User talk:Zlerman - Misplaced Pages

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/Archive 1 /Archive 2

Request for help

I've been rewriting the Outline article from scratch.

Before I move it to article space, it needs to be finished and completely referenced.

I need your help on it.

The Transhumanist 01:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Paska (bread)

I did some work on this article. It seems similar to challah. I thought it might interest you. Cheers. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:46, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I understand

Sorry, I didn't know about this rule. It's just that most of people from Central Asia I've met told me that Russian language was as important to them as their mother tongues. Many of them even only speak Russian. It seems to me that Russian in Central Asia is just like French in West African countries such as Senegal, Ivory Coast or Benin.Mitch1981 (talk) 18:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Second language

In many developping countries, the language of the former colonial power often plays a central role. In some cases, people are even more prophicient in this language than in their official language. For instance, many North African speak better French than (litteral) Arabic. I think that the infobox should take that into acount. We could put something like "language used in higher education" or "second mother tongue" or "second language", don't you think so? It would be more precise than "language for interethnic communication".Mitch1981 (talk) 19:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Re : Re : Second language

Sometimes, I forget that, after all, Misplaced Pages is just an encyclopedia and that it can't completely reflect real life. I may be wrong but it seems to me that, in Central Asia, Russian is not used only in business or politics but also in ordinary life by ordinary people. It is the same with French in Senegal or Benin, English in India, Spanish in Equatorial Guinea or Portuguese in Angola. The difference is that, in those countries, these languages do have an official status. For some obscure reasons I don't really get, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan won't give an official status to Russian language. It's very surprising considering that those governments' web sites are in Russian (besides English and the official language of course) but not in Chinese or French for instance.

About the Baltic States I don't know. Russian is the 7th most spoken language in the European Union (partly) because of these countries. Their governements' web sites use Russian too. So, we should not completely discard the possibility of inserting it in their infoboxes. до свиданияMitch1981 (talk) 07:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I met people from Kazakhstan and it was clear to me that Russian was at least as useful to them (and their counterparts) as their "real" mother tongue. Plus, a friend of mine who spent a few months in Kyrghistan assured me that people spoke Russian in everyday life. So, I've probably jumped on false conclusions and considered that the other "Eurasian Muslim" former Soviet Republics were doing the same. But could you tell me more about Tajikistan ? Another friend of mine lived there for a few months and he needed a French-Russian dictionary because Russian was very used there. And what about Azerbaijan ?

Being biligual myself (Swahili dialects and French), I can't understand why these people are rejecting the opportunity of having two mother tongues. I travelled a bit too and I'm more and more convinced that English will never be a genuine "universal lingua franca". For instance, in France, Italy, Brasil or Spain, most of ordinary people are not very prophicient and they probably don't intend to be. On the other hand, languages of former colonial powers are real and useful "second languages" for the third world.

By the way, are you a "Russian Jew" ? I mean ... is Russian a "second mother tongue" to you or did you "just" learn it at school ?Mitch1981 (talk) 09:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, I'm very interested in foreign languages. Next year, I intend to learn Russian and I was convinced it was a real "super language" just like English, French, Spanish or Arabic. Now, from what you said, I have the impression that it will only survive in its motherland, K&K, Belarus and maybe Ukraine. But why do they hate Russia so much ? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Soviet Regime's. It's just that I don't have the impression that USSR treated them so badly. I was even told that most of kyrgyz physicians were trained in Russia. Is their attitude just motivated by national pride ?

But I don't think that Misplaced Pages is the place for this kind of conversation. Here's my MSN : gaston.michel4@hotmail.fr. Mitch1981 (talk) 10:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Russian Armenia

This person Folatin is removing my External Link, and is saying Im banned when I started editing Misplaced Pages. Please help he is vandalzing. He is removing a link I am putting is completley with info of Russian Armenia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.250.8.34 (talk) 20:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You keep inserting a general link on Armenian history, and that is why it is being reverted as spam. What you may need is a specific link on Russian Armenia (if you can find an appropriate one). --Zlerman (talk) 00:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Agriculture in Azerbaijan

Hey you may want to expand this. Dr. Blofeld 21:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Rollback?

