User talk:Headbomb/WP 2.0

Hey,

When developing the {{WkP X}} template (and before you say so, yes I'm aware of the Metabanner), I was thinking that WikiProjects and their template were terribly different, and bot maintenance of them would be very useful, but near-impossible as of now. So I am now building Wikiproject X, whose goal is to be an easily adaptable bone-structure of a "well-structured" WikiProjects, as well as to help uniformize current ones. One of the the goal is that by replacing X by "Something" and "x" by "something", about 95% of the work would be done if you wanted to start WikiProject Something.

I also thought of new features that could be implemented. You already heard of the "-Type" parameter, but it would also have an automatic categorization that will classify any pages in "X-type x page of Y-Class of Z-Importance" categories (instead of a mix of projets that categorize with not all parameters). If we standardize the WikiProject templates "core" code, then bot-assisted maintenance would be much more easier. We could even have each WikiProject "Current Activities" sections bot-updated as well, to monitor AfD, GAC, FAC, FLC, RfC, Peer reviews, GA-promotion, FA-promotion, FL-promotion, etc...

There are some technical challenge that will be associated with things, such as converting current templates into WP 2.0 compatible templates (one thing I thought would be nice is that most templates right now are of the form WP X, so a WP2.0 compatible template would be of WkP X form, since this would distinguish it from the WP1.0 ones, and from the "shortcuts" such as WP:AIV which can lead to some confusion for newcomers), etc... but that's for later. This should give you an idea of the scope of what I have in mind.

You guys (Carl, Oleg) handle the WP 1.0 Bot right now. While I can't ask you to write the WP 2.0 Bot code, you are the ones who know how a good template should be written, and would probably be the ones to write the code for a WP2.0 bot were a 2.0 proposal to pass. But for sake of efficiency, both in WikiProjects, and in Bot-handling of tedious tasks, there needs to be a balance between the functionality of a template, and the work required out of bots (not WP2.0 bot alone).

The key features of a good template would be (IMO)

• Categorization into X-Type x page of Y-Class of Z-Importance categories
• Categorisation into X-Type x page of Y-Class/ X-Type x page of Z-Class categories
• Categorisation into X-Type/Y-class/Z-Class
• Allows for Bot-update of "Current Activity" within WikiProjects, (Meaning a bot, not necessarily WP2.0 Bot) could monitor Good and Featured articles/lists nominations, failures, promotions, as well as nominations for deletions and deletions, redirects, and update a Wikiproject X/Current Activity page if the article/list was tagged with {{WkP X}}
• Interacts well with other templates such as {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}.

Note that this is all still very crude and still has months to go, and didn't really have any input from anyone. I want to have at least a rough "bone-structure" established before presenting this to the community to discuss the finer details, which would perhaps be in 2 months. But template writing is ready for discussion. If you could review the {{WkP X}} code, to find flaws, things that could be better (especially for bots), suggestions to improve functionality, etc.. that would be really great. I believe the code to be well-structured, and well-commented so it shouldn't be too hard for a stranger to find his way around.

Thanks. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 02:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Good luck. :) Try to get as many opinions as possible on your proposal early in its development to avoid wasted effort. I have little time to work on any bot beyond making sure WP 1.0 bot is maintained. Not sure what will Carl be up to. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:50, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I have been working making a working demo of some ideas I have for the next generation WP 1.0 bot, and I'd be glad to have help. Maybe I'll actually sit down today and write up the ideas I have. I think that if the templates generated the detailed categories you are suggesting (X-Class/Y-Importance in particular), that would be widely appreciated. I would think the current WP template could be changed to do that without too much work.

I'll keep you informed when I get my ideas into writing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Cool beans. There's no rush yet. The X-Class, Y-importance scheme is already implemented in WikiProject Physics, and it's incredibly useful (see the drop-box [1]), especially if you use category trees in your categories. Makes assessing way easier since you don't have to go through 800 "low-importance" articles to find the 3 without class ratings. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 13:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)