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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Project linking

I have added this project to the WikiProject Council directory page. See: here. NORTH AMERICA1000 17:27, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Woo, we're officially a part of the WikiProject ontology! I see we're the one WikiProject about WikiProjects? Doesn't WikiProject Council also fit in that category? Harej (talk) 17:36, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi Harej: Yes, it is, so I have added it there. NORTH AMERICA1000 17:55, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Other WMF entities?

Maybe it isn't your field of expertise, but I think some of the other WMF entities and any projects they may or may not have might benefit from input as well. Many of them are not much more active in some ways than some of the most moribund projects here. John Carter (talk) 19:49, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

John Carter, while this project will start out on English Wikipedia (since it's the one I know best), eventually we could look at expanding it on different projects (even other language editions!). If you know anyone from other projects who would be interested at looking at this, please let me know. Thanks, Harej (talk) 21:40, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject mailing lists

Since mass message sender was deployed, I've been working on making it easier to create mailing lists and deploy messages with the system. I started by creating Template:Mailing list member (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) which was later converted into Lua (Module:Mailing list member (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)) by Jackmcbarn (talk · contribs). In an effort to keep mailing lists updated, I started developing User:Technical 13/Scripts/UpdateMailingList.js (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) in which I've gotten some assistance from MarkTraceur (talk · contribs) in developing. I'm currently stuck where my userInfo() function is timing out on large lists because it is trying to process hundreds or thousands of requests at a time. I need some help in getting the script to be able to process those requests in batches of 50 or less and wait for each batch to finish before starting the next. Once that is done and my data collection/updating is working as I expect, I can start building the interface to be able to select fields to populate in the template and generating the replacement content for the list to be able to update it. Once the script is working as expected, I may need some guidance in making modifications to the module to be able to support the new parameters and have a pleasing display. Thanks for any assistance I can get on this project. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 19:05, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello Technical 13! Thank you for sharing this with us; we may want to integrate it into more WikiProjects once it's working. Out of curiosity, what is the difference between {{mailing list member}} and the regular {{#target:}} code? Harej (talk) 15:21, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the question! As I responded on IRC and we briefly discussed, the template/module adds an extra layer that allows each listing to have an appeasing appearance and adds some functionality where wiki projects can decide when users should be considered inactive (two levels of inactivity are available at the moment, inactive for display and inactive where no more mailings go out). The projects also get to decide if inactive (and/or blocked) users should still receive newsletters from the mailing list. It adds a layer of customization over #target: which is just the raw code to send messages. You did bring up an interesting idea (vaguely hinting at and letting me think of the same thing trying to make it appear as my own idea you sly one) of integrating this extra layer into the extension itself. I think it is a great idea, and I would love to hear from Legoktm, MZMcBride, Qgil-WMF, and Jackmcbarn on if this can be done, how resource intensive having these things figured out on the back end would be, and if their help on developing the idea is available. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 22:42, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
    Currently, all the extension does is append text to a list of pages, and it has no idea about users at all. Contrary to what was said above, I think using a module to control whether #target is output or not is exactly the kind of thing that modules were designed for. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:47, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Request

Hi! I am Gug01. May I ask that this project focus on improving the WP:WikiProject Beetles? It is annoying and frustrating how when I create a beetle article, no one helps me in the endeavor. Please reply on my talk page. Gug01 (talk) 23:19, 18 January 2015 (UTC) Gug 01

Inter WikiProject collaboration?

A lot of our WikiProjects have a kind of limited scope, and a lot of others rather broad scopes. But in many cases we will have multiple WikiProjects which directly relate to an article, and in many of those cases many of those projects will consider some articles very important to their topic. I suppose one example might be the various "Religion in [country]" articles, which will generally be of "Top" importance to the relevant religion and national projects. In such cases, it would probably be in everybody's best interests if we could get the editors in both projects to in a sense work together on the articles, developing it with material relevant to their topics. The input from both the Latter-day Saints movement and Business wikiprojects on Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution might both be very relevant to the article, but rather different. Can anyone think of any way to maybe encourage direct contemporaneous cross-wikiproject collaboration, either on individual articles or on a periodic basis, like with a selected group of (maybe a dozen or so) articles per month or so? John Carter (talk) 15:54, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

That is an interesting idea, John Carter. I have a similar idea that involves pinging WikiProjects to encourage them to get involved on an article, but wouldn't it be cool if you could ping multiple projects at once? Harej (talk) 18:51, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps what is needed here is a group of contributors willing to serve in functionary roles that are not tied to the promotion of any one or two projects but rather more towards fostering collaboration both within and between projects more broadly. This aligns with notions I have about reinjuivnating a number of flagging (but broadly important) projects that I touched upon yesterday on the pilot sign-up page. A great deal of my editing focus is directed at the nexus of several different deeply interconnected (but none-the-less distinct) areas which are the pervue of multiple projects. So, for example, if I wanted to promote an article that was somehow connected to "the nativistic model of universal grammar and get insight for a discussion parsing the scientific consensus of whether it represents and adaptive trait or not, including new insights from brain imaging", that would be firmly within the ballpark of each of the following: WP:WikiProject Evolution, WP:WikiProject Cognitive science, WP:WikiProject Psychology, WP:WikiProject Linguistics, and WP:WikiProject Neurology, and maybe also of interest to contributors at WP:WikiProject Science and WP:WikiProject Biology.
An editor with the right tools and cross-disciplinary interests who came across such a discussion on one project (or "out in the wild" on an article talk page) could spread the word to more potentially interested parties much faster than any existing means of communication allows. This could also be used to reinforce RfC's and such that just aren't getting enough voices to allow for a minimum consensus. This in addition to working with each individual project's coordinators to try to "bring in" members of the community for more periodic conversations on the project as well, or to try to resuscitate outright dead projects by pining their members and informing them of such a push, while also looking at the involvement of editors at relevant articles and trying to recruit new members amongst editors who have shown interest and initiative in a given area. I've noticed Tetra quark is using this strategy to grow the new WP:WikiProject Cosmology, seemingly with some success.
Anyway, point is, I think if you want more collaboration between projects you need a group of editors who are keen to foster those kinds of connections as one of their primary goals, rather than just one that is incidental to building up a particular space. I don't know how consistent this is with your idea of "WikiProject hosts" or the interim roles of pilot testers, HareJ, but the ideas don't seem incompatible to me. Snow talk 06:47, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Are task forces and non-"WikiProject" WikiProjects included?

