Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council

New proposals

Hi, does anyone know how long it'll be before we can make proposals again? Kowal2701 (talk) 17:32, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

We don't have a timeline. Do you already have a group of editors? A WP:WikiProject is the people, not the subject area. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I have a few, but I'd like to make a proposal to see whether others would be interested Kowal2701 (talk) 18:32, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Making a proposal will not find you any more editors. Nobody watches those pages. What's your subject area? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Oral tradition Kowal2701 (talk) 19:05, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

It's very broad and trendy at the moment (as it's only starting to become respected in academia), and could absorb WP:Folklore. Personally my interest is just in traditional oral history, and institutionalised instances like Griot and Kouroukan Fouga Kowal2701 (talk) 19:08, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

That sounds too narrow to be sustainable. What do you think about merging the inactive Wikipedia:WikiProject Folklore into the semi-active Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthropology, and then trying to WP:REVIVE the anthro project? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:33, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Idk I think it has a good chance of being sustainable, enough people have passion for it and it's something that's on the up. I think it's quite attractive for new users, and we should be getting more users from sub-Saharan Africa in the coming years. It features in pretty much all countries and most people wouldn't do anything general, but focus on specific regions they're interested in. I have 5 definites atm, would it be possible to give it a go and start it, and then merge into WP:Anthropology if it becomes inactive? Kowal2701 (talk) 20:46, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

6 now Kowal2701 (talk) 20:48, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I can't actually stop you. But purely as a practical matter, it looks like Bloodofox is the only editor who is interested and has more experience than you, and that's not a recipe for success. I'm not saying the group is doomed, because I do think it has a chance at success, but it also looks like a bigger chance for being inactive in a year or two than being active.

Creating the group requires work for you (I'd guess 5–50 hours), plus, if you want to succeed, several hours a month in finding and recruiting new editors for the next two years. Failure creates a couple of hours' work for other people (e.g., to merge it up to the anthro project). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, I suspect that you will want to talk to Pgallert, Pharos, and JarrahTree. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:38, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, have a great day Kowal2701 (talk) 21:43, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that’s problematic. I intend to have resources on the main page for people that are intrigued and want to learn about it. The timing could be a bit better for me, and I’m not exactly the most competent person. I’ll get more familiar with wiki projects before starting it and have specific objectives. I’m going to try to get 10 or 15 before starting it Kowal2701 (talk) 21:39, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kowal2701: I think you're off to a great start by contacting other wikiprojects and gathering a group, but I share WAID's concerns. Most wikiprojects (>75%) become inactive, even when people sign up to them, and the profusion of inactive wikiprojects makes it harder for new editors to find active groups that they can join. On the other hand, I think this could be a great opportunity to inject some new life into WikiProject Anthropology, which is something I've been wanting to do for a while. If you'd consider starting an oral tradition task force of WPAnthro, I'd be very happy to help. – Joe (talk) 11:38, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Could we do a section in WP:Anthropology focussed on oral tradition and still have the same templates as a WP? I just think these would be really useful and oral tradition is quite a logical split as it’s segregated from other forms of literature Kowal2701 (talk) 12:21, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Specifically an article template with all the oral tradition articles would be very helpful, the vast majority are stubs Kowal2701 (talk) 12:23, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

As per my previous comments, I agree with taking the group of interested editors and holding discussions on a related WikiProject talk page. After some months you can assess the effectiveness: having a broader audience for your discussions can be very helpful, but in some cases, the discussions may prove to be cumbersome to those not interested. You can create any guidance pages as needed. Grouping them as subpages under the WikiProject in question is helpful for organizational purposes. isaacl (talk) 14:16, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, a task force is usually structured as a subpage of the parent project (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthropology/Oral tradition task force). You then add a new parameter to the WikiProject's banner which marks it as of interest to the task force, e.g. {{WikiProject Anthropology|oral-tradition=yes}}. This allows you to set up tools like article alerts for only those articles. You can look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology/Women in archaeology task force for an example of how it works in practice; Talk:Margaret Ursula Jones is an example of a page using the banner parameter.

