Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 06:48, 23 February 2010

Template:WikiProject Council Navigation

Archives

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

• WT:COUNCIL

Proposed change to tagging Disambiguation pages for projects

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Conclusion: Projects can tag what they want, how they want, for whatever reason they want, as long as they have internal consensus. Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I propose the following:

"The only WikiProjects that may tag a disambiguation page are the Disambiguation Project and Projects that cover all entries in the Disambiguation page (for example, the Anthroponymy project if it's a surname disambiguation) or the explicity defined primary topic of the disambiguation page (for example, the cheese WikiProject on the cheese disambiguation)"

My reasoning: It is blatently unfair for a project that has only one or two lines of a disambiguation to tag it for its project, and could lead to POV issues in the discussions.

Thoughts? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 01:30, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Strongest possible oppose. If projects wants to tag a dab page, let them tag it. If other projects want to tag it, they can. There's nothing unfair in that. Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:37, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It's been my experience that a) not all projects who have links will bother to tag their projects for it (in fact, very few do); and b) people who follow projects that have tagged disambig pages often have undue influence over said disambig page (Especially if the project has also tagged it for importance; which is 10x more ridiculous). Plus, there's no real reason they need to be tagged. Would you tag Force (disambiguation) for Proj Phys? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 01:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Assuming there are good reasons to. Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this proposal. Projects have absolute authority over their scope. If they want to be named as a place for editors to seek help with a dab page, then we will let them.

However, that's the beginning and end of their authority. WikiProjects do not own articles. A "member" editor has no more rights than, or any authority over, "non-member" editors. I suggest that you read the Guide. If a project is throwing its weight around, please request help here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:48, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

How is a disambiguation page in somebody's scope except disambiguation? That makes absolute no sense Purplebackpack89 (talk) 05:04, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, you're entitled to your opinion, certainly. Two points:

• Projects traditionally enjoy complete autonomy as far as determining their own scope. If a project thinks disambiguation pages are of interest to it—and, to be fair, most don't really bother with them—then there's no harm in letting the project track those pages as it wishes.
• It's generally considered polite, when starting such a discussion as this one, to inform everyone of prior discussion on the matter.

Kirill  05:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe there is harm. The point is, it ain't fair to the projects that don't do it that some do. The Lincoln discussion is an example of this. For the past few months, users affliated with and sympathetic to WikiProject Lincolnshire (nd for that matter, the discussion you cited) were contributing at a much higher level than users at any other WikiProject--at a time when the project was tagged as high importance by said project (the only instance i've EVER seen of a project tagging a disambig page for importance). Honestly, it was tagged just to place influence on the page. It is my belief that continuing leads to POV inbalance, and that all disambiguation pages shouldn't be tagged by projects only interested in one line. All 50-100 lines in a project, sure, go ahead. One line--no way. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 05:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

If members of a particular project are attempting to unduly slant the content of a page, then that's a problem that needs to be dealt with through the normal dispute resolution process; it has little to do with the procedural practice of tagging talk pages. Prohibiting tags will do nothing to prevent a project from participating in discussion (since simply leaving a message on the project talk page will attract far more attention than any sort of tagging); and the overwhelming majority of tagging is done for reasons completely unrelated to any discussion taking place on the particular page being tagged.

You may have run into a real problem, in other words; but the approach you're proposing won't actually solve it. Kirill  06:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Strong Oppose Purplebackpack89, Why? You have alread been told on the said Lincoln page that WikiProjects may add and rate Disabig pages as they please and how can you possibly make an assumtion about why another editor did something and what another editor did. I have just contacted User:BSTemple who tagged the article and asked him for his reasoning. Lincoln (Lincolnshire) is an important article to us, one of the most important in fact, and therefore so is the Disambig page. 95jb14 (talk) 19:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC), founder of WP Latin, a member of WP:Lincolnshire.

Strong Oppose tagging by a project is a means of placing the article on the projects watchlist and as such allows project members to watch the activity on the page. There should be no restrictions on what pages a project tags it is up to the project members to decide on the relevance of a particular page to their project and which pages they consider necessary to keep an eye on. The more people watching a page reduces the amount of undetected vandalism and reduces the time vandalism is present on the page. Keith D (talk) 20:30, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Strong Oppose - Purplebackpack89 is trying to bring this matter up anywhere and everywhere now, its getting rather annoying. It is up to the WikiProject which pages they wish to include in their scope. Jeni 22:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Strong Oppose The reason I tagged the article was obvious as the name Lincoln originated in our county and gave its name to the county, hence Lincolnshire. All other names around the world in what ever form, be it place names, surnames, car names etc all come from Lincoln in Lincolnshire. Simply put, if there was no Lincoln here in Lincolnshire, then all the other names would not exist. It was the Romans who gave it the name. I see that it is Purplebackpack89 once more who is obsessed in controlling this Disabig page, and I fear lacks the spirit of what the Misplaced Pages is all about. The Misplaced Pages is global, not just American, and you will find that people, countries and cultures existed before America was born. --BSTemple (talk) 19:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, so people who don't agree with you automatically have an American bias? Where do I indicate any sort of American bias? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Surely the continued hard-headed persistence that Lincoln MUST redirect to Abraham Lincoln might have tipped 'em off? –xeno 21:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I support that because I believe that there is much more clue for Abraham Lincoln Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