Just curious, was the invitation to participate in WikiProject X extended only to designated WikiProjects, or also task forces (many of which were established as WikiProjects but merged) and other WikiProjects not titled "WikiProject" something? The Oregon Arts Project comes to mind, and I believe there are other public art-related projects that do not take on the "WikiProject" title. ---Another Believer (Talk) 17:40, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Another Believer! My spam list of 1,900 or so WikiProjects was based on a database query for pages called "WikiProject" that were not subpages. They were not otherwise selected by any sort of specific criteria. Task forces are certainly welcome to participate (though it depends on how connected they are to the host project—can a WikiProject veto something a task force wants to do?), as are things that are WikiProjects but may not necessarily be named as such. Harej (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for confirming. The way invitations were distributed makes sense and seems appropriate, but I was just curious who was included. ---Another Believer (Talk) 17:47, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Can you think of a reason why WikiProject Animal anatomy was not picked up by the database query? --Epipelagic (talk) 19:38, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Hello Epipelagic, it was not picked up by the query because I ran the query on October 1, whereas that project was created on October 16. Sorry we missed you! Harej (talk) 20:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Hey User:Another Believer - I think you hit on something that is a major problem, in that we have a whole array of projects, task forces, sidebars, navboxen, portals... all of which overlap, but no one knows how to coordinate. Not sure what the solution is, but this has been a challenge for a while now, including the fact that WikiProjects are largely invisible to the public because they exist on Talk pages. And what about mobile users, who really have no way to get an article Talk page in the first place. -- Fuzheado | Talk 17:52, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Agreed (with what you stated here and at Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Stories). ---Another Believer (Talk) 17:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Welcoming/mentoring

I would like to see some structured way for Wikiprojects to be able to be informed when a new editor registers for an account and has an interest in the topic area of the Wikiproject. I have long believed that wikiprojects are the best way to help increase the 'stickability' of newbies - to get them through the crucial first 20 edits and to feel like they have a 'community' they can seek advice/support from. Imagine if we could have the on-wiki equivalent of the 'first week of new semester at university' experience - where all the different interest-groups are actively trying to encourage new people to join them. Newbies would feel VALUED and WANTED, not scared and isolated.

However, before any software could be built that somehow allows newbies to nominate their interests (and which then somehow informs the wikiproject of the newbies' existence), there needs to be some work done on how Wikiprojects can best coordinate welcoming/mentoring programs. Perhaps a 'new member drive' advertised on external fora, perhaps a monthly googlehangout or IRC chat for new editors, perhaps a project-specific version of the 'Teahouse'... Just some thoughts. Wittylama 13:59, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I have been considering ideas on how to recruit people to WikiProjects, since they can be hard to find if you don't know where to look. One initial idea revolved around users' editing patterns, and recommending WikiProjects based on which subjects they happened to edit a lot. That approach may be backwards; it may be better to instead proactively ask what people like and recommend articles accordingly. This approach would require some changes with Wikipedia's on-boarding workflow, which used to be managed by Steven Walling's editor engagement/growth team at the Wikimedia Foundation and now seems to be managed by no one in particular. I am going to see what I can do.
As for which WikiProjects would be able to participate in the system, my gut instinct is to say "the ones I'm actively working with;" in other words, it would be a part of a comprehensive package that includes the superior interface, etc. I do wonder if this approach will backfire, if the pilots are not a sufficiently diverse array of subjects and the impression conveyed is, "Welcome to Wikipedia! These are the ten arbitrary subjects we want you to work on." In any case, this idea should be pursued further. Thank you! Harej (talk) 15:34, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Why not offer new users a chance to select random articles, rather than thinking that evey new user will be enticed to stay by being offered the chance to copyedit three sentence articles on tiny Indian villages, Pakistani streams that are not on Pakistani maps, and amateur Nigerian footballers. As obscure were the articles that I was offered, although they had not been edited in years, suddenly other new editors were going for it, so it seems these obscure articles are repeatedly offered to new editors. Why? It seems that editors work on articles aligned with their interests, but you have not piqued any of my interests. You could have the interface ask the user for broad areas of articles, such as science or language arts, or country histories of interest, or project. The current new user method is uninviting.
And, I think that the eagerness to put banners on articles saying there are problems, within three minutes of creation, probably just sends editors away in addition to interfering with adding contextual information. It appears there are a lot of Wikipedia editing projects or groups whose entire purpose is to put problem alerts on articles. I think this also categorizes articles so editors who like to do certain types of work can find them to edit, and this is with purpose. But I think nobody is hovering over their editing favorites category waiting for it to populate with an article in the next couple of minutes. Again, a very uninviting method. MicroPaLeo (talk) 20:29, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
"The current new user method is uninviting." To say the least. It typically consists of a single (often awkwardly located) space for a row of signatures (often messy from different formatting conventions) which almost no one looks at after signing it. In general, there is indeed very little communication at all that takes place between members of a given project aside from those interested enough at a given time to be coordinating on the project talk page, and most of those go defunct or semi-active pretty fast. If there were more streamlined templates and interfaces for sending out user talk page notices (or pings) to the members of a project, involvement in discussions would be much more robust, I think. There's no reason the mechanics for the bots that look after notifications for AfD, RfC and the such can't be tweaked a little and re-purposed to this end. Wikiprojects might have nominate an editor to make the actual announcements through secure access to the process (in order to avoid it being exploited for spam, harassment and vandalism, but I think it should be workable one way or another. There could even be more refined templates placed on subpages reserved for specific taskforces within projects, such that those users get additional subsets of notices regarding to the activities relevant to that group. Snow talk 10:36, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment Not just new editors, everyone. I've been strapped to find very many active wikiprojects. Video Games, Feminism, Anime/Manga, those are the only wikiprojects I know to exist. I came across some inactive ones, like Wikiproject for Dentists (which was severely inactive) and the like. If people were to select their interest or from articles they edited be recommended Wikiprojects, as well as include the number of people included in said wikiproject, people would join them. I've been recommended to one by my peers but other than that, they seem to be hidden--in the background for the most part. Tutelary (talk) 17:26, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Welcoming and mentoring, tried and true

