Wikipedia talk:List of WikiProjects

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Pseudoscience

Should the "Intelligent Design" WikiProject be placed in "Pseudoscience", as it is now, or should it be put under "Religion"? I would argue for a move and deletion of the "Pseudoscience" heading. Courtland 01:30, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Putting it under "religion" would only inflame people who want to claim that's not what it is. The whole issue should be sidestepped by putting it under something neutral sounding like "Non-falsifiable hypotheses".  ;-) Or even "definition of science" or "philosophy of science" where questions of scientific method and the question chain should be discussed.
'Pseudoscience' is a WP:NPOV violation, since it's a pejorative Cynical 20:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I support putting it under "philosophy of science". Balso Snell 21:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thinks it should be put with a title "Crackpot Theories", cause my sensee is that crazy dudes like Rick Perry and the chick Michelle Bachmann are into it. And they make a bunch of stuff up when they be talking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.14.36.165 (talk) 22:21, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reorg

Just a heads-up - there is a reorganisation discussion going on about this and a few related pages over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Manning 01:43, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Media project discussion

We've opened up Wikipedia:WikiProject Media and are seeking editors, advisors and input. At present, we are developing our list of articles, creating templates and looking at the initial stages of the project. We've added other projects where they seem to fit the various suggestion categories. In some cases we might reduce the number of added to those lists and focus to the ones most relevant and likely to prove complementary or helpful to our project. A related project that also needs editors and advisors is Wikipedia:WikiProject Journalism. Calicocat 23:38, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Journalism project discussion

This is a new project that needs editors, advisors and input. We have a good list of articles to look and some improvements to the Journalism articles have already been made as a result. There has also been some disagreement about a couple of articles but even those are progressing with good faith discussions and some new voices to add to the expansion and development of the various articles. Please see and sign up for Wikipedia:WikiProject Journalism if so minded. Thanks, Calicocat 23:38, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A good thing would be to list all conventions derived from journalism which Wikipedia uses, e.g. Wikipedia:as of, and those that should be used in referring to say future events, e.g. Wikipedia:election. In some ways WP leads journalists in how it does these things.


Norms of listing

Hello all - I have a question about appropriate listing here. We are starting WikiProject Game theory, about the interdisciplinary study of game theory. While game theory is traditionally studied in economics, it is used by evolutionary biology, mathematics, and others. Should I list the wikiproject in several different places on this list? Or just under economics? Thanks! --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 17:39, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest that you list it once and cross-reference to other page sections, but I wouldn't add a lot of cross-references. For instance, the evolutionary biology and mathematics are both in the major science column. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why not have a separate section for 'interdisciplinary studies'? --Fenice 18:41, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Almost anything that is general (about 30% of the wikiprojects, I'm guessing) could conceivably go into such a section. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 22:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. Which other project would you see as an interdisciplinary field? --Fenice 07:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For instance, many things under "Games and Recreation" are cross-postable under "Entertainment"; all "encyclopedia" topics (such as "Music encyclopedia topics") are cross-postable under "Wikipedia:Content"; many of the "Transportation" items are cross-postable under "Geography"; "Computer science" items are cross-postable under "Technology"; "Sociology" items are cross-postable under "Science"; "Philately" is cross-postable under "Games and Recreation" (as a hobby). Thirty-percent is high, but it's not unreasonable if this list is considered saying "a couple of dozen". The term "interdisciplinary" has both a formal and an informal definition and I do not expect people to use the formal one. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:02, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe most wikipedians will tend to understand the term in its formal meaning. And Game theory would as of yet be the only subject in this field. Let's give it a try.--Fenice 16:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Building" vs. "Trolling"

User:Phroziac said on Wikipedia IRC channel that "I'm going to make a Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for Encyclopedia Building", despite many objections such as this from User:Alkivar: "writing articles! why that takes time away from chatting on IRC!"

He also suggested a parallel Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for Trolling to ensure that those who support the conflict theory are not left out by all this silly "building" talk.

