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Revision as of 13:47, 12 May 2011
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Progress report: Country outlinesDevelopment has been slow but continuous: Penubag has done a fantastic job on the images for the awards we'll be using for our project's collaborations and contests. We now have 3 awards: a medal, a trophy, and a race ribbon. They all look tight. The trophy needs a small adjustment, but other than that, all 3 award images are complete and ready to use to create awards with. Spartaz has warned us of (threatened to take) G4 (speedy delete) action if we run a competition that resembles the previously deleted Awards Center page. So whatever we do, any contests we run must differ substantially from the methods used there. One type of competition I've been exploring is edit racing. I'm in the process of working the bugs out of this concept - the first race didn't work as expected - you see, because we only had an award for first place, the opponent didn't think it worthwhile to continue once it was clear who the winner would be. And since editors are in different time zones and usually need to start the race at different times, we need to base winning on personal start times - he who completes his assigned edits in the least time (rather than first), wins. And last but not least is quality control. What good is winning if your edits are ripe with errors? So I'll be exploring possibilities such as using a referee (whoever is overseeing a particular race), having participants watching each other for errors to knock them back, etc. I'm not sure yet. Rich Farmbrough has been applying his bot expertise to filling in blanks in the country outlines (the population and area entries). I'm amazed at the number of edits he pumps out each day on a myriad of projects - ours makes up but a small time slice of his activity, and yet he has saved us many hours of manual work. Perhaps we should look into how he gets so much done. :) Zlerman has chosen to work on one outline at a time, and is taking on Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. He also has been keen on noticing and reporting design issues pertaining to the whole set of country outlines. Keep up the good work! Highfields has been filling in the names of capitals, and is our first race winner. Check out the award on his user pages. As you probably know, this project has expanded to include working on any and all sets of pages that are linked to from the country outlines. Once the set of country outlines go live (in article space), traffic will likely increase for all the links included on them. The quality and usefulness of those pages will reflect heavily on the country outlines (the outlines, which are essentially lists of links, are only as good as the links they present), and therefore we've branched out to solve the biggest problems with those as well. So far, we've taken on:
Blackadam2 and Thehelpfulone have been helping out with the "demographics of" pages mentioned above. And we have a couple speed addicts (addicted to wiki-velocity, not drugs)... Both Robert Skyhawk and Thehelpfulone prefer (and excel at) simple AWB search/replaces. Robert hasn't actually joined our team yet, but he has been helping out quite a bit from the sidelines (via the WP:AWB/Tasks page. Unfortunately, there has recently been a non-AWB chore that has been holding things up on the AWB front - an edit to all the the headings which had to be reverted before too many new edits were made, because any new edits would make the reversion more difficult. The headings have been restored, so now the way is clear for AWB operations, and there are many search/replace tasks in the queue. AWB assignments have started again! There's a similar bottleneck on the "Demographics of" pages (the "keying" mentioned above), but that's almost cleared too. :) With my internet access somewhat crippled, I've been finding it difficult to keep up with you guys. However, I expect to be accessing a Linky-capable workstation on a faster server (I'm on it right now, as you can probably tell from my contributions list for today), and so I should really pick up speed. Feels goooooood. :) Recruiting has been a bit slow (but steady), due in part to my crippled access, and because we've been waiting for the images for the awards to be completed. I expect the team to grow more rapidly as the bottlenecks are removed. Well that's what's been happenin', and here's what's in the pipeline... I'm about to begin work on a set of lists that corresponds to all the standard links on the country outlines, and these will be presented on the Topic outline of countries which will be organized exactly like the country outlines. Aside from being an extremely useful navigation aid, it will allow editors to easily see the state of country coverage on Misplaced Pages. I'll provide you with a link once I get up to speed on this. In the meantime, keep up the good work! Cheers, The Transhumanist 05:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC) Country outlines project update - 2009/03/08Remember "Around the World"? Well, we've been around the World, and around again (virtually speaking, on Misplaced Pages), on this project. Things have been slowing down again, so it's time for a big push... We've gone liveThis project needed a shot in the arm. Also, its draft pages have been littering Misplaced Pages's categories for months. The time seemed right to move all the country outline drafts to article space. WHAT??? Well, the drafts had been sitting in Misplaced Pages space for a year. WHAT??? Development has been moving at a snail's pace and we could use the help of the Misplaced Pages community at large (who are more likely to find these if they are in article space). WHAT??? Yes, we've gone live. :) This puts pressure on us to get the blatantly incomplete elements of these outlines done. The only glaring problem is the government branches sections. These need to be corrected ASAP. I've mentioned THE GOVERNMENT BRANCHES SECTIONS many times to many people over the past year, but the problem just doesn't seem to have been taken seriously. So let me put it another way: HELP!!! I need your help on this now. Almost all the countries have a government with an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. The links for these branches need to be completed for each country outline:
