Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology/Archive 11
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Science/STEM User Group
Similar to the section above, here's a new section to discuss a User group. I've drafted a skeleton page over at Meta (meta:STEM_Wiki_User_Group) and put up a proposal so that discussion can be centralized with other science wikiprojects to see if there's general support at meta:Talk:STEM_Wiki_User_Group. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:35, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Alexmar983: Sorry to overflow your inbox, Alex, but this seems like the perfect spot to continue our conversation. Tom, I think Alex was saying that they already have a draft that they are working on. I'm not sure about that but I think that the three of us and anyone else who is interested should all discuss this further over on the page you linked, and just sort of report back here when we learn things. Prometheus720 (talk) 01:55, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- Of course it is. Guys I have a lot of deadline and a wikievent at ETH and in Portugal next week. So it's not the best moment for me to do this but my suggestion (I think I wrote it or I wanted to write it, sorry it's 4 a.m. here and I am tired) is that we just chat on skype or google hangouts or similar, it's much faster this way. I had some sentences on a file but they were far from being a structure. I imagined the steps and for such a big topic ("science") the process of a meta coordination or UG will take months of refining. Plus, we have to invite other languages one since the beginning or they will feel isolated. But we can start also with a chat if you want. --Alexmar983 (talk) 02:00, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- I'm good with Skype, SMS, Slack, or Discord, but I vastly prefer Discord (1st place) or Slack (2nd place) since those could be used even when the project grows beyond us. Send us both a private email when Tom says what platform works for him and we will get it all set up. I also see what you mean about the languages--I didn't think about that and it's a good point. We'll talk later. I hope you get some good rest, and good luck with all those deadlines! Prometheus720 (talk) 02:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- I'll put some messages on other en.wp science wikiproject pages to make sure everyone is aware so that people who want to can get involved in the discussion. I'm monolingual so will have to rely on others to start bringing in other language wikiprojects. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:51, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
- I'm good with Skype, SMS, Slack, or Discord, but I vastly prefer Discord (1st place) or Slack (2nd place) since those could be used even when the project grows beyond us. Send us both a private email when Tom says what platform works for him and we will get it all set up. I also see what you mean about the languages--I didn't think about that and it's a good point. We'll talk later. I hope you get some good rest, and good luck with all those deadlines! Prometheus720 (talk) 02:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- Of course it is. Guys I have a lot of deadline and a wikievent at ETH and in Portugal next week. So it's not the best moment for me to do this but my suggestion (I think I wrote it or I wanted to write it, sorry it's 4 a.m. here and I am tired) is that we just chat on skype or google hangouts or similar, it's much faster this way. I had some sentences on a file but they were far from being a structure. I imagined the steps and for such a big topic ("science") the process of a meta coordination or UG will take months of refining. Plus, we have to invite other languages one since the beginning or they will feel isolated. But we can start also with a chat if you want. --Alexmar983 (talk) 02:00, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group has been building and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a mediawiki platform. The main types of articles are:
- Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review and feedback (example)
- From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to Wikipedia (example)
- Original research articles that are not imported to Wikipedia (example)
Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project
From a Wikipedian point of view, this is a complementary system to Featured article review, but bridging the gap with external experts, implementing established scholarly practices, and generating citable, doi-linked publications.
Please take a look and support/oppose/comment! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 11:10, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Revamp of Wikiproject Biology--Who is In?
@Evolution and evolvability, NessieVL, Plantdrew, Amkilpatrick, and Headbomb:Based on this list of contributors I am notifying several of you who I recognize and have run into in my work on this project. You represent part of a "core" of editors who still work on topics in this area, and I don't want to wait around for people to maybe see a random message on a dead talk page. To anyone who reads this and was not pinged, please don't take it personally--I just haven't met you because I'm new(ish).
I have noticed a serious lack of engagement in WP:Biology and some of its daughter projects. I am deeply concerned by this because biology is one of the key sciences represented on Wikipedia and people are very, very interested. I have been learning about WP:Wikiproject X and its redesign process. I think such a change and a revamp would be good for WP:BIOL and I have outlined several issues which need to be addressed.
- Scope, goals, and identity. WP:BIOL does not have clear goals. A good Wikiproject should have short-term issues and medium-term and long-term goals. It should also be very clear on what is and is not within its scope/purview. We are doing poorly here. We need to rewrite the main project page to explain these more clearly, and we need to commit to goals which have set time-frames, individual responsibility, measurable progress, and worthwhile outcomes. No one wants to work in an environment in which success is totally nebulous and subjective. Management of any project hinges on good goals, and I suggest we draft some before we do anything else.
- Article assessment (as in, banners). A good Wikiproject needs to continually assess its articles. I have gone ahead and done most of the legwork on this one. When I started several weeks ago, we had hundreds of unassessed articles, hundreds more which had not been assessed for years, and outdated assessment stats. We had a wikiwork (ω) of over 14,000 and an (Ω) Omega-value of roughly 4.92. After assessing the quality and importance of all stub and start-class articles, I managed to drop that to 13,800 and 4.73, respectively. I have yet to go through the C-class articles and above (except for a few), and I suspect that doing so will lower our work factors even further. Doing this one time is not sufficient for fixing the problem, however--we need to update our assessments page to explain to users exactly how to assess articles for our project (likely using Rater) and we need to ensure that assessment continues as time goes forward. Having a finished assessment of all our articles will also give us a "clean slate" moving forward. Cleanup listing is not something I have addressed significantly so far, but as a group we may be able to do so.
- Engagement. A good Wikiproject should involve active collaboration between its members and an active talk page. Adopting a member management system as in WPX projects like WiR would be one step forward. Including reports and automated worklists on our page would be another one. Another improvement might be a newsletter or recurring update/review. Finally, the assignment of responsibility is not to be underrated--people are more likely to stay engaged when they feel personally accountable for some aspect of the project. These roles need not be formal or overly serious, but it is an option worth exploring. Having editors with known and declared "jobs" may ease collaboration as well. I would suggest exploring several changes here, and I am certainly open to others as well.
- Design and organization. WPX's design for projects like WiR is a good template to work from. It is clean and sleek. We also need to go through the project pages and clean up random requests and edits left over the years. There are old tasks from literally years ago just sitting around in various parts of our pages. We may need some new pages, as well. This is an area where we could get carried away and it is of less priority than some others. I simply feel that we need a more modern, attractive, and usable design.
- Recruitment. We need more editors, full stop. I am a biology student at a university--I may be able to find some people that way, and perhaps I'm not alone in that. However, I think it would be even more fruitful to drop talk page messages to old members and see if they are still interested. Recruitment from within Wikipedia is likely to be more fruitful and simple.
- Potential cauterization of empty daughter projects. I lean towards inclusionism, but there does come a point when a dead Wikiproject is little more than a category with an importance parameter attached. It may be better to have more focus on key projects than distributed throughout the many biology projects which currently exist. I find this unlikely, myself, but I feel obligated to bring it up.
I realize that this is a good deal of work. I am happy to do a good deal of the legwork here, but I have a few reservations. One, that is very hard for one person to do. Two, this is not my project and it should not reflect solely my ideas about how a project should be run. I am often wrong. Three, a good project of any sort has redundancies so that no one person is so essential that everything falls apart without them. I have had the displeasure of reviving several real-life organizations from such a sorry state and it is not fun. So while I am willing to do work, I really do not want this to be a one-man show.