Both are good ideas. It would be bad to reinforce the absurd conceptual metaphor that what goes on at Wikipedia is some predictable "building" process, and there has been enough use of the term "trolling" to describe a wide variety of activities, many of which have been shown to be essential to make Wikipedia work (for instance, baiting, distracting and causing departures of the worst sysops, or, offering principled challenge to shibboleths using obscure sources). For more on the history of this see m:Young Jacobins and m:Cabal. It seems the m:Red Faction is not much engaged any more using "standard channels". Evidence:

"03:53, 29 August 2005 Anthere deleted "Red Faction" (content was: 'Victory to the Red Faction!' (and the only contributor was '24.167.137.235'))"

Perhaps power has shifted to the m:Young Jacobins and User:Snowspinner whose motto is:

  • "All we are saying is give jackbooted fascism a chance."

But all this fascism doesn't seem to be helping much, as User:karynn says of EN that "the wiki is collasping into a morass of personal attacks, edit wars, and vandalism." (on #wikipedia Oct 17). Perhaps the time has come to Wikipedia:desysop more, and maybe the trolls are the only ones who can say who needs this treatment.

A Trolling project would get supporters of trolls and trolling out into the open at least...

Listing of Wikiportals on this page

I've added Portals to the listing here (one even earlier today), as have others (within the past hour or so the last one appeared), but I'm thinking that maybe these should be removed because there is a place to list them: Portal:Browse. We could reference this portal listing page in the introduction to this list. What would best influence this decision is the actual relationship between Portals and WikiProjects. Is there one? Are most Portals the spawn of a WikiProject? Do WikiProjects with a like-named Portal use the Portal as a presentation or organization tool? Thanks for your thoughts on this matter. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 22:37, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Update?

Seems to me, there are a lot of inactive Wikiprojects here that need to be archived appropriately. Anyone want to help me find those that are inactive and move them to Wikipedia:List of inactive WikiProjects? Gflores Talk 20:29, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone through the Wikiprojects up to Science. Gflores Talk 20:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Olympic project?

I am an avid watcher of the olympics and it is an impoortant part of world history. While there are already many articles out there, I believe they can be stronger, and maybe more organized. I suggest making this a WikiProject. If anyone aggrees with me and is willing to help out, say so here and drop me a message! Thanks. --Jared 23:02, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never Mind there already is one

What is a "blatant copy?"

Some of the Wikiprojects are "blantant copies" of other Wikiprojects. What on earth does that mean? Evan Robidoux 18:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, where did you read that? My guess would be either two Projects with the same goals? Or one copies another's page, then plugs in the necessary words to make it different? Esquizombi 19:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Blatant copies of other projects tools/techniques/approaches/templates seem a good idea to me (subject to modification to fit project specific needs)... WP:Beatles was started as a blatant copy of the standard wikiproject template, then blatantly copied the article classification stuff from Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, and when that needed a little tweaking, shamelessly ripped off WP:MILHIST techniques... Meanwhile other stuff like infoboxes and project message boxes were ripped off too... (always with credit where due, we think) It's all good. Am I missing something? ++Lar: t/c 19:58, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Countering systemic bias in religion

The talk page for this one is there, and the history of the Project Page is there, but the page itself is not and I can't tell why. Esquizombi 19:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Intentional communities

A group of us is investigating the possibility of a project on the technical and agricultural aspects of operating intentional and sustainable communities. It is not to be limited as to location nor climate but will exclude the social, governance and spiritual aspects of such.

This fits "Humanities" or "Science" poorly and "International Development" is, for some reason, limited to the improvement of the lot of third world countries. All other international development seems to be eliminated. Where to put this project?

Dynamic list of WikiProjects

Since this page is out of date someone may want to have a look at this report by Interiot. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 02:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with organization

Now that I and some other users have pretty much finished recategorizing Category:WikiProjects to make it more navigable, I'm beginning a review of the organization system used on this page to try and make it more up-to-date, consistent, clear, efficient, and accurate. I'll begin with the "Arts" section, and will list some of my problems with this section here first, rather than diving straight into editing, in case I've misunderstood some aspect of the list that necessitates one of the "errors" noted below. So, feel free to discuss any of the below changes, either to dispute my reasoning, agree with it, or make comments or suggestions on the best way to resolve some of these problems (particularly which of the options for dealing with the "Entertainment" section you think would be best).

