Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19

MainTalkTask forcesAlertsNewsTipsSourcesSources listMissing topicsMessagesAssessmentPortal

Highlighted open discussions

• Talk:COVID-19 pandemic § Highlighted open discussions
• Template talk:COVID-19 pandemic data § Highlighted open discussions

Current consensus

NOTE: The following is a list of material maintained on grounds that it represents current consensus for the articles under the scope of this project. In accordance with Wikipedia:General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019, ("prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content except when consensus for the edit exists") changes of the material listed below in this article must be discussed first, and repeated offenses against established consensus may result in administrative action. It is recommended to link to this list in your edit summary when reverting, as [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19#Current consensus]], item [n]. To ensure you are viewing the current list, you may wish to .

General

1. Superseded by TfD October 2020 and later practice - consult regular {{Current}} guidance.
2. Refrain from using Worldometer (worldometers.info) as a source due to common errors being observed as noted on the Case Count Task Force common errors page. (April 2020, April 2020)
3. For infoboxes on the main articles of countries, use Wuhan, Hubei, China for the origin parameter. (March 2020)
4. "Social distancing" is generally preferred over "physical distancing". (April 2020, May 2020)

Page title

1. COVID-19 (full caps) is preferable in the body of all articles, and in the title of all articles/category pages/etc.(RM April 2020, including the main article itself, RM March 2021).
2. SARS-CoV-2 (exact capitalisation and punctuation) is the common name of the virus and should be used for the main article's title, as well as in the body of all articles, and in the title of all other articles/category pages/etc. (June 2022, overturning April 2020)

Map

1. There is no consensus about which color schemes to use, but they should be consistent within articles as much as possible. There is agreement that there should be six levels of shading, plus gray   for areas with no instances or no data. (May 2020)
2. There is no consensus about whether the legend, the date, and other elements should appear in the map image itself. (May 2020)
3. For map legends, ranges should use fixed round numbers (as opposed to updating dynamically). There is no consensus on what base population to use for per capita maps. (May 2020)

Malaysia and New Zealand timelines

I have been working on the Malaysian and New Zealand COVID-19 timeline pages for the past four years and eight months. I am thinking of ending my work on those timelines at the end of December 2024. I am the only person working on those two pages. Both countries no longer treat COVID-19 as a pandemic and have ended most lockdown and special isolation measures. Wikipedia no longer has a global timeline. Just wanted to get feedback from other users. Andykatib (talk) 04:16, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

@Andykatib: I completely support this. Thank you very much for working on those and keeping them up-to-date. Much better than a lot of articles on country-specific responses to COVID-19 which usually just fade out in 2021 or 2022 due to steep decline in editor interest in this topic, and despite their heavy detail about 2020, lack any info at all about even the broadest strokes of the later pandemic, such as the lifting of restrictions whose imposition is described. Perhaps these you might like to review and add some 'closure' to. Just throwing that out there. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:26, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Crossroads:, thanks for getting in touch. Personally, I wouldn't consider myself an expert on COVID-19. Outside of New Zealand and to some extent Malaysia, my knowledge and expertise of Covid responses would be patchy so I don't think I would be the best editor for that task. Have moved onto other mainly New Zealand topics on Wikipedia and also edit on Wookieepedia. I will think about it but I would probably need help for such a project. Cheers. Andykatib (talk) 23:02, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Unused COVID data templates

There are about 75 unused COVID data templates listed at User:Jonesey95/self-transcluded-templates, a report of templates with no transclusions. These templates appear to contain what is normally article content, and they are linked from the "Data" section of {{COVID-19 pandemic}}, which appears to violate our guideline on linking from article space to other namespaces (In articles, do not link to pages outside the article namespace).

I propose moving these templates to article space. I could nominate them as such at WP:TFD, but it may be less noisy to simply gain a consensus here and execute the move. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:19, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I would oppose making these into articles. My experience is that editor interest in the COVID-19 topic is far, far less than it used to be, with a great deal of outdated content in the topic space. The templates you mention are almost certainly outdated, due to lack of maintenance, and/or because the authorities they were pulling data from are no longer updating case counts.

More generally, it isn't clear to me, per WP:NOTDATABASE, why we would have such information at all. No other disease has had such extreme, and IMO boring and pointless, detail kept about it on Wikipedia. I very much support TfD and likely deletion of this material. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:10, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I have nominated nearly all of the templates for discussion at TFD. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:34, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Coronavirus

If i'm new to this project, i want to make myself clear that i think it should be acceptable and appropriate for Wikipedia to adapt the Coronavirus name for which shall be more acceptable rather than Covid-19 because to me it doesn't make sense.

Before i can continue, i believe that Wikipedia should rename every articles relating Coronavirus like for example:

• Coronavirus pandemic
• Impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on [NAME OF COMPANY/MEDIUM]
• Coronavirus pandemic in [NAME OF COUNTRY]

This is how it should be back in 2020. However, to demonstrate that not only Coronavirus being the name of a family of viruses but it may also be a name of a disease as well.

I believe that Wikipedia, and so do everyday lives and all other medium, needs to reconsider the name references of Covid-19 and to return it to Coronavirus as a more common, official, and acceptable term that may referring to a disease itself.

So all those in favour? 2A02:C7C:F05E:6F00:21E9:5950:6936:9BA1 (talk) 02:08, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:COMMONNAME COVID-19 is the most appropriate name as it is the most widely used and recognized term for the topic. IntentionallyDense (talk) 03:11, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

But to me, Coronavirus shall soon become the most appropriate name as it should be the most widely used and recognised term for the topic itself.

I think what's appropriate in the future, if potentially starting in 2025, that Coronavirus should soon become the best name for a disease itself. And i think to conclude that Wikipedia should start using and adapting the Coronavirus name more rather than Covid-19 itself because the name of Coronavirus (if as a disease itself) may be more common for this century and beyond (even in the 22nd century but we will be gone by then). I guess the next generation of Wikipedians (and normal people too) may likely to recognise Coronavirus as a more appropriate name for the first time.

Not to forget that i'm British and i created an article about Coronavirus on my Fandom wiki site for example. 2A02:C7C:F05E:6F00:3490:7967:15CB:2384 (talk) 19:54, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

These 1000+ pages aren't at these names by accident. Experienced Wikipedians had discussions about it when the pages were first created, and probably after, and decided that the current names are best. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:30, 12 November 2024 (UTC)