MyWiki:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Encyclopedias and/or Reference Works

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The following discussion is an archived proposal of the WikiProject below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.

The resulting WikiProject was created as Wikipedia:WikiProject Reference works

UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:09, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Description

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List of important pages and categories for this proposed group

List of WikiProjects currently on the talk pages of those articles
Please invite these and any other similar groups to join the discussion about this proposal. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory to find similar WikiProjects.
Why do you want to start a new group, instead of joining one of these existing groups?


I feel that there is a need to co-ordinate work related to encyclopedias, and possibly other reference works on wikipedia. |Bellerophon5685

Support

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Also, specify whether or not you would join the project.

  • John Carter (talk) 18:51, 4 May 2016 (UTC) - Would probably join, and could do some set-up functions in the beginning as well, at least in a few weeks' time.
  • Would join. Would have to think about projects/ways I could help, but it would be up my alley, yes. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:49, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Great idea! Yes, I'd love to join. —Ringbang (talk) 23:20, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
  • I support the establishment of such a WikiProject, although my ability to contribute my own time to it might be very limited. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:39, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
  • I support the idea but don't know what is expected of me. I have about 10 old encyclopedias I can share, make copies from, etc. DigbyDalton (talk) 22:53, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes, I'd join. Seems like Reference works might be more suitable than Encyclopedias. Keahapana (talk) 21:34, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

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Currently most encyclopedia pages have only Wikiproject books or their respective nationality on their talk pages. I believe readers would be served better if there are more relevant wikiprojects available. Furthermore, there is a need to co-ordinate on some topics, particularly what constitutes an encyclopedia versus encyclopedic dictionary, lexicons, guide, etc. The way these are organized currently is rather confused, but a general discussion could determine what should go where and create a more user-friendly and professional database. That is why I also added in "and/or Reference Works". I am not quite sure at the moment whether the project should be simply encyclopedias or a broader term which would include dictionaries. That might create a little jurisdictional friction with Language related WikiProjects. Finally, there is the varying quality of some articles in encyclopedia, in some barely a paragraph stating that it exists. A collaborative effort to rate the articles related to reference works could give us a guide to which articles need work and direct us to wikipedians knowledgeable in specific areas and languages--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 22:55, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I have added the template which is sought for in the beginning and hope that @Bellerophon5685: modifies it to suit his proposal. I am myself far from sure whether he is proposing a WikiProject to deal with the matter of articles on encyclopedias and reference works, which could reasonably be considered valuable, or whether he is proposing something along the line of a much more developed set of pages like those at Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles and/or the few pages I have started at Category:WikiProject prospectuses. Some clarification on that point would be helpful. John Carter (talk) 18:34, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