  1. "Entertainment" is being misused here to refer to "Film, radio and television". (For some silly reason "Professional Wrestling" is neither listed under "Television" nor under "Sports", though it would fit much better in either; if we're taking it as a sport, there's no reason to put it under "Entertainment" except to insult it, and if we're taking it as a type of TV show, I see no more reason to not categorize it under "Television" than if we had a "WikiProject Reality TV".) This is obviously inaccurate, and a relic of a very much unused Wikipedia:WikiProject Entertainment which misused the term accordingly. Not only are there obviously numerous forms of entertainment outside of film, radio, and television, such as the performing arts and games, but it is also a fact that not all film, radio and television is "entertainment": labeling news programs and documentaries "entertainment" would be like labeling a newspaper as such. Most importantly, though, the very vague title "entertainment" simply doesn't help users who are new to WikiProjects and want to find TV/radio/film-related projects; it will likely confuse and lead astray more users than not, and the primary purpose of this organizational system should be to be accessible to as many users as possible through clear and consistent categorization. I propose that either "Entertainment" be replaced with "Film, radio and television", or "film" and "professional wrestling" be moved to "performing arts" (in keeping with the Wikipedia categories themselves) and "TV" and "radio" be merged with Internet-based arts (like Flash animations) into a "broadcasting" section. The former would probably be simplest, though I also like the latter because it would help balance out the different sections more by greatly expanding the "performing arts" section. Either way, though, the current situation is very bad; "entertainment" should, if anything, be moved to "hobbies and recreation".
  2. "Comics" (and all its subprojects) should be moved from being primarily listed at "Literature" to being primarily listed at "Visual art". Why? Because all comics are visual art, but not all comics are "literature". To explain: though obviously most comics combine words and text, it is not this interplay of word and text that makes something a comic (else this would be a comic!); rather, it is the sequencing of images that makes something a comic (hence the comics paging listing "sequential art" as a valid, though rarely-used, synonym). In reality, many comics do not use any words at all (thus making there "literary" existence rather slim indeed :)), but all comics are visual art, as a requirement. The main source of this confusion is probably the phrase "comic books" and the very superficial facts that they're often printed as "books"—but not all "books" are literature (we may also want to address this problem with including "WikiProject Books" in the "Literature" section, as though dictionaries and etc. were not "books"), and certainly not all comics are books. Misrepresenting a common correlation (that comics typically have words, are printed in book format, etc.) as a part of the term's definition is extremely misleading and sloppy organization. Plus the "visual arts" section is currently much smaller than the "literature" one, making a move from the former to the latter the most practical decision as well.
  3. A minor point on the "Literature" section: why is "Novels" a subproject of "Books", while "Children's literature" (which I've only ever seen in book format) is not? Also, why are all the subprojects of "books" other than "novels" not subprojects of "novels", considering that they're all both books and novels? (Assuming one interprets "Middle-earth" to be a series of novels by Tolkien, rather than a fantasy world; if it is actually the latter case, "WikiProject Middle-earth" should probably be moved out of the "Books" section altogether and put under a genre-based section, like "Fantasy"). Also, it's obviously a huge mistake that the "Inheritance Trilogy" project is not listed under "Books" or "Novels".
  4. A more important note: why on earth is "mythology" listed here as a type of "literature"? "Mythology" is obviously a subproject of "religion", not of "literature" (Category:Mythology attests to that). I doubt anyone will look for "mythology" WikiProjects in the literature section, so even including a pointer to "religion" there would be useless; including the primary, bolded entries for the mythology projects in "literature" is beyond unhelpful. Most mythology throughout human history hasn't even been written down, so how could it be "literature"?
  5. Why is "The Beatles" not a subproject of "Musicians"?
  6. It is worth noting here that "Opera" is actually a subtype of "Theatre" (and also of "Music"). I bring this up only to clear up a misunderstanding of Wikipedia's categorization system (see Category:Opera) that resulted in a user exchanging some rather unkind words with me recently; there's no reason to be ambiguous about such things. However, I have no problem with WikiProject Opera's current placement (mainly because "Performing arts" is such a small section at the moment that moving "Opera" to being an indented subproject of "Theatre" would have little effect); I'm just making a note for future reference.
  7. Why does this organization scheme (and, less importantly, Wikipedia:WikiProject Drum Corps itself) list "Drum Corps" as a "performing art" rather than as a "music" subcategory? Certainly performance is an aspect of Drum Corps, but not the key defining aspect: heck, Wikipedia's own "drum corps" articles don't categorize this activity under "performing arts" in any way, but instead categorize it as a type of "music group"! So I don't really understand this placement; it almost seems deliberately designed to confuse. If "Drum Corps" is a performing art, then couldn't one, by the same logic, say that just about all music, and especially live music, is a type of "performing art", since it requires "performance" to create? I don't think such a counterintuitive placement, which seems more designed to push some unspecified point than to help new users navigate through this mountain of WikiProjects, is helpful.
  8. Uh, what's a "child project"? Sounds vaguely disturbing. Is this meant to refer to children's books?
  9. Why segregate inactive projects from the rest of the pack? That just makes it harder to find and restart them. Instead, just leave them unbolded so it's easy to tell them apart! This separate "inactive" section has also caused unfortunate inconsistencies in the organization, such as "entertainment" being listed twice (both under the "inactive" section and under the "entertainment" section).
  10. Lastly: um, why isn't anything alphabetized? Architecture, then Visual arts, then Contemporary art, then Graffiti? What's the point of such haphazard placement?

