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Non-article classes?

Shouldn't there be some mention of non-article classes (Category, List, Template, Redirect, etc.) in the Assessment FAQ? —KCinDC (talk) 16:15, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Improvements to the WP 1.0 bot under discussion

Hi, all. As we know, the Version 1.0 Index stores assessments for over 1.7 million articles. Originally, the bot was designed to process about 10,000 articles; we never actually thought that 70% of Wikipedia was going to be covered under some sort of assessment. That has slowly caused the bot to take longer to run, as bot runs that used to last about four hours now take about four days. To make the bot more efficient, changes to the way the bot framework operates are being discussed, and simultaneously, we are discussing which features it might be worthwhile to add as we are recoding everything. We really would like to have your participation at User:WP 1.0 bot/Second generation and its talk page as we do this. Thanks, Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 16:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Recommendations for polling project participants?

I've been redesigning the San Francisco Bay Area project's page using Clockwork soul's various designs for Virus project etc. (my redesign is currently in my sandbox). I haven't filled out the participants list yet, but I also wanted to poll the participants list because I think many of them have gone inactive. I'm fine with manually entering the participants into the new participants list and then polling them to resign, but is there any recommended way of polling participants? -Optigan13 (talk) 04:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

One approach that is a relatively easy one is to simply move everyone into the inactive list and then message them to ask that they move their names back to the active list if they consider themselves so. This leaves the decision up to them and, aside from notifying them, takes the workload off of your shoulders. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 08:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
So just a basic AWB run through the participants list and have them move from one list to the other. I can do that I was just wondering if there was any preferred method. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:26, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

making a project inactive

I think there should be a process similar to the proposal process to makeing a wikiproject inactive. HereFord 20:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

ive made a proposal hereHereFord 20:40, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
As opposed to the existing process, which is that any editor that finds an inactive WikiProject can label it as {{inactive}}? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Well that would one editors opinion as opposed too the inter membership of the project.HereFord 21:02, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand your comment. {{Inactive}} is listed on hundreds of defunct WikiProjects. It's been in use for several years. How does that make it one editor's opinion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Because it takes one editor to put it on. HereFord 17:50, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
And it's trivially removed by anyone that disagrees or wants to reactivate the project. Surely if a project is actually active, then a member will notice the tag (probably within hours) and remove it. What problem are you actually trying to solve? Insufficient energy being wasted on bureaucratic overhead? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Title "sections"

I see a lot of WikiProjects that have a section, usually at or near the top, like this:

==Title==

<Name of project>

Is there any need for such sections? Surely the title of the WikiProject is obvious from the title at the top, and from the rest of the page. Should we not systematically remove such sections, possibly with the help of a bot? Richard001 (talk) 07:11, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

We should not. WikiProjects are allowed to control their own pages. If it makes those editors happy to have an unimportant section like that, then we do not tell them that they are wrong to do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
From memory, that may date from the earliest template we had for making a WikiProject. See early incarnations of {{WikiProject}}. I agree that there is little need to remove such sections where they exist, and since the template itself has removed it, it is unlikely to be an issue in the future. Hiding T 09:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Your input is requested

This project's name has come up on the talk page for Wikipedia:Coordinators, as a suggested alterntive to turning the coordinator page into a guideline. Input from this projects members on the matter would be apreciated. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Parent/Descendant tagging

Ahh, I came here looking for my answer, and now, thanks to the recent debates, leave more confused than ever!

Is there any rule ANYWHERE that says articles that clearly fall into the scope of a descendant category can or can't be also tagged by the parent? I refer specifically to WP:MED and its descendants. There are articles like Abductor digiti minimi muscle (foot) that very clearly fall under WikiProject Anatomy, but are also tagged by WP:MED. Should they be? — Skittleys (talk) 03:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

No rules ! Please see the discussion above Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council#Issues_with_WikiProject_Banner_Tagging.
I saw the one above, but it seemed it wasn't directly related. Someone did mention that this issue would be a better one to focus on than the proposed one, but that seemed to be it! — Skittleys (talk) 11:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Any wikiproject may tag articles that falls within its scope altough it overlaps with any/descendant/related projects. ( The exception is country project banner. It has been decided that usually the city will be tagged with the current country wikiproject banner only.
  • But having said that , if the parent wants to replace the descendant project banner (say with an intergated banner) , you should take the consensus from the descendant project members. As simple as that !! -- Tinu Cherian - 05:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
    Indeed. As I'm sure you've read, this has been the source of some recent disagreement. In a nutshell, there's no such rule, but be considerate. – ClockworkSoul 05:18, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Sounds good to me. Both parties are free to tag the article, but if one wants to integrate the banners I wouldn't imagine it would be a huge issue.Sephiroth storm (talk) 18:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Except when it offends the 'Descendant'. 'Parent' projects are well advised to not make any assumptions on that point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:55, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
      • I recently reviewed the structure of the templates for 1100 projects & task forces (we're getting ready for the final selection of Version 0.7). Some, like Australia, have several task forces and the parent in one single template, with some task forces able to assign their own importance assessment (see e.g., Talk:Port_Jackson). In other areas, such as US places, all of the projects seem to work fairly independently - for example, see Talk:Boston_Red_Sox, where you have Massachusetts, Boston, and Boston Red Sox projects all tagging separately (as well as WP:Baseball). You can see some odd things, like at Talk:Shaivism where there are two separate boxes generated by one single WP:Hinduism template. If you want to combine templates, I think you need to get the agreement of all parties concerned, because it may seem to the project that they are losing their autonomy. Many descendent projects are much more active than a more general parent, and would get annoyed by an attempt to merge the templates. But I do wish that more projects would collaborate - I think the Boston example above shows unnecessary redundancy. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 05:09, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject banners in multiple namespaces

Please see the ongoing discussion regarding the use of WikiProject banners on the talk pages of non-article pages. Thanks, –Black Falcon (Talk) 23:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Naming convention proposal

Please see the naming convention proposal. LA (T) @ 21:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Assistance Needed from a Experienced Council Member

Hi, i am part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels and am asking if any assistance can be provided to help with this Project since it is a major project on Wikipedia.