Hello. Recently I noticed your anti-vandal work on the Kyrgyz article. The easiest way to clean up vandalism and spam is via the rollback tool. If you are willing to abide by the rollbacker rules (see WP:ROLLBACK), I would be more than happy to grant you access to this function. If, after reading WP:ROLLBACK, you promise to follow the rollback rules to the best of your ability, just drop a quick message on my talk page saying as much and I will update your rights. Thanks again for your help in keeping Misplaced Pages clear of vandalism! — Kralizec! (talk) 14:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Your request for rollback

After reviewing your request for rollback, I have enabled rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback:

Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
Rollback can be used to revert clear cases of vandalism only, and not good faith edits.
Rollback may be removed at any time.

If you no longer want rollback, then contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some information on how to use rollback, you can view this page. I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, just leave me a message if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Happy editing! — Kralizec! (talk) 15:02, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your hard work helping keep Misplaced Pages vandalism free! — Kralizec! (talk) 03:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

IP edits on Kazakhs

I opened a sockpuppet case here about the IP edits to Kazakhs, which seems to be Kazax1 continuing to edit without logging in. On a completely different note, have you thought about archiving your talk page? Otebig (talk) 16:47, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

IP blocked for making personal attacks, and the article has been semi-protected to prevent him from just changing to another IP address. — Kralizec! (talk) 16:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Please give warnings after reverting unhelpful edits

Hello. I see that you are putting the rollback tool to great use! When reverting unhelpful edits (especially vandalism), you should also give the editor a warning (see the complete list at WP:UTM) in order to help educate him or her on their mistake. We typically start with level one warnings, and progress up the scale with escalating levels of warnings issued if or when an editor ignores the warnings and continues their disruptive behaviour. Once an editor has been "sufficiently warned" (typically interpreted as ignoring four levels of escalating warnings that have been issued during the current calendar month), they may be reported to Administrator intervention against vandalism where an admin will review the case and block the editor as necessary in order to prevent additional disruption of the project.

As an example, for your revert of the edits by 78.21.40.7 (talk · contribs) to the Kazakhstan article, I issued the IP a {{uw-unsourced1}} warning to help them understand that we require sources for changes like this (you may view the warning here). If 78.21.40.7 were to ignore the warning and change the article's statistics again, a {{uw-unsourced2}} warning could be issued. If vandals are properly warned after each of their edits are reverted, they can often be stopped (aka blocked) in as few as just five edits.

Please let me know if you have any questions or issues. Thanks, — Kralizec! (talk) 00:20, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately with rollback, you have to manually issue warnings. However unlike Huggle or any of the other tools, at least this gives you the opportunity to pick the exact correct warning for the situation. — Kralizec! (talk) 01:08, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Piped links and redirects

I saw your edits to Tajikistan, which was a bit puzzled by. The original problem which I fixed was that there were piped links where both the link target and the link label were redirect pages (fortunately to the same article!). One of the purposes of redirects is as an alternative to piping, and although the piped link help tells us of 3 drawbacks to using redirects, they seem pretty trivial to me, and not enough to outweigh the convenience of using redirects or to make it worth changing them to piped links. Life's too short! Mhockey (talk) 15:55, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Farkhor Air Base in Tajikistan

I've provided the info you asked for, along with a reliable source for it. Cheers, Askari Mark (Talk) 04:20, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Kurds

This web page does not qualify as a WP:RS. The author, Barbara Robson, is merely a biochemist, not a scholar Islam or Middle East. We can't use her "opinion" as a credible source for a statement of fact. --Kurdo777 (talk) 21:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Northern Cyprus

Hi. Replying to your question — I didn't block anyone. I'm not an admin. I was simply expressing a concern and hoping that an admin can help sort things out. Richwales (talk) 15:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah. I see why you were confused. I noted that those users (User:Happy19April2009, User:Elderbrother45, and User:Sisamvleda) had been blocked, and I went in after the fact and updated their talk pages. But I wasn't the one who originally identified them as sockpuppets or did the actual blocking. And yes, I'd be fine with asking User:Future Perfect at Sunrise for assistance in sorting this out. Richwales (talk) 15:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Outline of knowledge WikiProject update 05/10/2009

Development is moving steadily forward. We haven't created any new outlines lately, but a lot of editing of our existing outlines is taking place. Take a look at Buaidh's contributions. :)

I'm impressed.

I can safely say we now have another fanatic working on the project.