Long story short, I would like help, and a great deal of it if any of you have it to give. This is just an opening message declaring the problems--it is not a detailed explanation of how we might go about each issue. I'm not sure how to go about this process but I think it may be worth it to create a separate page within the project for discussion of the revamp. For now, if you have any interest in participating, please drop your name and your initial thoughts below. This project could do some amazing things. Not for Wikipedia--for the world. For millions of people who read articles in our scope every day. This is a key opportunity to Be Bold and do something really good. I'm looking forward to working with you all! GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 09:02, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- @GreatSculptorIthas: I'm really excited that you brought this up! I've been thinking a similar thing (was also discussed at the Berlin Strategy Summit. I'm happy to help out with implementing the WPX page formatting. To expand on the idea a little - One of WikiProject Med's great strengths is that is has a single main location. The science wikiprojects split up in the early days of Wikipedia when exponential growth of editors was still expected. It's resulted in a lot of isolated wikiprojects. There's huge overlap in WP:MCB, and WP:GEN for example. Often when new users look at the individual wikiprojects' talk pages, they look a bit like ghost towns. Two broad strategic proposals for general consideration:
- Starting up a Science or STEM User Group analogous to WikiProject Med Foundation that would help bring together the sciences across languages and projects (obv. would require expanding the conversation to include WP:PHYS, WP:MATH, WP:CHEM etc), let alone the various science WikiProjects on other language Wikipedias. There are so many great projects currently going on, but no centralized location for cross-promoting & networking them. Some examples:
- Science Source by WikiFactMine (twitter @TheContentMine)
- WikiScience photo competition (twitter @Science&Wiki)
- WikiJournal of Science (twitter @WikiJSci)
- "Topic Pages" by PLOS ComBiol, PLOS Genetics, and PLOS ONE
- ISCB Wikipedia competition
- GeneWiki Reviews
- WikiEdu - A ton of great courses at schools
- Consider semi-merging many of the biology daughter WikiProjects. WP:MED doesn't have separate radiology/pathology/cardiology projects, so interaction is centralized and kept vibrant at WT:MED. It's talkpage banner simply tags pages into subcategories (taskforces). Perhaps at least having the project pages connected as tabs, and some sort of merged talkpage?
- Starting up a Science or STEM User Group analogous to WikiProject Med Foundation that would help bring together the sciences across languages and projects (obv. would require expanding the conversation to include WP:PHYS, WP:MATH, WP:CHEM etc), let alone the various science WikiProjects on other language Wikipedias. There are so many great projects currently going on, but no centralized location for cross-promoting & networking them. Some examples:
- Ping @Kruusamägi, Alexmar983, Wojciech Pędzich, Abbad (WMF), عباد ديرانية, and Gurlal Maan: people who were at relevant discussion at the Berlin Strategy Summit. Ping @Boghog, Chiswick Chap, Plantdrew, Peter coxhead, Seppi333, Joannamasel, DePiep, Opabinia regalis, Daniel Mietchen, Dcrjsr, Antony-22, Adrian J. Hunter, Smokefoot, Salubrious Toxin, Tryptofish, Rich Farmbrough, Alexbateman, Chris Capoccia, Materialscientist, Genewiki1, Drbogdan, Charles Matthews, Petermr, Magnus Manske, RexxS, and Pigsonthewing: others who may have opinions.
- T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 11:36, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- Thank you for the ping. So, after we met in Berlin I was "kinda" in charge after that chat at Wikisummit to draft a proposal for a user group that should combine some initiatives we considered strategic (We=people from India, Estonia, Italy, USA...). Now that the other user group (Wikiclassics) I helped to create is operative, I can finally focus more. Of course, we should wait the end of Wiki Science Competition 2019 but I am here. The core idea was to provide a better cross language coordination in some topics that have no overall strategy (so future meta projects about chemistry or metrology or life science), increase the social media networking, setting up a decent academic commitee as an avaliable infrastructures especially for users whose closer affiliate is too small to provide something similar, and discussing about real meeting about wikimedia platforma and scientific topic, plus also a little bit of coordination with gender gap initiatives to maximize their coverage and results. It is an ambitious plan and like everything we should be aware of how human nature value independence but I think that we can get something done for many people, so it should be possible, as long as we analyze carefully the assets and the human ressources and their personal goals and we build along those axes.
- In the meantime, I encourage rationalization at the language level as an important catalyst of this long-term strategy of course but in the meantime I am working on this draft and it will emerge I guess by 2020 after the core upload phase of WSC2019 is over. Just to get an idea this page on meta is one of the first attempt to rationalize many projects about related topic in a cross language perspective. it took some months but it's quite complete. I plan to use my expertise to catalyze something similar in the future in the fields I am more familiar, but it will take some time.--Alexmar983 (talk) 12:11, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- I agree that dynamic merging and splitting of projects as participation changes is a good idea. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:56, 23 May 2019 (UTC).
- I agree that dynamic merging and splitting of projects as participation changes is a good idea. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:56, 23 May 2019 (UTC).
- Thanks for the ping as well. I am very interested in coordination across wikis on matters related to biology and would be in favour of having a User group focused on science. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 14:22, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- The idea Daniel Mietchen is aninterface group called something like "Science & Wiki", putting if possible "science" before "wiki". This might be perceived as snob, I hope it does not, but the idea is a group that originates from people with academic degrees and background, so a group that can speak a specific language for people who are deeply involved in scientific research and outreach in acertain field (hence for example, the stress on peer review infrastructure as one of its target). So, we want to reach out to those people offering what wikiplatforms can have (such as Scholia), instead of the standard scenario of wikimedians reaching out to scientists but applying the same model they use for example for GLAM initiatives of for educational activities in schools, community colleges or in the social sciences with minor changes. We can really fix the details in a way much more can come out of it. We really want scientists to come and find their way in wiki like we did as scientists. I (we?) see very intriguing and new opportunity on the long term with such approach, that's why I think it is worth to be build. You will have a draft in few months. I am also in charge of WLM in Tuscany, and that's like a small country so my time is limited and I need more time to set it up as it should.--Alexmar983 (talk) 16:09, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- Alexmar, are you saying that you are already drafting a Science user group similar to the Classics one? I read through the classics and WPMED user groups, and both have elements that I like. But Classics has that awesome chart--I love it! I would be very interested in something like that for science. There are so many good papers out there and great experts that just need connection to translation resources. And there is an incredible amount of historical information which would be great from certain countries. German sources for historical science (especially geology and psychology) would be one example. If you would like help with this project, I'd love to see what I can do. It seems that English isn't your first language--if you need any help with the English, let me know! And of course, let us all know how that process is going. That could literally change the world, Alexmar. Good luck! GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 00:45, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- Like with the merger discussions, I'll add a new section for this bellow (#Science/STEM User Group). I love the work that Alexmar983 has been doing with WikiClassics, so I'll be very interested to see their ideas on a Science/STEM Wiki. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:34, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- Alexmar, are you saying that you are already drafting a Science user group similar to the Classics one? I read through the classics and WPMED user groups, and both have elements that I like. But Classics has that awesome chart--I love it! I would be very interested in something like that for science. There are so many good papers out there and great experts that just need connection to translation resources. And there is an incredible amount of historical information which would be great from certain countries. German sources for historical science (especially geology and psychology) would be one example. If you would like help with this project, I'd love to see what I can do. It seems that English isn't your first language--if you need any help with the English, let me know! And of course, let us all know how that process is going. That could literally change the world, Alexmar. Good luck! GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 00:45, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- The idea Daniel Mietchen is aninterface group called something like "Science & Wiki", putting if possible "science" before "wiki". This might be perceived as snob, I hope it does not, but the idea is a group that originates from people with academic degrees and background, so a group that can speak a specific language for people who are deeply involved in scientific research and outreach in acertain field (hence for example, the stress on peer review infrastructure as one of its target). So, we want to reach out to those people offering what wikiplatforms can have (such as Scholia), instead of the standard scenario of wikimedians reaching out to scientists but applying the same model they use for example for GLAM initiatives of for educational activities in schools, community colleges or in the social sciences with minor changes. We can really fix the details in a way much more can come out of it. We really want scientists to come and find their way in wiki like we did as scientists. I (we?) see very intriguing and new opportunity on the long term with such approach, that's why I think it is worth to be build. You will have a draft in few months. I am also in charge of WLM in Tuscany, and that's like a small country so my time is limited and I need more time to set it up as it should.--Alexmar983 (talk) 16:09, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- @GreatSculptorIthas: Thanks for the ping, also really glad you brought this up - my activities will have come from the intersection of WP:BIOL and WP:COMPBIO, where I'm mostly active. The decline in engagement at WP:COMPBIO is something I've been discussing with others recently as well (the competition that T.Shafee mentioned above has really struggled this year and this list is illuminating, I didn't know such a resource existed). So I'm definitely up for helping with any efforts to kickstart some wider engagement, especially with academics who have some very deep subject-specific knowledge that would be useful here.