You point to Cluocracy. "That means that disputes generally are, and should be, resolved in favor of whoever has the best reasoning – not in terms of rhetoric but in terms of his or her understanding of the established policies of Misplaced Pages and of knowing what works and what doesn't." Note the established policies of Misplaced Pages. Please see Misplaced Pages:Five pillars and look at pillars 1, 2 and 4. --BSTemple (talk) 21:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose and also refute the straw man argument that a project tag would lend some weight to a discussion. It doesn't. See Talk:Lincoln#Removal_of_project_designation for the lengthy discussion that preceded this. –xeno 19:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Not getting involved as such; but viewing Talk:Lincoln#Removal of project designation shows that it is indeed extremely lengthy (and there's more in the ANI archives too). To my mind, there were/are many editors involved: and dipping in at random could give an unfair feeling of who supports what. Has anybody determined how many side with Purplebackpack vs. those against? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

  I don't recall seeing anyone at all who agreed with Purple's position (that the project should be prohibited from having their banner there). There was one user who questioned whether the disambig should be rated high-importance but they seemed to concede that it was ultimately up to the wikiproject. –xeno 20:31, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

These are the raw stats I have accumulated from both discussions on WP tagging: Strongest Possible Oppose: 1, Strong Oppose: 4, Oppose: 2, Support: 2, Neutral: 1. Basically: For = 2, Against = 7 and Neutral = 1. 95jb14 (talk) 20:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC).

Mmm. Fewer opposes than I thought. Can't invoke WP:SNOW then. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:58, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose — I oppose this proposed prescription on what Project tag(s) can go on a talk page. I see enough ownership squabbles as it is; I don't need to see more, thanks. --Una Smith (talk) 06:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Directory cleanup

I've been working on cleaning up the listings in the project directory. A lot has been done, but it still needs work. Would anyone be interested in helping out?
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 06:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll try to help out when I have time, is there any particular logic you're using to go through and update the pages? In the long run I think this is something that would be better handled via an on wiki bot, I think Clockworksoul's Igor is a step in that direction, but it looks like the last mediawiki update might have caused some issues. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Mainly for now I was trying to clean up incorrectly-linked secondary listings ("redirects" as I call them). I've come across plenty of circular linkages in the process, but most are just pointing to old page names of the correct categories.
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 03:54, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you just working from top to bottom (Misplaced Pages's contents systems to Misplaced Pages maintenance), and where are you at now? Just want to make sure we don't work on top of each other. -Optigan13 (talk) 03:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Lol uhhhh... up 'til now, no. Don't remember how I got started, but so far I've done Culture, Culture/Language and literature, Culture/Philosophy and religion, Geographical, Geo./Africa, Geo./Asia, History and society, Science, and Misplaced Pages.
Keep in mind that all I've done is to correct red links in secondary listings only. I didn't check the ones that were already blue, not did I mess with red links in other fields.
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 04:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Well I've started by merging all those individual contents systems listing into the[REDACTED] page. I'll try to continue to work through the[REDACTED] page and work my way up, but I might jump over to Geo/Americas. I've tagged some projects as inactive and will see how that goes, I think the number of truly inactive projects is underrepresented. I'll try to do some other general fixes but I'm trying to look at the inactivity as well as the Root category and the namespaces to get a sense if the structure of the directories needs adjustment. -Optigan13 (talk) 08:41, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

That's the stuff!
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 15:40, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I've made a first pass on the Misplaced Pages section. As I figured there are several inactive projects that I've updated. I'm going to go through the Americas project pages tonight to see how many are inactive there, and after a few days have passed update their directory listings. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for doing so much work! I would be doing more, but I just don't have time for it.
-Garrett W. {☎ ✍} 05:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs are about to be deleted faster. Is your wikiproject monitoring them?

Any Wikiproject that is not identifying unreferenced BLPs, may find them deleted in upcoming months, creating more work for project members.

A recent ArbCom motion supported admins who were beginning to delete large numbers of unreferenced BLPs. In response, the community has taken up proposals for dealing with the potential libel problems with unreferenced BLPs at this page: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people.

