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Task force vs WikiProject

According an op-ed in the recent Signpost, some think task forces and subgroups are dying in 2017. What do WOSO task force members think about converting this to its own WikiProject?

Pros vs Cons (in progress) (feel free to suggest Pro/Con list items in the threaded discussion below)

Potential pros:

  • Notability criteria that actually applies to women footballers/soccer players, as opposed to those created for men's leagues via WikiProject Football and the essay WP:FPL with arbitrary "fully professional requirement" (salary minimum)[citation needed] to denote notability.
Currently:
  • Numerous attempts by different women's task force editors to add league(s), a link to a more complete list of leagues, or a brief note about women's leagues to either the Fully Professional or Not Fully Professional lists on WP:FPL are repeatedly removed by users. Diffs spanning multiple years available upon request.
  • OR since WP:FOOTY is mostly irrelevant to the majority of women's footballers: WP:GNG is used as primary notability guideline

Potential cons:

per Hmlarson
per Oranje
  • Divergent MOS
  • Divergent templates
  • Potential for common discussions in different places about the same thing

ClubOranjeT 10:16, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

per Number 57

Survey

Please see WP:OWN. Fenix down (talk) 08:29, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Has nothing to do with owning, just stating that was Hmlarson's opening question. The minimum in such a case is to add a disclaimer of editors who are not WOSO members. --SuperJew (talk) 08:51, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
That's completely irrelevant. Firstly, you simply cannot have areas of discussion where you actively seek to cut out anyone. Not only is this task force part of WP:FOOTY and so all project members are entitled to comment, as it directly affects them, but more importantly any editor is free to comment on this and their opinion carries as much weight as anyone else's. If you genuinely want to set up a separate wikiproject, you need to get a lot less OWN-y very quickly otherwise it is going to get shot down straight away. Fenix down (talk) 09:09, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Well WP:GNG is already applicable to any female football article already when the task force is part of WP:FOOTBALL. Yet you made no mention of GNG in your opening statement, your own words were "Notability criteria that actually applies to women footballers/soccer players." So that would imply looking for a different inclusion criteria I assume. Kosack (talk) 14:08, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Well that's pretty much confirming what I said, the main reason behind it is to form your own notability guidelines in order to create the articles you want because you don't agree with the ones in place. That doesn't seem like a good basis for creating a stand-alone project. Wikiprojects are designed to allow users to collaborate on subjects, this would seem to be doing the opposite imo. Kosack (talk) 15:05, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • "That is part of it" doesn't translate in English to "the main reason behind it is to form your own notability guidelines", but your take is interesting. Curious, how you see a WP:WOSO project would be preventing collaboration amongst editors who actually work on the topic? Does WP:FOOTY promote collaboration for editors working on women's football? Please provide examples (if you think so). Does it encourage contributions by women editors? I'll say based on my experiences as a woman editor of several years focused on this specific topic + a quick peak at the WP:FOOTY project talk archives, mostly not. I don't recognize your username as someone involved in editing women's football/soccer articles. Are you interested in becoming more involved? Hmlarson (talk) 15:27, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Furthermore, no one is questioning whether the leagues are notable. The question is, do the players competing receive sufficient independent coverage to satisfy GNG, that is a completely different question. Fenix down (talk) 15:25, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • @Hmlarson: My point was more that football is the topic, irregardless of gender, so it surely makes more sense for the relevant guidelines, discussions, etc to all be in the same place. Kosack (talk) 16:22, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose Football is Football and we shouldn't be discussing things that affect it in 2 different places. MOS, Templates, sources, categories lists et-al are all common. Let's keep them common for the sake of consistency. And for those looking for a back door to change notability criteria as has been suggested: firstly, why should a female have less criteria? What we should be looking at is the current rules which mean someone playing 2 games in 4th tier in England passes while someone who plays 5 seasons in "country x" national league doesn't because it has a couple of semi pro teams. More and more places are getting FPLs and they are going further down the tree. Working on bringing that up to higher level leagues and it will balance for girls because there would cause to argue on coverage basis rather than FPL. ClubOranjeT 09:58, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - There is nothing about being a task force of a relevant WikiProject that prevents members of this project from making their articles as good as they can be. Notability criteria are fine as they are. – PeeJay 11:03, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I did want to see whether any genuinely useful reasons for wanting to convert this task force to a separate project might be forthcoming but this comment by HML makes it pretty clear to me that the real reason for this proposal is to try to create a forum which would seek to lower the notability level for female footballers to a lower one than that required for male footballers. Not only would this create an unacceptable gender bias, it is also completely unnecessary. Any changes to the notability guideline would have to take place at WT:NSPORT and not in any project space. Fenix down (talk) 22:03, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Create a gender bias? there already is a gender bias. --SuperJew (talk) 22:09, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