Within WikiProject Gastropods, I am the welcomer and mentor, and have been for many years. I use the NewArtBot listings to find new articles that mention snails or slugs and then I look to see who is new who has started an article that seems to show the writer has an interest in slugs or snails. If the person is new to the encyclopedia, I welcome them using a template, and I also write a personal note welcoming them. New or not I invite them to joint the gastropod project, and tell them they can ask me any questions or leave any comments on my talk page because it's tough getting used to this new context at first. If they show any interest, I mentor them for as long as it takes until they feel comfortable: that could be weeks, could be months. If they join the project I welcome them to that too. I find this technique works great in terms of retaining editors. Yes it is labor-intensive and real warmth is necessary, not fake warmth, so not everyone is cut out to do this, but it does work well. My approach was written up a few years ago in the Wikimedia blog by Matthew Roth:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/08/the-kind-gentle-approach-to-retaining-new-editors/
Invertzoo (talk) 16:49, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council

... is the same? Or is there some different goal? --Infovarius (talk) 21:13, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject Council is several years older, and serves as more of a general support structure for WikiProjects, whereas WikiProject X was created specifically to design tools and processes for WikiProjects. I have been keeping the WikiProject Council in the loop on this project's work, of course. Harej (talk) 00:05, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Presentation proposal for Wikimania 2015

Hello! Victuallers and I have developed a draft proposal for a talk to be presented at Wikimania 2015. It's titled, How to pick up more women -- as in more women editors and more women's biographies. A friendly FYI... I have mentioned this WikiProject in the proposal. The proposal review process has begun and there's no guarantee that this proposal will be accepted. That's where you come in. Please review our proposal and give us feedback. Ultimately, we hope you add your name to the signup at the bottom of the proposal which signifies you're interested in the talk (it does not signify you'll be attending the event). Thank you! --Rosiestep (talk) 21:33, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's a bit random, but you bring up a valid point. We have a Wikimania submission proposal for WikiProject X as well, for anyone interested. -— Isarra ༆ 23:20, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Naming?

I just saw the notice for this project, wouldn't a wikiproject to help wikiprojects be better named as WP:WikiProject WikiProject (yes, this does point to the WPCouncil) or WP:WikiProject Wikipedia collaboration/WP:WikiProject Collaborations? "X" seems awfully like something for WP:WikiProject Paranormal or WP:WikiProject Christianity (WP:X) or WP:WikiProject Mathematics (algebra) -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 05:39, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree, I thought it had something to do with the paranormal (since I found the link on WikiProject Occult talk page). — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 09:38, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

What happens if I join?

Many (most?) wp:wikiprojects ask editors to sign up. But what is the point of signing up when so many projects have long lists of members whose edit history shows no recent edits? Any facts/speculation? Ottawahitech (talk) 16:03, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Research by Jonathan Morgan and others suggests that there is no correlation between signing up for a WikiProject and being active in its space. In other words, you can sign up and not be active, or not sign up yet participate anyway. My guess is that "membership" on a WikiProject is so amorphous as to be meaningless. It doesn't confer any status—membership is explicitly not required to edit a set of articles—nor does it necessarily mean you have agreed to do anything, since it doesn't ask you to do anything. (Let me know if there are any WikiProjects that do ask you to do something!) So membership is in the eye of the beholder. It doesn't help either that there isn't a great deal of follow-up; even things like a regularly prepared newsletter are few and far between. Nor does it help that membership lists accrue over several years, and include people who haven't edited in as long. There is a lot of area for improvement here. Harej (talk) 17:22, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Article alerts section missing in many WikiProjects

I have visited many WikiProjects that do not have a alerts section, so editors cannot find out which, if any of the, pages belonging to the project are in deletion discussions. It would be nice if it was easier to create such alerts. Just my $.02 Ottawahitech (talk) 19:53, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