Importance of watching

A big danger to new pages or pages that have low traffic are prods. These are deletion proposals that don't have to go through AfD. If a prod sits on a page, any page, 5 days without opposition, the page can be deleted without discussion.

Such pages can be undeleted without discussion too, but there's usually a delay, especially if you don't notice the page missing right away. Prods create undesirable gaps in the subject coverage of list sets.

I just caught one the other day, so keep an eye on the outline pages!

Tangent: Indexes

One of the benefits of reverse outlining is the discovery of problems (gaps in coverage, etc.) with the publication being outlined. We've come across several and have been fixing those as we go. Because hypertext tables of contents are only as good as the pages they link to, we've been cleaning up large sections of Misplaced Pages. This was something I did not foresee when I started this project.

One of the sets of pages we link to on the outlines is the set of indexes, formerly called "List of x topics". Unfortunately, the lists of topics were divided between 2 different sets competing for the same article names, and this impeded development of both sets. One of those sets were indexes, and the rest are outlines (more about these below).

So I set about splitting up the 2 sets, by renaming the indexes to "Index of x articles" or "Index of x-related articles".

All 450 or so of them.

Nobody has complained about the new names, but 2 or 3 people thought I was way too bold to attempt this without a proposal or discussion first. Just 2 or 3 people. That's about as much opposition as you could expect for moving a single page.

Not bad for a move of this volume.

There are many more indexes out there, but our main concern are those which are provided links on the outlines. Many of those are redlinks (gaps in coverage as mentioned above), and so we need a way to track these and direct editor attention to them so that somebody creates them...

So, I've created a page for the set, that parallels the OOK list:

See Portal:Contents/Index.

The complete list of "Index of" articles can be found at User:The Transhumanist/Index, and this list needs to be gone over to make sure each article index listed is included on the portal page above. If you help with this, please put - placed after each entry that you check and place.

Thank you.

To further support the development of index pages, and provide a central place for people to go to find out more about indexes and what needs to be done, I've created the Index WikiProject.

Hidden outlines

There are outline pages hiding all over Misplaced Pages. They aren't in OOK's formats, but we can fix that. :)

Converting existing outlines and absorbing them into the OOK is a lot easier than creating outlines from scratch, and it avoids unnecessary duplication of effort. But before we can convert them, we have to find them...

A hunt is underway for non-OOK outlines. So far, User:Gimme danger is in the lead and has found the most. See Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Outline of knowledge#The hunt for hidden outlines for more information.

Please don't rename any non-standard outlines you come across to OOK's standard naming until after you reformat them. Renaming them only after they are reformatted helps us keep track of which outlines have and have not been converted.

Thank you.

Converting outlines

The way I usually do this is by substituting the relevant outline generator template at the beginning of the outline, which forces the existing outline to the bottom of the page. Then I add an "under construction" tag, and then move all the links from the original outline to the relevant sections in the standard structure. It is important to finish the conversion quickly, so as not to create confusion. Then I scour Misplaced Pages for missing links (using Google to do a site-specific search of Misplaced Pages), to make the upgraded outline more comprehensive than the converted outline. Be sure to check all related categories too. Add a lead paragraph, add external links, and voila!

Better than before.

Where we're heading

The next phase in the evolution of this project is to increase participation by expanding the Misplaced Pages community's awareness of the Outline of knowledge, its purpose, and what needs to be done for any given subject.

This will entail placing banners on the outlines' talk pages, the talk page for the WikiProject associated with the subject of each outline and of each planned outline, and on the talk page of each article corresponding to each outline and to each planned outline.

Then instructions on improving subject access, including the creation and development of an outline for each subject, will be posted on every related WikiProject page. (There's a WikiProject for the subject of most outlines).

We will also be sending notices to every member of every WikiProject associated with the subject of each and every outline and planned outline.

But before this happens, the outline guidelines and the article draft for the topic "Outline" must be completed. Without these, many editors will not know what an outline is, or what to do to build and improve them.

And that's our current bottleneck.

Once those are ready (the guideline and article), we can take this project to the next level.

Keep up the good work

Well, that's all for now.

Until next time,

The Transhumanist 23:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

A couple questions for you...

What are the benefits of a tree structure?

The article doesn't say.

I'm interested, because I need to explain the benefits in the guideline on outlines I'm writing. (Outlines are a type of tree structure).