- One thought I've had wrt WP:COMPBIO is to try and engage with the International Society for Computational Biology's Communities of Special Interest (COSIs): self-organised communities with shared scientific interests. It seems to me that saying to these communities something to the effect of "these articles represent your (sub)field of interest to the public/wider world, are they as good as they could be?" might spur some participation. With this in mind, I tagged a bunch of articles for a proposed Regulatory and Systems Genomics task force to see if this is something that might be worth exploring further. This hasn't been rolled out to the RegSys COSI yet so I've no results to report, but perhaps the result of this might be slicing up an already-thin user base even further and merging projects as you suggest might be the way to go?
- More than happy to discuss this further if there's any interest. On board with any other discussions as well. Thanks again for the ping, cheers, Amkilpatrick (talk) 16:33, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks for the ping! I think it's great that editors will be working on these things, although I personally won't have the time to contribute much if anything. I'm interested in a couple of the sub-project areas, more so than in biology overall. I wish everyone here good luck! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:02, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- Projects need both critical mass and focus to succeed. Merging projects into broad categories like biology in theory could provide critical mass but at the cost of focus and I suspect the end result would not be any better than we currently have. My suggestion would be to start merging at lower levels before attempting a grand unification under the incredibly broad umbrella of biology. One subdivision that might make sense is macro/micro (and I must admit that this subdivision is rather artificial):
- Macro: WP:EVO, WP:PLANTS, WP:ANIMALS, WP:ECO
- Micro: WP:MCB, WP:GEN, WP:COMPBIO, WP:BIOPHYS
- Boghog (talk) 18:22, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- Just a note, you may consider WP:MICRO and WP:VIRUSES as well, both are relatively quiet but not devoid of life. Ajpolino (talk) 19:54, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Boghog: I think your macro and micro split is a pretty logical one. Basically everything multicellular+multiorganismal versus cellular+subcellular. From a topics and active editors point of view, those are the natural categories. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 00:54, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- I also agree it is very logical, but perhaps a bit too radical, at least initially. Probably better to start merging at lower levels and first see how that works. Boghog (talk) 04:03, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- Yeah, Tom and I went and notified four projects: COMPBIO, BIOP, MCB, and GEN. We are starting with those for now and hopefully we will see where to go from there. I put a more detailed plan down at the bottom. Basically we sort of have to do this one at a time anyway, and since BIOP is a very good candidate IMO to be upmerged into MCB, I thought we should try to start there. That is much less radical than throwing COMPBIO into the mix. Tomorrow is another day! GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 04:44, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- I also agree it is very logical, but perhaps a bit too radical, at least initially. Probably better to start merging at lower levels and first see how that works. Boghog (talk) 04:03, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Boghog: I think your macro and micro split is a pretty logical one. Basically everything multicellular+multiorganismal versus cellular+subcellular. From a topics and active editors point of view, those are the natural categories. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 00:54, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- Just a note, you may consider WP:MICRO and WP:VIRUSES as well, both are relatively quiet but not devoid of life. Ajpolino (talk) 19:54, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- @GreatSculptorIthas: I'm really excited that you brought this up! I've been thinking a similar thing (was also discussed at the Berlin Strategy Summit. I'm happy to help out with implementing the WPX page formatting. To expand on the idea a little - One of WikiProject Med's great strengths is that is has a single main location. The science wikiprojects split up in the early days of Wikipedia when exponential growth of editors was still expected. It's resulted in a lot of isolated wikiprojects. There's huge overlap in WP:MCB, and WP:GEN for example. Often when new users look at the individual wikiprojects' talk pages, they look a bit like ghost towns. Two broad strategic proposals for general consideration:
@GreatSculptorIthas:, I appreciate your enthusiasm, and your thoughtful proposal. My interest is primarily taxa, especially plant taxa. WP:PLANTS is fairly active. Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life functions very well as a meta-project covering all taxa; the talk page is active, and there is a good community of active editors (most of whom, like me, are most interested in a particular group of taxa, but often make edits to other taxa outside their primary interest).
WP:MCB seems to have been quite active in the past, if less so now. I'm really not interested in MCB topics, am not familiar with MCB infoboxes or what content should appear in MCB articles, and don't really ever see myself working on them. However, I am interested enough in biology in general that I might weigh in on MCB related move requests and deletion discussions (although I'm not currently following article alerts for MCB).
I guess what I'd like to see is turning WP:BIOLOGY into more of a meta-project/discussion hub. Perhaps WikiProject X tools could be used to improve the design of the project pages. I'm thinking Article Alerts for all of the BIO subprojects could perhaps be displayed in one place (along with Cleanup Listings and New Article Alert reports). There are some subprojects that are moribund and very narrow in scope that could perhaps be upmerged Plantdrew (talk) 20:38, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Plantdrew: Hi Plantdrew, I pinged you because we talked about exactly this subject before. You actually probably got me thinking on this track, and it has been bugging me ever since. I really do like the idea of having a discussion hub for all of these projects, and it might be cool to use the WPX tools as you said to sort of include every single subproject in one general place. I discussed upmerging at the bottom of this page in a new section, and I suggest you take a look there. I should also say that I see WP:BIOL as a place where articles of the broadest scope should be included. Biological process, for example, doesn't belong in any subproject. I don't want a Grand Unification by any means--I think we need many of our subprojects--but some upmerging is likely to be important. Doesn't WP:Plants have a subproject of its own? WP:Banksia, perhaps? How is that one coming along? It seems a little...wilted in there.GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 21:14, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
- WP:Plants has a few sub-projects. WikiProject Banksia, WikiProject Cannabis, WikiProject Carnivorous plants, WikiProject Hypericaceae, WikiProject Medicinal botany, and WikiProject Pteridophytes. Though most are either passion projects of a single editor or inactive. Expect heated resistance merging the former. WP:Cannabis seems active though and is more relevant to WP:Plants now with all the new cultivars with recreational legalization and hemp industrialization. --Nessie (talk) 14:52, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
- I would say that due to its cultural and legal standing, and its nature of being probably a bunch of cultivar articles and social issue articles, that WP:Cannabis should probably stay its own thing. It does occur to me that if there should be subprojects, it would likely be best for them to be broad. Not genus level, even for a big genus like Banksia or Bulbophyllum. I could see dividing plants into angiosperms and non-angiosperms, or maybe having a project for nonvascular plants. But carnivorous, banksia, and so on...those could probably be taskforces. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 22:11, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
- Yes please. Abductive (reasoning) 04:10, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- The Banksia Project has been actively producing quality content for over a decade, comparable to projects that have a much larger scope and have more than a few active editors who go out of their way for featured articles. Any one wanting to revitalise a project would do well to look at the projects achievements. cygnis insignis 04:31, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- No, it can do all that as a task force. Abductive (reasoning) 07:46, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- As the closest thing to an active editor that WikiProject Pteridophytes has, I don't have any objection to converting it to a PLANTS task force, which is probably what would have made the most sense in the first place. Choess (talk) 17:22, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