It seems to be fairly easy for any Wikiproject to monitor BLPs that have been prodded for deletion, since (I'm told) this can be done with WP:AALERTS and the User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings bot (which produces, for instance, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Arkansas/Cleanup listing). Even individual editors can work with this . -- JohnWBarber (talk) 04:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC) i want to edit

Any editor can easily use AutoWikiBrowser's list comparer to generate a list like this one I have done for the New Jersey project. If you just save the list as text with wiki markup and copy and paste to a project page, you don't need to use AWB to do the edit, and do not need to be approved for editing with the tool. I did it this way because WPNJ doesn't currently use a bot to tag all the articles in our categories, and I wanted to cast a wide net. Jim Miller 04:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Animals

I have requested that all Projects that are under the scope of WikiProject Animals register their Active status here I will update the Council Directory listing after all project status's have been confirmed. This may be an idea that could be suggested system wide that all projects confirm there status to ensure we have the most up to date information avaliable not only to other WikiProjects but to editors that are looking for a Project to join. In an unrelated matter, has there ever been a suggestion of a formal council project that overseas all the WikiProjects, such as a formal list of members that is comprised of WikiProject Coordinators that decide on matters related to WikiProjects and assists with conflict resolution, very similiar to ArbCom except exclusively for the WikiProjects. Regards ZooPro 09:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I think updating the pages is a great idea. thanks zoopro. Not too sure on coordination yet but there are cross-biology issues that's for sure. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC).

I find ZooPro's actions questionable for several reasons:

1: He has been going around templating a lot of animal related projects. Here's an example: Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Fishes#Important WikiProject Notice.

2: He has not discussed this before going ahead. I can't find any discussion about this over at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Animals. And his above message was put here after templating the projects. Had he discussed this he could have avoided several mistakes.

3: We already have the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science. It is better to ask the WikiProjects to update that listing, instead of creating a duplicate in the form of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Animals/Directory.

4: ZooPro's duplicate list lacks explanation what it is and what the different columns mean and what should be put in them. While the central list has such explanations. When I pointed that out his answer boiled down to "if you're to stupid to understand that then it is your problem". Or at least that is how I understand his answer.

5: ZooPro's duplicate list doesn't link to and doesn't even mention the existence of the central list.

6: Using a box to communicate with the WikiProjects is bound to cause negative reactions, since we usually associate boxes with warnings and top of page notices, not messages. So please use a simple text message, not a box, when communicating with the WikiProjects.

7: A minor thing: The template he uses is of the wrong type, it should not be an {{ambox}}, it should be a brown {{tmbox}} since it is used on talk pages.

8: His answer to questions about this on his talk page mostly boils down to "this is a simple administrative action that has no need or usage to be discussed" which to me sounds like "I have decided this so now you guys must jump through hoops for me".

9: He clearly has stated that if we don't jump through hoops for him he will add a template at the top of the WikiProjects' main pages marking them as "inactive". That can be interpreted as a threat.

10: For projects with wider scope like WikiProject Animals (or rather editors from those projects) to behave like they rule over more specialised projects like WikiProject Fishes always is very provocative. I see this all the time, like people from WikiProject Mathematics every now and then come to WikiProject Cryptography and tries to boss around. (Which gets especially silly since maths is just a very small part of what cryptography is about.) The WikiProjects are not hierarchies, they are separate workgroups with very different needs and often different ways to do things.

I might sound irritated, and I am, since all the points above together is a pretty irritating total. I hope ZooPro and others might learn from this so these mistakes aren't repeated to often.

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

David, I think you're overreacting.

ZooPro has requested a response: Who cares? Projects are free to respond, or to ignore the request. There's no rule that says you have to do anything about his request.

ZooPro has "threatened" to mark non-responsive projects {{inactive}}: So what? Projects can revert the tag, or replace it with {{semi-active}}, if that seems appropriate to them. Inactive projects are supposed to be tagged out; the template page even provides a standardized, zero-notice recommendation for identifying inactive projects.

If you really understood that it is absolutely impossible for any editor to force a group of volunteers to do anything on Misplaced Pages, I think you'd find this sort of behavior much less threatening. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't feel threatened, I meant that ZooPro's behaviour is highly irritating and detrimental. What I meant with point 9 above is that he tries to threaten the WikiProjects to obey his orders, which really isn't threatening but just very irritating and ridiculous. That he more or less calls us stupid when we ask how that list works is very rude, and thus again very irritating. He tries to force people to do as he wishes, but as you stated and I already knew, you can't force Wikipedians. Misplaced Pages is run on consensus, not on orders from single editors. Sure, we should be bold in editing, but it isn't bold to try to boss other users around. So all he achieves is irritation which will instead decrease the possibility of fruitful cooperation. He is a bad representative for "his" WikiProject. He claims that he represents WikiProject Animals in these things, in spite that it has not been discussed at all in that project. He hasn't even announced these things there so his fellow project members are probably not even aware of this.