I've also asked the question at various reference desks, and these threads may help to jump start your brain on this question. :)

What are the benefits of outlines, over and above regular articles?

What benefits have you noticed?

How are Misplaced Pages's outlines useful to you?

I look forward to your answers on my talk page.

The Transhumanist 04:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

WPOOK Update - 05/17/2009 - Blockbusting!

This project needs another shot in the arm.

So here it goes...

Countries WikiProject Collaboration - Contests!

I've contacted all 59 members of the Countries WikiProject to help in designing and conducting contests for the further development of the country outlines.

You are invited too.

Houston, we have a problem

The guidelines and outline article still aren't complete.

Which means you will be needed to help explain to the newcomers mentioned above what outlines are and how to develop them.

Please participate in the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Countries#Hosting country coverage contests.

The Transhumanist 22:23, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

An idea for a 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 23:50, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I Don't understand

Why were the Albania changes deemed not constructive in your subjective opinon? May I ask, are you the gentelman that has been deleting what I added there consecutively in the past few days?

Thank youSile101 (talk) 10:43, 19 May 2009 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Sile101 (talk • contribs) 10:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

RE: Re:I Don't understand

Well I am sure you can realise your inconsistency in this approach.

A person well known to 1.5billion Muslims, apparently not famous enough, but a person who is on American Idol was deemed ‘famous’ enough for the article.

Furthermore the ethnicity of the three people I placed there have been verified by the sources that they were hyperlinked to, if anyone bothered to look. Their history is well documented, if one done the most prima facie research.

Lastly, I do feel that there was an anti-Islam feel to all my reversions, mother Teresa (whom I very much respect) although Albanian was born in FYROM. If one was going to be pedantic about this, then really she should not have qualified on that page. But the article was about famous Albanians, but evidently they could not be Muslim. However the religious bias is well noted, and has not gone un-noticed.

Thank you E.G Sile101 (talk) 10:43, 19 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sile101 (talk • contribs) 10:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Has the shit hit the fan? - WPOOK update, 05/25/2009

Maybe...

We've started the next phase

I 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 discussion

It 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 23:17, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: Another related thread has popped up at WP:VPR#OoK's expediency. --TT 04:29, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Azerbaijani Propaganda map

They are putting the propaganda map again in the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan page. This was reverted many times, and they continue to put it back. Please help out. Thanks. 63.16.203.197 (talk) 17:48, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

WPOOK update - 05/27/2009

Input on the OOK threads at the Village Pump has died down (at both WP:VPP and WP:VPR), and there is currently no consensus on either.

Negative feedback

For the number of notices we posted (over a thousand) the number of complaints we received (the two VP threads mentioned above) was quite low.

Silent majority

Considering most of the outlines are orphans, they get pretty good use.

Note that people who are happy with articles on Misplaced Pages generally don't say anything, so I simply interpret it as positive feedback.

Traffic, traffic comparison, and increasing traffic

Using Traffic, I compare the traffic of articles, their corresponding outlines, and their corresponding portals from time to time.

Outlines are starting to catch up to portals. Though the main portals, which are included in a navbar menu at the top of most portals are still way ahead of their outline counterparts.

Both outlines and portals are way behind the articles on the same subjects. Articles usually have 20 to 30 times the traffic.

Keep in mind that most outlines are orphans, with the primary link to them being Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge.

Traffic should improve once we include links on the corresponding subject pages, including the main subject as well as subjects that correspond to subheadings (e.g., History of x, and in the case of countries: Geography of x, Demographics of x, Culture of x, etc.)

I'm convinced the traffic of outlines will overtake portals once we've link-integrated them into the encyclopedia. And since outlines serve as tables of contents for each subject, it seems most fitting to place links to them in the form of hatnotes at the top of each subject's main articles (and the sub-subjects mentioned in the paragraph directly above).

By the way, there's another traffic counter called Wikirank, but I haven't tested it out much yet, but will do so in the coming weeks.

Going for the Main Page

Once the traffic of outlines has overtaken portals, it will be time to replace portals on the Main Page, even if we need to spearhead a new main page redesign! This isn't a far-fetched idea. I was the one who jumpstarted and led the project responsible for the current main page design (until it hit critical mass and attracted other leaders), and I was also the most active editor on that project. I even created the WP:CBB on the Community Portal to promote the main page election. The second time around should be easier.