You might actually want to read that again. That talks about under representation of women in the editing body and under representation of women in biographies created. I am not debating either of those biases exist, they do. What I am saying is that the way to correct at least the second one is to write more articles about female footballers who meet GNG, not artificially lower the notability threshold for female footballers so they are not on the same footing as male footballers. You don't solve one bias by creating another. Fenix down (talk) 22:15, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Wouldn't you say that in an unbiased state, the percentage of male footballer and percentage of female footballers with articles about them would be roughly equal? --SuperJew (talk) 05:39, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
No, because globally the men's game receives more coverage and has a larger player base to draw from. I would expect that gap to narrow over time as the women's game grows in popularity, but the idea that bias equals a non 50/50 split of articles is a fundamental misunderstanding of what bias means. Fenix down (talk) 06:13, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
Percentage from the existing player base, not percentage of articles on Wikipedia. --SuperJew (talk) 06:18, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
Again no, as I said the men's game gets far more coverage globally than the women's, so it stands to reason that more men would meet GNG. If your proposals around notability guidelines are intended to try to create an environment where the same % of female footballers have articles as men from their overall player base then you misunderstand the notion of bias. The only area i would expect there to be no imbalance would bd senior international footballers, and we are all in agreement that they are notable regardless of gender. In time I expect the percentage of female footballers who are notable to increase and in time it may well match the level found in the men's game, but that is not something for editors to try to artificially solve, that is something that will happen organicallg as league standards improve and independent coverage grows. Fenix down (talk) 07:21, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose – I agree that the coverage of women's football in Wikipedia is in need of improvement, but I am unconvinced by the support !votes and as other users pointed out it just seems as an attempt to bypass the current notability guidelines. Inter&anthro (talk) 12:06, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose – In agreement with most of the above, especially with Fenix down's most recent comment. R96Skinner (talk) 12:30, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - this is getting silly now. GiantSnowman 17:47, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Same comments as Fenix. I wasn't aware that this task force exists. The idea that a task force that doesn't exist to the wider knowledge of a wikiProject would seek to exclude members of the wider project seems somewhat counter-intuitive. Clearly the WP:FOOTY needs to do better to improve this status quo. Koncorde (talk) 15:30, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't think that this proposal is trying to exclude members of the wider wikiproject, but rather to acknowledge on an administrative level the degree to which it is already a de facto independent project. Also, if you didn't know we existed, why are you sad to see us go? Doesn't that confirm that WP:FOOTY is de facto just MensFooty? If we were part of a broader football wikiproject with American Football and rugby and Gaelic football and such, but none of the American football editors cared about soccer and the wikiproject guidelines seemed to be created with American football in mind, why wouldn't you want to split off? I recognize gender is different than different codes, but it's still something to think about. Cleancutkid (talk) 07:07, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
Specifically comments within this discussion made it quite clear this was raised here and not at WP:FOOTY to exclude. My lack of knowledge suggests that WP:FOOTY has not done enough to advertise and support this existing Taskforce in any meaningful way to achieve wider improvement and support. Splitting this taskforce away merely exacerbates the situation. I am not "sad" to see "you" go (that is a gross and misleading suggestion that there is some kind of line in the sand between Wikiprojects). I find it stupid that WOSO has become so isolated that it is pushing for further isolation and talking in such reductionist terms. Koncorde (talk) 19:50, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Per @ClubOranje: and @Number 57: above. GauchoDude (talk) 19:58, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Support - In theory, I would prefer to reform issues within WP:FOOTY so it actually operated in a way that served woso articles and the woso taskforce/editors, but having read through a number of logs linked from here and elsewhere where woso editors have tried to address issues only to be dismissed, I think that might actually take more time.
As a potential alternative, would it be possible/better/worse to house WOSO under the Women's Sports wikiproject instead? It seems like we have some association there already? I am generally a fan of vertical associations rather than horizontal bloat, though. Cleancutkid (talk) 07:07, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. Mightytotems (talk) 11:18, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - We should no start splitting up sports WikiProject based on gender. Football is football and WP:FOOTY should be capable of dealing with all football related articles. The coverage of women's football is less than the coverage of men's football in real life and Wikipedia's coverage should be in balance with that. Our notability guidelines are already sufficient as they are.Tvx1 12:45, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