Note that I am not objecting to that ZooPro wants to collect status information from different WikiProjects, I am objecting to the way he is doing it.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I would agree David you are overreacting and have done nothing but question me as an editor as opposed to my actions to better help the wikiproject. My reasons for creating the list within the WikiProject Animals area was so it was centralized and editors didnt have to patrol throught the directory looking for thier project. It was and is my intention to after some period of time move the updated information into the database as stated. I fail to see why i would need to discuss asking projects if they are active. It would be like two paramedics discussing wether to check if someone has a pulse. In all aspects i find you to be a rather rude. How dare you claim i used words such as if you're to stupid to understand that then it is your problem,and were have i threatened anyone????????? For something as simple as assessing if a project is active or not, you sure are making a BIG deal out of nothing. This is more of a personal attack on myself rather then a discussion on the status of projects. I would direct you to WP:BB however i assume you will ignore that. I have made no mistakes to learn from. You yourself are making this a WikiProject wide problem by announcing it on all the project pages. Furthe more reading you point, clearly you didnt read my original notice did you???? NO clearly not as it does mention the WikiProject Council directory. I find your behavior very offensive and it is doing nothing but harm your wikiproject, i will assume then that you are acting on behalf of WikiProject Fishes ???. ZooPro 02:07, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Furthemore out of the large amount of editors that responded you are the ONLY ONE who has a problem. Some seeked clarification and it was given they accepted it. You are the only editor out of every editor that noticed the "Notice" to have a problem, seems like consensus is against you. I do nothing but attempt to help the WikiProjects that are related to WikiProject Animals and for you to say otherwise is insulting. ZooPro 02:13, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

David, I think you misunderstood ZooPro's actions. ZooPro wanted to get an idea of what projects under WikiProject Animals' scope were still active. Therefore, he created a page for that and sent a notice to all the related WikiProjects. What is he asking them to do? To all merge with WikiProject Animals? To delete all their pages? To all file a monthly report with him? No, he is just requesting that the projects show whether they are active or not. What is he "threatening" to do? Yes, he'll tag them as inactive if they don't respond within a week. From my experience (limited as it is :) ), active members of a project would be happy to show that they are alive and editing well. But, say the message goes unnoticed for a week. So, ZooPro tags the project as inactive. What will happen? Nothing, really, except people knowing no one works on it. If, however, people are active, they will just take off the template and in the process, show that the project is still active. Doesn't that accomplish the original purpose? He isn't making any arbitrary changes to projects, he is just getting a view of the projects under Animals. I am sure that ZooPro was not intending to usurp the purposes of the larger directory. Cheers, The Arbiter_★ 02:36, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

David you are not even listed as a participant/member of WikiProject Fishes, I was under the assumption you actually took part in WikiProject Fishes and were concerned for your project, clearly not now i am convinced this is a personal attack. ZooPro 02:45, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

You guys haven't understood a thing I have said. As I wrote over at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Animals#Templating related WikiProjects: "User ZooPro is trying to collect status information from related WikiProjects. That might be a good idea, but he is doing it in a bad way." So what I am reacting against is not what he is doing, but how he does it.

Over at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Fishes#Important WikiProject Notice he claims that "the Message comes from WikiProjects Animals", but he had not discussed it and not even announced it over at WikiProject Animals. If you go around doing things in the name of a project, then the least you can do is to mention on the project's talk page what you are doing so other participants in the project knows what is going on and can comment or even help out if they want. When I announced it for him over at WikiProject Animals he responded here with "You ... are making this a WikiProject wide problem by announcing it on all the project pages". It seems ZooPro thinks it is a bad thing to inform his fellow project participants of what is going on. But remember, Misplaced Pages is about cooperation, not about single editors like ZooPro ruling over other editors.

His way of handling all this (including small things like using terms as "parent project") shows that he thinks that WikiProject Animals rules over the related projects such as WikiProject Fishes. But that's wrong, no WikiProject rules over another WikiProject. And a single user certainly doesn't rule over other WikiProjects, and also not over the WikiProject where he happens to be a participant.

And by the way, I am not a member of any of these WikiProjects, I just happened to have WikiProject Fishes on my watchlist since I had been doing work on the fish disambig box. We who work with disambig boxes want to add that box to the list of recommended disambig boxes, so I went to WikiProject Fishes asking them for input about that. I prefer to announce things and ask people that it concerns before I take larger actions. Even if those actions seem uncontroversial and straightforward. Surprisingly often some other user then comes with ideas for improvements or even suggests a whole other way to do it that is better. So announcing first often pays of well. ZooPro: That is something you should learn too.

So ZooPro, what you need to learn from this is these things:

• You don't rule over others.
• When you do things in the name of a project, then announce it on the project's talkpage.
• When people ask what the things you are doing means, then don't ridicule them.

Again, Misplaced Pages is about cooperation, as in people working together and listening to each other, not as in "obey or else". Misplaced Pages is not about single editors ruling over other editors.