This is generally true with various WikiProject tools; they are deployed inconsistently. I am looking to see what can be done to make it easier to deploy tools across different WikiProjects. Harej (talk) 20:58, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
Maybe a template-solution for new projects based on the Educational Program new course creation, which will automatically populate the new project page with various tools. We should create a list of popular tools; see what's out there (article alerts, new article bot, popular pages, cleanup listings - that's my canon 4 must-have tools for each wikiproject, for example), what's needed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:48, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Article request workshop

Hi everyone. When this link is blue, that means the new Article Request Workshop will be launched. The goal of the workshop will be the unite all the different requested articles / missing topics lists into one list that can be used by multiple projects and groups. The system uses Flow, and will be the first Flow-native workflow on English Wikipedia, so I am leaving this message here to make clear that I requested this and it is not some wry Wikimedia Foundation experiment. Harej (talk) 23:40, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Hillary Rodham Clinton

I created Wikipedia:WikiProject Hillary Rodham Clinton today. If WikiProject X participants/watchers are interested in implementing any new tools or testing ideas using this brand new WikiProject, feel free or come over to the talk page and let's discuss... Thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 17:48, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Looks like someone is Ready For (Editing Articles About) Hillary! I'll be interested in trying out our new tools on this project, since it is brand new and nothing needs to be retrofitted. I'll keep you updated. Harej (talk) 02:20, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
That's precisely why I offered. I am not sure how much interest there will be in this WikiProject, but I thought it would be interesting to create one about a very specific topic about a subject with significant press coverage. Let's see what happens... ---Another Believer (Talk) 03:54, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Aren't new wikiprojects suppose to have at least a certain number of participants and be reviewed before being set up? I remember reading about it when I saw a project at MfD for not being approved. I'll see if I can help you dig up the details. If approved, I'm also willing to help with any technical things (scripts, bots, templates, archiving, etc) that I can. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 11:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
  • I know exactly what you mean, and I could not agree more. But... I don't know how to go about recruiting participants based on political affiliations or non-affiliations. The project exists for all who are interested in contributing and all are welcome! :) ---Another Believer (Talk) 20:38, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
There is Wikipedia:WikiProject Conservatism, you can announce it there. With no doubt there will be editors interested in achieving neutrality at politic subjects. Diego (talk) 06:07, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 Done Thanks for the suggestion. ---Another Believer (Talk) 14:27, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Tabbed header

I recently added a tabbed header ({{WikiProject X tabbed header}}) to project pages to provide an overview of various project areas. Prior to this, many project subpages were not easily found, and as such, people may not have been aware of their existence. I received a message on my talk page opposing use of the header. As such, requesting further input from project members. North America1000 02:17, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I just stumbled upon this, and though not part of this project, I like the tabbed header design, and personally preferred the black version. Tabbed headers are good for organizing WikiProjects, without one they can quickly become a mess. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 02:55, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
This is actually a pattern we're trying to get away from for wikiprojects as a whole. Yes, a lot of projects tend to need this sort of thing due to how many subpages they can accumulate, but that does not make it good. We already have chrome navigation on top and side from the skin; having another layer on top of that for the content quickly becomes excessive and makes it harder to tell what is even going on with the overall project because it's just so much information, and on top of that, information that all looks essentially the same. If nothing else, content-specific navigation should have its own formatting distinct from that of the skin in both format and location, but ideally well-organised projects shouldn't need this much in the first place. One of the things we're trying to do here is figure out the best way to go about that. -— Isarra ༆ 06:50, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
I like it, I think it helps organize it nicely. I prefer the lighter color though. Kharkiv07Talk 13:31, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
I'm generally not a fan of tab headers. For one, it's an example of skeuomorphic design that is no longer used in practice; there is no additional user value by replicating the appearance of paper folders, and it produces a very "busy" appearance compared to what is possible in a design medium free of physical constraints. I understand they're prolific throughout Wikipedia (anachronistically so, in my opinion), but just because everyone does it doesn't mean we should.
In setting up the current iteration of the WikiProject X landing page (now that we've shifted from research mode to design mode), I wanted to focus the workflow on what is currently needed for the project. Currently, we need volunteers. It is still possible to find the other pages through navigation; they are just not given front-page prominence. But I understand why people would want to find some other pages, even ones that aren't necessarily immediately important. I'm willing to have some kind of central navigation tool if people find it to be helpful. How do we achieve this? How can we achieve this for WikiProjects, which have a similar need? Harej (talk) 15:26, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
Navigation
A sidebar would work, such as {{WikiProject X sidebar}} (pictured right) North America1000 15:42, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Some people like the tabbed header, and some definitely do not, including both founders of the project. As such, I have boldly replaced the tabbed header with the less obtrusive sidebar on project pages. Feel free to comment here about the matter, and hopefully the sidebar will be acceptable for folks. North America1000 00:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Not sure if anyone else has noticed, but the logo for this project File:WikiProject X logo.svg has a strong similarity to a copyright protected logo belonging to the BBC - File:BBC Radio 1Xtra logo.svg. Wes Mouse | T@lk 00:59, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I doubt the similar elements rise above the threshold of originality, so we should be fine. wctaiwan (talk) 02:20, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Reviews of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Technology layout

By Piotrus

The good:

  • I like the new aesthetics, text size/font/color wise.
  • Current discussions. They need a timestamp; if possible an expandable first and last post would be cool. I presume those are generated based on non-bot, non-minor activity on talk pages with given WikiProject assessment layout? I must have missed the announcement of this feature, but if (as I hope) this is how this works, it is great.
  • Announcements - nice idea
  • Meet our members - nice framing. Would be even nicer if we moved beyond a list, had a profile picture of some sorts, and description of one's interests. As well "last active on", and last edit on WikiProject related articles. This would turn the boring list of names to a useful tool in seeing who is active, and who works on what.