I will explain as best i can what has happened as there seem to some sudden change of activity for some unknown reason in regards to this Project. The project was running well under the Founder Kevinalewis. Then about 5 months ago a new member joined who claimed the Project was not been running correctly and requested a Election be held as they wished to become Project Leader and that he would then elect his own committee chosen by himself, of course this idea was not popular. A election was commenced and Kevinalewis decided to then state that he did not seek re-election and would rather someone else take over the position. After much debate in the nomination section, this new member would only answer with abusive remarks if questioned on what plans or experience he had to become the Project Leader. I did a check on this new member DangerTM and discovered he was actually a sockpuppet of Tom.mevlie who had tried to take over and disrupt other Projects, so he was removed as a candidate.

Yllosubmarine won the election, Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Coordinators and has been very active since. But after that we have had a dropping off of members who were responsible for such important features such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Outreach (if you look they are all inactive or have resigned) which handles the newsletter and no newsletter had been published now for almost 3 months. I did leave a message for the temporary editor Feydey but he has not responded even though he has contributed articles since then.

All i can think is that there has maybe been some lack of support for the new Project Leader who has suddenly found themselves without any help of Coordinators, Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Coordinators and that the Project is losing the interest of members. I have requsted to take over the newsletter, as i have contributed most of the tipline articles over the last year, to try and get it out each month again and to improve it so as to revitalise the Project and its members.

If there is anyone who can assist us in helping to get this Project back on track and advise us of what is needed, it be greatly appreciated, if they can leave a message for me. Too many Projects i have seen die and become inactive and i would hate to see this happen to this Project just because of a change of Leadership and disruption caused by that abusive sockpuppet. This Project is important to Wikipedia and should be continually becoming stronger rather than weakening. Regards Boylo (talk) 03:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the problem could be alleviated during the next election by having more coordinators? By opening up more slots, and also encouraging fellow editors to run, this may help. Also remember that in the summer months, activity levels tend to sometimes decrease. The other thing to keep in mind is that processes and tools need to be periodically evaluated from time to time to see if they're being used appropriately, and retooled/merged/deactivated as necessary. The great thing about having a number of coordinators is that it makes brainstorming easier, and also allows new ideas to be brought to the table by more than one or two people, which can help identify potential gaps that the project could fill in one way or another. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 01:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that reply. We will do what you suggest and also hold elections for coordinators, since there is only one and that's the Leader. I will get the newsletter out soon and tell our editors what is happening to get things rolling. Boylo (talk) 02:10, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
WikiProjects are fundamentally social groups. Good editors do have other things that they could do with their time. If being involved is more pain than pleasure, then people will leave. It sounds like the project had a lot of pain recently, and people left. Perhaps the best way to get past the unpleasantness is to move forward with an interesting project. Personal notes to occasional "Missing in Action" members might be friendly, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

WP: imageneeded=yes and template reqphoto

Proposal to merge need image categories of WikiProjects and reqphoto template categories. Do we really need to distinguish the difference between images and photographs? please see: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Photography#Requests for Pictures, Images and Photographs --[unsigned]

Nesting project templates without a bannershell

Another editor and I are having a stylistic difference of opinion and I'd like some feedback on if there is - or should be - a manual of style, or other, guideline that addresses nesting project banners without using a bannershell. See Talk:Kinsey Reports, for instance. I believe the "nested=yes" parameter was designed for use with the banner shell but this has not won them over to using it. I find it a bit of an eyesore but they, of course see the banner shell as a bit of an eyesore so I'd like some other imput to see if there is already consensus on this or some ideas that may help resolve this. Any thoughts? Banjeboi 22:30, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The |nested=yes setting should not be used straight onto a page, because it does not follow the convention used for all messageboxes (in all namespaces) of having 80% width. (also)Happy‑melon 23:08, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Thank you! Based on the above I found Wikipedia:Talk page templates which hopefully will resolve this. Banjeboi 00:35, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't aware that there was a disagreement on the matter. On the WP Sexuality project I proposed a set of standards for the way we handle this to avoid wasting one anothers time. In that proposal I suggested using nested=yes, as it makes for one clean band of a banner for articles with only one or two projects. That looks much cleaner that the much larger 5 of six lines that each project takes. I like the look of it. Based on feedback here, my friend Benjboi has gone through a couple hundred articles removing the work I have done for the past few days. I would have preferred completing the discussion on the WP Sexuality project on what standards that we could agree to follow first.
Using nested=yes does expand farther than the 80% suggested in the WP:TPT guidelines. First, those guidelines were discussed and decided before the bannershell, or the nested paramater existed. The second, is that they, as guidelines, are up to the discretion of the individual editors of articles. Hence my discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Sexology_and_sexuality#Rating_Project_articles to work through a preference for articles influenced by our WP. I'd love to get more feedback on this. Also, use of the bannershell is optional, not mandatory. The guidelines I proposed suggested using the bannershell ony for three or more projects.

I think that clearly,


Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconLGBTQ+ studies
WikiProject iconThis article is of interest to WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies, which tries to ensure comprehensive and factual coverage of all LGBTQ-related issues on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, please visit the project page or contribute to the discussion.LGBTQ+ studiesWikipedia:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studiesTemplate:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studiesLGBTQ+ studies
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconSexology and sexuality High‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of human sexuality on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Sexology and sexualityWikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexualityTemplate:WikiProject Sexology and sexualitySexology and sexuality
HighThis article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Looks cleaner than:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconLGBTQ+ studies
WikiProject iconThis article is of interest to WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies, which tries to ensure comprehensive and factual coverage of all LGBTQ-related issues on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, please visit the project page or contribute to the discussion.LGBTQ+ studiesWikipedia:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studiesTemplate:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studiesLGBTQ+ studies
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconSexology and sexuality High‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of human sexuality on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Sexology and sexualityWikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexualityTemplate:WikiProject Sexology and sexualitySexology and sexuality
HighThis article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

I understand that not everyone sees things the same way. Hence my trying to work a standard out the WP Sexuality, to get feedback from a wide variety of people rather than getting in a pissing contest.