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

You have still failed to explain to me with any comprehension how you have come to the conclusion that i am ruling over the wikiprojects, I would caution you not to claim that you know how i think as you have above. I am well aware no project rules over any other and have made no claim as such, yes i did state that you made this a wikiproject wide problem because you decided to comment on a number of talk pages and ensured that the disussion was broken and only your POV was seen. I would also ask that you provide some sort of source's for you point of claiming i ridicule editors? I think i explained the situation rather well on my talk page, 1 editor understood my logic, you were the only editor who has so far failed in that aspect. Why would i discuss an action that has been done countless times in the past by many projects. WP:BB would come into play here though anyway. You still have not explained what "In a bad way" means, your comments have done nothing but attack me and my contributions. You have not given any examples and you have not provided a "solution" (not that i believe a problem even exists). What i think is a Bad thing is you dragging my name through the mud for no good reason, your only reason so far is because you believe you are correct (in that same thought does that mean everyone who had no problem with my actions is wrong?). You dont seem to be making sense, no one else in the project/s seems to have a problem except you so does that not show i took the correct action?, Perhaps my only error is not using the correct talk page template a rather trivial issue at best. Sad to think that something so simple has turned into what can only be described as a circus. In future would you like me to post to the talk page every one of my intended actions to better the project? Every time i assess an article should it be discussed on the talk page even if i only intended to rate it a stub?, Every time i edit a WikiProject Animals tagged article should i discuss it on the talk page? This is what you are asking is it not?, it is nothing more and nothing less then red tape gone mad. I have not once attacked you and i am proud of this, however your repeated attempts to make me comform to your standards by telling me what i need to do and learn is once again insulting, I work very well as a team member on the WikiProjects if you had cared to take a look at my contributions or talk page archive you would see this, in fact if you had cared to ask me you would know this. I will not change how i edit and contribute as it has worked well so far and i foresee no genuine reason to change. ZooPro 11:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps this is what you want then??? Even though the coordinators have done that action many many times in the past without discussion and no one has ever had a problem?? Is this really what it has come too? Every action i make on the project should be discussed in detail?? If this is the case then why would anyone want to join a project less rubbish to go through as a freelance editor?? This is ultimatly what you are asking. ZooPro 12:12, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Guys? This isn't helping anything. It would probably be a good idea to take a breath, accept some wires got crossed and move on. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:43, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think that ZooPro thinks that he can rule over others. He is the coordinator of several wikiprojects, including mammals, and does everything in good faith. If he really thought he ruled over others, he wouldn't have let me co-coordinate WikiProjects Zoo and Mammals with him. Secondly, about ZooPro not saying anything on the Animals talk page, ok, so maybe he should have. But he obviously is not trying to sneak something by the Animals project without anyone knowing it...he just didn't think to announce it. So, just a minor mistake...easily correctable, and absolutely no harm done anywhere. (Really, I don't see how ZooPro's actions harmed anything.) Finally, ZooPro didn't "ridicule" you. You are kind of making a big deal out of a little matter. And, I'm not sure where ZooPro said "obey, or else". So, in conclusion, please, David, you've made your point, and there isn't really anything else to say. ZooPro didn't harm anyone, so it really isn't a big deal. The Arbiter_★ 01:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I will take Sabine's Sunbird and The Arbiters advice and leave it at that. There is far more important things to be concerned with i am rather annoyed at myself that i spent so much time on this anyway. ZooPro 02:08, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject renaming

I found Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Durham NC - which was a WikiProject about one city in North Carolina. I didn't see this as a feasible goal alone, so I proposed changing the scope here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Durham_NC#Scope - I stated that I would change the scope myself if I found no activity in seven days. Over seven days passed with no reply, so I altered the project page and reset the scope. With no activity present, I believe there are no objections with my decision. Now, I would like to rename the project page to the "Raleigh-Durham WikiProject" - How do I do this? WhisperToMe (talk) 06:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

First off I'd ping WP:WikiProject North Carolina to see what they think. I think a good chunk of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces#Converting existing_projects to task forces is fairly applicable to this. -Optigan13 (talk) 20:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Since the Durham/Raleigh/Cary area is entirely in North Carolina, the task force idea is a possibility. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to tag the project as {{inactive}}, given that there was exactly one talk page messages during 2009, and not care about what the nominal scope is.