If you spot any standardization in links, and ways we can automate parts of this process, or for groups of countries that have links in common, please let me know! Administrative support for outlinesThere has been growing pressure on me to write up the administrative pages for outlines - their instructions, guidelines, etc. Therefore, I'm now in the process of composing these. Fortunately, it is mostly a matter of gathering material from messages I've written to you guys over the past year. Still, this is taking up most of my time, and I will be buried in these for the foreseeable future. Traffic controlThe next big task after the government branches sections are cleaned up is link support for the outlines. There's quite a list of links and notices that need to be put in place around Misplaced Pages, providing access to them to readers, and alerting editors to the need to develop and maintain these pages. This will keep our bot people very busy (and happy). But the most important thing right now is to get the government branches sections completed. So please, put your bots aside, roll up your shirt sleeves, and start typing. Thank you. The Transhumanist 03:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC) Fine. :-)Hello. You know, I really didn't see your question about how I've been, because you asked it in the summary of the message you posted a little while ago. However, I'm doing fine, thanks. And you?--Listen to your Princess, dear Wikipedians. (talk) 21:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Country outlines assignment - I think you are going to like this...Thank you for volunteering. I have the perfect assignment for you. But it's more like a trip. A journey. A quest. An epic adventure. OK, OK. Here it is... Country outlines need decoration. Pictures. Lots of them. My favorite part of creating outlines is adding pictures to them. Looking over and selecting the pictures feels a lot like visiting those places! And pictures make these outlines look gooooood. The outlines that have the best image support so far are: Outline of Thailand, Outline of Iceland, Outline of Vatican City, Outline of Taiwan, Outline of France, and Outline of Japan. Have a look! Those will give you some ideas. The standard size we use for pics on the right of the page is 300px. Though that doesn't always work well - whatever size you use, make it look good. And remember, give each image a caption (description). I guess the best place to start is by picking a country you've always wanted to go to, and then go to Wikimedia Commons and see what they have on the country there. You'll find that they usually have a bigger selection of pictures to choose from than the pictures used in Misplaced Pages articles. It's boring to use the same pictures from the Misplaced Pages article on the country. Try to make the outline look different, and better. :) Remember, each picture should match the subject of the section they are in. Generally. By the way, you can get pictures of any person, place, or thing in the country. There are lots of terms other than the country's name that you can type in to the Wikimedia Commons search bar. If you get stuck, you can use the outline itself to "travel" around the country and look around to see what's there. I'm very interested in learning which place you plan to "visit" first. :) I can hardly wait to see your artistic touch. This is going to be great! The Transhumanist 21:51, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Geography WikiProject update - 03/15/2009The award images are complete! After months of toil and attention to detail, Penubag has completed the set of images for this WikiProject's awards! There are five race ribbons:      There's an engraved medallion:  And by far the hardest to create, a golden trophy:  If you have any ideas about awards these images can be placed upon, and how to award them (to show appreciation and to attract participants), please let me know. And be sure to pop by Penubag's talk page to let him know what you think of his graphics artistry. The Transhumanist 21:00, 15 March 2009 (UTC) A question for you, concerning a possible contest...To promote work on the country outlines, maybe a contest between country WikiProjects could be run, to see which WikiProject could develop the best country outline. What do you think? (I look forward to your reply on my talk page). The Transhumanist 23:55, 18 May 2009 (UTC) Contest proposalA proposal has been posted for a contest between all 200 country WikiProjects. We need to know how this contest should be run, and what problems to look out for. And we're looking for judges, coordinators, ideas, and feedback. (And we have some really cool awards for the contest). The Transhumanist 17:55, 20 May 2009 (UTC) File:Princessjanaychalkboard.jpg listed for deletionAn image or media file that you uploaded or altered, File:Princessjanaychalkboard.jpg, has been listed at Misplaced Pages:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Nv8200p talk 20:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC) File:Princessjanay.jpg listed for deletionAn image or media file that you uploaded or altered, File:Princessjanay.jpg, has been listed at Misplaced Pages:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Nv8200p talk 20:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC) File:Princessribbon.jpg listed for deletionAn image or media file that you uploaded or altered, File:Princessribbon.jpg, has been listed at Misplaced Pages:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Nv8200p