Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council

Inactive

Should WP:HAWAII be marked as inactive? Before today there had been over a year of routine announcements and automated edits to the talk page which makes it inactive according to WP:INACTIVEWP. After I marked it as inactive Cielquiparle came along, objected (with no further reasoning), and then reverted my marking of the project as inactive with the summary "just b/c the Talk page isn't active doesn't mean the Project isn't active". When I asked for them to elaborate more they stated that their objection and me trying to understand why made the project active now. They proceeded to say I didn't realize becoming a member was so exclusive. even though the WikiProject's main page has a list of active members (which doesn't appear to have been pruned in a while) and then answered a question that had gone unanswered on the talk page for a few days, almost in an attempt to try and make the WikiProject not fit the criteria of an inactive WikiProject because I saw it as such. I'm not trying to assume bad faith here, however I really don't want to argue over something as simple as the inactivity of a WikiProject. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:34, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Over the past year, I have received help from WikiProject Hawaii members on articles related to Hawaii. (At least, I thought they were WikProject Hawaii members. I confess, I have no idea how WikiProject membership works.) Cielquiparle (talk) 19:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Just add your name on the membership list (if there is any) and do what you like. There are no office-like minimum work requirements. Just write articles related to that wikiproject's subject, identify issues, discuss them on the wikiproject talk page with fellow editors, etc. That's what it means to be a member of a wikiproject. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 20:03, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

@Blaze Wolf, if marking a project as inactive results in someone noticing, reverting it, and answering a question on the talk page, then that is a very good thing. Congratulations! You may have inspired someone to WP:REVIVE an inactive WikiProject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:20, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Very good advice, like a wake-up call. -- Otr500 (talk) 04:23, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, yes, thats a great point. it also enables any newcomers to that specific wikiproject to feel like they are free to pitch in, if they feel inclined to do so. Sm8900 (talk) 21:55, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposed changes to extended quality scale

Now that 99% of projects are using the standard or extended quality scale, we should probably pay more attention to what is included in each. Suggestions:

• I think Redirect should probably be included in the extended scale because many many projects track their redirects.
• On the other hand, is Portal really needed as there are likely to be few portal pages within each project's remit? NA should be sufficient for those.

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:42, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

It's easier to add items than to remove them. If we remove the portal class, we can expect someone to complain. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:22, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Okay, fair point. Maybe I should separate these proposals. Does anyone have a problem with Redirect being included in the extended quality scale? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:06, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

The quality scales really belong to the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team, so you should probably ask them. The only problems I can predict are that when the assessment statistics tables (example) include redirects, it produces a misleading total, and if they're used routinely (e.g., applied by bot), someone will eventually complain about millions of "unnecessary" talk pages being created (rather than, e.g., redirecting the talk pages). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:22, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I kind of disagree with you. Version 1.0 is a long inactive project, and since [1] the community has effectively taken control of the quality scale away from individual projects, so perhaps I should be proposing this at Wikipedia talk:Content assessment but I don't know how watched that page is. I'm not sure what the effect will be on that page, but many many projects already track redirects so I don't expect much confusion, just a bunch a new categories to be created. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:22, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

The 1.0 team depends on the ratings in a way that no other group does. It would make sense to talk to them to make sure that your proposals don't conflict with their needs. I can guess that these suggestions will be okay, but Walkerma is better informed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, @WhatamIdoing and MSGJ: - I don't think those changes would affect us much. We mainly use quality & importance assessments for putting together selections, so it doesn't matter a lot to us whether or not how redirects or portals are listed. However, I'm not the tech person, so I suggest talking with Audiodude directly, as he is the main person writing code for the Bot. BTW, we are very quiet on WP itself, but in fact Audiodude has spent hundreds of hours in the last year writing or rewriting code to improve the WP1.0 bot and WP1.0 server - so the project is just behind the scenes, not inactive. I'm actually traveling to Europe next month to see User:Kelson, the Kiwix guy, so yes, we are still active offline! Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 20:21, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