The advantage of this approach for you is that you can build on an existing group of people (though WP:ANTHRO is not so active, nineteen of its members are still actively editing) and an existing set of articles rather than starting from scratch, while still using all the useful gadgets available for WikiProjects. Conversations relating to a task force usually take place on the parent WikiProject talk page too, unless it gets very big, which brings extra visibility. The advantage for others is that it channels activity back to the parent wikiproject and, should the task force becoming inactive, it's easier to fold it back into that wikiproject by simply redirecting the pages and deprecating the banner parameter. – Joe (talk) 15:33, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

That sounds great, I like that a lot Kowal2701 (talk) 15:53, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have pages also tagged by region, as I imagine a lot of editors will only be interested in a particular region. Maybe we could just group the WP country tags? Kowal2701 (talk) 16:21, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

If they're already tagged by country projects (e.g., Wikipedia:WikiProject United States), then that could probably be automated.

BTW, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history has made greater use of task forces than any other group, so I think you should poke around in their pages to get some ideas. Some of theirs are subject-focused and others are procedural (e.g., A-class article review). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Would it be possible to create the page now? Kowal2701 (talk) 16:56, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

In theory, you should talk to the hosting WikiProject first. This does not need to be a big discussion; just add a quick update to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthropology#WP:WikiProject Oral tradition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Is this the right way to go about it? Draft:Wikipedia: WikiProject Anthropology/Oral tradition taskforce Kowal2701 (talk) 17:26, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kowal2701, please WP:MOVE that out of the Draft: namespace. There is no need to use the Draft: namespace for non-articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

done Kowal2701 (talk) 17:37, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I know I'm just creating work for you guys Kowal2701 (talk) 17:38, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

There's no need to apologize. You're doing most of the work yourself, and you're also presenting a great reminder of what we want to accomplish, as we think about how to fix the proposal process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I do think it'd be great to build the proposal process around task forces, as I imagine it's rare for someone to have an idea about a new viable wikiproject. Btw, I've found most editors through messaging large contributors of pages involving oral tradition (just going through the pages that link to oral tradition, I'll do folklore next). Messaging wikiprojects has attracted practically no-one but I could've done better messages Kowal2701 (talk) 19:32, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

hi, I’m a little confused as to what to do with the categories. Do I start tagging pages using WP:AWB? Kowal2701 (talk) 07:28, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Do I do it all manually or use bots? Kowal2701 (talk) 17:56, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

If you make a list of pages or categories, then it's possible to use AWB or a bot to tag them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:34, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree with comment above by user Whatamidoing, to encourage these helpful efforts. Sm8900 (talk) 19:27, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. Building on the above discussion, a new proposals process could look like:

1. Find the closest wikiproject(s) and suggest working on the new topic
2. If there's enough interest, propose creating a task force
3. If the task force eventually outgrows its parent, spin it off to its own wikiproject

Of course this pretty strongly discourages actually creating any new wikiprojects. But at this point I think that's appropriate. – Joe (talk) 22:04, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

That sounds appropriate. For example:

1. Join Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthropology
2. If that's not enough, make Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthropology/Oral tradition taskforce
3. If that's not enough, and you've got lots of people, move that page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Oral tradition.

Does that sound about right? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

I’d place emphasis on whether the WP develops with lots of core people Kowal2701 (talk) 06:30, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

That’s an issue I’m running into atm, lots of people are happy to join but I’m struggling to see who would be coordinators Kowal2701 (talk) 06:32, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Having a lot of people actively participating doesn't mean they need to have a separate WikiProject page. My suggestion is to focus on getting content written and building up the roster of active editors. Creating a taskforce is mainly useful to have separate article alerts.

A lot of WikiProjects don't have specific co-ordinators. The WikiProject talk page provides a place to hold discussions to generate consensus agreements on guidance, and the main project page points interested editors to that guidance and any initiatives, which can be driven by anyone. isaacl (talk) 17:02, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Think I need to take a step back and let it develop organically Kowal2701 (talk) 17:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Please do continue to look for interested editors, and point them to, say, the Anthropology WikiProject talk page for related discussions on initiatives or to develop guidance! Collaborating with other passionate editors is a good way for everyone involved to be motivated. isaacl (talk) 17:28, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