talk 20:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Has the shit hit the fan? - WPOOK update, 05/25/2009Maybe... We've started the next phaseI was experiencing mental block on the article draft for "outline" and on the outline guideline draft. And this was holding the whole project back. Without these (which are intended to explain the type of lists known as outlines in detail), the danger is higher that a controversy could go the wrong way. I requested help on them, but there was none forthcoming. So I went ahead and started us on the next phase of operations without those 2 pages... Our AWB'ers and I have placed about 1600 notices all over Misplaced Pages. And the plan is to place several thousand more. This generated only one complaint, but it was a very vocal one, and attracted a few other detractors who seemed unfamiliar with the concept of hierarchical outlines and their benefits. However, just as many or more editors came to the defense of the OOK, and there was no consensus formed. But, dab is still trying to rally opposition to outlines at the Village Pump. See below... Administrator noticeboard incident and Village Pump policy discussionIt appears that the banner placed on the talk page of the Outline of Switzerland caught the attention of an editor named Dbachmann who posted a rather forceful message on my talk page, another on WT:WPOOK, another at WP:VPP, and still another at WP:AN! He went well out of his way to use negative hype to cause a stir. It appears that Mr. Bachmann doesn't understand the nature of hierarchical outlines and their applications. And though he implied that he has never seen an OOK outline before, he was involved with a discussion on these when they were called "lists of basic topics". His primary argument is that outlines are content forks of articles, and violate WP:CFORK. But "topic lists", of which outlines are a type, have been around for almost as long as Misplaced Pages, and fall under the WP:LISTS and WP:STAND guidelines. They aren't intended as forks, as they are lists, bringing the benefits of lists to the corresponding subjects, such as grouping and navigation. Someone suggested an MfD, but lists are articles, and are within the jurisdiction of AfD. Only the portal page, which merely lists the outline articles, falls within the scope of the MfD department. The administrator's noticeboard was considered the wrong venue for the discussion, and the discussion was closed. But Dab's discussion at the Village Pump is still active. Hopefully level heads will prevail there too. Now what?Am I disheartened or deterred? Hell no. I say "full steam ahead!" But we really need to finish the article draft and the guideline. Otherwise there will continue to be confusion. Over the next week or two, we'll be posting another 1600 or so notices. It's a good thing we didn't send out 10,000 of them all at once. :) The Transhumanist 23:37, 24 May 2009 (UTC) P.S.: Another related thread has popped up at WP:VPR#OoK's expediency. --TT 04:31, 25 May 2009 (UTC) Why do we have outlines in addition to...?Main page: Misplaced Pages:Why do we have outlines in addition to...?Misplaced Pages:Outlines was growing so large that I split this section off as a separate page. I look forward to your feedback and improvements. The Transhumanist 22:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC) Outline update - Good news and bad news - 06/08/2009The big push continues. And it seems to be working! The good news is that there's growing support for outlines, and there are more editors than ever editing them! The bad news is that the complainers are disproportionately represented on the project's various talk pages. While many editors work diligently on the front end, a handful of complainers are trying to tear down the project behind the scenes. Fortunately, barely enough supporters have been watching those pages that no consensus for moving or merging the outlines has succeeded. So far... Big problem: ignorance of what outlines are for and their benefitsMost of the opposition seems to be unaware of the complete range of what outlines are used for. They just don't get it. This is why it is important to complete the outline article draft. An article with a comprehensive treatment of outlines would be the perfect place to refer anybody unfamiliar with outlines to. Opposers also don't seem to understand how outlines differ from some other page type that they prefer. Some think articles are good enough as an overview, others think portals are more in-depth, still others think categories or navigation boxes are the most efficient and useful way to organize and present topical information. Some have simply never seen an "Outline of" page before and think they are a new type of page (they've been around under other names since 2001). If you run across anyone who doesn't understand the role of outlines on Misplaced Pages, Misplaced Pages:Why do we have outlines in addition to...? might help reduce their misconceptions or uncertainties about outlines. On the bright side, you've got to see this...To add the outlines and related support pages to your watchlist (takes less than 30 seconds), cut and paste them from Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/Watchlist into your raw watchlist. For a way to improve the display of your watchlist - by namespace (very useful) - see Watchlist sorter, or use the "super fast upgrade" at WP:OTS. Or go to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/Watchlist using Related changes (currently without the talk pages) and click on "Related changes" in the toolbox menu on the sidebar on the left side of your screen. The big pushThe big push started with about a thousand banners and notices being placed on article talk pages all over Misplaced Pages. But it didn't stop there... Welcome our new members...The following Wikipedians have joined the OOK team. Be sure to stop by their talk pages and introduce yourselves.
