Wikipedia:WikiProject Galatea

Project Galatea is a proposed community of Wikipedians interested in making large-scale, sweeping stylistic improvements to articles. It is meant to be a community of dedicated and competent writers advising, helping and encouraging each other in what is an extremely necessary, but difficult and often underappreciated part of creating high-quality Wikipedia articles.

Project Galatea is named after the statue brought to life by the sculptor Pygmalion.

• Quarry: articles in need of a stylistic rewrite. Add needy articles here.
• Workshop: a place for Galateans to discuss and advise each other, regarding both general stylistic issues or the style of a specific article.
• Exhibit: examples of stylistically high-quality Wikipedia articles, completed works of Project Galatea contributors.
• Sculptors: Project Galatea members, and the article they're currently working on. Add yourself here!
• Tools: Logos, templates, etc.

General statement of purpose

Wikipedia is a highly collaborative project. Articles are in constant flux; facts are added and removed, mistakes are fixed, vandalism is committed and reverted. All too often, regular contributors to an article become fixated on particular, contentious issues, losing sight of the structure and style of the article as a whole. The result can be "an incoherent hodge-podge of dubious factoids that adds up to something far less than the sum of its parts", as shown in this Register article. The two examples given were Bill Gates and Jane Fonda. (Note that both links are to the frozen snaphots of the articles as they were at the time of the Register article's publication. The current articles are Bill Gates and Jane Fonda.)

Both articles show signs of heavy stylistic fragmentation, and the lack of a unifying vision. Sentences follow each other without much rhyme or reason, making them a wearying and frustrating read. The problem was not a lack of contributors; both articles are high-profile, and had a huge number of editors. Unfortunately, Wikipedia's collaborative approach is, by default, not particularly conductive to creating elegant, vibrant, living articles. It is not enough for every sentence or even section to be brilliant prose in itself; without a dominant, overarching style, they will simply not come together to become parts of a greater whole.

Project Galatea aims to rectify this problem by encouraging editors to make extensive stylistic changes to articles, bringing them "to life", in a way. Sadly, Wikipedia can sometimes be somewhat unappreciative of this very necessary job; editcountitis runs rampant, and a volley of simple fixes is often rated far higher than a single complex, high-quality edit. Also, many editors are wary of sweeping changes to established articles, often with good reason. Project Galatea aims to create a social network for its members, with like-minded editors encouraging each other in making bold changes, and raising Wikipedia awareness of the importance of this type of article improvement.

Philosophy

• For every Galatea, there is one Pygmalion. While Project Galatea members are highly encouraged to work together with both the article's regular contributors and the other project members (see below), the usual Wikipedia method of collaborative, incremental edits simply does not lend itself to proper stylistic rewrites. When all is said and done, for every problematic article there needs to be one Project Galatea member who is willing and able to bring it to life.

• Think big. While a Project Galatea rewrite will almost certainly involve fixing awkward grammar, correcting punctuation, and properly connecting sentences, that is almost never enough. Your job is to look at the big picture. Maybe the entire logical structure of the article is broken. Maybe the paragraph calling itself "introduction" is actually nothing of the sort. Perhaps the middle of the article is a tortuous mess, just begging for reorganization.

• Know what you are working on. While there is no need to be an expert on the article you're working on (in fact, there are some advantages to being completely ignorant of the subject to start with), by the time you're done, you will have at least a working knowledge of the topic. If you don't, something is wrong; it is not a good idea to make meaningful and complex changes to an article without knowing a lot about it. Read the talk page. Follow the links. Take the time to fully understand what you're working on.

• It's still Wikipedia. We are still building an encyclopedia. Don't get so carried away with a stylistic rewrite that your edits become non-encyclopedic.

• You are not alone. You have two very important resources at your disposal: the article's longstanding editors, and the other Project Galatea members. You can communicate with them on the article's talk page and in the workshop, respectively. Do not ignore these resources; they are highly useful, and more often than not, they can help steer you in the right direction. If you are drawn into a fruitless debate and you feel overwhelmed, don't be afraid to ask for help.

• Others haul the rock. You shape it. If you can fact-check the article, adding new facts or fleshing out the content, that is excellent. But don't forget why you're there. Making problematic pages into featured article candidates is not a one-person task. You do not need to do everything. Feel free to leave the factual debates to others; your job is to make the article look and read like a featured article candidate.

• Sometimes, less is more. But often, less is just less. When doing a stylistic rewrite of an article, you will often need to completely rework the way the various facts are organized. Be careful, however, not to remove pertinent, relevant information. If a fact doesn't seem to fit, make it fit. If you can't make it fit, find out why. Only leave out information if it obviously and definitely does not belong in the article. Try not to get drawn into content disputes.

Current issues

If you agree with Project Galatea's purpose and philosophies, please consider joining it. Go to the sculptors' corner to see the current membership list, and to learn how you can join.

If and when the Project accumulates at least eight members, we can start discussing the charter, leadership, and similar issues.