Atom (talk) 02:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Well that's your opinion, however, consensus is that all messageboxes are to be at 80% and that parameter is designed to be used with a bannershell. Consensus has alos been that there is no need to collapse Wikiproject template when there is only 1 or 2 unless the talkpage is extremely full. For the above example;
would be preferred if the Wikiproject templates must be collapsed. Banjeboi 02:29, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


A simpler option that uses less real estate on the screen is {{WPB}}:

This has the advantage of not requiring someone to type in on every page. I find it particularly useful when there are more than three banners to hide on a talk page with many templates vying for attention. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

{{WikiProjectBannerShell|collapsed=yes}} is preferable; one day we'll finally get around to merging these two templates. (also)Happy‑melon 08:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Dunno about that, Happy. Your TfD in March generated a lot of opposition, and I don't see any reason for that to change any time soon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I'll be the first to admit that my TfD attempt was an absolute trainwreck, but I've been a little more subtle this time... try replacing a {{WPB|...}} with {{WPBS|collapsed=yes|...}} and see how long it takes people to notice the difference. If we can get the banners to nest automatically inside banner shells then the two templates will be indistinguishable. (also)Happy‑melon 10:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
We have been discussing the technical aspects of these templates over at Template talk:Tmbox for some time now. Since we are thinking of either adding support for them in {{tmbox}} or at least adding support for them in the tmbox CSS classes in MediaWiki:Common.css.
One thing we can do with the tmbox CSS classes is that when the WikiProject banners are shown directly on a page (not surrounded by a banner shell) then they automatically get 80% width, even if they happen to have the "nested=yes" set. So the 100% vs 80% width when collapsed is just a minor technical thing that we can fix. (We are also going to make it so they get 100% width automatically when inside a banner shell, thus the "nested=yes" parameter is only needed to set the collapsed state.)
The real problem is that the banners and the banner shells are used in so many different ways and that the ways they are used are really messy. For instance, you usually use a header on the banners when they are collapsed inside the banner shells but usually no header when used non-collapsed without a banner shell. That is not supported by the JavaScript for the collapse function, thus you had to resort to use the "nested=yes" parameter, instead of having the banners do these things automatically.
So I think that this banner system should be rethinked. Sure, we can probably make even more complex JavaScript collapse code that handles your weird collapsing cases, but I think that would be function creep. (And that would bloat our Wikipedia JavaScript code and thus increase load time of all pages for readers of Wikipedia. Not all users have 2 MBit DSL and a new computer.) One thing that would improve things and allow us to make more sane and simple to use code is if you start to use a proper header on the banners. That is, a header that is used also when the banners are shown without the shells. I find it slightly silly that now since the header is only shown when inside the shells, then the first sentence in the banner has to repeat the contents of the header. Thus the banner text is repetitive when you click [show] on a banner inside a banner shell.
--David Göthberg (talk) 10:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I think that your suggestion "WikiProject banners are shown directly on a page (not surrounded by a banner shell) then they automatically get 80% width, even if they happen to have the "nested=yes" set." would be great, and would address my need directly. Atom (talk) 17:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
It sounds like when that fix is in place Bannershells will become less of a requirement but until then the nested parameter should be used with a Bannershell to conform to the 80% width standardization. Banjeboi 10:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Benjiboi: Banner shells are not a requirement. There are not even consensus for which banner shell to use if/when a banner shell is used.
Everyone: I should perhaps mention that if you start to use a proper header on the banners (that is, a header that is used also when the banners are shown without the shells), then we won't need the "nested=yes" parameter any longer. That is, then we can make the banners adapt fully automatically if they are inside a banner shell or placed directly on a page. That would make the banner usage much simpler.
--David Göthberg (talk) 11:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I think use of the nested=yes without the bannershell is the best solution. (until other options become available) The TPT 80% guideline (which is intended for mainspace anyway, not for talk namespace). Also, discussion at the TPT guideline clarified that it is not intended to address bannershells, and as it doesn't apply to that, they don't want to change the guideline until bannershell issues are all ironed out. Given the choice shown above of it extending width wise beyond 80% or having the full project header depth (6 lines) or the choice of including a bannershell and forcing expansion from two lines to four lines in depth, the first one is the best choice IMO (only two lines show, no clutter of bannershell).
If someone could implement an interim solution so that use of the "nested=yes" automatically made the project banner 80% width, that would be even better. Atom (talk) 17:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Davidgothberg, I don't believe I ever said that Bannershells should be required, except when using the "nested" parameter until that has been fixed to display at 80% (will I believe, is intended for all tags). Even then I think there is little need to nest if there is only 1 or 2 wikiproject tags and talkpage space is not an issue. In addition even if we can individually nest all the templates I still feel it aids navigation to bundle them in a shell so those looking for, or less interested in that information can quickly orient themselves. This is not the first time issues of templates on talkpages has been brought up although this is the first I've heard of the nested parameter specifically. I still suggest that the council start drafting some guidelines for wikiproject tags so there is less conflicts. Banjeboi 01:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
There are a number of advantages to using banner shells consistently that have not been considered here, but which are quite persuasive. Firstly, wrapping all the banners together into a shell enables customisation through CSS and JS (banners can be shrunk, recoloured, hidden altogether, or moved to another area of the page, as individual editors desire). Using a shell also groups banners into one cohesive block, which makes it easier for them to be manipulated by bots and scripts - most tagging bots will add banners into a shell if one is present, but will otherwise just add the banner to the top of the page. If there are other banners on the talkpage, this causes banners to be fragmented, which is not desirable. It is very difficult if not impossible to program the tagging bot to recognise where to put the banners within the hierarchy of talkpage templates if a shell is not present. Finally, using a shell enables the easy display of the necessary BLP and activepol texts in the correct format and place.
I simply don't agree with Atom's claim that WP:TPT does not apply, and the "it's only a guideline" comment is the oldest strawman in the book. Surely the title "talk page templates" should give some indication of which namespace it's supposed to cover? The discussion of changes to WikiProject banners and banner shells that DG is talking about are not really relevant here, although they do have promise for the future. The main point is that using banner shells are more than an aesthetic choice, and should be encouraged where appropriate. The IDONTLIKETHEM argument is not really very helpful. (also)Happy‑melon 21:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. Although some of this is still an issue, I took the feedback given by David Gothberg and Benjiboi seriously. The most important thing said (IMO) is that the bannershells are in a state of flux. I felt that waiting to see what develops is the best course(as David advised). It seems to me that the 80% width thing is arbitrary. My point was that is was developed prior to bannershells, and so did not consider how those may be used, and not, as you've said, WP:Idontlikeit. My proposal above, which can wait, was to change the guideline based on the newer techniques, not a proposal to ignore the guideline. Also, to your comment about using banner shells, the discussion was primarily related to the special cases where the banner shells explicitly stated they were not intended for use (with just one or two Wikiprojects) and not for situations where they are indicated for use. My approach is to use the bannershells for three or more projects. Atom (talk) 11:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Project Newsletter bots