- I got pinged way up above somewhere and hadn't had time to think very much about this, but these latest posts reminded me of my first thought when I saw this conversation. There seems to be a lot thinking here around what sort of project organization "makes sense" from a topic-hierarchy perspective, but I think there's another way to think about this that might be more sustainable. I'd instead look at what areas are existing centers of editing activity and work on building new links among those communities - even if the result doesn't look so pretty on an org chart. If lots of people want to edit about banksias but a larger topic area - I don't know, algae - is relatively underpopulated, that's fine! If they find it more useful to be a project than a "task force", who cares? There's no need for the structures editors use to organize their work to closely parallel the organization of the topic itself. I understand that reducing fragmentation and generating a certain amount of critical mass is part of the goal here, but I think those are issues more with the sparsely populated topic areas, or ones that fall under more than one of the current low-activity projects and thus have no natural hub for centralized discussion. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:05, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- So, Banksia is active, but it's okay with everyone to kill off moribund projects? Good. Abductive (reasoning) 21:37, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- I got pinged way up above somewhere and hadn't had time to think very much about this, but these latest posts reminded me of my first thought when I saw this conversation. There seems to be a lot thinking here around what sort of project organization "makes sense" from a topic-hierarchy perspective, but I think there's another way to think about this that might be more sustainable. I'd instead look at what areas are existing centers of editing activity and work on building new links among those communities - even if the result doesn't look so pretty on an org chart. If lots of people want to edit about banksias but a larger topic area - I don't know, algae - is relatively underpopulated, that's fine! If they find it more useful to be a project than a "task force", who cares? There's no need for the structures editors use to organize their work to closely parallel the organization of the topic itself. I understand that reducing fragmentation and generating a certain amount of critical mass is part of the goal here, but I think those are issues more with the sparsely populated topic areas, or ones that fall under more than one of the current low-activity projects and thus have no natural hub for centralized discussion. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:05, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- I would say that due to its cultural and legal standing, and its nature of being probably a bunch of cultivar articles and social issue articles, that WP:Cannabis should probably stay its own thing. It does occur to me that if there should be subprojects, it would likely be best for them to be broad. Not genus level, even for a big genus like Banksia or Bulbophyllum. I could see dividing plants into angiosperms and non-angiosperms, or maybe having a project for nonvascular plants. But carnivorous, banksia, and so on...those could probably be taskforces. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 22:11, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
- WP:Plants has a few sub-projects. WikiProject Banksia, WikiProject Cannabis, WikiProject Carnivorous plants, WikiProject Hypericaceae, WikiProject Medicinal botany, and WikiProject Pteridophytes. Though most are either passion projects of a single editor or inactive. Expect heated resistance merging the former. WP:Cannabis seems active though and is more relevant to WP:Plants now with all the new cultivars with recreational legalization and hemp industrialization. --Nessie (talk) 14:52, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
- I agree that these WPs could use some more organization. I was on the discord channel for a while but it seemed that most of the folks there were obsessed over GA/FAs and many of us at the ToL projects are just trying to get articles up here with the correct taxonomy. I guess things are different when you have don't have thousands of articles in your project that should exist but don't yet. Because of the different focus, I think ToL should have a hub as well, and not just WP:bio. We've been fairly good at this, but I don't think it's easy for new editors. Discussion could be more centralized, or at least linked to from the WP:ToL talk page. I'm open to all this, I just don't want the organization we have to be dissolved for the sake of assimilating everything into a small set of projects. --Nessie (talk) 14:52, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
- Would you mind linking me to that Discord channel? And yes, I'd like TOL to have a hub. Really I see TOL as more of an equal of WP:BIOL, although it is technically under BIOL. I absolutely don't want to mess up anything within TOL. Really I think that any mergers/reorganization that happens within TOL should be TOL editors' business. If the rest of BIOL gets involved, we ought to work together. But if you, say, wanted to try and upmerge WP:Banksia into WP:Plants, I don't think that people who mainly work on say, MCB should be weighing in too heavily on that unless asked. And the same goes for plants. If you all want to try and merge some of those smaller projects, I say have at it, but what I say shouldn't mean much over there. I'm technically a member but I haven't been doing much work in Plants lately. You have my help if you want it, especially coordinating with BIOL's other changes going forward. I have a feeling I am going to (have to) learn a lot during this process and I may be more useful when this is all over. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 22:11, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
- I find a useful way to avoid getting biased by the status quo is to ask the equivalent "Should WP:PHYS be split up into separate projects for relativity, quantum physics, thermodynamics, partical physics (perhaps a separate quarks project)". T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 00:54, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- @GreatSculptorIthas: Sorry, just saw this part. It's at Wikipedia:Discord. --Nessie (talk) 16:47, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- Would you mind linking me to that Discord channel? And yes, I'd like TOL to have a hub. Really I see TOL as more of an equal of WP:BIOL, although it is technically under BIOL. I absolutely don't want to mess up anything within TOL. Really I think that any mergers/reorganization that happens within TOL should be TOL editors' business. If the rest of BIOL gets involved, we ought to work together. But if you, say, wanted to try and upmerge WP:Banksia into WP:Plants, I don't think that people who mainly work on say, MCB should be weighing in too heavily on that unless asked. And the same goes for plants. If you all want to try and merge some of those smaller projects, I say have at it, but what I say shouldn't mean much over there. I'm technically a member but I haven't been doing much work in Plants lately. You have my help if you want it, especially coordinating with BIOL's other changes going forward. I have a feeling I am going to (have to) learn a lot during this process and I may be more useful when this is all over. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 22:11, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
- Can WP:WikiProject Marine life be put out of its misery too? Abductive (reasoning) 04:10, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- @Abductive: What's wrong with WPML? I know it's a bit of a distbin, but then so is WP Palaeontology and WP Microbiology. --Nessie (talk) 16:47, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- It's duplicative and moribund. Marine life overlaps real Wikiprojects like Fishes. Abductive (reasoning) 17:29, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- Seems to me there are many, many fishes (and algae, bivalves, animals, microbes, viruses...) that are not marine organisms. Yes for sharks and cephalopods it is redundant, but for most projects it is not. --Nessie (talk) 17:52, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- I think the first articles that should have been tagged for marine life would be marine mammals (due to higher public interest in mammals than other marine organisms). While there are some mammals tagged for the project, nobody has ever made any concerted effort to tag vertebrates, seaweeds, molluscs, or crustaceans. That's probably partly because there were preexisting projects covering these groups when marine life was formed. WikiProject Animals started 18 months after Marine life and is also functions as a (more inclusive) dustbin for organisms that don't have a more specific dedicated WikiProject. Plantdrew (talk) 18:01, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- Fishes are handled by WP:FISHES, and nobody cares to keep WP:Marine life active. It's dead Jim. Abductive (reasoning) 21:37, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- I think the first articles that should have been tagged for marine life would be marine mammals (due to higher public interest in mammals than other marine organisms). While there are some mammals tagged for the project, nobody has ever made any concerted effort to tag vertebrates, seaweeds, molluscs, or crustaceans. That's probably partly because there were preexisting projects covering these groups when marine life was formed. WikiProject Animals started 18 months after Marine life and is also functions as a (more inclusive) dustbin for organisms that don't have a more specific dedicated WikiProject. Plantdrew (talk) 18:01, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- Seems to me there are many, many fishes (and algae, bivalves, animals, microbes, viruses...) that are not marine organisms. Yes for sharks and cephalopods it is redundant, but for most projects it is not. --Nessie (talk) 17:52, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- It's duplicative and moribund. Marine life overlaps real Wikiprojects like Fishes. Abductive (reasoning) 17:29, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- @Abductive: What's wrong with WPML? I know it's a bit of a distbin, but then so is WP Palaeontology and WP Microbiology. --Nessie (talk) 16:47, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Fish physiology and pollution
Input welcome at WP:FTN#Fish Physiology; thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 06:31, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
Merger discussion Wikiproject:BIOL
I'm making a new section for this topic so that things don't get too cluttered. We may need to move to an entire new page or something, I really don't know how this should work. @Boghog and Ajpolino: I absolutely see what you are saying, and I agree with the general sentiment but not all of your specific picks. I would lean to supporting User:Ajpolino's merge suggestion of micro and viruses. However, I would not consider MCB and COMPBIO to be under the umbrella of microbiology at all, and I don't really like the division into Micro and Macro in general. Furthermore, WP:Plants and WP:Animals are under WP:Tree of Life, are highly taxon-based, and are not really similar to the other biology projects. For context, WP:BIOL is already basically divided into Tree of Life and its subprojects (mostly taxon articles and some conceptual) and then the other subprojects like GEN, ECO, EVO, and so on.