Given that there are comments (ever) from only five editors, only one of whom is still active, it might be more appropriate to take it to TFD rather than proposing a task force merge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I was actually pointing at the task force conversion checklist as the steps for moving a project's name would be very similar. I'm going to have a look at the various Americas projects tonight to see what the general activity level is. I agree an MFD might be better at this point for this project. Regional projects suffer especially hard from people who sign up based on having lived there, etc. only to have very limited project participation. In general I think we should move to strong centralized projects with broad scopes and larger pools of participants. -Optigan13 (talk) 04:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I also believe that regional projects need to be encouraged to cover their entire metropolitan areas to increase catchment and viability. For instance the Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia etc projects cover their entire metropolitan areas. That means the Chicago one, for instance, also covers Gary, Indiana, Aurora, Illinois, etc. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't necessarily talking about simply city based projects to broaden to regional projects, but more of a general large projects. I'm working through the Americas page of the project directory, and a lot of what I see is uneven activity of state level projects, and thinking that moving to a system of a centralized US project with 50 + DC + Puerto Rico task forces, etc might be an effective system. I'm not planning to try to implement this any time soon, but I think evaluating the effectiveness of something like that versus the current setup is worth considering. In the meantime I think developing effective tools/bots for projects, cleaning up the directory, updating and making sure the guide is comprehensive, and other tasks would be useful for projects regardless of size will help for now. -Optigan13 (talk) 21:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It's understandable that different states have different participation levels since they are of uneven sizes, uneven demographics, and of differing population levels. I would imagine that the project of California would have more participation than, say, Wyoming.

If one wants to make each state a task force, then how would one deal with the metropolitan area projects, especially the really popular ones? What about state projects that have high participation levels?

I think the reason why the US articles have so many projects is because of the high activity regarding US articles. The U.S. federal Government itself has its own wikiproject. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure on what would happen to the metro task forces, either trying to get people to agree to move up and group together more, or to leave them be and have an odd gap. I'm also speaking not just about the regional US projects, but also things like merging WP:WikiProject Illustration into Images and Media, the Caribbean nation projects into one, and other ways to pool a decreasing or limited number of participants together to form effective projects. Right now I don't think large projects are feasible without a plan on what people want to get out of projects and tools to automate maintenance. -Optigan13 (talk) 01:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I am going to propose making Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Mexican-Americans into a task force for Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Latinos (both seem to be inactive....) WhisperToMe (talk) 09:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

No Activity in the South Carolina Project

I posted a question in the talk page of the project a while ago and got no answer so far. There has been no activity on the page for a few months but some people are editing the pages covered by the Project. How can I find out who the coordinators are for this project to try to get it moving again? I could help with coordinating some things but I don't have the skills I think I would need to take over if the Project needs to have a whole regime change (if that makes any sense). Marine79 (talk) 08:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Well not all projects have active, formal coordinators. Try to respond to any open talk page posts if you can so people know the project is alive. Take a look at the contributions of participants listed in Misplaced Pages:WikiProject South Carolina or Category:WikiProject South Carolina participants and if they've been making recent edits try dropping them a note about how you're trying to revive the project, and if they'd be interested in helping with that. -Optigan13 (talk) 09:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll see if I can spread around the South Carolina portal... WhisperToMe (talk) 21:39, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject overkill for a page

I'm bringing this here so I don't have to ask each individual project if the page falls into their domain. A user has been adding tons of wikiprojects to the Sakis Rouvas. I tried to trim out some projects I didn't feel fit according to their scopes and the user reverted calling it a pointless edit and then informed me that i was way off. Can someone weigh? Is this overkill? Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 19:27, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, generally speaking, it's up to individual projects to determine their scope. Some of those tags do look rather questionable, but I don't think you can get a definitive answer without asking each of the projects in question to take a look at the article and determine whether it's in-scope for them. Kirill  22:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The other editor is a declared fan of Sakis Rouvas. I perceive a POV issue. The other editor will, of course, deny it because that is the nature of POV issues. JimCubb (talk) 06:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you for your input. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 20:58, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Inactive Wikiprojects

Hi, I've noticed an inactive Wikiproject that I'm interested in, I was just wondering, what steps should I take to taking it over and getting up and running again? --Lcawte/WebCoder11 (_lk) 13:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You could post to the talk page to see if anyone responds. Or check out who used to be involved and see if they are still active on Misplaced Pages; if so, they might like to get involved again. The user categories are another way to try and find editors with a certain interest. Basically, I advise you get a core of people on board before starting out, so you can collaborate and also share the load. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Projects benefit from members that are willing to talk about what they're doing. If you've got two or three people that post a note every now and again -- I'm working on this article, I have a question about this, does anyone have a suggestion for that -- then it feels more 'alive' and tends to grow over time. A lot of steady editors rely heavily on their watchlists, and a page that isn't being edited is effectively invisible to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:29, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Council participants

If we are to have no list of Council participants, shouldn't this category also go? I imagine that removing it from the userbox would be a good first step. Waltham, The Duke of 10:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. Kirill  15:24, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I have finally emptied the category (some pages were rather persistent). I have removed category inclusion from three templates—Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Council/Userbox, Template:WikiProject Council and Template:User label WPCouncil—and adjusted the documentation accordingly, but I suggest that someone should have a look at them anyway, as the templates and/or their documentations may be anachronistic regarding the use of terms like "participants". Waltham, The Duke of 10:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Adding a cleanup page to all wikiprojects

There has been a lot of discussion about cleaning up unreferenced articles about living people (BLPs). A solution which has come up again and again, and which has gotten overwhelming support, is the use of Cleanup listings in some capacity.