Neutral:

  • Edit articles: as of the moment I was looking at the page, it is empty aside of "Last updated by User:Harej 26 hours ago [Refresh]" comment. I presume it's either broken or not finished. Ping me when it works.
  • Requests: the manual to-do lists on many projects have been often phased out as in my experience they became a long lists of things nobody wants to do. Still, there is a value in having them, if only to see what is not being done, so I support keeping it as one of the WP tools.
  • Resources: another tool with some limited potential. Why not.
  • Article assessment. I love this tool for enabling functionality of other tools, it is not used in the studied project, however, so I cannot speak of its new implementation. The colorful matrix, for example, is always a pretty - and informative - graphics to display, and should be visible on the new pages, too. Can't test whether it is the case if the assessment is not working.
  • Not sure I like the "leave feedback". It seems like an invitation to review the page, but not to join a discussion. I'd split it into three sublinks: "read current discussions", "read archives" and "start a new discussion".

The bad:

  • Layout is essentially a scroll-down list. It should be a table, with multiple columns. As it is, I have to scroll down to see what else is on the page. Yes, there is a ToC of sorts, but why the list (vertical) layout? There is a lot of wasted white space on the sides; the "margins" are huge and inefficient.
  • Missing tools I consider vital:
    1) a section for editors to request reviews of their articles for B- and A- classes (example);
    2) list of recognized content (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Poland#High_quality for example, can be genrated by User:JL-Bot);
    3) list of most popular pages (example, can be generated by User:Mr.Z-bot based on assessment templates);
    4) Wikipedia:Article alerts feed;
    5) new article lists generated on keywords (example, can be generated by User:InceptionBot) and
    6) list of tools - see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Poland#Tools.

In summary: I like what you have done, but I am worried that you are abandoning a lot of useful features. If the new wikiproject will not include easy way to enable the tools I have found very helpful (listed above), I won't be able to endorse the outcome, because it replaces an imperfect solution with another one that is missing what I believe are key features. I hope you can merge the new ideas with the old ones, to create the best of both worlds. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:51, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

What tools are available will be determined by the users of a project; this one is just a random example implemented with what we had on hand at the time. Obviously there will be more options available in general. But why do you consider 'no tools' to be vital? -— Isarra ༆ 17:30, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
That was poorly worded, Isarra, and I fixed it, I hope. What I consider vital is to be able to have a (WikiProject-member maintained) list of other (various) tools. And I do approve of the idea that WP members would be able to chose which elements to include. (Either at creation or later). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:03, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback, Piotrus. To respond to each point:
  • We're not entirely sure what will be in the discussions section, but I imagine it providing functionality similar to the WP:RFC lists.
  • Absolutely agreed that we should move beyond simple membership lists. The current list there is in the absence of a more robust system, still under development.
  • Yes, the "edit articles" function is both broken and incomplete. Which is why it's currently blank.
  • It is an interesting question as to whether the manually updated list of requests should be featured on the main WikiProject page or punted to a subpage. I'm of a similar mindset—it's very easy for them to become messy, but the whole point is to allow people to make requests for those who want to. It's also good for work-list generation for edit-a-thons; I created this WikiProject for an edit-a-thon.
  • "Leave Feedback" is meant for leaving feedback on the WikiProject's design, rather than something specific to that project. I agree it's ambiguous and I'm open to ways to changing it—especially since a WIkiProject-specific discussion button would be useful.
  • The layout presents the main text in a more narrow setup to make it more readable. Large, wide blocks of text are intimidating and decrease usability. That said, it's less necessary to do this on screens that are already narrow, so we're working on a responsive design that will make sense at all screen resolutions.
  • Regarding missing tools in general, by and large each WikiProject will get to choose which tools to present, so they can fill in the gaps as needed. Regarding specific missing tools:
    • Very few WikiProjects actually have explicit B-class and A-class review processes, so it's not a priority. That said, we could certainly work on a proof of concept that could be implemented on a case by case basis.
    • We're working on a trophy case page that will be linked from the sidebar; this trophy case will be automatically generated and look really nice.
    • Is the list of popular pages supposed to be an implied worklist or a showcase? It could be made part of either system.
    • We're definitely interested in the article alerts feed. We just need to figure out how to best incorporate it.
    • The vision is to, wherever possible, incorporate the tools into the page, rather than link to them as external resources. So we are still working on that. Links to documentation pages (e.g. manual of style) can go under "Resources".
In any case, I appreciate the thorough evaluation. Although WikiProject Women in Technology specifically may not have every feature, the templates we come up with should be extensible enough to be usable on more complex projects. Stay tuned!
Harej (talk) 19:28, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
@Harej: About to do list, here are my brainstorming ideas: a) limit the front page display to three newest and three oldest and/or b) allow people to vote for them and display the most wanted ones. I know neither may be the easiest idea to code, yes.
"Large, wide blocks of text are intimidating and decrease usability." Citation needed. I'd also posit (without a citation - it is my own view) that long scroll down lists sap motivation, and that the lower an item is, the less visibility it will have.
Popular pages could serve as both; which is why I think it could be a separate tool (but yes, if possible, linked from both to do and show case pages), good idea to connect them.
I forgot one missing tool: a list of WP-specific awards (again, see WP:POLAND).
Any thoughts on the new article feed? I do consider it one of the most vital elements - very good for finding and inviting new members, not to mention all the Recent Changes patrol tie-ins. I think the tool currently gives numbers for how many new pages someone created in the past month; perhaps it could be upgraded to display statistics of how many pages within a topic area someone created / etc. It would make it even better at identifying and inviting potential new members - but even as it is, it is very helpful. See, btw, my User:Piotrus/w template that is based around inviting newbies to WikiProjects. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:03, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
I like the new article feed a lot, but it's not very scalable. For most of the tools, you just plug in the WikiProject category and it works. The new article feed requires you to come up with a list of keywords, so it will be up to the individual projects to come up with those lists. It's a tool for those who want to use it, but I can't think of an effective way to deploy it at scale. Harej (talk) 17:03, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
I am not saying we have to enable it for default for all projects, but it should be a prominent option, with a brief help page written by us, for new and existing projects. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:11, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Good and bad projects