• Greetings Walkerma, Kelson, and Audiodude. Replying here shows the note: "This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference", as well as your comments about the non-Wikipedia visible activity, seem to suggest the wording is not accurate. Maybe this could be changed to something more accurate. Possibly adding the names of any "behind the scene " editors that might be willing to provide assistance. Just a thought. Also, it would seem that a note on the talk page of such visits or other off-Wikipedia discussions would be beneficial as well as adding some transparency. -- Otr500 (talk) 12:02, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

 Done Just to note that Redirect has now been added to the standard extended scale. But it will only be used if the appropriate category has been created, otherwise it will continue to use NA-Class. Therefore it will not be necessary to create lots of categories. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:03, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Renaming of categories

It is time we finally got rid of the oxymoronic category names like Category:Template-Class Ukraine articles. (If it is a template then it is NOT an article!) I am planning a mass CfD at some stage and would like to get some comments on a better naming scheme. I think the format Category:XXX-Class YYY articles should be used solely for the quality of articles in topic YYY. For non-articles, we could use something like

• Category:WikiProject Ukraine template pages
• Category:WikiProject Ukraine templates

Any thoughts? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:40, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Are you prepared to re-write Template:WPBannerMeta to cope with your more complicated naming scheme? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:21, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely! I need to write that damn template in Lua anyway, so this might be the motivation I need — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:23, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I see that the second proposed category name is already used, as is Category:WikiProject Public Art templates Category:Public art task force templates, Category:WikiProject India templates among others. A new name if chosen, should ensure that existing categorisation system isn't conflicted. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:54, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

I like the idea in principle - those category names always made me chuckle - as long as it doesn't cause a lot of headaches for other Wikipedians. If you can make a global change without it messing up assessments or lists, then it would be great. Would you be able to test it out on a couple of specific categories first, or would it be "all or nothing" on maybe a million "non-articles" in one go? If the latter, then you might want to take this discussion to a wider audience first. Thanks, though - it's long overdue, really! Walkerma (talk) 04:27, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I also support this in principle, as long as it doesn't break anything else that can't easily be fixed. -Kj cheetham (talk) 20:58, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Johnny Depp

Would someone from COUNCIL take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Johnny Depp and Draft:Wikipedia:WikiProject Johnny Depp? It looks like someone is trying to create a new WikiProject but just doesn't know how. It seems quite odd for there to be a draft for a WikiProject in the draft namespace and being submitted for AFC review. Perhaps someone with more experience in creating WikiProjects can advise the creator on what's best way to do so. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:18, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: The correct process will be to create a proposal for newe project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. Some instructions are available here Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 05:23, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that information, but I'm not the creator of either. The draft is probably going to end being deleted per WP:G13 and the existing page in Wikipedia namespace may end up at AfD. The creator seems to be quite a new editor who's only edits so far have been to create the aforementioned two pages in addition to Category:Johnny Depp articles by importance, Template:WikiProject Johnny Depp and Category:FA-Class Johnny Depp articles and to make some edits to Cultural impact and legacy of Johnny Depp. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:32, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I don't think we need a WikiProject just for one actor. Suggest joining Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:14, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject: Dogs

Hello, sorry to bother you but I have joined this Dogs Project recently and I was looking at the to-do list but it hasn’t been updated since 2014! Im not sure how to edit the to-do list, some of the pages dont need to be on there anymore and some need to be added but it wont let me edit it. SpookMew (talk) 16:05, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

SpookMew, for the todo list specifically, it can be edited at Template:Dog opentask (which was last modified January 2022), though I admit I originally thought it would have been directly at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/to do (where the 2014 date comes from)! Hope this helps! -Kj cheetham (talk) 16:19, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Oooh, thank you! I think I cannot edit it because its a protected page, I will have to wait and see if the moderator of project dogs edits it at some point SpookMew (talk) 16:39, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