  • Comment - I am not fully aware of all the differences between task-force and project, so an explanation of the differences by someone more knowledgeable would be appreciated. Also a brief explanation of new tools available to WikiProjects would be great :) --SuperJew (talk) 07:04, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment - Whilst I have no inherent problem with Women's football becoming its own project since the majority of editors to all football related articles seem to struggle by ok with without getting involved too much in the overall wikiproject, I'm not sure how this helps from a collaborative standpoint. It basically seems to be a few people saying, "we don't want to work with you, we want to do our own thing", which is fundamentally at odds with the way enWIki is meant to work.
My main concern however is noted above, namely that the sole purpose for this proposal, given its prominence at the top of the "Pros" list and no attempt to even list and "cons", is to try to force through a change in notability requirements that has failed to gain consensus anywhere despite multiple discussions. Editors are all reminded that any change to NSPORT would need consensus achieved at WT:NSPORT and the underlying task force / project administrative structure does not change that requirement. Fenix down (talk) 08:29, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Well, if you have cons, by all means please suggest them. --SuperJew (talk) 08:47, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Already done in my comment above, please reread, it states clearly that the suggestion is inherently uncollaborative and of questionable motive. I am not however, going to refactor the original statement above as this is what current comment references. Fenix down (talk) 09:11, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
You seem to be once more confusing between the proposal move itself to the motives you think the people supporting the proposal have. --SuperJew (talk) 13:20, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment Pro listed "Access to new tools available to WikiProjects (not task forces)" what does that mean? Surely these 'tools' are available also to this WikiProject? ClubOranjeT 10:16, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Question in response to ClubOranje's list of 3 potential cons: 1) Divergent manual of style (WP:MOS), 2) Divergent templates, 3) Potential for common discussions in different places about the same thing. Interesting points re: MOS and templates. I hadn't thought about using different MOS or templates, but can you elaborate how if the new WikiProject uses different templates or say integrates tips about writing about women that would be negatively impact Wikipedia or the reader experience? Hmlarson (talk) 13:21, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Questions/Comments from Fenix down (originally appeared under question directly directed to ClubOranje) More relevantly, since it is you that is discussing splitting the project, why would you want to use different templates and, more importantly, why can you not integrate tips about writing about women into the overall project style guidelines? This is the problem people seem to be having here, other than looking to tweak guidelines to suit your own desires - tweaks that have never gained any traction anywhere either at WP:FOOTY or WP:NSPORT, you're not suggesting any benefits that cannot be achieved, more collaboratively, within the existing overall project. I have held off casting any vote really because I'm trying to give people time to come up with genuine reasons that necessitate a split, that are not better achieved within the current project. To be honest, I'm not sure what they would be and am struggling to see this discussion as anything other than needless factionalism. Fenix down (talk) 13:35, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Understandable FD. Do you mind if I move this to its own thread? Hmlarson (talk) 13:53, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Not at all. Before I could support any hiving off of this task force into its own project, I would want to see that we had exhausted avenues in the main project before moving forward with any suggestion to split. Fenix down (talk) 14:22, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment Really, really poor of the editors who keep trying to remove the potential con I added. Please accept that there are divergent views on this issue. Number 57 16:57, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment I edit primarily in woso and strongly support adjusting notability guidelines, but don't know if that is enough to justify the time and effort required to create/maintain a new project. The woso editor pool is smaller than that of the footy project as a whole, and I think has faaar fewer experienced editors/administrators/etc (ex: this is my first time posting in a discussion like this; if I've screwed up in some way, definitely let me know). I think that we gain a fair amount by being grouped within the larger task force (standardized templates and such, as mentioned above, plus a smaller project has more potential to get overwhelmed/abandoned). The question to examine is whether the downsides of remaining with the general taskforce outweigh that.