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Good Wikiprojects welcome and encourage new editors. Bad ones are the opposite, and act as foci for territorial "owners" who see off outside editors and enforce their own vision of how Wikipedia should work, even where that contradicts wider community consensus (and in doing so often reinforce systemic biases). It would be good if this initiative could examine how that happens and how it can be mitigated. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:36, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: It would be really helpful if you could identify some specific WikiProjects in particular and exactly what it is that they do and don't (or did and did not) do that might be problematic. I do think that, potentially, for some really involved topics, or topics really thoroughly developed already, there might not be that much for new editors to do. Having said that, though, I honestly can't myself think of any projects that match the latter, although I suppose some projects dealing with things like Quantum physics or similar might in some cases qualify as the former. John Carter (talk) 21:40, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
That's indeed a common concern, Pigsonthewing. I unfortunately am limited in my ability to fix that problem in existing projects, but I agree it would be worth looking into how to mitigate that problem for future WikiProjects. It is indeed possible to influence people's behaviors through subtle cues, and in this case I'd like people to remember that WikiProjects exist to be a part of the greater Wikipedia. Harej (talk) 18:45, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes should give some idea of the background, John. Choess (talk) 02:52, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
And the decision of that case in respect of Pigsonthewing explains why he cannot be more explicit, though fortunately for us all Choess has kindly adumbrated it.--Smerus (talk) 20:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
Please don't presume to put words into my mouth. Either of you. While the projects involved in that case certainly fit Snow Rise's description, below - and I'm at liberty to explain why, should I choose to - I was actually thinking of other projects and different arguments. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
Mention of that particular discussion (one of the iterations of which I incidentally happened through about a year and a half back) actually ties in rather nicely with something I was about to add, building upon Harej's comments above. The infobox meltdown may be the most high-profile example, but if you contribute to or visit enough WikiProjects, you'll find examples of this kind of (particularly hard to deal with) ownership mentality crop up from time to time in one guise or another, often with editors who don't realize they are going against established process. I just made an attempt at heading off one of these situations from developing yesterday.
I think one thing we could do keep these insular situations grow is to more explicitly underscore that there are no special privileges for making content guidelines afforded to WikiProjects or members thereof in the policy pages which define the purposes and scopes of said projects (WP:WikiProjects is a pretty lackluster page to begin with and augmenting it should probably be an early priority for this project anyway). For new editors who may be familiar with RfC's interpreting policy but not with the broader community process that creates policy, it might seem like a logical conclusion that an RfC on WikiProject can be used to determine content for all articles within it's perceived scope. If we make it clear that WikiProjects can advise and host discussion on a topic that concerns multiple articles but that ultimately content decisions for a given article are made at the editorial discretion of the active contributors on that article, within the framework of policy -- and we could do this easily enough by having a small template linking to WP:Advice pages, WP:CONSENSUS, or a section of a more robust WP:WikiProjects) at the top of any WikiProject's front and talk page -- then there would be clearer understanding of the purpose of a WikiProject and what is expected of its editors, and (hopefully) less tendency towards ownership mentality in general.
Editors in projects who do no contribute much outside of them (or to policy and discussion spaces more broadly) need to be aware that WikiProjects are in no way mandatory vehicles for discussion and that many other editors (indeed, usually the vast majority) may contribute broadly within the scope of a given project, yet do so without ever looking at the project page itself; they (the WikiProject members) must therefor be willing to sell the "common sense" conclusions they have come to in WikiProject discussions to the local editors of each page they want to apply them to, without inclination towards presenting it as a binding consensus or "done deal" with utility that is obvious or established for that page. It would also save some wasted time and energy on the projects themselves that would be otherwise lost to legislating rules that aren't likely to do anything but cause run-ins with other editors and the procedural discussions that follow them. Snow talk 09:00, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to see this discussion re-opened. The concerns raised in it are also those most on my mind, and the most serious issues I would like to see a "WikiProject X" try to do something to mitigate.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:04, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Hillary_Rodham_Clinton

Please be aware that there is currently a deletion discussion regarding the above-named new Hillary Rodham Clinton WikiProject, which was announced previously at this talk page.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:53, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

What are we volunteering to pilot?