spamming African history editors now lol, people seem to really appreciate the notification, although that may be availability bias since the ones that don't ignore it Kowal2701 (talk) 17:31, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kowal2701, if you want, feel free to invite editors at WikiProject History, as well. totally up to you. Sm8900 (talk) 19:30, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Can we move it to its own WikiProject? Out of all the articles tagged, practically none had {{WikiProject Anthropology}}, so it seems we're bloating their articles with ones outside their scope. We've got a lot of editors, although I'm unsure of how it's going to come to life Kowal2701 (talk) 20:38, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you sure that these articles are "outside their scope", and not merely "accidentally overlooked"? Occasionally, a group will have a page such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Assessment that explains what's in/out of scope, but I don't see one for that group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah most of the pages are pieces of literature, which isn’t really anything to do with anthropology. It’s only oral tradition that had the banner. Kowal2701 (talk) 07:03, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing If you don't think it's a good idea, we can keep it as a taskforce, think it'd be easy in the future to turn it into a WikiProject if necessary using the Find and replace feature on AWB. I'll comment at WP:Anthro about this to see if they're okay with it Kowal2701 (talk) 18:02, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

WikiProject technology share

Through my own WikiProject work and observing of others working in different WikiProjects, I've wondered why there doesn't seem to be a dedicated spot for us to share our technical ideas about how to better operate the WikiProjects. In more general venues, I see people asking questions about how to generate particular reports for their WikiProjects, as one example. From my own perspective, I sometimes feel like I want to share what I've done (as I can see potentially widespread benefits to some things I've conjured up), or alternatively thirst to see what others and other WikiProjects have done. What would be everyone's feel for a spot for WikiProjects sharing technical ideas? Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 00:14, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes please. That's exactly what this page should be used for — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:46, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking in terms of an organized resource that can be cooperatively built, not unlike other technology resources we have, such as Wikipedia:User scripts. And of course, discussion about it would happen somewhere (likely on its own talk page, but certainly this talk page can be regularly directed to it). It would cover the various technical approaches that can be employed by WikiProjects, whether traditional or experimental, particularly looking at layout, navigation and data-driven aspects, such as reports, alerts and milestones, and possibly more. Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 08:30, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Might be something that can be taken from the remains of Wikipedia:WikiProject X, although dividing discussion into more places doesn't feel the best idea. CMD (talk) 10:05, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

If there are chunks of X that can be used as-is or adapted for use by wikiprojects, it certainly makes sense to list them somewhere like on the "Technical notes" page. Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 23:54, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that all of the code is open source, and I believe that the author would be very happy if someone adopted the codebase. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think very many people are working in that area.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Technical notes could use some attention, and it would be an appropriate place to leave notes about scripts that are working. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:58, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I welcome your thoughts here, but I'm torn on how to proceed. I was thinking in terms of an area where we document our various forms of technical experimentation in wikiprojects, and the lightly visited Technical notes page currently seems to cover generically helpful tools. I could certainly add some of those tools to the page. On the other hand, useful reports based on database queries I've been working on or unique navigation/layout approaches I've developed don't seem to have a place. Should we make a place for these experimental ideas on the page? I'm concerned that the usual approach for editing informational pages would get in the way of a true skunkworks effort. Perhaps for my experimental things, I should just create my own dedicated user page and point there from Technical notes? Of course I'm open to other ideas here. Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 23:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@StefenTower, I think that "one-stop shopping" is generally the best first approach. The difficulty with linking to pages with other information is that you might not know that the thing you need is explained on the linked page.

I think another thing that would be helpful is if you "advertised" your work. An occasional note at WP:RAQ, perhaps? An offer to some of the more active (or relevant) WikiProjects to run a particular query for them? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

One of the things I wish for is to have Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProject watchers care about recent visitors to the talk page, instead of how many long-dormant accounts put the page on their watchlists 15 or 20 years ago. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Followup survey on why collaborations work!

About a month ago, I shared a consultation where we are looking at successful on wiki collaborations: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns/WikiProjects . You can still share examples there!

We are doing a followup survey, where the Campaign Product team at the Wikimedia Foundation would like your help prioritizing problems and features that would help these collaborations work better. If you have about 10 minutes, please take this survey: on Google Docs Astinson (WMF) (talk) 17:58, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Move to WikiProject?

Is it worth moving WP:WikiProject Anthropology/Oral tradition taskforce to its own WikiProject? One concern we have is almost all the articles being tagged weren't previously within WP:Anthro's scope, and probably aren't (could move the parent to WP:WikiProject Literature?). Also it doesn't seem WP:Kingbotk supports taskforce tagging, although I'm probably being dumb, the Generic template feature only seems to do importance and priority parameters Kowal2701 (talk) 20:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I know I commented about this in a previous thread but thought best to seek wider input Kowal2701 (talk) 20:34, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Kingbotk is a way outdated, long-defunct bot whose maintainer appears to have left Wikipedia, so I'm not sure why you even brought it up.