Cleanup listings is a list of cleanup articles for each wikiproject on one designated page. A bot then collects all relevant tagged unreferenced biographies of living people, plus other lists onto one page in the wikiproject. This bot is updated regularly. As the page states: "Approximately 27% of all Misplaced Pages articles are flagged for cleanup. To deal with this enormous backlog, it seems reasonable to involve the topical WikiProjects in the cleanup process."

Adding this bot is very easy to add to a project: simply add a template to a new or existing page of the project.

The 616 projects which already have this cleanup listing and use this bot are here an example is here: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject London/Cleanup listing.

How about generating a special page for all wikiprojects not already subscribed? (my own idea first proposed here)

Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 14:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced the WolterBot listings are particularly useful, since they use database dumps rather than live data. The London listing, for example, is dated 28 November, and a spot check shows that many of the entries are no longer tagged with the specified maintenance issues. Sending project members hunting through month-old lists isn't going to be the most productive use of anyone's time; we really need something that's no more than a few days old.

It may be possible to do something more efficient by way of categories rather than direct bot listings, incidentally; if there were some way to create intersection categories between WikiProject articles and articles needing cleanup, that would solve both problems. Kirill  15:24, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

RE: Intersection categories: See Pohta_ce-am_pohtit's posting, which describes the pros and cons for Intersection search and Cat Scan. (Misplaced Pages:CatScan).

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject London/Cleanup listing was lasted updated on 22:26, 10 December 2009, as all listings were. A cleanup listing would be a good start for a lot of projects, and better than what many wikiprojects have now. The bot only runs every month or two. Sigh. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 15:34, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Betacommand is willing to do a daily list: Misplaced Pages:Bot_requests#Unreferenced biography of living persons bot to get projects involved in referencing. The question is should this be done piece meal, or with all wikiprojects? Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 19:10, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, a lot of projects might not have any BLPs within their scope; creating empty "lists" for them doesn't seem like a good use of anyone's time. I'd suggest generating, offline, a list for every project, and then inviting those projects whose lists are above a certain size (e.g. 100 articles) to take part in the effort. It's generally a good idea to get the project to say that they're interested in participating, even if the list would be generated anyways; doing otherwise increases the risk that the list will simply be ignored. Kirill  20:09, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent points as always, I asked Does a list exist of all BLP related wikiprojects? and FloNight responded, "While some would have more than others, almost every type of wikiproject could have a BLP related article because they are broad in the way that they cover topics. Who would have thought that Equine would have that many unref BLP articles." Before he wrote that, I never thought of BLPs being so expansive.

Two editors criticized me for inviting wikiprojects King Arthur, the Bible, and Death to use User:B._Wolterding/Cleanup_listings. I can think of several living authors which regularly write on such subjects.

I agree 100% make sure the project feels involved, otherwise the list will be ignored.

Betacommand's offer turns this whole conversation on its head. Thanks. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 22:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject:Hotel

I've been searching high and low for a hotel/motel wikiproject that would cover:

• Hotel Grand Chancellor, Hobart
• Hotel Grand Chancellor, Launceston
• Wrest Point Hotel Casino
• Hotel Canberra
• The Newport Arms Hotel, Newport Australia
• Australia Hotel

thats just a few Australian hotels to name. I've found wikiproject food and drink as well as wikiproject casinos. But no project that covers a hotel. If i'm correct in saying there is no such project how does one go in creating or requesting a new wikiproject? Regards Wiki ian 08:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Hotels seems to be what you are looking for, though the project looks fairly moribund. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:07, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Request comments and guidence on an RfC

• Composers project biographical infoboxes RfC debate

The specific issues are

1. The WP:CM-related projects, including WP:WikiProject Composers, WP:WikiProject Opera, WP:WikiProject Contemporary music, and WP:WikiProject Classical music itself, are all opposed to the use of biographic infoboxes
2. The members of those projects often remove these boxes per the strong consensus to do so at those projects
3. Some editors not involved in any of those projects have raised objections to this removal citing "non-ownership" of articles as one of their objections
4. The "ownership" issue is seen as a red herring due to the fact that consensus is across the board at these projects concerning the non-inclusion and removal of infoboxes and due to the tacit acceptance of that consensus in the "Word of caution" found here at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Biography.

What exactly is the policy on this? Can a group of projects insist on a particluar style of editing that excludes certain things like infoboxes? Any help appreciated, thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 23:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Further to that: Buzzzsherman (talk · contribs) has also posted a request for help at WP:ANI. --Jubilee♫clipman 23:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well projects dont own the articles no one does, however the problem is that you have 1 editer v's a project full of editors. I have always felt that projects should be given the ability to determine through consensus on how the articles under there project are managed, this is true for naming conventions and in some cases what info boxes are displayed. ZooPro 01:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, projects have zero authority. Projects are not allowed to re-write the WP:MOS or issue blanket exceptions to it; they are not allowed to declare that the normal content policies only apply to articles outside their scope; they aren't, in short, allowed to overrule any community-wide consensus, by saying, "Well, me and my three friends at the WikiProject have all agreed that the community is wrong, and that means that the project has a 'consensus' to overrule any editor that disagrees with us".