I am having a lot of problems trying to find a bot that can deliver a newsletter for our Novels Project. There is a list of bots on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Newsletters but from looking at them, they seem all inactive and some have outstanding newsletters sitting still unsended for quite awhile. I have been moving the request to different bots to try and find one that is active but without success. If anyone has details of a active bot for newsletter deliveries can they post here. Boylo (talk) 02:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Here are some others to check out. Category:Newsletter_delivery_bots Looks like User:MiszaBot may work. Atom (talk) 03:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks i have tried a few of those but found them inactive for some time. MiszaBot has no details of how to lodge a newsletter so not sure how to do it. Boylo (talk) 03:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
See User:ENewsBot/Requests. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 23:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
ENewsBot and Newsletterbot, i found both later after trying them to be inactive for some period of time and many other listed appeared the same. Luckily the owner of TinucherianBot contacted me and i finally got the newsletter delivered, a good service and fast service which was greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help. Boylo (talk) 09:26, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
The bot i used last time TinucherianBot now has it posted that the user is away on holidays. If anyone has a active bot for Project newsletters can they let me know as our October newsletter is ready for delivery. Thx Boylo (talk) 02:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Try User talk:Xenocidic if all else fails - they delivered one for me. -- Banjeboi 03:38, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Thx for that, will try that bot Boylo (talk) 02:27, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
I am back , guys :) Do leave a note on my talk page for any of these bot tasks -- Tinu Cherian - 10:02, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

MfD WikiProject Red Faction

An MfD needs your expertise. Please consider commenting at Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion#Wikipedia:WikiProject_Red_Faction. Thanks. -- Suntag (talk) 02:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games, which is the obvious parent project. They're much more likely to have an opinion on the subject than members of unrelated WikiProjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

List-rated

WikiProject article progress grading scheme [
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 Professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information. No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible. Tourette Syndrome
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A
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Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting. Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style issues may need addressing. Peer-review may help. Durian
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GA
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    2. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose);
    3. it contains no original research; and
    4. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
  3. Broad in its coverage:
    1. it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and
    2. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
  4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
  5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
  6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
    1. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
    2. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
 Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (although not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia. Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existing featured article on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing. International Space Station
(as of February 2007)
B
{{B-Class}} 		The article is mostly complete and without major issues, but requires some further work to reach Good Article standards. B-Class articles should meet the six B-Class criteria:
More detailed criteria
  1. The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. Any format of inline citation is acceptable: the use of <ref> tags and citation templates such as {{cite web}} is optional.
  2. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing.
  3. The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind.
  4. The article is reasonably well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but does not need to be of the standard of featured articles. The Manual of Style does not need to be followed rigorously.
  5. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams, an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content.
  6. The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. The article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.
 No reader should be left wanting, although the content may not be complete enough to satisfy a serious student or researcher. A few aspects of content and style need to be addressed, and expert knowledge is increasingly needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the manual of style and related style guidelines. Jammu and Kashmir
(as of October 2007)
C
{{C-Class}} 		The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup.
More detailed criteria
The article is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research. Articles on fictional topics are likely to be marked as C-Class if they are written from an in-universe perspective.
Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study. Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and address cleanup issues. Exeter Cathedral
(as of June 2008)
Start
{{Start-Class}} 		An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources.
More detailed criteria
The article has a usable amount of good content, but it is weak in many areas, usually in referencing. Quality of the prose may be distinctly unencyclopedic, and MoS compliance non-existent; but the article should satisfy fundamental content policies such as notability and BLP, and provide enough sources to establish verifiability. No Start-Class article should be in any danger of being speedily deleted.
Provides some meaningful content, but the majority of readers will need more. Provision of references to reliable sources should be prioritised; the article will also need substantial improvements in content and organisation. Real analysis
(as of November 2006)
Stub
{{Stub-Class}} 		A very basic description of the topic.
More detailed criteria
The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to become a meaningful article. It is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible.
Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority. Coffee table book
(as of July 2005)


As you can see from this, almost all grades are added on what type of article it is or the quality of the article. However, a major grade list missing that has been added to the assessment - List-rated articles, obviously articles that are lists. So shouldn't this be added? If so, what should be put? Simply south (talk) 22:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

List is there, you just have to call it. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 17:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Merging projects

Can someone point me to a page on how to merge two projects? I haven't been able to find one. Thanks and regards. --Kleinzach 06:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess this could be useful - Help:Merging and moving pages, as the rationale and principle would be the same surely? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm familiar with article merging, but project merging involves a whole set of pages, archives, cats etc. I suppose one method might be to make the (merged) project into a subpage of the (parent) project but I don't want to make a mess of this doing the wrong thing. --Kleinzach 10:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
erm, which two projects are we talking about? Well, can set up a discussion as per the merge page, then, say, mark the daughter project as inactive and mark all its pages as 'in recess' or something. Are there any active members anyway? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:47, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Wikipedia:WikiProject Music genres was marked as inactive in November 07. Ceyockey suggested merging into Wikipedia:WikiProject Music on 13 January this year. I agreed with this here on 13 August. Someone commented here but without a followup. Best. --Kleinzach 04:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Ah I see. I will reply there. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

New implementation of WikiProject banner nesting

Recent code updates have made it possible to significantly improve the handling of WikiProject banner nesting, deprecating the |nested=yes system. See Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell#New implementation of WikiProject banners for more details. Happy‑melon 19:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Article alerts

I have just added a new entry to the WikiProject automation directory: ArticleAlertbot can notify projects when their articles are nominated for AfD, as featured article candidates, for RFC, and more of such workflows. This could for example enhance the sorting of deletion debates considerably. See User:B. Wolterding/Article alerts for more information. --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Reference library category