Anyways, if there is significant enough enthusiasm and activity surrounding the Oral tradition task force, then yes, it may be worth moving it to its own WikiProject. If you desire it instead to be a taskforce of a different WikiProject, then WikiProject History is an option, though as you probably know, that can be controversial.  — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  23:02, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

What do people use to tag articles? Kowal2701 (talk) 23:03, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I mean, looking at the number of participants suddenly interested in this taskforce and also seeing that some oral tradition-ish articles aren't really anthropology-ish, it makes more sense for this to be a WikiProject on its own. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 08:55, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

What do the participants in the the anthropology WikiProject think about the articles in question being included within its scope? isaacl (talk) 02:56, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

I haven’t had a response Kowal2701 (talk) 09:23, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

If no concerns have been raised, then, I wouldn't worry about the effects of having more articles placed within the scope of WikiProject Anthropology. isaacl (talk) 16:12, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Joseon#Requested move 5 October 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Joseon#Requested move 5 October 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 ^{[𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺]} 08:43, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Defunct projects in the directory

Defunct WikiProjects are not distinguished from inactive WikiProjects in the directory; should they be explictly marked as such (and have its replacement listed), moved to a different page or section, or removed entirely from the list? Xeroctic (talk) 16:39, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

@Xeroctic, are you talking about the Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I am writing about the subpages of Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory, as the one you linked is unmaintained. Xeroctic (talk) 20:07, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I wish that Reports bot were keeping the first one up to date, because maintaining Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory was always a chore and probably isn't being done now. The last time that page's contents were overhauled was when Chongkian went through the list more than a year ago.

I looked through Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Science#Medicine, and found that most of the smaller projects were either inactive or semi-active, even with a generous definition of "semi-active" (in practice; I just adjusted the tags on them). Most of them should be merged up to a larger group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:29, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm really hoping meta:Campaigns/WikiProjects will result in something like the automated directory coming back. – Joe (talk) 08:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

As a baby step towards grouping WikiProjects, I wonder whether we could adapt the categories in mw:ORES/Articletopic#Taxonomy to create categories via {{WikiProject status}}. For example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games could be tagged as {{WikiProject status|active|culture}} or {{WikiProject status|active|media}} and be put in a Category:WikiProjects about culture or a Category:Media-related WikiProjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

That's a good idea. By the way, I started thinking through what ORES-based upmerging would look like at User:Joe Roe/WikiProject merging and listing the 'top level' projects at Template:WikiProjects navigation. Thoughts and additions welcome. – Joe (talk) 04:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

for the STEM group, I'm thinking about a set like this:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Science,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life (separate from the rest of biology because there are hundreds of thousands of species articles),
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine, and
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment

but I'm not sure how to group:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Engineering,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Technology,
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing, and/or
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science.

but they all feel like they could be one group (or two or three). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Three (Computing, Technology, and Engineering) would fit the ORES taxonomy but I'm not really familiar with these areas of the project. Alternatively there's the potential to use a 'catch-all' project (i.e. a new Wikipedia:WikiProject STEM in this case) to cover topics that could stand alone but aren't that active right now, until they're ready. Do feel free to add to the list! – Joe (talk) 09:15, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Help with edit war?

I have been editing the page for a music festival, Pickathon, since yesterday and it has been in something of an edit war with two other editors. I would very much appreciate it if other music folks could weigh in on the various items in Talk:Pickathon Monkeywire (talk) 17:12, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks like the discussion is productive on that page, and you are getting useful advice — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:30, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Declaration of inactive WikiProject

Can a WikiProject declare itself to be active by itself? [1] Haven't noticed it for roughly three months after I looked at the project I redesigned. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 05:58, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

WikiProjects are just groups of editors who share a common interest in a given area. If they're using the WikiProject pages to collaborate or facilitate editing in the area, then the project's active, and it doesn't matter who might make that determination. isaacl (talk) 07:08, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree. If someone's active enough to notice the |inactive tag and remove it, then that user is probably active enough to answer questions on the talk page, which is good enough. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:30, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah... I see. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:02, 25 October 2024 (UTC)