Enter the mentors!I asked a bunch of mentors at WP:ADOPT for advice. Several of them answered on my talk page. Most of those who replied were happy to help, and posted some very good ideas. A couple even joined the project. Here are their ideas, and what is being done about them. A few of the tasks still need volunteers:
Linking to outlines has begunTo the tops of about 30 subject articles, I placed a test batch of hatnotes leading to the corresponding outlines. The hatnotes look like this:
The rationale for the hatnotes is that each outline is a topical guide for its subject, and since tables of contents go at the front of a book, a link to each outline should be placed at the front of its subject. Unfortunately, not all editors agree. Some of the hatnotes have already disappeared. :( Some past discussions pertaining to the existence or location of outlinesNote that the "Lists of topics" are of two types, including outlines and indexes, so discussions to remove, move, or merge those are usually relevant to the OOK. Also, outlines are a type of list, so discussions that affect lists in general also pertain to outlines. We've got to be on our toes!
I've excluded links to live discussions, out of respect for WP:CANVASS. Table of contents to OOK-related stuffHere's a directory of outline support pages: Keep up the great work!The Transhumanist 04:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC) WPOOK advert banner under development, here's the beta...Thank you to those who suggested WPOOK have an animated advert banner. Penubag got working on it right away. Here's what he's come up with so far: Penubag needs feedback. I've posted a few changes for him to make to it. Please post additional comments and suggestions for him at User talk:Penubag#Chocolate banner. Thank you. The Transhumanist 02:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC) Outline collaboration!As you know, Penubag is working on a banner to advertise the Outline WikiProject. And he's almost done. The banner prominently presents the "Outline of chocolate", which of course will become the most widely advertised outline as soon as the banner goes live. The first thing many editors will do after seeing the banner is look for that outline. The problem is, we don't have one. So that's our first outline collaboration! I started a draft this morning. It needs to be finished and moved to the article namespace before we can start using Penubag's banner ad! Come join in on the fun. It's chocolate! The Transhumanist 22:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC) WPOOK's advert banner is done! Is it perfect? Can it be improved? Penubag loves feedback. Please let him know if it can be further improved. Thank you. The Transhumanist 23:13, 15 June 2009 (UTC) Outline update - Full Steam Ahead! - 06/18/2009Several members of the WikiProject have been hard at work. Buaidh has been building and refining the outlines on the U.S. States, the states' historical outlines, and the Historical outline of the United States. Lately, his edits have dominated the project's watchlist readout. (I think he's overdue for a barnstar or two. hint hint) Penubag has been working on medals for all the main branches of the OOK, and has completed the OOK WikiProject's animated advert banner (see below). Highfields has been filling in the currencies for each country on their respective outlines. NuclearWarfare and Thehelpfulone have been busy with WP:AWB, posting banners and notices, and helping our sister project, the Index WikiProject, get established. Indexes work hand-in-hand with the outlines and are prominently linked to from the top of most of them. And the outlines, which serve as tables of contents, are only as good as the pages they link to. Since we started integrating (linking) the OOK and its support pages into the encyclopedia and into the Misplaced Pages community, activity on outlines has been increasing. Though there's still much left to do. But I digress. There are a couple more... Welcome our new members! Stefan and MacMedStefan is building the Outline of sharks. MacMed has joined our advanced wiki-tools team, and is currently adding links to outlines in the corresponding subject articles' see also sections. Be sure to stop by their talk pages and say "hi". WPOOK's advert banner has gone live!Penubag has finished this WikiProject's animated advert banner, and it is now being displayed on the Misplaced Pages ads template which in turn is displayed on about 2000 user pages. Each time someone access one of those pages, there is a 1 in 184 chance of them viewing this:
If you'd like to display the banner on your userpage locked-on to the ad as above, use the following code: {{Misplaced Pages ads|ad=184}} (By the way, it's been awhile since we've barnstarred Penubag). Watchers needed!If you haven't already, please add the entire project's watchlist to your watchlist. Here's how:
Check the watchlist every time you log on!I forgot to mention this step above. :) The OOK is in 5 other Wikipedias?I can't make heads or tails of 'em, but these links were on Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge:
Resurrected from the grave yard...I discovered an AfD discussion on possibly the first article named "Outline of", which was called Outline of Islamic and Muslim related topics, and which was created 4 years ago. Of course they deleted it. But now it has many friends, and so it has risen from the dead. :) See the DRV discussion at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2009 June 7#Outline of Islamic and Muslim related topics. A diamond buried in project space
RecruitingRecruiters needed. Drop me a note if you are interested. Advice from the mentors
More outline tasks
New outlines in article space
New outline draftsMain discussion pages
Keep up the great workI'm impressed with the level of enthusiasm and work going into the outlines. I'm proud to be working with each of you. The Transhumanist 23:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC) Outline collaboration #2: Outline of GibraltarThis outline is approaching completion. I added a bunch more links, finding them with the following Google site-specific searches of Misplaced Pages: (You can use the wikicode for the links above as the basis for new searches - just replace "Gibraltar" with any other country or region name). Request: please redirect the redlinks! (bluelinking...)The redlinks need to be bluelinked where possible. The most useful way is to create redirects leading to the material (which is usually included in a section of an article - see Misplaced Pages:Redirect#Redirects to page sections. That way, when the redirect pages are replaced by the actual articles, the links will already point to the right places. Please take a crack at it, and bluelink a few. Thank you. Good luck. Have fun. The Transhumanist 01:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC) P.S.: on an unrelated matter, where should the Outline of chocolate be placed on the OOK? -TT I finally got to whack somebody with a trout!That was fun. :) The Transhumanist 23:59, 23 June 2009 (UTC) Outline update - Push push push - 06/25/2009Work is proceeding apace...