-Silence 07:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More:

  1. Why not shorten "Hobbies and recreation" to just "Recreation"? Most hobbies are already recreational by nature, and the "Hobbies" subsection of "Hobbies and recreation" is currently complete nonsense anyway: the only articles it lists are "Food and drink" ones, and last I heard, eating and drinking were necessities for life, not just "hobbies"! "Food and drink" should really be moved to "Culture" or something, and the "Hobbies" section should be done away with altogether—and good riddance, since it's too vague to be very useful and most of its potential entries would be better placed elsewhere. Also, looking over the "Inactive" list, I'm not sure "hats and headgear" or "fountain pens" can be considered "recreation" either.
  2. Ethnology is a subfield under Anthropology, so rename "Anthropology and Ethnology" to "Anthropology".
  3. With the exception of "WikiProject Biography" itself, all the subprojects of the "Biographies" section belong better under some other section: "Athletes" should be under "Sports", "Musicians" should be under "Music", "Jesus" and "Saints" should be under "Religion", "Philippine Writer Biographies" should be under "Countries: Philippines", and "Police Officer Biographies" should be under "Law". Such a vague and inconsistent section isn't really useful, and I'd debate whether "Biographies" is truly one of the "Humanities"; I recommend deleting the section.
  4. "Culture" must be deleted. End of story. Half the WikiProjects on this page belong under "Culture"; to use it as it's currently being used is to misuse it as some sort of nondescript "etc." section. "Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants" is already listed under the "Drugs" section, and there's no need (or reason) to double-list it, so that leaves only a single WikiProject under "Culture": Wikipedia:WikiProject Deaf. And categorizing this WikiProject is actually extremely simple: list it under "Language" because part of its scope encompasses sign language, and list it under "Health sciences" (where it actually already is listed) to cover the fact that deafness is a medical condition. And then, begone, uselessly generic "Culture" section!
  5. I recommend removing "WikiProject Jesus", as he's important primarily in a religious context; if we had a "WikiProject Pope John Paul II", he'd be listed under "Religions" rather than "History" because his historical significance is almost entirely religious, or at least connected to religion. So listing him under "Biography" or "History" is unnecessary, even as a crossreference: This is the same reason "WikiProject Saints" is not listed under "History", even though obviously such a topic deals almost entirely with historical figures. If "Jesus" belongs under "History", then so does every other religious topic, and I think that degree of repetition would be doing a disservice to our readers; let's not apply a double-standard by treating Jesus differently than we would Gautama Buddha, Moses, Muhammad, or John Paul II, even though the influence and significance of all those figures, like Jesus, extends behind solely the religious.
  6. Why are "Military" and "Military history" both listed under "History"? If "Military history" is where "Military" and "History" meet, shouldn't "Military" be in a different section, like, uh, Warfare? (Doi?)
  7. Is Journalism really one of the Humanities? And couldn't we merge this section into "Media"? (Which also isn't really one of the Humanities...)
  8. Ah, philately. Here would have been a perfect entry to add under "Hobbies", rather than the generic and inaccurate "Humanities". But, too late now. Let's find somewhere else to better fit it, if we can.
  9. "Politics, law, and government" is under "Humanities"?! What's the world coming to? I'm starting to come to the conclusion that "Humanities" is a pretty damned useless categorization scheme for these sections; "Culture", "Society", etc. are much more meaningful modern distinctions to use for broad, overarching fields of knowledge, and much more consistent with Wikipedia's own categorization scheme (see Category:Culture, Category:Society).
  10. "Sociology" - Sillier and sillier. Sociology and politics and law are disciplines under the Social sciences, not the Humanities! If we wanted to create a truly accurate system, we'd have had to include the entirety of the "Arts" section there as well, so it's becoming clear that we need to replace "Humanities" with some more useful and clear sections. For starters, create a top-level "Society" section and move Sociology, Politics, law, and government (and possibly Journalism and Media, since they relate to the spreading of information and news within a society) there. Then strongly consider renaming "Humanities" to simply "Culture".
  11. As for the other poorly-organized (or not organized at all) entries at the bottom of "Humanities": "Holidays" can go under "religion" about as easily as "mythology" can (both holidays and mythologies are not necessarily "religious", but there's certainly a strong correlation, and that's probably where the ideas originated). "Calendars" doesn't really belong under Society or Culture; timekeeping should be discussed under "Science" or "Technology". "NLP Concepts and methods" belongs under "Psychology", and can also possibly be cross-referenced as "Linguistics". As for the inactive projects: "Family and relationships" under "Society" (social interactions), "Geologic timescale" under "Geosciences" (don't understand why it was under "Humanities" to begin with), "Hats and headgear" under "Fashion" (an aspect of culture), "Historical figures" under "History" (which can go under either society or culture, or can be a top-level section of its own), "Leaders by year" under history and/or society, "School Years" under education, "United Nations" under politics, "Wars" and "Falkland War" under warfare (a subsection of "technology") and/or history, "Time" under physics, "years in science" is already listed under "science", "historical states" under politics and history, and "monarchs" and "u.s. politicians" under government.
  12. "International development" belongs under "Society", obviously. I don't understand why it was placed as a top-level section; it's pretty easy indeed to place under "politics" and/or "economics" (see Category:Development).