In order to help facilitate easier location of potential sources of offline information to help verify the notability of article subjects and contents, I have created Category:WikiProject reference libraries and placed into it all of the reference library pages of which I am aware. Please add more project reference libraries to this category if you know of more. Additionally, feel free to create new reference library pages for any particular project as well. They can be very useful. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:02, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Rating comments page being used as talk page

Hi! I've noticed a problem with our project template, Template:WikiProject Psychology, that I would like to get some advice on. There is a link to a "Comments" subpage that should be used for comments relating to the rating of the article. However, novice users seem to sometimes be confused by this, every now and then I see comments that should have been placed on the Talk page for the article instead being placed on the "/Comments" page, with the effect of the comments going unnoticed. I would like to know if other projects have had or have this problem, and how they have dealt with it. (also see discussion here) /skagedaltalk 09:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Could I convince you to kill the /Comments page system entirely? There's no need for a separate subpage, and comments quickly go stale. I think it's better to leave such comments on the regular talk page, where they're more likely to be seen by the regular editors anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
I fully agree that the /Comments system is entirely unnecessary. What advantages does it have? Happy‑melon 18:52, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The advantage is that reviewers can leave brief comments that can be read in the WikiProject "by quality" listings. It can be very useful to scan down the table, to see things like "needs history section". It's been part of the 1.0 bot system since the beginning. I think what might be ideal is to allow projects to turn the feature on or off, as they desire. If people like that idea, I'll suggest it for the new version of the bot, due to come out early next year. Walkerma (talk) 20:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
It is easily turned off; just don't include a way to enter pages into Category:blah blah articles by quality with comments in the WikiProject's banner. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 21:00, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm personally easily convinced that the system should be gotten rid of, since I've only seen it misused. However, now User:Ms2ger has updated the template to use {{WPBannerMeta}}, and with this system the /Comments link isn't shown unless the page already exists, which to me seems to solve the main problem. /skagedaltalk 22:25, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Turning inactive projects into active taskforces

Is there any precedent, procedure, or guideliens to follow if we want to turn an inactive WikiProject into taskforces of another WikiProject? There's a lot of WikiProjects devoted to musical groups that couldn't sustain themselves, and we over at WP:ALM were discussing turning some of the more useful ones that fall under our scope into taskforces. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

We did this at WP Films when we began to implement the task force concept. In that case, we solicited the idea for comment on the other projects' talk pages, and after receiving no response after a substantial amount of time (a month?), we went ahead with it. This happened with WP Persian Cinema and WP Chinese Cinema. Since there wasn't any substantial loss of information in the changeover, it wasn't particularly controversial either. (Of course, also it wouldn't be if no one was around to notice.) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 11:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, is there anyone we could ask for help in doing the switchover? Changing template code and all that. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Over at WP:VG we set up Inactive Project Cleanup a couple of months ago to help consolidate projects into taskforces and such. You're welcome to follow our system, or seek assistance from anyone there. We also enlist the help of AnomieBOT to help clear the debris in the aftermath. --.:Alex:. 12:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
WikiProject Medicine is doing a bit of that these days. We've started a list of instructions/steps you need to take here. Perhaps they'll help someone (or perhaps someone will help us figure out what steps we've missed!). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
What I've seen, for what it's worth, is that initially the subproject-to-be gets a {{merge}} template on it, as does the "parent" project, and a comment in placed on both pages indicating where discussion for merger is to take place. After some time, maybe a month, the results are viewed to determine consensus. If there is consensus to merge, great, go ahead. If there isn't, there's a problem. It has happened occasionally that there is not in fact consensus to merge. In that event, I would suggest allowing the proposed subproject to stand as is. However, it is certainly the case that the project banner of the would-be-parent could be adjusted to provide information on the group assessments for both groups, effectively turning the proposed subproject into a child project without any sort of official name change. John Carter (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Straw poll on 'trial' implementation of FlaggedRevisions

The discussion on the implementation of a 'trial' configuration of FlaggedRevisions on en.wiki has now reached the 'straw poll' stage. All editors are invited to read the proposal and discussion and to participate in the straw poll. Happy‑melon 18:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot to manage WikiProject contests

I have requested for a bot to manage WikiProject contests. See Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Bot_to_run_WikiProject_contests. Please provide your input on the bot request page. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 07:25, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot to create project watchlists

I have requested a bot to create project watchlists here. As you can see, a user kindly did a generation of pages for the projects I named, but I think we need an automated bot for this run by members of the WikiProject Council. I expand upon this in the WPCouncil Guide talk. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 22:41, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Applying Project Banners

This may have been discussed before but I am not up to wading through the archives.

I started working on the articles in Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts and I am resolving the non-trivial conflicts. (There are conflicts on two js pages and conflicts occur in Sandboxes. I am leaving them alone.) There appear to be two major causes for conflict.

The most common cause is that some project banners, most notably Biography and Greece, use the listas parameter whether it is there or not. If the parameter is not completed the sort value is reset to the PAGENAME. This causes a conflict when one banner has a completed listas and another does not.

The second cause for conflict is when the DEFAULTSORT template is placed on the page. As I understand it the DEFAULTSORT template is only to be used on the article page not on the discussion page but some well-meaning editors have been putting it on the discussion page, possibly because they have found the article has been sorted incorrectly in some list. Often the DEFAULTSORT value is incorrect. (For "Janet Montgomerie, Countess of Eglinton" the DEFAULTSORT was "Eglinton, Janet Montgomerie, Countess of". I kid you not.)

Could this Council reach a consensus among all the projects that when a Project Banner is applied the listas parameter is completed? While you are at it, could there also be a consensus that all templates will have the nested parameter set to yes? There has been concern expressed about the appearance of the talk pages of those article that are in many categories. Some projects banners will contract automatically if nested is set to yes. Others need to be enclosed in the WikiProjectBanners template or the WikiProjectBannerShell template. The former does a much better job of contracting the banners but a couple of banners ignore it and insist upon the latter.

I think that implementing the above will make life much easier for casual users and for editors who are working at making things better.

Thank you.