I am proposing a wikiproject about encyclopedias. As the title indicates, we might expand this to other reference works too, though linguistic dictionaries may need their own task force or project. The definition of "encyclopedia" or "dictionary", "encyclopedic dictionary" etc. is somewhat difficult. The Oxford Classical Dictionary could probably best be described as an encyclopedic dictionary, though its title is dictionary. Then there are specializations like Encyclopedia of Popular Music, which at several volumes is clearly an encyclopedia, but is modeled on the The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians which is called a dictionary, but is defined as an encyclopedic dictionary in its article. And are "Music guides" encyclopedias? I think we could work this out if we go for a larger project of "reference works", but would like to discuss this with others beforehand.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 22:55, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
I think the essential problems would be finding sources dealing with encyclopedias as a general topic. I don't know of many direct subarticles which could exist for the extant Encyclopedia article other than the already extant History of encyclopedias and any further spinout. That might limit the number of articles we could have specific "about" encyclopedias in the broad sense of relating directly to that specific topic area. There would be any number of individual articles on separate encyclopedias, as well, and I can't see any objections to having some clear MOS material on how to format articles about encyclopedias here. A specific project relating to articles about reference works which contain multiple "articles" in them, which is what I think you might be referring to in the last sentence above, would also make sense.
The big difference seems to me to be that "encyclopedia"s more or less by definition are "all-encompassing," and there are very few, if any, current reference works which would even try to be "all-encompassing" regarding any topic. There simply is too much to cover. And there really aren't that many such encyclopedias being produced today, or, for that matter, ever. So, yeah, working out the scope would probably be a good idea. John Carter (talk) 23:13, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
Well stuff like the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics is "all encompassing" it has the breadth, but not the depth of text books, lecture series, etc. Same applies to the man othe subject encyclopaedias. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:31, 7 May 2016 (UTC).
Right.--Muzammil (talk) 19:44, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
For specialized scientific or academic works, I think that could be the case. But for anything relating to the humanities, like say Egypt, an encyclopedia would have to cover things like fashion, rhetoric, visual arts, decorative arts, religious and sexual symbolism, and all the other things covered in general encyclopedias which would relate to that specific area. That is to my eyes one of the big reasons why there are very few "encyclopedias" regarding non-scientific topics today, because of the sheer amount of data they would have to encompass. John Carter (talk) 21:38, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Anyway, it looks like there are currently enough members for at least a task force. Would there be any interest in having this group function as a task force of some other project, maybe WP:BOOKS for instance, or would the individuals involved be more interested in waiting to see if the separate creation of all the other things which stand alone WikiProjects have to do is really called for and sought after in this instance. John Carter (talk) 21:38, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm unfamiliar with the bureaucracy for this particular area of wikiediting. I am not sure what " the separate creation of all the other things which stand alone WikiProjects have to do is really called for" implies. As for becoming a Task force of books - that might not be appropriate as many of the encyclopedias we have articles on are now online only. (Worldbook is the only major English comprehensive encyclopedia that is still regularly printed. Correct me if I am wrong.) Finally, though, I think one thing we should agree on before launching our task force and/or WikiProject is the name. Have we built consensus for WikiProject:Reference Works?--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 22:46, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
I think the scope needs to be sorted out: encyclopedias (Category:Encyclopedias) vs. reference works (Category:Reference works). --Rosiestep (talk) 17:55, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
Reference works includes encyclopedias.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 00:04, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
@Bellerophon5685: sorry about the lack of clarity. If we could basically act as a task force of, perhaps, WikiProject Books, for instance, there wouldn't be the need for the creation of a separate WikiProject banner for the talk page, and the subgroup could use some of the other existing structure of a pre-existing project. Regarding the exclusively online aspect, that is true, but, honestly, some regular novels have been pretty much exclusively online for some time now too, and still fall within the parameters of the existing projects, and are also still included in the American Reference Books Annual anyway, in both its print and online editions. I would support WikiProject Reference Works myself. John Carter (talk) 14:53, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
@John Carter: Part of the reason I started this project was that there wasn't a WikiProject banner on the talk pages already. Alot of the reference works have, maybe, the nationality or specialty, but not WikiProject Books already. I personally think the subject is broad enough that we can start out on our own project rather than create a niche in someone elses.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 15:53, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
@John Carter: So are we going to start a task force or WikiProject now? I just don't want to leave the proposal "hanging".--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
Ideally, we might want to determine whether we have enough interested parties to make the proposal one likely to succeed in the long run. I think somewhere it says something to the effect that 10 interested people is generally considered enough for a WikiProject to be likely to succeed in that way, 5 for a task force. That's why I proposed a task force above. Having said that, if one wanted to go ahead and create it anyway, there is nothing to prevent someone doing that. Personally, though, I might myself like it best if we had some extremely clear idea as to exactly what the proposed goals of the project are. The three which come to mind are developing articles and content related to reference works as works of literature, or books, or whatever, developing wikipedia space pages like those in the Category:WikiProject prospectuses and Category:WikiProject libraries listing extant and potential articles which can be sourced to reference works and the sources they reference, and, maybe, using reference works to maybe check on existing content of articles here for possible WEIGHT and POV concerns and similar. I suppose all three and more could be done by such a project, but having a clear idea of what are the higher priorities would help in putting together the various project pages. John Carter (talk) 18:21, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
I was mainly interested in the first - creating and improving articles related to reference works.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 22:14, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
If you want to see if more editors are interested, then, you can, or, alternately, you can use Template:WikiProject to create a boilerplate WikiProject page as per the instructions there and starting at least the main project page up. John Carter (talk) 22:32, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

@John Carter:, @Rhododendrites:, @DigbyDalton:, @Keahapana:, @Rich Farmbrough:, @Rosiestep:, @Hindustanilanguage: I have decided to Be bold, and created the Wikiproject Reference Work, or at least the skeleton of it. So far all I have up is the main page (which is unfinished), and the template (which needs attention from someone more familiar with creating such (Mr. Carter, perhaps you could help), and have added the WP Banner to a number of relevant talk pages.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 16:57, 6 July 2016 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or at the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.
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