In many cases, taskforces may be appropriate and we should certainly ensure that categories are in place, if not full Wikiprojects. Furthermore, before we get too excited about this road, let's remember that increased engagement might render some of these mergers unnecessary entirely. It may be best to leave some infrastructure in place (task forces, redirects, etc) in case things change after the WPX improvements.
Here are my proposed merges, with the final project on the right. Please note I am not suggesting that we should do all of these, but that these are some options which we may pursue. I would expect us to only do a few of these in the end, and if I had to pick, I would support the first three the most:
- WP:Gene Wiki/WP:GEN. I scratch my head about these two every time. These seem like prime candidates for a merger.
- WP:Biophys/WP:Organismal Biomechanics/WP:Physiology. Some articles from the first two should go into MCB instead of physiology, though.
- WP:VIRUSES and WP:Micro per Ajpolino's suggestion. My own microbiology class, textbook, and lab covered viruses in some detail, and I think this would be a fine merger.
- I'm not sure I support merging WP:MCB and WP:GEN at this time but I could certainly be convinced. If we don't merge them, we need to be very clear about the scopes of these two projects and what is meant to be achieved. I consider these to be two of the key projects under WP:BIOL and we should do something about this issue. I have seen an article for a protein under MCB and an article for the gene (with an almost identical name) under GEN. That is a problem.
- WP:Evo/WP:Gen, but more hesitantly. This really should be a task force or separate label kind of thing, probably. Or maybe just don't do this one.
Here are some additional issues worth discussing:
- WP:Ecology often overlaps in coverage with WP:Environment. The latter is not a WP:BIOL daughter project. I support the continued existence of WP:ECO rather strongly, but we should probably have a conversation with them about clarifying who should be doing what and how these overlaps should be handled.
- WP:COMPBIO should likely be reworked to be clearly including bioinformatics, biostatistics, and computational biology, with a possible name change to reflect that. They have an old deprecated banner which still exists, called Mathematical and Computational Biology. I kind of like it, but maybe Statistical and Computational Biology would be another one. We ought to think on it.
- WP:Physiology is where I tend to put articles that I would categorize as developmental biology. It may be worth setting up a task force based on those categories within WP:Physiology, because as it stands there is no better place to put them. It may also be worth creating a redirect to help guide people to the subject. Dev bio is not covered very well on Wikipedia in my experience.
- WP:Limnology and Oceanography often overlaps with WP:Marine Life and sometimes with WP:Rivers. That is another conversation that needs to be had. This would likely be a forked merger, but again it would go outside the purview of WP:BIOL.
- WP:Animal anatomy only has 1337 articles, an omega value of over 5.0, and low pageviews. I think it would be better as a category or task force under WP:Animals, WP:Anatomy, or both.
- WP:Neuroscience may be a good merger with WP:Physiology. I haven't really looked at those projects so I can't speak on them or support such a merge without doing my homework, but I'm putting the idea out there if someone else wants to look at that.
- I am also unfamiliar with many of the projects under WP:Tree of Life. Some of those get really specific and may be worthy of a merger, or they may not be. I'd like to hear input on that.
Again, I'd caution against going hogwild here. This could be a lot of work which would be negated by increased engagement, which is another of our key goals. I'd like to identify 1 or 2 really solid mergers and set the rest on the backburner for now. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 21:02, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Possible Merger: WP:GEN + WP:MCB + WP:COMBIO + WP:BIOP
- I totally agree that we should go slow and only merge projects if there is a very strong case. A complication in identifying merger candiates is that a single project may overlap with more than one other project. One example is WP:Gene Wiki which as you point out has a strong relationship to WP:GEN. However WP:Gene Wiki is not only about genes but the proteins encoded by those genes, hence it has even a stronger relationship to WP:MCB. Perhaps all three could be merged into one project called Genetic, Molecular and Cellular Biology (WP:GMCB), but I would be hesitant to do that. Boghog (talk) 03:56, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
- This is a big task. Or really, many tasks. Like with the portal weeding going on now, it should be done one at a time, but looping in everyone. I will say I don't think WP:Marine Life should be put in with freshwater projects, as that would kind of defeat the purpose. WP:Limnology and WP:Lakes though... I also support WP:GMCB, and I think most of the mammal WPs could be made into taskforces of WP Mammals like with Bats, but I expect some heated discussion for WP:Cats and WP:Dogs. I do think only in few cases should a project be completely merged without a taskforce. The taskforceless WP:Plants is imho way too huge, and if every ToL WP were like this every maintenance cat would be gigantic. Perhaps part of this series of discussions should be to break up WP:plants into some taskforces other than the 4 or so small child-projects that exist, which are pretty limited taxonomically. --Nessie (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
- NessieVL agree that Mammals needs to be totally restructured. I would love to see all the subprojects of mammals as task forces and integrated onto the same talk page template, Template:WikiProject Mammals. I should have made WP:BATS part of the template but didn't understand use of hooks (still don't, but I have much more confidence I can figure it out now than back when I had two months of editing experience). Would be a bit of work, but it's been something I've been thinking about a lot for the past year or so. Enwebb (talk) 02:47, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- I agree with a merged WP:GEN+WP:MCB+WP:COMBIO+WP:BIOP, per Boghog's Macro/Micro biology broad categories in the section above. Since their stated scopes are entirely focused on molecular biology topics. It might be worth avoiding the name getting too long (perhaps shortened to "WikiProject Molecular Biology"), but I think that can be brainstormed along the way. I'll add a note on all the relevant talk pages to avoid anyone missing the conversation. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 00:48, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- Couldn't agree more. WT:MCB, WT:GEN, WT:COMPBIO, and WT:BIOP seem to each get about one non-templated post per month. Merging them together would probably make it easier for editors in each to follow the other topics without their favorite sub-topic getting flooded out on their watchlists. WP:COMPBIO seems to organize editathons, et al. So the editors there may be interested in maintaining their own separate project. Ajpolino (talk) 01:13, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Evolution and evolvability and Amkilpatrick: That sounded like way too much of a merge at first, but I sat down and chewed on that idea for a minute. I think that since this whole thing will have to be done project by project, we shouldn't worry too much about if adding all of them will be bad. To some extent we can cross those bridges when we come to them. I also initially had some issues with adding COMPBIO to a giant MCB, because I know that it used to be called Mathematical and Computational Biology and there is an element of biostatistics in there. I would be willing to support adding COMPBIO if we consider adding a taskforce for biostatistics. I could be swayed to us not even doing that (or perhaps us contacting WP:Statistics and asking if they would like to handle it). Amkilpatrick, what do you think about COMPBIO being added in here? I want us to retain it as a task force in the new giant MCB.
- For clarification, I am now in (tentative) support of GEN+MCB+BIOP+Gene Wiki and hesitantly adding COMPBIO to that. Some of BIOP will likely need to go into PHYSIO instead, along with all or most of WP:Organismal Biomechanics. All merged projects should be retained as taskforces, at least initially. Whatever its final makeup, I would like to make this particular merger the first set, starting with the smallest projects and moving on up to MCB+GEN, which will likely be quite a task. I also think we need to forswear dealing in too much detail with the TOL projects on this page. I think Nessie has brought up some great stuff about WP:Plants and there are plenty of other issues as well which we could mention, but I think TOL is active and healthy enough to do that semi-autonomously and we will just confuse ourselves with that much information. Yes, we should coordinate somewhat, but not too much. Does that sound reasonable?