-Silence 17:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree with many of your comments above, I think you need to reign in your "Doi?", "obviously" and similar comments. This is important, but can do without your "I just can't believe no one has done or thought of this before." attitude. You'll be much more likely to attract like-minded people to help out if you keep from trashing everything right at the start. Please keep in mind that this is meant as constructive criticism, not as a personal attack on you. --日本穣 Nihonjoe 18:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the constructive criticism, and will take it to heart, but would prefer if you directed such critiques to my Talk page, where I can discuss such matters in more depth; this page is for talking about "List of WikiProjects", and I imagine it will be difficult enough to get feedback and criticism on some of the above suggestions (due to their unfortunate length; my apologies) without a digression on my behavior, justified though it may be. Thanks again for the response.
(Though I'm afraid I'll have to stand by my "Doi?" comment. :) Not listing "Military" itself under a section dedicated to "Warfare" is just funny; I did not mean any of my comments as attacks or insults, however, and was only pointing out the amusing absurdity of considering military more significant to history than to war. C'mon. It's funny. :3 Cheer up!) -Silence 19:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that that's amusing. Even more amusing is the fact that it took me a minute to figure out what you meant by "Doi?" as "Doi" is a surname in Japanese (土井), and that's what I thought of first when I read that: "Who's this Doi person from whom Silence wants comments?" Heh-heh... (^_^) --日本穣 Nihonjoe 03:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
... You mean you thought I wasn't asking for someone named Doi to come over? :/ I'm confused. -Silence 10:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Silence, that's an impressive program of rationalisation! I skimmed through it and the proposed changes look sensible. I'm the person who added the Deaf WikiProject to it's three sections (language, culture, health) so I'll just comment on the proposed removal of the "culture" section. It seems to me that there's a need for a place for projects on cultural groups, such as "Indigenous peoples of North America" (currently classifed under "Anthropology and ethnology"), LGBT (currently under "Sociology"), and the Deaf community (currently under "Culture"). Members of these projects are generally interested in anything relating to their cultural group, not just the anthropological or sociological aspects. How about renaming "Culture" as "Ethnic and cultural groups", which is broad enough to cover various aspects but not so broad as to include Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants? ntennis 01:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that if we bend over backwards to create a category like "Ethnic and cultural groups" just to fit a single WikiProject (WP Deaf) in it, we'll end up with inconsistencies when we refuse to cross-reference dozens of over projects there: in particular, many of the Religion WikiProjects can be considered "cultural groups" by that definition. I think two listings on the page is sufficient; we can't list everything everywhere, and if the reorganization I talked over above ends up going through, "Language" will be a subcategory of "Culture" in any case. -Silence 10:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Combatting clutter: WikiProject Descriptions