JimCubb (talk) 16:49, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Jim, can you make sure that I understand your issues correctly? Here's what I understood:
Listas parameters
  • Some WikiProjects (like {{WPBiography}} ) include a listas parameter. If an article is (1) tagged by two or more listas-using WikiProjects and (2) those WikiProjects use (or, frequently with disastrous consequences, blindly assume) non-identical listas data, then something bad happens. Also, if an article is (1) tagged by a listas-using WikiProject and (2) the WikiProject uses (or assumes) listas data that is different from the DEFAULTSORT template data on the same talk page (where it has no business existing), then something bad happens.
  • You propose to solve (reduce) this problem by mandating both:
    1. that all WikiProject banners must implement a listas parameter (even if the project has very few articles about people)
    2. that all editors that place a WikiProject banner on an article's talk page must complete the listas parameter (even if the article has nothing to do with a person, such as Water or Fire).
Nesting templates
  • You assert that {{WPB}} and/or {{WPBS}} do not work for some (unnamed) WikiProject banners.
  • You propose to solve this by defaultly using the WPBS-specific 'nested' parameter in the absence of the WPBS shell, on every single talk page unless manually turned off.
Do I understand your two issues correctly? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:07, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure this applies to this discussion, but project templates based on {{WPBannerMeta}} don't need to have nested set at all, as there is automatic discovery of placement within {{WPBS}} and the expected nesting occurs. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 20:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you understand correctly. As far as I can see you have both overstated and understated the case of "something bad happens.

Listas
Most often a mildly instrusive error message will appear on the page above the offending tag, if the tags have been nested the offending tag is no longer nested and the Talk Page is listed on Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts. If this were the worst that happened, this problem belongs in the bottom 100 of things to be addressed.

Sometimes, see the 09:56, 25 July 2008, version of Talk:Dimitrios Gounaris, where the Biobraphy tag had the correct listas value and the Greece tag had no listas value, the offending banner explodes. The Greece banner is the only one that I have seen explode so far and I think it only happens under very limited conditions, but the fact that it happens at all should be enough to move the problem much higher on the list of things to be addressed and the folks in the Greece project will be screaming bloody murder to get the problem fixed immediately once a few of them notice it.

Yes, I do want every tag to have a valid listas value. I do not think that it is impossible for a project to ever have a person in it and if the project completes the listas parameter for that one person it is not left for some one else to fix. Also, it is not only people that need a listas parameter.

Nesting
I merely think that nested tags look better than those that are not nested. I think that most users go to the Talk page to look at the discussions. The project listing may be interesting to them but it is certainly not important. A member of a project who is looking at the Talk Page of an article already knows that the article is part of the Project but may want to update information in the banner. The information cannot be seen easily without editing the page but the member has to edit the page anyway.

{{WPBS}} and automatic nesting are just fine for articles that are in a few projects. When a simple list of the projects fills a screen I think it is time for {{WPB}}. There are articles in the Biography, Greece, Italy, MilHist and Middle Ages projects, some of those are in other countries' projects as well. There are articles in Biography, MilHist and US Congress projects plus at least one US State project and at least one City project. Irish Politicians and Irish Unionists enjoy similar popularity.

I realize that well-behaved banners will automatically nest if placed within {{WPBS}}. However, many templates are not well-behaved. If all the templates were well-behaved {{WPBS}} would not be necessary because nested=yes would accomplish the same thing.

I think that nesting is an important issue mainly for those who care about how things look and how things should look and that if you ask twelve people what they think, you will get at least thirteen opinions. The listas issue affects accessiblity to information and I believe ease of accessibility should the underlying "pillar" to almost every web site, most especially WP.

Did that help?

JimCubb (talk) 19:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. To continue to treat the issues separately, perhaps we should split this discussion? They are certainly entirely unrelated.
The |listas= issue that you bring up is certainly a well-known and serious problem. The issue is multi-levelled as you say. The issue that DEFAULTSORT is intended to resolve is where pages like Talk:Albert Einstein are listed under "A" instead of "E"; pages like Talk:Water should not need a DEFAULTSORT because sorting under "W" is entirely correct here. What actually happens, unfortunately, is that both these pages will in the absence of any correcting factors categorise under "T", because for some reason no one can fathom the namespace prefix is included. There is an active bug (T18552) open to resolve this; if you have a Bugzilla account I strongly encourage you to go and vote for that bug to get it implemented ASAP. When that happens, pages like Talk:Water will not need any category-sorting treatment; they can be left in their 'natural state'. The fact that such pages hugely outnumber pages where there is a legitimate use for DEFAULTSORTs indicates that it is counterproductive to simply require |listas= parameters on all banners. Rather, it will be easy and effective to reconfigure all banners to only define a DEFAULTSORT if a value is explicitly given through |listas=. That way, the only DEFAULTSORT conflicts that will occur is when two banners on a page specify different DEFAULTSORT sortkeys, which is very easy to fix by removing one of them or changing them to both be the same. While it would be a good idea for every WikiProject banner to support a |listas= parameter (so that adding a DEFAULTSORT can be done by editing the first banner on a page, whichever project that might be), requiring every listas parameter to be set (when they would all need to be the same and might be duplicated ten or more times on popular pages), is totally unnecessary.
Vis nesting, I believe you have the wrong end of the stick. The {{WikiProjectBanners}} template is itself deprecated; the functionality that you suggest is available by calling {{WikiProjectBannerShell|collapsed=yes}}. You have two contradictory definitions of "well-behaved": the well behaved banners are the ones that adapt automatically to the presence of a banner shell. WikiProject Banners should not be nested outside WPB or WPBS because the resulting appearance is against the guidelines at WP:TPT. Whenever there are more than three WikiProject banners on a page, a WPBS shell should be introduced. If there are more than 8 or 9 banners, consider adding |collapsed=yes to the banner shell. In no circumstances should it be necessary to collapse banners without a shell, or to use WPB.
Hope this clarifies. Happy‑melon 20:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I just wanted to point out that {{WPB}} is deprecated by Happy-melon, not by Wikipedia editors in general. For example, I happen to prefer WPB to WPBS. The docs for both templates recommend not provoking pointless edit wars to use an individual's preference; they do not claim that either is better/worse/more approved/deprecated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant it's deprecated in the sense that the equivalent functionality is available from WPBS, which is superior in other areas; not that the style of the template (being collapsed by default, sometimes with the banners uncollapsed inside) is deprecated. As you note, many editors prefer the visual appearance of WPB to WPBS, and that needs to be respected. But using {{WPBS|collapsed=yes}} (or {{WPBS|collapsed=yes|banner collapse=no}} if you want to precisely duplicate WPB) retains those styles while still taking advantage of the superior features of the other banner. So, by no means are the WPB styles deprecated; sorry if I gave that impression. Happy‑melon 10:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it does. It is so much easier to type a pipe and "nested=yes" once, copy them and past them a couple of times than it is to type two left braces, "WPBS|1=", scroll to the end of the tags and type two right braces. Visually, they are identical. It is also much, much easier to use WPB than to type all that stuff to make WPBS do the same thing.