I see the "Volunteer" and "Pilot" links on the WikiProject X main page going to a list of editors and what wikiprojects the are in or perhaps feel they "represent" somehow. They appear to be signing up the projects to test something, but I can't find anywhere an explanation of what it is they're suggesting be tested at these wikiprojects. I'm involved in various wikiprojects, but am not comfortable signing them up for anything experimental without knowing what it will entail, so that we have some idea what to expect and what effects these things might have.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:08, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Individuals signing up for pilot testing will be asked to test the WikiProject design prototype when it is ready (currently working on some backend stuff); projects signing up to test will get to test this new design. Of course, projects will get the chance to review proposed designs before implementing them. Harej (talk) 02:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
@Harej: I've used your above sentence to clarify the pilot testing page, hope you don't mind. Also, how does pilot testing differ from a design testing? Looking forward to seeing how this project progresses. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 08:56, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

SuggestBot for WikiProjects

Please sign up WP:OPENACCESS for that. Thanks! -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 14:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Possible reusable idea...

In order to set up monthly tasks on Wikiprojects, perhaps the scheme used at WP:OPERA could be made more widely available? It uses some fairly simple code to put the next three months on the talk page for discussion and preparation. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:03, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I think the kind of setup, or something similar, used at WP:OPERA would be beneficial to this project. Certainly worth a try.--JayJasper (talk) 01:58, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
All it really needs is a little work to make it more general. I coded it myself years ago (On an account I eventually dropped - long story, and one that everyone who needs to know it does already) and it's been working very well for the project since. The main templates are Template:GetOotM, Template:OotMProposed and Template:OotM. If the extra functionality the Opera Wikiproject asked for - the two different areas for setting things up - isn't needed elsewhere, the code could be very simply transferred: All we'd need as parameters are the basepagename of the wikiproject (defaults to {{BASEPAGENAME}} but people might want to include a project's collaboration on, say, their userpages), the name of the collaboration (e.g. collabname="Opera of the Month" - defaults to "Collaboration of the Month") - this gives us a title to put above the collaborations - and possibly a few options for colours and such. I'd like to have a robust set of defaults, so that starting to use this system is as easy as putting (say) {{Collaboration of the Month}} on your Wikiproject's front page, and {{Collaboration of the Month Proposals}} on your Wikiproject's talk page would get things working right away, no parameter tweaking needed.
Necessary decisions

This should probably use a standardised subfolder of the Wikiproject's space, as well as a standardised subpage in that folder for the default template preloaded when setting up new collaborations. We'd need to decide what that subfolder should be (preferably one that no Wikiproject uses) or we could give an optional parameter to change it.

Possible features to consider
  • If the collaboration for whatever month hasn't been set up yet, Template:GetOotM lets you click on it and start with a preloaded template. Rolling this out, it would simplify setup if it checked if said template existed, and offered the option to set up the template if it didn't, preloading a sample default template when the setup link was clicked on.
  • Allowing multiple discussion areas. The easiest way to do this - not as elegant as OotMProposed handling, but much more versatile - is to simply let the default subfolder be changed, then each different subfolder could act as its own collaboration area. This also allows taskforces to have their own prep areas easily. I'd probably say that the Opera Wikiproject's way of handling prep areas would be best done as a second option for a preparation-area template: putting too many options into one template makes it much harder to use. Adam Cuerden (talk) 04:03, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
I have a basic question: how would this work in practice? Would it depend on human maintenance? Harej (talk) 03:33, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Working through importance API

I'm meeting with Harej now to think about the importance predictor (see newsletter). We think that it would be good -- long term -- to think about API's that will provide input data (e.g. pageviews, inlinks, etc.)

I took some notes about how we'd like to structure the input API. See https://gist.github.com/halfak/8b1a6e4d9d72c455eec1.

Top level API (might be in ORES)
  • def predict_importance(page_id, wikiproject_id): --> score
Page view related features
  • def get_pageviews(page_id): --> int
  • def get_second_order_pageviews(page_id): --> int
Inlink related features
  • def get_inlinks(page_id): --> int
  • def get_second_order_inlinks(page_id): --> int
  • def get_internal_inlinks(page_id, wikiproject_id): --> int

--EpochFail (talk • contribs) 15:31, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Need a way to reach new editors before they make that first edit.....

...or soon thereafter. Is there any way to add a brief guide at the top of the "edit source" view that directs a new editor to an "Orientation page", perhaps one that focuses on that particular topic? For example, when an admin adds PP it includes a template with the necessary information at the top of the edit view. Why couldn't a topic specific template be added that would benefit new editors? Let's say it's an article that is categorized to a controversial topic, like politics or religion for example. There could be a brief guideline at the top of the edit view that states something like NEW TO THIS PAGE? - (named article) follows XXXX guidelines and policies. Please refer to XXXX before adding, deleting or modifying the article. You should also present your proposed edit(s) on the article talk page before making any changes.

Another thought is to somehow include in the new editor Welcome message a list of sandtraps that tend to discourage new editors and/or cause them to be TB or blocked. What we're using now apparently doesn't work because we're losing editors faster than they're signing up. Atsme📞📧 13:15, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