SpookMew, it only needs "extended confirmed" access to edit it, but you are currently only "autoconfirmed". If you look at WP:XCON you can see one of the requirements is at least 500 edits, and looking at https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/SpookMew you're currently a bit under 400. So you'll probably get to 500 before too long anyway. :-) -Kj cheetham (talk) 16:51, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I moved Template:Dog opentask to Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/to do which seemed to be more logical. Thanks for your work in updating this SpookMew — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:22, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Formal Joining

Hello I wanted to know if Wikipedia has a formal process of joining a wikiproject. I was unable to locate a join link or find an administrator to answer my question. More information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

FictiousLibrarian (talk). 03:42, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@FictiousLibrarian: There is no formal joining process. WikiProjects are a place to collaborate with editors interested in some topic. If you are interested in any topic, you can always join its WikiProject. Some WikiProjects may have a Members/Participants list, feel free to add your name to that list if you are joining. Keep an eye on the talk page of the project you join, so that you can see what discussions are taking place among the collaborators. Best. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 08:02, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd say that one of the most useful things a new participant can do is to watchlist the group's page to keep track of discussions. When you see someone who needs help, try to help them. Maybe you won't be able to help with everything, but if you do your best to help with the things you can do, you'll quickly get a reputation for being a valuable participant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

User Stats for activity in projects

Is there a way to see what WikiProjects a user is most active in? For example, this tool shows my account is most active in Main space, then Talk, then Wikipedia, etc.

I can also see Wikipedia articles I've created, or files uploaded.

Is there a way I can see what projects my edited pages are part of? Do I edit topics around Music more than TV? Do I edit mostly Australian content? Etc. I think I should be able to know this based on the WikiProjects these pages are part of, but unless I look at them individually there doesn't seem to be a way to find this out as a nice chart. Jimmyjrg (talk) 14:37, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jimmyjrg, I don't think we have a tool that's exactly like what you're asking for, but you might be interested in the list of articles you edit most often at https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/Jimmyjrg#top-edited-pages (or see the complete list here).

Previously, a bot written by User:Harej would update pages like Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Musicians, but it hasn't run that task for over a year. If you don't mind out-of-date information, then this search link will give you a list of the three WikiProjects that were supporting articles you edited the last time the bot ran. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for those links. I also requested the feature to see these stats on MediaWiki and someone is looking into it. Hopefully someone puts something together as I think it could be an interesting tool to find new projects and communities to join. Jimmyjrg (talk) 02:14, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Proposal to change B-class checklist behaviour

See also: Module talk:WikiProject banner/Archive 13 § bchecklist unintuitive behaviour, and Module talk:WikiProject banner/Archive 14 § Projects that use the checklist but do not use it to autodemote

There was a proposal by User:DFlhb (and on much reflection supported by me) to make a minor change the behaviour of the B-class checklist, which I am bringing here for greater exposure.

Current situation

• A B-class checklist can be added to a project banner as an optional feature
• The checklist is completed using parameters for the 6 B-class criteria, |b1= up to |b6=
• The template will then "auto-demote" a B-class article to C-class unless all the criteria parameters are filled out and passed, e.g. |b1=yes
• Blank criteria parameters are treated the same as failed parameters, i.e. |b1= means the same as |b1=no

Proposed situation

• Blank criteria parameters will not result in articles being auto-demoted. Only an explicit |b1=no would result in the article being demoted to C-class.
• All criteria parameters marked as passed will result in a C-class article being automatically promoted to B-class.

Rationale

• It is sometimes confusing for editors to understand why typing {{WikiProject Apple Inc.|class=B}} results in the article being assessed as C-class instead of B-class. We should not expect editors to know that certain project templates are set up differently to others.
• We should trust an editor that types {{WikiProject Apple Inc.|class=B}} that they do actually understand what B-class means and so should infer that the criteria are passed. In DFlhb's words, removing pointless complexity by letting people rate things as B-class without jumping through hoops.
• It would allow editors to focus their attention on issues which really need to be solved, rather than articles which just haven't been assessed, by using categories such as Category:XYZ articles needing attention to referencing and citation
• It removes a barrier to WP:PIQA deployment.