I could not find where WP:TPT said that banners cannot be nested outside WPB or WPBS. I had a brief giggle, though, at the example given there. Not only is WPB used but each of the banners has the value for nested set at yes, even the WP Biography banner which doesn't need it to behave correctly within a shell. (None of the banners have a completed listas parameter but no one has put a DEFAULTSORT on the page either. I think the latter will happen eventually.)

The giggle at the Pope's Talk page was preceeded by one at the conflict I had just resolved. There are three banners on the page. Biography was first, followed by MilHist and I do not remember the third. There was no shell of either kind but all three has nested=yes. The MilHist banner did not cooperate but the other two did. I used WPBS and took "nested=yes" off of all the banners. The MilHist banner did not nest but the other two did. I put "nested=yes" back into MilHist and it behaved. Do you suppose there is some correlation between the name of the project and the way its banner behaves?

I do not think the current version of Talk:Hiero I of Syracuse is at all funny. Six projects, only the first two are in the banner shell and pieces of the Greece banner are all over the place. It is beyond ugly. Had I seen something like it when I first started doing this I would have wanted to run away and hide. Now I know that copy and paste or cut and paste will solve all the problems.

JimCubb (talk) 22:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The issue is from "The side margins are (minimally) 10%": nested banners are full-width, which is contrary to this guideline. They need to be encased in a shell to prevent them from being full-width. I don't think that wrapping the templates in a shell is more difficult than wrapping them in a shell and adding |nested=yes :D.
There is indeed correlation: some WikiProject banners have been modified to nest automatically, others have not. Those banners that nest automatically no longer obey the |nested= parameter and so are more in line with WP:TPT. The reason WPBS did not work as you expected it to on Talk:Hiero I of Syracuse was because of a simple (although easy to make) formatting error [1]. Happy‑melon 22:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Jim, you may be interested in knowing that the "|1=" bit is unnecessary. And is eleven characters, whereas {{WPB| }} is only eight. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
It is usually unnecessary, although there may be rare instances where ommitting it comes back to bite you (but they'll be fairly obvious when half/all of the banners dissappear). Don't forget that you'd have to add |nested=yes to each banner, while you only need to add the wrapper template once. So it's considerably more than eleven characters. Happy‑melon 10:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I have found that some banners will obey WPB and WPBS only if nested=yes. Rather than try to remember which ones they are I paste "nested=yes" into every banner on my way down to typing the two right braces at the end. I do the same for the listas parameter.

I will always use WPB for living people. The living=yes in the WPBiog banner does not produce the BLP banner if the WPBiog banner is nested and |blp=yes does not seem to work unless it is in a shell.

One other thing that I am doing with living people is to make certain the BLP banner is on top of the list. I have observed that the folks who care about the sensitivity of BLP really care about it. In the interest of self-preservation I think it wise to stay on their good sides.

JimCubb (talk) 17:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
The SVG.

I have created an SVG of the logo for you guys to use, if you want to. Any suggestions or queries, please ask them here, but please drop me a note at my talk too, as I don't have this page watchlisted (tend not to use it much). — neuro(talk) 12:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! Happy‑melon 12:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
That's great! Good job. --.:Alex:. 13:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, this may be in the archives and I promise that as soon as I have an afternoon with absolutely nothing else to do I will read the archives but Is there a suggested order for Project banners on a page?

I assume that the Talk banner should be on top, even though it is huge, and if the article is about a living person the blp banner should be as close to the to as possible but what comes next? Does it matter?

JimCubb (talk) 17:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
As a general rule, no there is no well-defined hierarchy. There are a few banners that are recognised to have priority over others, roughly the order is {{skiptotoc}} (or variants) for obvious reasons, then {{Talk header}}, then {{blp}} in whatever incarnation it takes (from {{WPBiography}}, {{WPBS}} or on its own on rare occasions; this requirement can fix the position of other templates, as {{WPBS}} and {{ArticleHistory}} are usually placed adjacent to each other. It's also customary that {{archive box}} goes at the bottom of the stack. Other than these, there really aren't any conventions, especially when there is no shell template on a page (although WikiProject banners are usually placed together). Happy‑melon 17:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Cool! I have been moving {{WPBiography}} to the top when it provided the blp banner unless I saw a reason not to do so. When I did not move it I have used {{blp}}. I stopped trying to follow a hierarchy, such as general to specific, when I realized that almost nobody cared. Thank you.

JimCubb (talk) 21:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

About two years ago someone had the bright idea that the list of categories at the bottom of an artcle was too big and some of those categories should be moved to the Talk page. Within the last couple of months a bot has started to do that. As a result, the top of the Talk page is becoming more cluttered and the category listing at the bottom of the Talk page is getting longer. Some projects have already made their banner-generated categories hidden, that is, they do not show on the the page that generates them. Could the basic banner and all project banners be modified so that their administrative categories are hidden?

It does no one any good to see at the bottom of a talk page that the article is an "Unknown-priority biography (sports and games) article". If one cares about such things the list of banner-generated categories at the Project page is where it should be found. There should be a way to put at the bottom of a page that a page belongs to a number of categories that are not visible with a link to instructions on how to see the hidden categories.

I am going to make this suggestion to the Biography project as that project covers at least 20% of the pages in Wikipedia.