It happens that many projects have put together some good (and even excellent) advice. That advice (when good) has been accepted by the community (and rejected when bad) -- a project can do WP:POLICY#Proposals, just like any individual -- but the mere fact that the editors choose to call themselves a WikiProject gives them zero authority.

The CM dispute also doesn't seem to be one editor vs a "project full of editors": it appears to be many individual editors vs about four noisy editors at a small project. One of them asserts that this is their tenth major battle over this issue in the last three years, which suggests that their so-called 'consensus' is, at minimum, strongly disputed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Projects have the authority of their individual editors. When those editors have special expertise, when they have served the reader and contributed to the encyclopedia, they deserve respect.

The Composers Project is a model of its kind: 5,000-odd maintained articles, a stable category tree, written assessments down to B class, well-organized archives etc. etc. Participants of this, and all other projects, should be allowed to develop their own project guidelines. --Kleinzach 04:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, they can write down any advice they want. They can also advocate for changes to community-wide guidelines and policies.

What they ("you", since you're a major player in this dispute) cannot do is force non-members to follow their unofficial advice in any article, even in an article that the members who wrote the advice have been working on. WP:Consensus is policy; WP:WikiProject Classical music/Style guidelines is the non-authoritative and frequently disputed views of a very small number of editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Please read the project guidelines (not policies - that's just a red herring) before posting here. They are based on consensus at every level. No one is forcing anything on anybody, although some people have tried to force inappropriate boxes on the editors who have been developing the articles. --Kleinzach 07:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That might be how it should be but it is far from how it is, there is alot of contradiction about what projects can and cannot do. projects dont have "Authority" however they do have policies that allow them to do certian things and this also varies greatly, for instance some of the Animal project have different naming conventions that dont follow the MOS however they are allowed to do this because the policies say they can. I think you will find that it varys greatly across the board. I dont have an opinion on the matter either way, however if there is a policy then it should be followed. ZooPro 03:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The Classical Music and related projects have been scrupulous about trying to comply with WP policies and indeed the MoS. No one has ever claimed otherwise. If we found any discrepancies I'm sure the projects would address the issues. I don't know about the Animal project case, but I'd assume there are some knowledgeable editors there who have good reason for their naming convention practices. It's very difficult for contributors with real editorial or technical skills to get improvements made to the MoS. --Kleinzach 08:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Projects do not have any policies. The community has policies and many guidelines that were originally written by a handful of editors who called themselves a WikiProject, but the project does not, and cannot, own or control any policy. For example, WP:FLORA is not WP:WikiProject Botany's naming convention; it's everyone's naming convention for plants. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Once again, they're project guidelines, not policies. In the case of WP:FLORA, the most knowledgeable editors will probably be at WP:WikiProject Botany and it's important that we encourage them to take the lead in developing the naming convention. It would be bad if I, a non-botanist, started disrupting their project, telling them what to do. --Kleinzach 08:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Once again, they're not WP:Guidelines. A collection of advice that was written by a couple of editors who never even bothered to let the community know that they wrote it, much less to properly propose it for guideline status is not a WP:Guideline: it's advice from a couple of editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

See Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects. 94 projects have guidelines. --Kleinzach 06:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

A very fair statement of the situation has just been put together at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Composers#A new perspective. I'd encourage as many people as possible to give it an open-minded review and post constructive comments there. This is an ongoing issue that needs to be properly resolved, through a widely-participated review. Please come and give your thoughts on the statement linked. Happy‑melon 16:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject assessment table

Hello. I have noticed that some wikiprojects have a full list (a "File", "Category", etc, fields), while some do not. Can anyone help? My aim is have a full list for Wikiproject Bahrain; part of my attempt to revive it. Rehman 14:00, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

As there are only 18 non-articles within the scope of the WikiProject I wouldn't have thought it worthwhile at this stage. The way to change this in the future is to change the |QUALITY_SCALE= parameter of Template:WikiProject Bahrain. Full details about this can be found at Template:WPBannerMeta#Assessment. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:11, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I understand. The wikiproject was actually dead for a while, so many articls/templates/etc have not yet been tagged. I will look into the above details soon. Thanks. Kind regards. Rehman 00:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

1. Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_Resolute Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_The-Pope Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#Shameless_advertisement_by_Pohta_ce-am_pohtit Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#A_Bot_already_exists_to_inform_projects Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_WereSpielChequers Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_Hut_8.5 Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_Balloonman.2Ftechnical_option Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#View_by_Jayron32