As I've started editing this page, I've come to the conclusion that one of the biggest problems with navigating and using this page, both for people editing the page and for people reading it, is the monstrous amount of space consumed by WikiProject descriptions. Even worse, the majority of these descriptions are redundant, unnecessary, and repetitive: is it really necessary, for example, to describe WikiProject Star Wars' goal as "...to organize, clean, and improve Star Wars information on Wikipedia"? The same applies to dozens and dozens of other WikiProject descriptions. Moreover, all that text ends up generating countless stylistic inconsistencies (i.e. whether "..." is used or not, whether it starts with "to" or something else, whether quotations are used at all, etc.), and overall just generates way too much clutter and chaos, something unsustainable on a page of this size. I'm betting that those descriptions are one of the big reasons this page is so badly out-of-date and underused: it's just too much information, when combined with the already-huge list of projects itself.

Therefore, I propose that we remove all descriptions, mission statements, etc. from WikiProjects expect where they are needed to clarify something important that was left ambiguous in the WikiProject's own name (e.g., Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life should explain that it's really a "WikiProject Taxonomy", because otherwise some people may be confused by what "Tree of Life" means on its own; they may think it's a Kabbalistic reference, for example). By restricting descriptions to where they're absolutely necessary, not only will it clean up 90% of the text cluttering up this page, but it will also make it much easier to find the descriptive text that is important for the sake of understanding a WikiProject's scope. This List should seek only to provide enough information that users will understand what each project is about: that's enough to tell a user whether or not he might be interested in the project, and he can then follow the link to learn all about the project's specific goals, history, relationships, standards, etc. By cutting down on the amount of depth we explore for each Project, I think we'll make it infinitely easier to keep this page up-to-date, comprehensive, consistent, and useful. What do you think? -Silence 10:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merge?

Since this page doesn't seem to be very active these days, and since the few comments thus far have been mostly positive, I'm going ahead with most of the changes I've outlined above; they can easily be reverted if someone turns up who doesn't like 'em, and in the meantime I can give a demonstration of the page layout I think would be a significant step up from the previous version. I'm also expanding the list greatly with the dozens of WikiProjects that haven't been added to this list yet due to oversights, and I'm making one more much-needed change that I'd like some feedback on, since I expect some to disagree:

I propose that we merge Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects and Wikipedia:List of inactive WikiProjects into a single page. The current system is overly bureaucratic and laborious: one has to both remove an entry from one page and add it to another to turn a project from being active to being inactive, or vice versa, even though, as both pages note, the distinction between active and inactive is largely arbitrary and ill-defined, and has no real significance other than to say "noone's doing much here at the moment", which can change at any time for any inactive project should anyone wish to change it. Separating the lists makes the distinction seem more "real" than it really is, and thus discourages reactivation of important and well-established old WikiProjects just because they haven't had much activity lately.

Additionally, the current way (or rather, the way before I made my changes) we deal with WikiProjects is incredibly inconsistent: the top half of the list included inactive projects in a "List of inactive projects" at the bottom of each section (even though I thought the whole point of having a separate page was to keep those entries from cluttering this one up? why create a whole other page and then list them anyway on this one, consuming just as much (nay, even more) space but providing infinitely less valuable information, even lacking a simple link to the WikiProject in most cases?), while the bottom half either listed them with an ambiguous red "I*" next to the inactive projects, or didn't bother to make any distinction at all between active and inactive ones (as was the case for the entire "geography" section, which doesn't even have any entries on the "List of inactive WikiProjects" page despite the huge number of clearly inactive ones listed here).