JimCubb (talk) 23:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Items on portals

For anyone who is interested, Derek Andrews has created Template:No selected item which can be used as a warning for selecting items such as selected article and selected picture not being displayed the next month. Simply south is this a buffet? 21:55, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Good work. Seems more pleasing to the eye than the already existing {{portalwarning}} as used by Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports and others. Nanonic (talk) 22:13, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

increasing visibility of portals

I'm managing WikiProject Neuroscience currently, and one thing that's very clear is that hardly anybody ever looks at our portal, Portal:Neuroscience, which gives not much motivation for maintaining it. What needs to be done is to increase the visibility of portal links from the basic articles on the topic, such as Neuroscience and Brain. I can think of several ways to do it, but all of them have problems. The ideal would be to have the portal link on the title line, at the upper right, but as far as I know that isn't possible. Putting it at the upper right of the lead gives a really ugly appearance if there is an image in the lead -- and putting it below the image makes it too hard to notice. I'm tempted to put it at the upper left of the lead, but that seems too obtrusive. Any suggestions? If this has been discussed before, a pointer to the previous discussion would be appreciated. Looie496 (talk) 17:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Inactive members

I recall discussion of a bot that could remove inactive members from a project, but I can't recall where the discussion was. Anyone have any clues? Hiding T 12:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

A hand?

Wondering if any experienced WikiProject people would like to help us get Wikipedia:WikiProject Blogging on its feet. Computerjoe's talk 19:46, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Alternative WikiProject Directory

I wasn't sure where to post this, so I'll try here. My proposal is for an alternative wikiproject directory that is more compact and will shorten the number of hops required to reach a particular project. Here is an example for your consideration:

Thank you.—RJH (talk) 19:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Kirill [pf] 02:07, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Good idea, although you should do that for the subdirectories as well. You also have to add an extra </div> on the end (don't worry, I did it). DeMoN2009 21:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
That more or less was the old setup. The current setup was instituted to better reflect the 10 basic categories that everything is, ultimately, placed in and everything else uses. No real objections to returning to the former setup, but think that the current one does have the advantage of being more in line with the rest of wikipedia. John Carter (talk) 21:16, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
The current setup probably works okay if you are working on, say, an African nation article and you can go right to that section. It's not very useful for the 'Science, technology, and engineering' categories where I need to do a scroll, click, wait, scroll, click just to get to Space.—RJH (talk) 21:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

That looks good. I think a similar thing is needed for the proposals. Rd232 talk 12:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Sub-page for each proposal

A proposal to change the structure of the project proposal page has been elaborated here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Subpage idea. It would, AFD-style, give each proposal its own subpage. Comments please. Rd232 talk 12:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I support the idea, and I improved the box at the original discussion so it now looks like this:
Creating a proposal

This box is to propose WikiProjects or Task forces that you wish to create. Please make sure you have read the relevent guides that are listed below:

Create a new subpage by typing in the name of the proposed WikiProject/Task Force in the input box below (after "/Proposals/") and clicking "create page." Then, follow the instructions at the top of the page to add a description of the proposed project:


If there is already a proposal there with the same name as your project (you can tell because there should be no hidden messages, and a proper signature instead of ~~~~), either change the name of the project or add your name to the list of supporters.

Hope it helps! DeMoN2009 10:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I will also be happy to convert all of the proposals to the new format. DeMoN2009 16:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest if no opposition has been voiced by 5 April (a week from when it was first mentioned, plus a bit), you go ahead and do it. It's a big improvement. Rd232 talk 15:57, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe 10 April, because I'm going to be away for a few days. :-) DeMoN2009 12:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
No, 5 April – I'll do it if need be :) I think it would be best if we (meaning me essentially – I'd be willing to do it) sub-paged the existing proposals as well. Big task I know, but this coming week I'll have plenty of spare time :D ~EdGl ★ 12:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Is it okay if edit history isn't preserved? ~EdGl ★ 14:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I think so. AFAIK GFDL isn't an issue for these pages. Rd232 talk 14:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Request to change the proposal template

I believe the "SWPP" section should be removed. Please reply here. ~EdGl ★ 17:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Dead Wikiproject.

I recently joined the wikiproject Aquarium fishes, only to find that no one had posted in it since january. Is there any way to take control of this wikiproject and save the work that has already been done while removing inactive members, and moving control of newsletters and such to someone else? Drew R. Smith (talk) 13:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Basically, just be bold and do it. Alternately, if you wished and you believe the project to be basiclly unsalvagable, you could propose to merge it into another similar project which is more active. John Carter (talk) 15:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
WP:BOLD. However it's probably a good idea to try and find members who are still actively editing but not recently involved in the project (look at the Contributions page of various members) and ask them what they think. Rd232 talk 15:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Ok. I've already taken some steps and removed the dead links from the members page, but I guess my biggest problem is how do I get control of the Newsletter? If I cant get control of the old newspaper, how do I make my own? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drew R. Smith (talk • contribs) 20:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Creating Namespace

Hello. Try as I might, I can't seem to find the answer: once a project proposal attracts sufficient members, how do you actually create a new project namespace on (Wikipedia:Wikiproject....)? Thanks.Tobit2 (talk) 23:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Question answered. Create like any other page. Just type in Wikipedia:WikiProject (project name).Tobit2 (talk)

It appears that several California related WikiProjects have become dead, or have limited activity. I've started task force conversion discussions for several daughter projects. I'm a bit concerned that I might be running a bit past being bold and if I need some clue adjustment. The discussions are all linked from WT:CAL so any advice, suggestions, or clue adjustment would be appreciated. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikiproject info

Wikipedia:WikiProject VVMAP seems to be the creation (in October 2008) of its only active member, Cooljuno411 (talk · contribs). I've yet to see any articles tagged with the project or any visible work on behalf of this project. It was kept via Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject VVMAP in the same month and year. I feel it's a dead or useless project but wanted to get input from more seasoned editors in regards to Wikiprojects. I only came across the project in question when I came across 2 templates recently created for the project - 2 templates in which Wikipedia policy disallow so I have nommed them for deletion already. But before I nom this project for deletion, I'd like to hear opinions/thoughts/gripes. Thanks. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here @ 07:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd see if the author has any plans to promote/activate the project. If not, it sounds ripe for another MfD. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 11:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
A bit off topic, but I wonder whether this project was created in response to one of the perpetual "How come somebody removed all my YouTube videos from the external links section?" questions at WT:EL. If not, there appear to be approximately three editors off and on at that page that will support the goal of promoting videos on Wikipedia and could perhaps be recruited to the project. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
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