The current consensus is that we can't place a hatnote leading to an outline at the top of a subject articles unless the outline being presented is of at least the same quality-level as the article.
Improve outline quality by completing them. Place hatnotes for the outlines of high enough quality. Guidelines pertaining to outlines need to be updated. Outlines emerged as a class of pages only a few months ago, and most of the relevant guidelines don't cover them specifically. For example, Misplaced Pages:Stand-alone lists is incredibly out of date. Invite wikignomes, wikielves, and wikifairies (all 2500+ of them) to help on the outlines . Identify 600 more subjects with coverage extensive enough to justify outlines, create rudimentary drafts for them, and post notices to the corresponding WikiProjects and subject talk pages to help build them. Convert outlines titled "List of" to outline articles, and add them to the OOK. There are a few hundred of these. Conversion instructions are needed. Add a description of outlines to About Misplaced Pages and Misplaced Pages:Basic navigation, and add tips about outlines to the WP:TOTD and Tips library.
The Transhumanist 20:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Request for feedbackMinnecologies has done an incredible amount of work on Outline of forestry and posted a note to me on my talk page requesting feedback. I've posted my observations at Talk:Outline of forestry#Finished outline review. Please take a look at the outline and let Minnecologies know what you think of it on the outline's talk page. Thank you. The Transhumanist 19:37, 29 June 2009 (UTC) Delivered by JCbot (talk) at 20:16, 29 June 2009 (UTC). Outline Update - Exhausted - 07/10/2009I'm sorry that I haven't been available to assign tasks lately. For the past 3 days (not including today) I've been almost totally consumed in discussions concerning the location and very existence of outlines. Today I finally broke free and got back to work on outlines. Felt good. A great deal has been happening with outlines and behind the scenes. I just don't have time to tell you all about it this time around. Here's the best I can do...
If you'd like a bird's eye view of everything that's happening with respect to outlines, see this page:
Or go to these pages (and click on "Related changes" in the sidebar's toolbox menu):
These outline articles, which were named "List of...", have been converted to an OOK format:
There are a lot of "List of" articles that are outlines. Some of them are on the same subjects as the "Outline of" articles. The following one have been recently merged: The Transhumanist 01:14, 10 July 2009 (UTC) Outline Update - Basking in the light of knowledge - 07/28/2009Phase two of outline integration (de-orphanizing outlines by adding links leading to them into article see also sections) is nearly complete. The better that outlines are integrated into the encyclopedia, the more use they will be to readers. Due to greater exposure through outline integration, and with most of the OOK team on school summer vacation, development activity on outlines has increased a lot...
Thank you. Here's what else has been going on...
There are a lot of contradictions in guidelines related to outlines. I'll be turning my attention to fixing those. The number of "Outline of" articles is rapidly catching up to portals, and will probably pass them by the end of the summer! Keep up the excellent work. The Transhumanist 01:25, 28 July 2009 (UTC) We're working on something special......to award Buaidh for all his hard work. It's at User:Penubag/Sandbox3. But it's not done yet. Feel free to help improve it. I'm hoping that everyone involved with the WP:WPOOK will sign it (please sign without a timestamp). Thank you. The Transhumanist 23:02, 29 July 2009 (UTC) OOK collaboration: Outline of knowledge (eom)Delivered by –Juliancolton | at 21:42, 31 July 2009 (UTC) Speedy deletion nomination of K12 Inc. If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Done