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:56, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I definitely support |b1= being missing effectively defaulting to "yes". I'm more on the fence if |b1= is present but blank, however I'm not sure how easy it is to separate two those situations. I also note in WP:RATER, adding WikiProject Military History brings up B-Class-1 to 5, whereas WikiProject Apple Inc. doesn't bring up any of b1, etc. I assume milhist is different somehow anyway? -Kj cheetham (talk) 14:09, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

MILHIST explicitly hard-coded their banner to require B-class checklist and tied their rating scheme to the checklist. Honestly, I like the idea- it's clearer than Rater's often-opaque reasoning. I would rather move to using the B-class checklist to calculate articles' quality and mostly deprecate the |class= parameter instead. Another benefit is that it makes what improvements are needed clearer. With Rater, I frequently am unsure of why it rates an articles as one class or another. It's given B-class to articles lacking sources, for example, while denying B-class just because an article didn't have templated citations. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 14:28, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

This is going off-topic a bit, as there's been more than enough discussion elsewhere about the class parameter which led to WP:PIQA. But for WP:RATER, it uses ORES to predict article quality, and it's own documentation even says This is only a prediction, and may be inaccurate (occasionally wildly so). The current proposal is only about what's in the "Proposed situation" above though. -Kj cheetham (talk) 14:35, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I know that Rater uses ORES; I am frustrated that ORES is opaque and questionably accurate. Checking against the B-class checklist makes more sense- it's clearer and stricter- and I wish there was an alternative to Rater that did so.

As a side note, MILHIST will almost certainly oppose any attempt to change how their banner's checklist works, but they also use a bot to auto-assess all of the parameters so it isn't an issue; and they use a slightly different assessment criteria anyhow. This proposal seems to be (should be) restricted to those projects that use the regular criteria. SilverTiger12 (talk) 14:46, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I concur with your side note. -Kj cheetham (talk) 15:20, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

The proposal here is for a change to the default B-class checklist so MilHist's would not be affected. However it would be great in the future if we could find a system that all projects could support. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:48, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

My views here are similar to Kj cheetham. I'm curious as well about the depreciation of the checklist but will wait for that separate discussion which I think should happen after this one. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 09:00, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

• Here's a better idea: deprecate B-class checklists. As stated above, when a reviewer tags an article as |class=B, it's because they understand what B-class means. In any case, the redesigned WikiProject banner shell already ignores B-class checklists anyway, so it doesn't really matter. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:54, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
  • I'd support depreciating the checklist parameters as well. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 23:33, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

  Can I suggest having this discussion separately as it may sidetrack this discussion? At some point I would like to explore moving the B-class checklist into the banner shell because it doesn't make any sense to assess these for each individual project. But I would be reluctant to deprecate them altogether because it is a useful tool for many editors. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:45, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps my experience is different to others but it has not been my experience that if someone types Class=B in their project header they have an understanding of the criteria that would make it so. The idea that an unfilled criterion should be considered a yes is just daft. If the person filling it in is not sure whether it passes, we should be cautious rather than risk undermining our quality standards. Monstrelet (talk) 16:09, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Well there's nothing to stop someone typing |class=A or |class=FA either . I don't think you can enforce the criteria by using a template, but it should be easier for experienced editors to assess articles. The confusing part currently is that some templates will accept |class=B and others will not. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:03, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, as the assessment system is a hierarchy, it shouldn't be possible to pass a higher grade without passing a lower, so a complete B class check should be in place for an A or FA. Also, as any editor can assess to B, IIRC, why assume only long term editors will be doing the assessment, rather than eager new editors (and I would recommend new editors to at least try assessing in order to get a better understanding of what wiki thinks make a good article). Anyway, I've said my piece. Monstrelet (talk) 08:53, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

World changing information...I am a cosmological under Cesare Emiliani

End of things as we understand Call me 190.104.105.146 (talk) 19:09, 14 September 2023 (UTC)