be few others who share my view, and even fewer actively involved with the project, so I suggest conforming to the preferences of more actively involved editors is the best way of encouraging continuing effort from those editors. I'm uncertain what will be gained by merging these projects, and I see nothing to be gained by expanding project scope beyond the interest of active project members. Thewellman (talk) 21:24, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which project should be the base of the merger? 

message: Further to what I just wrote before, I have now gone through the letter A and removed tags from articles where they no longer fit under the new definition of the WikiProject Water. Take a look at my user contributions and you'll see where I have removed them. We have agreed that articles on water resources do not belong with WikiProject Water anymore, right? Check here to see if those that now remain under A are correct: :Category:WikiProject Water articles. If folks agree with my approach then I will continue through the alphabet. By the way, Ajpolino, I don't understand why I couldn't use this tool as well?: wmflabs tool. If I put in WikiProject Water then nothing comes up. Is it because it's been renamed a few times? It works for WikiProject Sanitation.EMsmile (talk) 02:39, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: LGTM. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 04:03, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  You can't use the tool for WikiProject Water because it's not in the list of participating projects. I'm not sure how to add a project to the tool, though I suspect the answer is somewhere in this guide? As for where we draw the line on reservoirs, water regions, and other things only peripherally associated with the drinking water supply, I have no strong opinion. Thanks for taking the time to go through those articles. Ajpolino (talk) 06:00, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have removed some more tags, I am now up to the letter E. You can see here what I removed today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist?hidepreviousrevisions=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1&limit=250&days=30&damaging__likelybad_color=c4&damaging__verylikelybad_color=c5&urlversion=2  But it's rather tricky. My approach is that all reservoirs and canals stay in. When it comes to lakes, I am thinking if the lake doubles up as a reservoir for drinking water supply then it should keep the tag. If it just a natural water body then not (?). How about rivers? I have removed articles about particular waterfalls and also "Blizzard". I am undecided about the water resources type topics and the hydrology type topics. Ultimately it's all part of the water cycle so everything is related to drinking water supply in one way or another but I thought we had narrowed down the scope of this project so it's no longer about all water topics. Please correct me if I am wrong. EMsmile (talk) 15:57, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am slowly and carefully continuing with this task and am now up to the letter H (see here). I am leaving all the iffy ones and only removing the clear-cut ones. So I have left the water resources pages tagged for now. EMsmile (talk) 13:16, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have finished with tidying up the tags now. There are 538 articles remaining that are tagged with WikiProject Water (see here). EMsmile (talk) 03:53, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tidying up the tags 

message: Hi all, I noticed that  tags were removed fAlaska water resource region and  Arkansas–White–Red water resource region,  due to the project scope change. Water resource regions are hydrological mapping datasets produced by USGS. To the best of my understanding, this data is used for a variety of water use planning purposes, santitation among them (see here and here. Does the new project see itself as covering this mission statement
to improve understanding of the underlying significance of water to geography and resulting distribution of life (in addition to the two others discussed above)? If so, I would think this project still covers water resource regions, but regardless, I'm definitely interested in a succinct presentation of the new, merged project's scope. -Furicorn (talk) 07:23, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not an expert on water use, but I think it's useful to keep these articles in scope, even if they should be also part of a "WikiProject Hydrology" or . Qzekrom 💬 theythem 03:17, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Qzekrom what do you mean by "to keep these articles in scope"? And in answer to Furicorn above, no the new project would not be there to improve understanding of the underlying significance of water to geography and resulting distribution of life; it is more narrow than that, which I thought we had agreed on above. It's basically about water supply and use.EMsmile (talk) 15:35, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is there any objection to holding off on reverting the wikiproject taggings until a succinct mission statement is created? It seems like there might still be some clarification needed for everyone to get to consensus. I have a slight argument that water has to come from somewhere, an,d at least in the US, and these maps are part of that system of figuring out water supply, however at the end of the day I'm perfectly happy with whatever consensus you all come to. -Furicorn (talk) 21:26, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusion around new scope of Wikiproject 