To solve both problems, the inconsistency as well as the complexity of the previous system, and furthermore to address the simple fact that Wikipedia:List of inactive WikiProjects is, relatively speaking, really really short! (I'd have expected it to be at least three times as long to conceivably justify its own page!), and also to make it much easier to keep the page(s) updated and cohesive, I propose that we simply denote active WikiProjects with bold and inactive WikiProjects without it. For a list as long and intricate as this, simplicity is best, both for the purposes of our readers (who must navigate a huge amount of information to find what they're looking for, and who we must do our best to aid in that end with a clear, consistent listing) and for the purposes of our editors (who must keep the list updated and consistent despite the huge amount of pages they have to deal with, and must be assisted in making that task as easy, simple, and quick as possible). So, what do you think? -Silence 13:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, except that merely bolding or unbolding an entry will not make it obvious that a project is inactive. I think it would be better to have the only difference between an active and inactive WP would be to put (inactive) after it.--Jonathan Kovaciny 14:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why would it not make it obvious? As long as we leave a very clear, distinct notice at the top of a page indicating that the bolded projects are currently active and the unbolded projects currently inactive, it should be very easy for anyone to learn what the boldness signifies, and even for the lazy ones who skip the top of the article and move right in, it will require very little link-following at all to determine the meaning of the bold text, since all the unbolded entries will presumably have "this project is inactive" tags at the top of their pages. Either way, I think the bold/unbold method is a near-ideal mix of being obvious (for users who care wheter the article is active/inactive) without being obtrusive (for users who don't care much) or needlessly complicated.
  • I don't like adding (inactive) much mainly because it would consume a lot more space, wouldn't be immediately obvious while scrolling down the list (you'd have to go all the way to the end of the line to figure out whether or not a project is active, whereas with bolding/unbolding even an extremely quick scroll down the page will reveal instantly how many projects are active and inactive), and would surely be very difficult to distinguish from the dating scheme, which also uses italics and also comes after the WikiProjects' names. For example, which of these is easier to quickly and accurately deduce, this:
  • or this:
  • ? To me, at least, the bolded version stands out much more easily and clearly, and even more so on Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects itself. It also keeps the page simpler and the lines shorter in general, which is always a good thing, as it preserves a very high text-to-important-information ratio, encouraging users to pay attention to what information is there rather than to get bored by all the repetitive (inactive)s or cookie-cutter descriptions and stop paying attention. Also I just think it's prettier. :3
  • However, the merge is the main change being made, so I'm glad you agree that merging is a good idea; once that's established, it makes less difference which specific method of signifying "inactive project" we use, and I do agree that there might be some better way to signify "active/inactive" in a clear and meaningful way than the bolding method, though I don't think anything like "(inactive)" is the way to do it. Let's brainstorm some more, then? -Silence 15:32, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Will make browsing and editing much easier.Lcarsdata Talk | @ | Contribs 17:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please go ahead - will be useful for me. TheGrappler 03:33, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I say we should It would be less complicated, and save time if merged Wootking
  • Is the proposal to have a section at the bottom of the WikiProjects page for the inactive projects? Or will the inactive projects be blended into the main list with some type of "inactive" tag attached? — RJH (talk) 21:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Lists of spaceflights by year

Which category would WikiProject Lists of spaceflights by year best fit into? --GW_Simulations 21:16, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:WikiProject Astronomy. -Silence 21:19, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative ways to browse WikiProjects

I've added a comment to the top of this page (and to the Category blurb at Category:WikiProjects) describing alternative ways to browse WikiProjects. IMO, this page should have short descriptions, as the All pages link here (with modifications depending on your search) is what I use when I want a list. Carcharoth 09:47, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Merger!!

The idea of merging the inactive WikiProjects article with this one is a good idea. Someone needs to start doing that! I agree with the above post (Alternative ways...) Auroranorth 12:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge completed. — RJH (talk) 23:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help

Can someone add this in the right place please. Thanks -- Lost 10:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Stub Makers

Is there a good reason why the stubmakers aren't on this page? Dessydes 18:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, is that really a WikiProject, in the normal sense of the term? It seems more like a simple list of Wikipedians than any sort of organized group. Kirill Lokshin 19:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Add a wikiproject

How do i add a wikiproject to this page? I already made it (but I should add more info to it): Wikipedia:WikiProject Linkification --Shanedidona 15:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tool to keep the list updated