- This is a big task. Or really, many tasks. Like with the portal weeding going on now, it should be done one at a time, but looping in everyone. I will say I don't think WP:Marine Life should be put in with freshwater projects, as that would kind of defeat the purpose. WP:Limnology and WP:Lakes though... I also support WP:GMCB, and I think most of the mammal WPs could be made into taskforces of WP Mammals like with Bats, but I expect some heated discussion for WP:Cats and WP:Dogs. I do think only in few cases should a project be completely merged without a taskforce. The taskforceless WP:Plants is imho way too huge, and if every ToL WP were like this every maintenance cat would be gigantic. Perhaps part of this series of discussions should be to break up WP:plants into some taskforces other than the 4 or so small child-projects that exist, which are pretty limited taxonomically. --Nessie (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
Let's also talk about how to move forward on this. We need a plan so this doesn't turn into empty talk. This is my draft of a basic plan:
Establish consensus here on WP:BIOL that we need some mergers--This is done IMO. I don't mean to railroad this discussion but I feel like this is a preliminary phase anyway--all we need to establish is that we are willing to be responsible for this role for the BIOL project.Done. We have moved on to the next phase.Start conversations on target Wikiprojects for the big MCB merger. For less-active Wikiprojects, we need to ping people who work within their scope using the directory tools that I used to ping people here. You can find them in my original post about this topic. This is the next step as of me writing this.In progress. Evo&evo and I have messaged these Wikiprojects on their talk pages. We are awaiting replies. (5-24-19)- If greenlighted, determine how we will coordinate and track tasks as we go about this process. I'm strongly considering an entire subpage just about this under WP:BIOL or under the final parent.
- Pick a candidate to be the final parent and only merge into it. No two-step merges. I feel strongly that it should be MCB but it's worth a discussion. Genetics would be the other possible choice. Also pick a name for the project. I tentatively support Boghog's suggestion of GMCB at this time.
- Pick an initial project to upmerge so we can learn the ropes before doing a bigger one. At this time, I would like that to be BIOP due to its small size and inactivity but again, we have some discussions first.
- Discuss whether to do cleanup and review before or after mergers. I initially support doing it after--if we just throw everything into taskforce subpages, we will have a bigger userbase to do cleanup from there. I also fear that doing it first will kill our momentum and cause us to give up.
- Perform our first upmerge and take some time to review this before moving on to the next. Pick the next candidate as well.
- Continue upmerging until we have finished the meta-MCB. This project will be considered something more at the level of WP:TOL--a metaproject in its own right under WP:BIOL.
- Finish cleanup. Even if we try to do cleanup and review before starting each merge, we will likely need to do more later. There will be lots to do.
- (Optional/stretch) Consider any additional mergers (such as OBM+BIOP+PHYSIO) and/or assisting with mergers under WP:TOL
I don't think anyone could put this on a timeline, but this should certainly be possible by the end of the year (conservative estimate) or perhaps even in 3-4 months (liberal estimate). GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 01:56, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- @GreatSculptorIthas: apologies for the late reply! Some thoughts...
what do you think about COMPBIO being added in here? I want us to retain it as a task force in the new giant MCB.
I would be hesitant to add COMPBIO to this straight away, but if it is, then absolutely it's worth retaining some identity as a task force (or some other sub-project, I must admit I'm not 100% on project substructuring). If we're doing this project by project, then I agree with you that BIOP would make a good initial candidate to see if this plan will work.Pick a candidate to be the final parent and only merge into it. No two-step merges.
This seems reasonable, what would the technicalities of merging into an already-existing project vs merging into a new meta project be? ie is it worth starting fresh with eg XBIOL and merging everything into that?Evo&evo and I have messaged these Wikiprojects on their talk pages. We are awaiting replies. (5-24-19)
I have a mailing list of COMPBIO participants if a message to user talk pages would be helpful? From experience I find anything that I send out this way is mostly shouting into a void though...- Re Gene Wiki, this seems to be a subproject of GEN, right? They also seem to have a strong connection with Wikidata, not sure if or how that would affect any of this discussion?
- Just to add, I didn't seem to get that last ping you sent, maybe something up with the system? Cheers, Amkilpatrick (talk) 08:30, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- A possible simple initial restructuring:
- A main page at WP:Wikiproject GMCB with the main information and partnerships (partnerships, competitions, journals, collaborations)
- Tabs at the top of at WP:Wikiproject GMCB in similar style WP:WPWIR that link to shortened pages on specific taskforce topic scopes and projects.
- A single unified talk page at WT:Wikiproject GMCB
- Probably retain article talkpage templates for now, but possibly eventually merge to be like Template:WikiProject_Medicine
- That would give an initial, achievable organisation. A draft for a unified WP:Wikiproject Whatever could even be started to see if people like the idea before jumping in both feet. If people agree, I'm happy to help with this, but no problem if others want to drive it. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 11:21, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- A possible simple initial restructuring:
- So it sounds that you are both into making a new project rather than using an existing project. That could be good and I could be convinced, but my initial concern is that I have sort of imagined starting with merging BIOP into MCB. I think that most people who are active in MCB would support that, and that, well, there really isn't anyone in BIOP to weigh in one way or the other. However, if we do it that way, we will have to merge all that content again to the final project. That might be a big deal or it might not. Who knows? It's pretty dead in there. Also, rather than calling it WP:Whatever (and making redlinks to it!), let's see where all of us stand on a name. I said previously that I support Boghog's suggestion of GMCB--Genetic, Molecular, and Cellular Biology.
- As for design, Tom, what if we first worked on BIOL itself? One, we don't need to go all over the place to talk about that. We have enough consensus here to at least start making drafts (though we need more consensus to apply them of course). Two, that would allow us to have a strong base to work from in terms of coordination. If the parent project is solid, the daughter projects (whatever they end up being) will be able to follow our lead from a central location. And we will hopefully have a nice platform to coordinate that from--it may make our other efforts easier! Three, it shows that we put our money where our mouths are and we did our own work before asking other projects to implement a redesign or accept a final merger. Four, we have to work on this some time. Might as well be right now. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 16:26, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
- I've changed the links above to WP:GMCB and started to build the pages. I think that the full name is probably a bit long and prone to further extension (e.g. does biochemistry need to be added?). Wikiproject_Molecular_Biology could be a term broad enough to satisfy biochemists, geneticists and cell biologists and would also align with the Wikidata project that covers the equivalent area data:Wikidata:WikiProject_Molecular_biology. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 02:09, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
- What help, if any, would you like with it? From your user page and what you have done so far you seem competent with design. I am much less so but happy to contribute what I may. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 03:41, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
- I'm happy to help with this, but if I understand your plan correctly it seems like a fairly labor-intensive way of doing things. If we want to merge WP:MCB, WP:GEN, and WP:BIOP I think the easiest thing to do would be to mark WP:GEN and WP:BIOP as defunct, leave their project pages as-is for historical record, and get a bot to change all their talk page tags to the WP:MCB tag (we may also want to manually scroll through to make sure there aren't some that should instead be replaced with different projects). The final name could just remain WP:MCB (which I think encapsulates all those topics). Since there's currently little to no discussion on the WP:GEN and WP:BIOP talk pages, making them daughter projects or taskforces doesn't seem necessary at this time. If the new WP:MCB talk page gets too rowdy, interested editors could branch off into taskforces as needed. Perhaps I'm not understanding something (per the norm). Let me know if there's something you need another pair of eyes/hands for. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 23:14, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
- What help, if any, would you like with it? From your user page and what you have done so far you seem competent with design. I am much less so but happy to contribute what I may. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 03:41, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
- I've changed the links above to WP:GMCB and started to build the pages. I think that the full name is probably a bit long and prone to further extension (e.g. does biochemistry need to be added?). Wikiproject_Molecular_Biology could be a term broad enough to satisfy biochemists, geneticists and cell biologists and would also align with the Wikidata project that covers the equivalent area data:Wikidata:WikiProject_Molecular_biology. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 02:09, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