message: You can now use  to link to a WikiProject page. For example, use  to link to WikiProject Water. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 03:28, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand when I'd use that? There was already a shortcut, like this one WP:SANI. Isn't it the same thing? EMsmile (talk) 15:59, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, I often feel like writing out the full name of a WikiProject. Qzekrom 💬 theythem 18:14, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  FYI: New template 

message: It seems that a merger has stalled. I am new here and I looked around. Here are the pros and cons of merging that I see:
* In favor of merging
** There are multiple engaged communities with some highly active editors developing content on sanitation and water. Most WikiProjects have low activity, and these WikiProjects have relatively high activity.
** New people are coming to these projects, which are for popular topics
** These WikiProjects have a lot of overlap in the articles they tag
** WikiProject Water especially could use the clarity, because it is a project more closely related to sanitation than to geography of water (WP:WikiProject Rivers, oceans, lakes, etc) or (WP:WikiProject Meteorology, or WP:WikiProject Water Sports. I might be in favor of the page for "WikiProject Water" being a directory to these various other WikiProjects since there are so many.
* Against merging
** There is little harm in waiting and letting the current WikiProjects develop as they are
** The more time and engagement that passes, the clearer it will become how a merge should look, if we merge at all.
** The current consensus is not solid. Doing a merge is easy but undoing is a lot of work. We should be sure before doing a merge.
** There is a March 2019 request for a vision statement about the scope
** "Sanitation" includes things like chemical cleaners and might include things like environmental toxicity. WikiProject Water has less of these articles in its currently tagged articles and the sanitation projects have more of these things.
I wish I knew how to manage data better to be able to compare the overlap in WikiProject Water's 915 articles versus WikiProject Sanitation's 750 articles. I think that all the Wikipedia:WikiProject Water supply and sanitation by country articles are merged into water, but that wikiproject could probably be converted to a flagship project of a final merged WikiProject. It seems like an amazing effort.
Going forward
#useful regardless of merge
##Draft a 1-3 sentence vision?
##Compile a list of current projects, like "Water supply and sanitation by country"
#useful only if planning a merge
##draft the merge plan?
##call everyone back for a vote to adopt the vision and implement the merge?
I am not in a hurry but I think it would be nice to be able to show newcomers a single clean project page if we are all in agreement about this.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:58, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi , I'm not a content editor in this area, so I don't have much sense of where the active communities of editors in this topic are or prefer to organize. That said, if a merge is uncontroversial, I'm happy to help out with the nuts-and-bolts of it. Thanks for bringing this back up! Ajpolino (talk) 21:03, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just glanced over the discussion we had a year ago. Did we reach a conclusion of the title of the merged project, and which project would be the "base" that the others would be merged into? I am happy for WikiProject Sanitation to be the base, get a new name and then have the other projects merged into that (like I said in the earlier discussion). By the way, the link where we could see which projects are tagged with WikiProject Water that I had used above seems to no longer work? Oh wait, I can see there is now a new link: https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Water  Again, we would probably have to untag some of the articles once we have agreed on the new scope of the merged project. EMsmile (talk) 02:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  2020 discussion 

message: Arlo James Barnes 15:43, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  2022 discussion 

message: Water supply and sanitation in Colombia has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm  Talk 20:06, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good article reassessment for [[Water supply and sanitation in Colombia]] 

message: I came across the article Depth filter which looks like it is relevant to this project. It was a bit of a referencing mess, which I think I have now cleaned up. Perhaps someone here can comment/edit the content, as that is beyond my expertise. Is it trivial, or viable? Should it be part of this project? And similar questions. Ldm1954 (talk) 22:39, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments or edits for [[Depth filter]] 

message: I have created a page for the One Water movement and management approach. We could link this to many articles, but as a named movement since 2017, I think this One Water movement deserves its own page. Please comment. Thank you. LoveElectronicLiterature (talk) 23:58, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: As written, this article may be criticized for tone perceived as promotion.  There are also numerous problems associated with formatting external links. Thewellman (talk) 00:16, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  One Water and Integrated Water Management 

message: Water supply and sanitation in the United States has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm  Talk 02:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good article reassessment for [[Water supply and sanitation in the United States]]