Category talk:WikiProjects

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Tidying up[change source]

I'd like to simplify what I'm seeing in this category. One reason for this is that WikiProjects are unofficial here, so they shouldn't become a maintenance issue. Another reason is that WikiProjects often don't stay active for very long, and we're keeping some stuff around for them anyway.

Listed below are some specific points. Each one is independent. Please comment on each one you have an opinion about, being sure to use bullets. You may wish to state "support" or "oppose": in either case, I would appreciate specific reasons other than "that's the way English Wikipedia does it".

I am willing to do the work needed for any of the items that the community agrees with. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:33, 20 January 2014‎ (UTC)[reply]

Item 1. Pages outside userspace should not be in WikiProject categories[change source]

I see templates and article talk pages in some of the WikiProject categories.

Templates: See Category:WikiProject Geographical coordinates for examples. It would take a bit of work to take care of these, because a template in normal templatespace calls some of the templates in userspace. Our standard templates should not call templates that are in userspace, so this needs to be sorted out, possibly by moving some from userspace to templatespace.

Article talk pages: In some cases (see Category:WikiProject Pakistan articles for examples), this is because a banner is on an article talk page. Since WikiProjects are unofficial here, I don't think we should use such banners in mainspace. Maybe the banners should even be deleted.

Comments:

  • I agree about getting rid of the banners from the talk pages. Which templates are calling userspace pages? I couldn't see from the example you gave. That category looks like it just contains stuff that was imported and then left. We don't even ever seem to have had a "WikiProject Geographical coordinates". It looks like it's all documentation. I'll take care of fixing that case up if you want. Osiris (talk) 21:50, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Item 2. Categories that list project members are redundant and aren't needed[change source]

For every WikiProject that has a category for its members, there is also a project page with a list of members. I haven't checked, but I doubt that they match. I don't think both are needed, and I think it would be cleaner to delete the categories and just keep the list. In some (maybe all?) cases, the category is placed on user pages when the project's userbox is included: if the member categories are removed, those userbox templates would need to be changed. A list of every page that includes the userbox could be added to the project page, maybe just below the list of members.

Comments:

Item 3. Categories for individual WikiProjects probably aren't needed[change source]

I think these categories could be deleted. If the items 1 and 2 above are accepted, most of these categories would have only one entry and so wouldn't be needed anyway. If they are not accepted, it would still be cleaner to list only the individual project pages under Category:WikiProjects. Everything related to a WikiProject should be in subpages of the main project page, so it could be found there and shouldn't need a category. To make it easy to find these things, the main project page could list all subpages of itself.

The kinds of things I see in these categories are:

  • Main project page
  • Categories listing project members (see Item 2 above)
  • Project userboxes
  • Templates (some in templatespace, some in userspace -- see Item 1 above)
  • Talk pages of mainspace articles (see Item 1 above)

Any of these things that belong to the project could be linked on the main project page. Any that don't belong to it shouldn't be in the category.

Comments:

  • Maybe a case-by-case basis would be preferrable here, but I think the usually 3-item minimum should probably still apply. Whatever is left we can look at individually, but I can't see any that would be left except for Simple News‎ and that doesn't seem to have really been what you would call a WikiProject. Osiris (talk) 21:58, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Item 4. User:Project shouldn't be needed[change source]

This is left over from a proposal in 2008 to have all WikiProjects under this "user". Anything there is easy to forget about and probably less likely to be maintained. You can see everything underneath it here. Everything under this "user" should either be moved to a real user's userspace or be deleted, depending on how active it is, whether there's any meaningful content, and whether a user is willing to "adopt" it.

Comments:

  • I actually think that this is beneficial in many ways. I think it makes a project seem more community-owned rather than belonging to one particular user. I don't really care for any of these kind of projects, but I can sort of see that, for those that do, not having the project in someone else's userspace could make them feel more inclined to participate. It would be a lot easier to keep track of WikiProjects if they were all subpages of the same page, but obviously that isn't happening. As it is, we've got some duplicates. I think that any Project that hasn't been active for more than a year or so could reasonably be put up for deletion – no matter whose name they're under. I could even see doing it the other way around; Projects of users who have gone inactive and are therefore not going to maintain them are moved to User:Project for somebody to eventually adopt them (though I'd honestly prefer deleting them). Otherwise we're just left with another set of old pages belonging to an old user that are not likely to be used again. But, again, a lot of these are just not worth keeping around in my opinion. Osiris (talk) 22:25, 22 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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