I have seen some of the discussions on the main woso project that probably have led Hmlarson to this proposal, and they have sometimes seemed like the only editor participating in the conversation who is familiar with woso (I have agreed with them, but I don't feel like I have enough wikipedia knowledge to join in necessarily). To me, that seems like a flaw in the process. There are other editors who I see active editing woso pages who aren't showing up in conversations, either. I'm sure that's a general issue across wikiprojects, but it seems to have led to some of the issues here. I would like to start being more active on wiki, both in editing and the woso taskforce/project, which could help slightly, but the larger problem will remain. Perhaps this discussion could lead to some increased autonomy for the taskforce?
My understanding of the project notability criteria is that it is supposed to be a straightforward test to capture people who would likely already be notable according to WP:GNG. The structural inequalities of global sport mean that women are paid less than similarly-notable men (notice that I am saying "similarly-notable", not "similarly-deserving" or something). Thus, the bar of "fully-professional league" in practice leads to a higher notability requirement for women than for men. For example, check out last season in La Liga, where more than half of the team captains are redlinks. I would put money on every captain passing GNG independently, but should we have to go through a (sometimes seemingly) adversarial process to justify the creation of the articles? The argument against adjusting NFOOTY seems to be that people don't want to flood wiki with "non-notable" articles. I am not at all a fan of this taskforce becoming a stub factory (personally, I like updating/expanding existing articles of medium notability rather than creating marginal ones), but nobody is threatening that, either. As it stands now, the NFOOTY criteria does not actually function neutrally across gender when every player from the third division in Ukraine passes automatically, but Lyon and Wolfsburg players don't. If WP:FOOTY doesn't recognize that, than I would say that woso should branch off. Cleancutkid (talk) 06:16, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
On the contrary, it is most definitely neutral as it applies the same criteria to both the women's and men's game. What you, and the other supporting editors are suggesting here, is a non-neutral proposal, namely a lower level at which we would presume notability for certain footballers based solely on their gender. More importantly however, you seem to suggesting that the creation of a new wikiproject results in the creation of powers to set notability guidelines, when it would do nothing of the sort. NFOOTY is not owned by WP:FOOTY, NFOOTY is part of the wider NSPORT guideline and changes to that guideline have to achieve consensus at WT:SPORT or some other wider arena. I do sympathise with some of your points though, I'm personally not happy about the depth to which NFOOTY presumes notability in some countries (such as Russia and Ukraine), nor do I think that it is a perfect guideline by any means. However, it generally functions OK and is a useful tool in getting rid of a lot of articles on non-notable players, the fact that we delete hundreds of articles on non-notable male players every year as a result of this guideline in a quick and efficient manner, is something rarely acknowledged by people who want to change the guideline
I completely acknowledge that there is a clear bias on WP not only in terms of the gender of editors, but also the fact that those editors predominantly create biographies about men rather than women. However, the way to deal with this is not to compartmentalise women's football into its own project and try to install some lower level of notability simply to boost article numbers. The correct way is instead to look at the many, many articles that remain to be written about female international footballers (for example, not one of the most recent Ethiopian women's squad has an article), female football competitions (neither South Africa nor Jamaica's top competitions for women have articles), top level seasons lacking an article (only 4 of the last 20 seasons of the Russian Women's Football Championship seem to have season articles), etc, etc. Fenix down (talk) 08:33, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