The onboarding process needs to be improved significantly. I don't know that pointing people to terse documentation is going to help with that. One of my long-term goals is that WikiProjects play a more active role in the onboarding process, since they're smaller groups than "all of Wikipedia" and offer an opportunity to provide support. Any thoughts? Harej (talk) 02:38, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
How about including the WikiProject directory in a welcome message? It could be especially useful if a WikiProject has some of their editors as named contacts for new editors (otherwise I'd be concerned about messages on inactive talk pages falling on deaf ears; although the discussions feed would likely address that). — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 00:12, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
The WikiProject Directory is really, really big. Even if it were better organized, it would still be very big. A better idea would be to provide personalized recommendations, rather than expect people to find a few needles in a 2600-project haystack. A personalized recommendation service will be doable once I (or someone) develops WikiProject-related APIs based on the data the directory and other features are based on. Harej (talk) 15:51, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
The recommendation service was pretty much what I was going for, though I realise I didn't do a very good job of actually mentioning that. What about SuggestBot article recommendations along with it; not everyone may want to get stuck into a WikiProject straight away, but steering them towards increased engagement may help with recruiting in the longer term those perhaps too shy or yet disinterested in WikiProject interaction. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 23:33, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
An effective method of pushing newbies into appropriate projects is unlikely, without a good method for them to find the right one. Project members pulling them in, is much more likely. Fellow fans of Wikipedia:WikiProject My Little Pony or Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Gastroenterology task force are much better equipped to find and guide recruits into their particular Wikipassion. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:28, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Database dump question

This is a crosspost from WP:VPT; I was told WPX had some neat tools at your disposal –Fredddie™ 02:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Is there a way to get a list of editors who have edited any of the articles tagged with a certain WikiProject banner? If so, how would I go about getting said list? –Fredddie™ 02:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Fredddie, each WikiProject has an entry page in the WikiProject Directory that lists people participating on the WikiProjects as well as people editing pages (and talk pages) tagged with the banner. You can navigate the Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory and the topical subpages, but if you already know the project you want to look up just stick "Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/" in front the name. For example, the listing for Wikipedia:WikiProject Russia is Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Russia. Harej (talk) 02:54, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

First of all, I want to congratulate all of those who have been working hard on making WikiProject X a success, especially Harej - the pilot project pages are looking great, and the underlying structure is already fantastically advanced!

I'm wondering a couple of things about the Discussions feed:

  • Would it be possible for the feed to include not just the section title most recently updated, but also a snippet of the added text (perhaps just a couple of lines);
  • Is it possible for the Discussions feed not just to include content from categories, but also related WikiProjects (either their talk page, or possibly even delving into their related categories)? These could potentially be suggested not just by category inclusion overlaps, but also things like memberlist overlaps, explicit parenthood of one project to another, and manual additions.

I'm also wondering about task force support. Reading the stories, I'm struck by how often it seems that a successful and active WikiProject buds from a well-purposed taskforce. Might it be worth helping less-active WikiProjects to re-integrate and incubate in larger and/or more active WikiProjects? Or helping taskforces that are ready to cast out on their own? And what scope is there for joint task forces between WikiProjects (either hosted on one WikiProject or mirrored across both)?

As an aside, will there be any further inclusions under metrics alongside the assessment stats? In a fit of optimism last year, I started drawing plans for an update of WikiProject Systems as part of a one-man revival attempt, but it only ever came to having this rough plan to show for it. One of the things that I found most useful was the {{progression}} template usage (which I believe I found through WikiProject Military History and WikiProject Medicine). On a fundamental level, this allows fairly live display of the progress of a task (as a stats magpie, I find it gratifying to update even one page appropriately, and then refresh and find the bar moved along - a gamification, if you will); used in conjuction with targeted goals (such as in article drives and task forces), it can help encourage rapid progress on needed tasks. So for instance, in prioritising a proportion of high-importance articles to be addressed to B-class or above, one can have the following progression bar:

If you look in the code, you'll see that the numerator is still manually entered, but the value comes from the sum of this and this, so could perhaps even be linked to WP 1.0 Bot's outputs. And even with a mixed-source progression template, it could potentially partially automate (i.e. I expect that the {{PAGESINCATEGORY}} function would remain live, so at least part of the fraction would move closer in step with the measured activity).

Speaking of activity, I also feel that beyond the wiki-work statistics, they could be used to look at the rate of change in assessment categories, for instance by the following formula (ironically, it's based on radioactive rate of decay):

where:

dω is the change in the wiki-work ω value for the project (calculated by WP 1.0 Bot; could be influenced by significant changes in the number of previously-unassessed articles that were assessed during the period),
N is the number of participants in the project (calculated from Harej's WikiProject Directory, although there might be some tweaking needed to normalise the number of editors editing over the requested period), and
dt is the period over which the change has been measured.

This can help highlight the most highly-active projects, as well as potentially being a tool to fine-tune the size of targeted goals relative to the number of people that have signed up.

In summary, apologies for the wall of suggestions, but I hope they're received in the spirit given. Please keep up the good work! — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 23:18, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello Sasuke Sarutobi! Regarding the discussions module: including snippets of text may be doable, but if you're familiar with the RFC lists, it's easier said than done. (Unless, of course, you don't mind the quotations being cut off mid-sentence.) Including discussion items from other WikiProjects would be very difficult to get right and would be more likely to introduce noise, given that some projects are related by virtue of having something in common with a project of incredibly broad scope (WikiProject Biography, home to over a million articles, comes to mind).
Re. task forces: I find the distinction between a WikiProject and a task force to be more of a marketing thing than something significant from a technical or organizational standpoint. I don't particularly recommend merging projects into other projects as task forces, since it makes WikiProjects into these large, difficult-to-maintain monoliths. Plus there are inevitably questions of scope: is WikiProject Women Scientists a part of WikiProject Science, WikiProject Women, WikiProject Biography...? In any case, it's fine on a case-by-case basis.
Re. progress bars: you may note on some of the pilot projects that the famous rainbow assessment boxes are under a section heading called "Metrics". I indeed have plans to have automated metrics bars just like the ones you mention.
Harej (talk) 03:32, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
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