Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council

Merge of business and companies WikiProjects

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Business#Merge of business and companies WikiProjects. – Joe (talk) 18:20, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

This proposal was made more than 30 days ago, and anything that was agreed to could be implemented now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

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)

Share examples of WikiProjects or collaborations that you have worked on

Hi Wikimedians!

The Campaigns Product and Programs Teams at the Wikimedia Foundation wants to learn more about WikiProjects and other on-wiki collaborations work. We would like to do more work that improves the quality of collaborations onwiki. We especially need examples of WikiProjects and other collaborations that have worked on different Wikimedia projects. Please help us by filling out a short survey on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns/WikiProjects

Never participated in a WikiProject or other collaborations, but have ideas on how we could make collaboration better? You can also share feedback on the talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Campaigns/WikiProjects

Please share the survey with anyone you think would help us have valuable insights, we are particularly looking for successful collaborations on non-English wikis. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe Rosiestep could offer useful background on Women in Red and its non-English extensions, and perhaps other collaborative initiatives.--Ipigott (talk) 10:47, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

WikiProject Women's sport

Women's sport has been discussed on the talk page of WP Women in Red. It has been suggested that the project is widely used and highly active. It should therefore no longer be listed as "inactive".--Ipigott (talk) 10:40, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I marked it as inactive a few weeks ago, based primarily on the fact that there hasn't been a substantial discussion on its talk page for over a year and that participants do not appear to be coordinated collaborative efforts in any other ways. I can see from the WT:WOMRED discussion that you said you use it reviewing and assessing articles and that its template is used on many articles. I'm not sure that translates to widely-used and highly active. The purpose of a wikiproject is to facilitate a group of people engaging in collaborative editing; the system of tagging and assessing articles is supposed to be a means to an end, not an end in itself.

You can change it back to active if you want, but I don't think that will change anything about the reality. It seems to me that this and most of the ~20 other projects on specific subsets of biographies of women are struggling to maintain activity levels and could benefit from being consolidated into a less niche group. Perhaps WiR, as one of the stand-out examples of a successful wikiproject, could be a focus point for this? Preserving the merged wikiprojects as task force would mean their tagging and assessment functions would remain essentially unchanged, though as discussed above a better long term solution would be to develop categorisation and monitoring tools that don't depend on an otherwise moribund wikiproject. – Joe (talk) 12:18, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

It's possible that this particular group will have intermittent activity (e.g., during the Olympics). I do think that merging it as a task force has significant possibilities. In particular, that would maintain separate 1.0 stats for anyone who uses that to choose subject areas (though independent means would be better), and the talk page could be redirected to the main page, so that people asking for help would actually get responses. Wikipedia:WikiProject Women might be a more willing target than Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red, since it is more generic (though distinctly less active).

I have removed the idea of assessment as an indicator of group activity from Template:WikiProject status/doc. With the switch to sitewide assessment, it's become irrelevant. Articles get assessed regardless of whether the group is assessing them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Out of all the projects listed in the WiR sidebar, only Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Religion and the recently created Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women Do News show more than one reply in the past few years, if that. CMD (talk) 01:47, 6 August 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)

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)

Michelin Guide task force

A few of us have created Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink/Michelin Guide task force

Inviting others to join or otherwise help improve this project's infrastructure. Thanks! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:32, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climbing#Suggesting a change of WP:WikiProject Climbing/Article recommendations

Discussion on a project guideline, if you have an opinion, please join. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:08, 31 August 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)