Back to the here and now

Targetting the Main Page is a few months off.

Right now, we need to continue posting notices and start link-integrating the OOK into the encyclopedia.

I have a whole slew of AWB tasks to assign. I hope you are ready. :)

Spread the word

WP:WPOOK needs members. Tell all your friends about the OOK, and get them to join.

The Transhumanist 02:48, 27 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 22:40, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Outline update - Good news and bad news - 06/08/2009

The 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 benefits

Most 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 push

The 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.

Tarheel95 - going after the Main Page.
Vivio Testarossa / Feinoha - here to help.
Burningview - made a splash at MfD with Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/Drafts/Outline of British Columbia (see the talk page for the MfD link - lots of support there).

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:

Strdst grl: Create and place project banners - already Done
Strdst grl & The Earwig: put an animated ad for the project in WP:BANNER - Our graphics specialist Penubag is looking into it.
Strdst grl: Create a userbox for the project - assigned to Penubag.
Garden: Ask to have outlines added to next year's WikiCup competition - Done (proposal posted)
Tarheel95: Add a link to Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge to the Main Page - Tarheel95 is taking on the creation of the proposal
SriMesh: Create an outreach subpage to WPOOK - Done (invitation coming soon, see below)
SriMesh: (Create a newsletter archive subpage) - Done
SriMesh: Add a feed to AlexNewArtBot to gather links to new outlines and post them on a page. Then personally invite new creators to the project. - who wants to tackle the feed?
SriMesh: Assign someone to monitor the outlines via watchlist, and invite new outline editors to the project - any volunteers?
Related: Create an invitation - Penubag is working on it.
SriMesh: Create Template:Expand outline similar to Template:Expand list, which adds each outline it is posted on to Category:Incomplete outlines, where editors (who are browsing the categories) can find them and work on them - to be assigned
SriMesh: Add the above template to incomplete outlines - upcoming AWB task
The Earwig: "Tell your wikifriends about it" - I've told mine, have you told yours?
The Earwig: "Collaborate with other WikiProjects" - we've been doing this from the start (each outline is associated with at least one other WikiProject).
: move the projected outline to a subpage of WP:WPOOK - Done

Linking to outlines has begun

To the tops of about 30 subject articles, I placed a test batch of hatnotes leading to the corresponding outlines. The hatnotes look like this:

For a topical guide to this subject, see Outline of X.(Hidden: <!- PLEASE LEAVE THIS LINE IN PLACE because it leads to the page that serves as the table of contents for Misplaced Pages's overall coverage of this subject. Thank you.-->

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 outlines

Note 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 stuff

Here's a directory of outline support pages:

Keep up the great work!

The Transhumanist 03:33, 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 02:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Need help explaining WikiCup proposal

I posted a proposal to add outlines to next year's WikiCup, and nobody there seems to understand outlines.

Help.

The Transhumanist 04:12, 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 21:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Updates on Albanian economy page.

Shalom :). I updated data such as: GDP per capita, GDP, unemployment. I have provied the links to the updated data. Please let me know if any links to the data I updated can not be verified. I'll gladly provide my help. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Besar123 (talk • contribs) 21:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I switched from IndexMundi, because the data there was from 2007. In The CIA-WF, most of the data was for 2008. Thanks for fixing the links.

Thanx for Kazakhs corrections

Thank you for your help! Bogomolov.PL (talk) 18:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Speedy!

Thanks for catching that - I was still checking through the sources! Kafka Liz (talk) 11:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

IMF source for economy section in Uzbekistan article

Quick question. User C1010 made this edit, saying the phrase "Stabilization efforts implemented with active guidance from the IMF rapidly paid off, as inflation rates were brought down..." was not NPOV because the source used was from the IMF (as opposed to a third party). Instead he gave the Uzbek government credit for slowing inflation. I initially reverted it, but looking at the closest source (#19), I see it only takes you to the general IMF Data and Statistics page, and not anything specifically about Uzbekistan or the role of the IMF in curbing inflation (and if that source is only for the following sentence, then it means this claim is completely unsourced). Since you added this sentence, I thought you might know of a more specific source (online paper, journal article, etc.) that gives the IMF and its guidance credit, at least to some extent, for slowing inflation (as opposed to purely independent actions taken by Uzbek government, without any regard to IMF recommendations). Thanks. Otebig (talk) 22:43, 14 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 22:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Your request to be unblocked has been granted for the following reason(s):

Autoblock #1485007 lifted or expired.