I recognize (and was trying to acknowledge above) that NFOOTY does not specifically mention gender, making it "gender-neutral" in one sense, but its impact is not gender neutral: a significant number of women footballer redlinks pass GNG but not NFOOTY, while there are very few such examples for male footballers (and indeed, there are a number of male footballers out there who pass NFOOTY but not GNG, and we both agree those articles should be deleted if/when they pop up). If this taskforce is already de facto operating on its own (many editors are part of the "child" but not the "parent", see comments above from WP:FOOTY members who didn't even know it existed, etc.), and the supposedly-unifying project standards don't fit well, why not make it actually separate?
I can't speak for other editors, but I have no desire to churn out articles on non-notable athletes just for the principle of the matter. As you mentioned above, there are plenty of woso redlinks which clearly pass both GNG and NFOOTY as it currently stands. However, what if an editor is particularly interested in writing articles for the Primera División captains I mentioned above? Should all of those articles have to spend a (mildly-contentious) week on AfD only to eventually be retained anyway? If NFOOTY isn't helping smooth that process for woso editors, why are we even formally associated? Wikiprojects should help new editors find resources and build community, but while y'all keep letting us know that there are some valid issues, nobody's stepping forward to actually address them (or make those Russian season articles...).
You say that the "fully-professional league" matches how other sports are handled, but on NSPORT, I see some sports where there is a category for notable amateur athletes, like at NBOXING, where there are some significant amateur competitions. Personally, I don't believe that a gender-specific criteria needs to be added, but there could be an added bullet something involving fully-professional teams or Champions League or UEFA coefficient or some way for a team/league to attain sufficient notability that players are assumed to be notable or ... Cleancutkid (talk) 06:46, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
But the point is that no wikiproject or taskforce has ownership of a notability guideline. Any changes to that guideline would have to be done at WT:NSPORT, where everyone can comment and consensus is obtained from a much wider editor base. I have no inherent problem with this task force becoming more closely associated with wider task force / projects for women's articles, in fact i would encourage it. I also have nor real problem with changing the association with WP:FOOTY, i dont concern myself much with the admin side of it myself. The overall problem I think people opposing this move have is that it is becoming more and more clear that this proposal is simply driven by a small number of editors who seem to think this is s way that they can automatically achieve their aim of altering notability guidelines to a level which many other editors feel is unfair. Fenix down (talk) 12:25, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
That said, I do like the idea of proposing a notability guideline stating that players who have played in the champions league or similar competition are notable. I'd like to see a proper discussion of that. Fenix down (talk) 12:27, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Hmlarson (talk) 21:24, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
Also, it seems like some proper guidelines for making changes to WP:FPL are needed in the "lead" of the essay. Otherwise it's difficult to disprove that just a few editors WP:OWN it. As it stands currently, the "lead" is inaccurate. I (and others can state if they agree or disagree) think the following edits (or something simliar) would be appropriate as a start:
  • Remove "The lists are currently incomplete and some entries are lacking sources."
  • Include definition w/ reference to what "fully professional" is
  • Replace with a consensus-backed process for how leagues are added
  • Include mention of WP:GNG w/ link to the guideline
Anyone have any other ideas? I think these are a start for making this essay clearer - particularly for newer editors. It would also help cut down on the desire to revert so much. Hmlarson (talk) 21:38, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
I think that all of the list should be properly sourced with up-to-date references, especially by users who revert additions claiming "need of consensus and proper sourcing". --SuperJew (talk) 06:29, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
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