@Ajpolino: We want to also redesign the final project as a WP:WPX pilot project. We also have to consider many aspects like the article assessments, and maintain separation of topics in some fashion. It is easier to make draft pages for GMCB and design it from scratch than to try and squeeze consensus out of every change to MCB and convince people of everything. Instead we are just going to show them a preview of the final product and say, "Now doesn't this look nice? Let's try this" and just get consensus once. I think that is the best way to do it and I support Tom's work so far. WPX is the future. Without it, Wikiprojects are going to keep dying like they have been, and it's going to get worse. WP:BIOL itself is somewhat dead. That's unacceptable. The best way to do a revamp is often to redo something from scratch if possible. We can't do that for WP:BIOL, exactly, but we can for GMCB. We will probably end up making them as historical when done, though. There has been radio silence from most of those projects since we talked about this. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 23:32, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Ajpolino, Amkilpatrick, and GreatSculptorIthas: I've dome some more work on a draft WP:Wikiproject GMCB using the WP:X formatting templates. Let me know what you think. The aim is to bring together the main useful information. It's roughly equivalent to makring wp:Gen and wp:Biop as inactive and overhauling the wp:MCB and wp:Combio pages using the WP:X formatting. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:15, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Evolution and evolvability: sorry for the late response, thanks for putting this together! I must admit I'm not up to speed on the WP:X format, I'll look into this so I should be able to contribute more in the future. What's there so far looks great, though. So I assume the idea of task forces is unchanged with WP:X? And if so, would the next step then be to set up GMCB task forces to be equivalents of GEN and BIOP? Amkilpatrick (talk) 07:30, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
- As far as I know, Amkilpatrick, there is nothing about WPX which changes how task forces work. It is mainly about page design and tools, not guidelines for operation. Furthermore, there is nothing really mandatory about WPX. We can pick and choose how and if we want to use the elements they designed. And yes, I think we plan to set them up as taskforces soonish. There has essentially been radio silence from all of the Wikiprojects in the merger regarding this plan, and it's been what, a week? At this point it really feels like nobody cares one way or the other about this, which is sad. Even MCB's talk page has been dead as far as I know. It's so sad. At this point it feels like these projects are all but abandoned. Really all we can do to generate consensus at this point is to ping people. ::::: (talk) 01:31, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
- I wouldn't be so fast to declare those projects abandoned. The editors who watch those pages may just not have a strong feeling on the merger and are happy to let it be carried out as proposed. If you really want folks to chime in, you can ping editors who participate in those projects as you suggested. Also, I'm not sure I understand the benefit of setting up the sub-projects as taskforces. If there aren't currently editors participating in discussions on those pages, then won't the taskforces just be new dormant talk pages in a new location? (and thanks all for your responses above! WP:GMCB looks great!) Ajpolino (talk) 02:36, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
- You're right--I should be more careful with how I speak. I don't really think they are abandoned, but I would call them semi-inactive/semi-active, perhaps. And yes, that is possible--maybe those pages will be dormant. Perhaps the weakest project, BIOP, should be wholly subsumed to help mitigate this. However, I think that since we are unifying several talk pages, and we will use the Discussions module to show discussions in a central location, we will have more "critical mass." Even better, our members list will be a bit nicer with the WPX layout, and I personally have considered writing a WP:BIOL newsletter which would likely cover events within ToL, GMCB (or perhaps we will call it simply MOLBIO given the discussion over there), and then the various odds and ends not covered by those two main groups. Mass message perms and a newsletter could do wonders for engagement, I think. I also plan on re-contacting many members of the BIOL projects as well as doing some external recruitment. So hopefully no, those won't be dormant talk pages on those task forces. It is possible that Gene Wiki and WP:GEN might be wrapped up into a single project under WP:MOLBIO/GMCB though, to help consolidate. Not sure if that is a good idea or not because I really don't understand why those have always been separated and have separate banners. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 03:42, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
- @GreatSculptorIthas, Ajpolino, and Amkilpatrick: I think a benefit of merging the project talkpages (even though the projects aren't abandoned) is to make the talkpages more welcoming to newcomers with more activity. Plus plenty of the items are relevant to all the projects (recent posts on ISCB Wikipedia Competition, Illumina dye sequencing, Cyclopenenone prostaglandins for example). The taskforces would mainly be a way to mark which articles as relevant to which topics (see tracking tables), but I'm not sure they'd need separate talkpages (a bit like Template:WikiProject_Medicine has a dermatology taskforce, so you can easily find the dermatology pages, but it's not really a separate project). Indeed the tracking table for WP:Gen has >90% overlap with WP:MCB anyway. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 13:17, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
- I agree re the talk pages, I think bringing these together in a single place is likely to be beneficial. Re
taskforces would mainly be a way to mark which articles as relevant to which topics
, this is the stage that the WP:REGSYS taskforce of WP:COMPBIO is at currently, via talk page tags and for tagging and assessment purposes it seems fine; I agre doing something similar for the GMCB subprojects (like with the tracking tables you linked) makes sense; I guess if there's appetite for currently existing taskforces to remain then we can look at that somehow (Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide/Task_forces#Misc_tips mentions sub-task forces but I'm not sure if/how these work in practice). Amkilpatrick (talk) 14:04, 5 June 2019 (UTC)- For what it's worth, "The editors who watch those pages may just not have a strong feeling on the merger and are happy to let it be carried out as proposed" describes me pretty well. I'd prefer one busy talk page over several quiet ones, and I'd prefer to post a matter of interest in one centralised talk page than cross-post to several. So I support the concept of merging, but haven't looked into exactly which projects should be included. I think MCB encapsulates biochemistry and genetics, so no need to name either of those separately. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 07:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
- Hello everyone, sorry for jumping in. I was notified yesterday from the WP:GEN but didn't get on here until now. Welp. But I'm agreeing with one centralized talk page, but I also agree on having small talk pages for each medicine specialty, e.g. medical genetics, neurology, etc. I'm aware, however, that genetic disorders like Muscular Dystrophy have neurological AND genetic aspects. For these cases, I'm not exactly sure if it should be discussed on neurology or genetic talk pages, if we create it separately. Thank you for your hard work, everyone. Poeticfeelings (talk) 11:38, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, "The editors who watch those pages may just not have a strong feeling on the merger and are happy to let it be carried out as proposed" describes me pretty well. I'd prefer one busy talk page over several quiet ones, and I'd prefer to post a matter of interest in one centralised talk page than cross-post to several. So I support the concept of merging, but haven't looked into exactly which projects should be included. I think MCB encapsulates biochemistry and genetics, so no need to name either of those separately. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 07:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
- I agree re the talk pages, I think bringing these together in a single place is likely to be beneficial. Re
- @GreatSculptorIthas, Ajpolino, and Amkilpatrick: I think a benefit of merging the project talkpages (even though the projects aren't abandoned) is to make the talkpages more welcoming to newcomers with more activity. Plus plenty of the items are relevant to all the projects (recent posts on ISCB Wikipedia Competition, Illumina dye sequencing, Cyclopenenone prostaglandins for example). The taskforces would mainly be a way to mark which articles as relevant to which topics (see tracking tables), but I'm not sure they'd need separate talkpages (a bit like Template:WikiProject_Medicine has a dermatology taskforce, so you can easily find the dermatology pages, but it's not really a separate project). Indeed the tracking table for WP:Gen has >90% overlap with WP:MCB anyway. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 13:17, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
- You're right--I should be more careful with how I speak. I don't really think they are abandoned, but I would call them semi-inactive/semi-active, perhaps. And yes, that is possible--maybe those pages will be dormant. Perhaps the weakest project, BIOP, should be wholly subsumed to help mitigate this. However, I think that since we are unifying several talk pages, and we will use the Discussions module to show discussions in a central location, we will have more "critical mass." Even better, our members list will be a bit nicer with the WPX layout, and I personally have considered writing a WP:BIOL newsletter which would likely cover events within ToL, GMCB (or perhaps we will call it simply MOLBIO given the discussion over there), and then the various odds and ends not covered by those two main groups. Mass message perms and a newsletter could do wonders for engagement, I think. I also plan on re-contacting many members of the BIOL projects as well as doing some external recruitment. So hopefully no, those won't be dormant talk pages on those task forces. It is possible that Gene Wiki and WP:GEN might be wrapped up into a single project under WP:MOLBIO/GMCB though, to help consolidate. Not sure if that is a good idea or not because I really don't understand why those have always been separated and have separate banners. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 03:42, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