Request handled by: Nja 06:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Unblocking administrator: Please check for active autoblocks on this user after accepting the unblock request.

Outline update - Full Steam Ahead! - 06/18/2009

Several 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 MacMed

Stefan 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:


Misplaced Pages ads	file info – #184

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:

From the edit window, copy and paste Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/Watchlist into your raw watchlist.

Or go to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/Watchlist using Related changes and click on "Related changes" in the toolbox menu in Misplaced Pages's sidebar on the left hand side of the screen.

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

When G716 found the page "Learn" tucked away as a subpage of the Probability WikiProject, he thought "This deserves to be in the article space", and moved it to the encyclopedia. See Outline of probability.

Recruiting

Recruiters needed. Drop me a note if you are interested.

Advice from the mentors

Astatine-210, Strdst grl, and Willscrlt - link to the outlines from the corresponding subject articles' see also sections - this is underway by MacMed (non-country outlines) and User talk:NuclearWarfare (counry outlines).
Astatine-210 - add a link to the outlines to the disambiguation pages of the corresponding subjects - good idea. Since "Outline" is just the type of page, not the subject, I think these might qualify for inclusion on disambiguation pages. We need someone to look into the relevant guidelines on this.
SimonTrew - provide a badge (userbox) for WPOOK members to add to their user pages - Penubag will have one for us soon.
Zachary crimsonwolf - create a card explaining outlines, and send it to everyone you know, and make it viral (by including a request for the recipients to send the card to everyone they know) - this task has been split in three:

Creation of a "thank you for your interest" card which introduces (explains) outlines, to send to queriers, new participants to discussions, those who seem to be confused about outlines, etc.
Creation of a thank you card / invitation to the WPOOK, to send to users we see working on outlines, including a request for them to invite others whom they think might be interested

weebiloobil - contact Wikignomes - OK...

3. Creation of an invitation to Wikignomes, with a brief rundown on the types of tasks there are for them to do on the outlines. The invitation will include a request for them to invite anyone they think would enjoy working on outlines.

weebiloobil - add examples to Misplaced Pages:Outlines - more examples will be added as suitable outlines are completed
weebiloobil - add a picture to Misplaced Pages:Outlines (it doesn't have to be relevant), to provide atmosphere and to break it up visually and add a splash of color - will do, and we'll add a caption to make it relevant, with a link to the outline on that subject. Thank you for the idea.
Zachary crimsonwolf - ask Jimbo Wales to bestow the award(s) for the country outlines contest, once you get it going first - we'll give that a try
Zachary crimsonwolf - ask everyone in the project to inform their acquaintances around Misplaced Pages about the OOK - will do, as soon as the cards
UzEE - collaborate with all the WikiProjects you share scope with - we've placed a banner on their talk pages, and have placed task notices on some. We'll be posting more tasks, and plan to create a section on contents system development and maintenance for each WikiProject page itself.
SriMesh - if you can't get outlines added to next year's WikiCup, then create your own WikiCup-like contest - there's 6 months left to this year to address reservations and work out the details at WikiCup. In the meantime, there's the 200-WikiProject contest, which needs input.

More outline tasks

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/Drafts/Outline of chocolate draft - our current outline collaboration!
Outline of psychology - someone moved a big chunk of this article to the talk page, leaving a big gap in the outline. Editors are needed to add subheadings and links.
See also links - add {{main|Outline of x}} (where "x" is the subject) to the see also section of the corresponding subject article of each outline

New outlines in article space

Outline of sharks - under construction in article space
Outline of Hinduism (converted from "List of Hinduism-related topics")

New outline drafts

Main discussion pages

Keep up the great work

I'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 21:56, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: Zlerman, would you do me a favor and poke around WP:PROL and see if anything catches your interest?

Outline collaboration #2: Outline of Gibraltar

This outline is approaching completion.

I added a bunch more links, finding them with the following Google site-specific searches of Misplaced Pages:

"of" and "Gibraltar"

"in" and "Gibraltar"

"for" and "Gibraltar"

with "Gibraltar" not at the end

(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 00:48, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I finally got to whack somebody with a trout!

That was fun. :)

The Transhumanist