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/queries/en_wikiprojects automatically generates a list of active and inactive projects, also those that haven't listed themselves manually at Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects. When discrepant entries are discovered, perhaps it would be useful to have a talk page header template that would encourage the project participants to have the project listed here with an accurate project description? This would alleviate the current maintenance chores quite a bit. __meco 17:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is a good idea, however the toolserver's database itself is lagged, so it doesn't pick up the newest Projects, or even activity in the existing ones after the toolserver's replication was turned off sometime in June. Titoxd(?!?) 22:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Someone Please Add WikiProject Biography to the list

I have no idea where it would fall in the categorization scheme, but I am certain WikiProject Biography should be mentioned somewhere on the list. Badbilltucker 13:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's listed under "History". Kirill Lokshin 15:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. Please forgive my mistake. And my constant drooling. Us Cro-Mags do that a lot. I feel real stupid right now. Badbilltucker 18:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unique Identifier

I propose to assign a Unique Identifier (a numeric or alphanumeric code) for any word / concept of Wikipedia. The UID is unique for a Language so We can create links between multiple translations of the same Word that have the same UID. For Example the word: Red (en) = Rouge (fr) = Rosso (it) = UID:1234 I hope this type of classification can be usefull! Marco Cattaneo

This might not be the right place to suggest this.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Talk) 22:31, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

US Governor Wikiproject

Im am looking for support on my new WiKiProject page. can it be added as a featured or on a list of WikiProjects? Here is the page [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:WikiProject:US_Governors WikiProject:US Governors --Zonerocks 03:56, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Science Fiction and Fantasy project?

I'm wondering why there is not a project of this type? It seems like the genres are pretty popular on wikipedia, what with all the books, movies, games, and what-not. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 15:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that the problem with a project of this type would be the fact that it's so generalized. I mean, it would have to be gigantic if it to include stuff such as the complete history of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth (which is huge in itself) or Dune, or other stuff. However, im a huge sci-fi and fantasy fan, so let me know if you want to get something like this started, and I'll help out. I'm sure a lot of other people will want to be in on this if it starts up. So in conclusion, I vote for a start. PinkSombrero SugarTitön | PinkSombrero 21:49, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reorganisation

The List of WikiProjects totally lacks uniformity. Under some headers, WP's are organised alphabetically, or hierarchically, or worse by date or totally random. If nobody objects, I (maybe with some help from WP:COUNCIL) plan to organise everything hierarchically, 'cause this is the most obvious way IMO. Please comment. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about this plan to obsolete this page in favor of a more sophisticated directory structure? Kirill Lokshin 23:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin, you are both wise and omnipresent :-) No seriously that's just a thing of beauty over there. But it would need a broad consensus.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup list

As you can see, this page is full of ideas on how to better organise this page. Maybe it would be best if we reached consensus on an idea and implement a different system, instead of many editors trying to keep this page up-to-date. Below is a small list of discussions on this matter (add others if you can).

Freemasonry Project

I would like to add Wikipedia:WikiProject Freemasonry to this list... but I can not find a category that it would fit into. It sort of fits under philosophy, or under history, ... but not completely. Any suggestions? Blueboar 02:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aint masons got to do with something like building houses or something? Put it in the constructions category and be done with it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.14.36.165 (talk) 22:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New Articles Wikiproject

I have had peeks at the various extensive pages on Wikipedia like Wikipedia:Most wanted articles, Wikipedia:Requested articles and Wikipedia:Articles requested for more than a year, and have seen the pages upon pages of redlinks. I am not aware if such a project is already out there but I do think that one dedicated to creating stubs, if anything on all these topics would be a great idea. Per WP:IMPERFECT, I think that at least making these articles would go a long way. It is not something that hard to do, and anyone who wishes to contribute can contribute in their own way as per their own proficiency in using Wikipedia. The original intention of Wikipedia (WP:DEV) was that after the articles are made, a slow and steady article progress would commence including many contributors until a final perfected product had been completed. I think that this spirit should continue in a project to build the foundations before building our way up. Obviously improving articles will still be of it most priority, but I do think that getting these many backlogged articled out of the way and de-redlinked is a good idea.

Any thoughts?--Coin945 (talk) 09:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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