- I wouldn't be so fast to declare those projects abandoned. The editors who watch those pages may just not have a strong feeling on the merger and are happy to let it be carried out as proposed. If you really want folks to chime in, you can ping editors who participate in those projects as you suggested. Also, I'm not sure I understand the benefit of setting up the sub-projects as taskforces. If there aren't currently editors participating in discussions on those pages, then won't the taskforces just be new dormant talk pages in a new location? (and thanks all for your responses above! WP:GMCB looks great!) Ajpolino (talk) 02:36, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
- As far as I know, Amkilpatrick, there is nothing about WPX which changes how task forces work. It is mainly about page design and tools, not guidelines for operation. Furthermore, there is nothing really mandatory about WPX. We can pick and choose how and if we want to use the elements they designed. And yes, I think we plan to set them up as taskforces soonish. There has essentially been radio silence from all of the Wikiprojects in the merger regarding this plan, and it's been what, a week? At this point it really feels like nobody cares one way or the other about this, which is sad. Even MCB's talk page has been dead as far as I know. It's so sad. At this point it feels like these projects are all but abandoned. Really all we can do to generate consensus at this point is to ping people. ::::: (talk) 01:31, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Evolution and evolvability: sorry for the late response, thanks for putting this together! I must admit I'm not up to speed on the WP:X format, I'll look into this so I should be able to contribute more in the future. What's there so far looks great, though. So I assume the idea of task forces is unchanged with WP:X? And if so, would the next step then be to set up GMCB task forces to be equivalents of GEN and BIOP? Amkilpatrick (talk) 07:30, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
Animal anatomy and projects under ToL
We should check if there are active and editing members of WP:Animal anatomy, and discuss with them before merging with WP: Animals. For the smaller projects under ToL (ex. WP: Amphibians and reptiles we could do a merger but having specific WikiProjects caters to people's interests, and allows for better organization within specific subtopics. Starsandwhales (talk) 01:54, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
- I have considered taking a look at WP:Animal anatomy, but I've avoided it due to being busy, sick, and unsure of whether to merge it into WP:Animals or WP:Anatomy. Feel free to take a whack at it yourself and let us know how it goes. At the beginning of my main revamp post on here I linked to a tool that shows the active users of a given Wikiproject. Feel free to use that to try and find people. At this time I would also agree that many of the ToL subprojects should probably stay separated. Sometimes the problem is not that we need a merger but that we need more people actually working and editing! GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 03:55, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
- The WikiProject Anatomy banner template supports a task force for animals. However, prior to the establishment of WikiProject Animal anatomy, anatomy editors were actively removing the anatomy banner from articles about non-human anatomy. There was a heated discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anatomy/Archive_7#Human_anatomy that was closed before any conclusions had been established that directly preceded the creation of Animal anatomy. It may be worth reopening discussion at Anatomy to see whether editors there are willing to accept non-human articles in their scope. However, the discussion at Anatomy is far from the only incident where (human) medical focused editors haven't been playing well with topics that have a sense outside of human medicine. Copulation was a stand alone article that was turned into a redirect to sexual intercourse, while copulation (zoology) was then spun out as a separate article (meanwhile almost all the incoming links to "copulation" are about non-humans). Scopolamine was moved to Hyoscine hydrobromide; in medicine these may be equivalent subjects, as the HBr salt is the only form of scopolamine/hyoscine used medicinally, but any doctor should have enough chemistry background to realize that a particular salt is a subtopic of the parent molecule. And then {{human-centric}} was removed from most articles and taken to deletion (Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2017_January_24#Template:Human-centric). Frankly, at this point, I don't trust medical editors to do anything with regards to subjects that have overlapping human medical/non-medical components. Plantdrew (talk) 21:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
- I really appreciate your input here, Plantdrew. That's really good to know and I'm glad I didn't go over there yet! I can certainly understand how this could be a problem. Maybe then it would be better to try and wrap it under WP:Animals? GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 05:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
- The WikiProject Anatomy banner template supports a task force for animals. However, prior to the establishment of WikiProject Animal anatomy, anatomy editors were actively removing the anatomy banner from articles about non-human anatomy. There was a heated discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anatomy/Archive_7#Human_anatomy that was closed before any conclusions had been established that directly preceded the creation of Animal anatomy. It may be worth reopening discussion at Anatomy to see whether editors there are willing to accept non-human articles in their scope. However, the discussion at Anatomy is far from the only incident where (human) medical focused editors haven't been playing well with topics that have a sense outside of human medicine. Copulation was a stand alone article that was turned into a redirect to sexual intercourse, while copulation (zoology) was then spun out as a separate article (meanwhile almost all the incoming links to "copulation" are about non-humans). Scopolamine was moved to Hyoscine hydrobromide; in medicine these may be equivalent subjects, as the HBr salt is the only form of scopolamine/hyoscine used medicinally, but any doctor should have enough chemistry background to realize that a particular salt is a subtopic of the parent molecule. And then {{human-centric}} was removed from most articles and taken to deletion (Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2017_January_24#Template:Human-centric). Frankly, at this point, I don't trust medical editors to do anything with regards to subjects that have overlapping human medical/non-medical components. Plantdrew (talk) 21:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Related WikiProjects cladogram
I like the efficiency of the new project cladogram. A sensible grouping of the sub-projects could be:
- Sub-organismal (molecular biol, neuro, Physio, Anatomy)
- Organismal (ToL and subprojects)
- Super-organismal (Evo, Eco, Extinction, Paleo)
Awful names, but vaguely logical categories? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 07:32, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- That sounds good to me, actually. I'd support that. Feel free to do it if you know how, or if not, I will be able to figure it out tomorrow. I would do it so that your labels would go along the lines, and at the ends of the lines would be those WikiProjects. And perhaps "level" is better than the suffix "mal." After all, we have much more room in that section after I removed that big table. What are your thoughts on the one at WP:ToL? Towards the bottom there is quite a list of subprojects which are not organized.
- Also, any other feelings on the layout of this page so far? I should mention that my next edits will be to the participants section and subpage (to try and turn it into the WPX system) and perhaps to the overview section. I want to lay out our scope and goals. I'm basically trying to get all of the content rewritten and backend stuff done before making the switch over to a WPX layout. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 08:17, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- I've had a go at something to start with. The WP:ToL cladogram really highlights how large that project got, but is a great way to visualise it. Would be lovely to be able to automatically scale line-thickness or colour based on participant activity some day! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 10:10, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- That sounds amazing. I have no idea how that could be done but I would certainly be into it. At our current point in time I considered putting a little info after each project like this (T·A·A) for Talk page, Article Alerts, and Activity level (linking to the directory page). Or maybe instead of article alerts, linking to the stat table instead. A bit tedious to set up (especially for TOL, ugh) but certainly a "solved problem." GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 15:07, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- @Evolution and evolvability: Also, why did you say in your edit summary that the icons broke formatting? For me nothing was broken and it looked really good. I'm using a Chromium-based browser. What browser are you using? We may be able to fix it with some tweaking because I really liked those icons. GreatSculptorIthas (talk) 15:12, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
- @GreatSculptorIthas: So I'm also using a Chromium-based browser but I was finding the ToL line was being broken by the height of the icon, such that I'm getting something like the snippet below:
 Organism-scale |
|
- I'm sure there's a solution somehow by contraining the div height and floating the icon in the right way, I've just not worked out what it is! Also, for your (T·A·A) suggestion - There's a solution to that with templates! For exameple
{{WikiProject summary|Biology}}→ WikiProject Biology(Talk•Info). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 02:31, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
- I'm sure there's a solution somehow by contraining the div height and floating the icon in the right way, I've just not worked out what it is! Also, for your (T·A·A) suggestion - There's a solution to that with templates! For exameple
Merger proposal - "Adrenaline" and "Epinephrine (medication)"
I have proposed that the articles Adrenaline and Epinephrine (medication) be merged. Discussion and input is welcome here. --Kwekubo (talk) 15:17, 15 June 2019 (UTC)