MyWiki:WikiProject Outlines

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This page in a nutshell: Here, we build outlines! To supplement searches, for when the search box isn't enough.

A tree structure.

Outlines are hierarchically structured topics lists.

If you like one or more of the following:

to organize subjects' topics into a tree structure
to make site maps
structured lists
tables of contents
classified indexes

Then, you've come to the right place! For, Wikipedia's outlines are all of the above.

We're mapmakers, metaphorically speaking

Wikipedia's goal is to provide knowledge. But knowledge is only useful if you can find it and make sense of it. The main limitation of a search box is that it can only look for what you already know exists: it is not a map. Like with a map, the function of an outline, and the mission of this WikiProject, is to show readers what exists and help them get to where it is — except that, in this case, the destinations are Wikipedia articles rather than physical locations. Outlines serve as site maps of Wikipedia, by subject. And while maps help navigate the landscape, outlines show the knowledgescape of a subject.

More metaphors

An outline is also like a table of contents or a menu, except that, instead of listing chapter titles in a book or food dishes in a restaurant, outlines present the topics in a subject.

Another useful metaphor is that each page in Wikipedia is a teleportation chamber. To use the search box for teleporting, you specify your destination subject. An outline is a teleportation chamber with its own destination registry. Each outline lists the available target topics, and clicking on one instantly takes you there. You don't need to know where you are going in advance — the list helps you choose.

Outlines are tree structures

Outlines present the topics belonging to a subject as a tree structure, using sections, subsections, and indented item entries to signify branching of the tree. As tree structures, outlines provide the following benefits:

They can help the user see how a particular topic fits into the whole subject.
They also show how topics are related to each other: what belongs to what, and what topics fall into the same sections.
Having a subject laid out on one page saves time. Split up as categories, a 76-section subject would require visiting 76 different category pages to see all the subject's topics, which entails a lot of back-tracking. Scrolling down an outline page is much more convenient and faster.
The bird's eye view provided by outlines allows users to see patterns in the information in a relatively painless way.
Through how they are organized, outlines help users find individual pages, even when they don't know precisely what they are looking for, or exactly what it is called.
Outlines reveal gaps in their subjects' coverage that need to be filled in with new articles.

Examples of well-developed outlines

Error creating thumbnail: Outline of caves (featured list)

Error creating thumbnail: Outline of lichens (featured list)

Error creating thumbnail: Outline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (featured list)

Outline of the Israel–Hamas war

Outline of Abraham Lincoln

Outline of the American Civil War

Outline of the American Revolutionary War

Outline of ancient Rome

Outline of architecture

Outline of Bábism

Outline of Barcelona

Outline of the Beatles

Outline of Bob Marley

Outline of canoeing and kayaking

Outline of the Catholic Church

Outline of cell biology

Outline of chess

Outline of chocolate

Outline of the Cold War

Outline of community

Outline of Dresden

Outline of Earth sciences

Outline of forestry

Outline of geography

Outline of geology

Outline of globalization

Outline of Iceland

Outline of Japan

Outline of journalism

Outline of meteorology

Outline of Middle-earth

Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling

Outline of oceanography

Outline of science

Outline of science fiction

Outline of scientific method

Outline of sharks

Outline of sociology

Outline of software development

Outline of theatre

Outline of thought

Outline of tort law

Outline of tropical cyclones

Outline of underwater diving

Outline of video games

Outline of water

Outline of wind energy

Lists of outlines

Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines
Category:Outlines
Outlines listed on All pages with prefix (this only shows the outlines with titles that start with "Outline of ")

Scope

Each outline article is a list of a subject's topics arranged hierarchically to show the relationships between them: those that are the most important, general entries and those that give more specialist detail. Outlines show the structure of articles about a subject, opening another way besides searching, for navigating it. They could be considered Wikipedia's equivalent to Brittanica's Propædia.

Each outline is intended to help the reader become familiar with the subject it presents, and also serves as a table of contents or site map to that subject's coverage on Wikipedia. Outlines are different from portals or indexes. While a portal focuses solely on well-developed featured content, an outline's main purpose is to direct readers through a subject's related articles. Indexes are intended to be comprehensive alphabetical lists of articles related to subject, but finding something in an alphabetical index can be difficult if one does not know the article title (and if one does, one hardly needs the index). Outlines might not list every article in a subject, and often their links lead to lists or other outlines to provide further detail. For an example, compare Portal:Japan, Index of Japan-related articles, and Outline of Japan.

Announcements

Another outline has made it to Featured List status!

Outline of caves

Outline drafts continually approach their time limit

If a draft goes six months without an edit, it is subject to routine deletion. To learn when each draft was last edited, see this WikiProject's draft tracker.

Latest additions

These are relatively new outlines, and while they are well past the stub stage, they still need development:

Outline of the week!

The outline of the week is:

{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Outline of the week}}

Please help improve it.

Article alerts

This project is served by Article alerts, which can be seen in this section directly below, or at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Article alerts. This lets us to know about any AfDs (Articles for deletion discussions) on outlines, requested moves, or other outline-related discussions without having to rely on manual notifications. To have the alerts show up on your user page or user talk page, include this code on that page: {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Article alerts}}

No Article alerts at this time.

Advice

Tips

User:CaroleHenson/Outline tips

Related guidelines

Related projects

Create outline drafts in userspace

It's best to create outline drafts as sub-pages of your user page, such as in your sandbox, and not in the draft namespace. That's because drafts in the draft namespace disappear after a certain period of time with no edit activity.

How to watch over the outlines

The outlines need watchdogs, to keep an eye on them and make sure they are secure and well maintained. Here are some tips for effective monitoring of this valuable resource:

Tip 1: Place article alerts on your talk page

Place this project's articles alerts template on your talk page in such a way that it floats at the bottom, so that you see it every time you read a message there. To do so, copy and paste this code near the top of your talk page:

<ref>{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Article alerts}}</ref>

This will allow you to easily keep track of outline deletion discussions at AfD, requested moves, featured list nominations, and other formally tagged outline-related nominations.

Note: Article alerts doesn't catch everything, like page edits and untagged discussions. For those, we have watchlists...

Tip 2: Use this WikiProject's watchlist

There's a comprehensive outline-related watchlist at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Watchlist using Related changes.

Follow the instructions at the top of that page.

Also feel free to keep that page up to date by adding new outline-related pages to it.

Tip 3: Related changes can also be used on outline lists

In the desktop view of Wikipedia, one tool available to monitor activity on outlines is related changes. To use it on outlines, go to Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines and click on "Related changes" in the tools menu.

In order for this to work on all outlines, Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines must be kept up to date.

Beware: "Related changes" looks a lot like "Recent changes", and it is easy to accidentally use the latter by mistake.

Tip 4: Use the outline categories for monitoring...

Related changes works on the various Category:Wikipedia outlines pages, too.

Open tasks

Here are some things you can do to help (listed directly below, and in the subsections that follow):

Scour the outlines for the best ones, to present them in the example list in the lead section at the top of this page.

Maintain links to topic outlines: each article of the corresponding topic should have a link to its topic outline in its see also section. Periodically check each see also section, as the links sometimes get removed. Snap Links comes in handy for this.
Place outlines on your watchlist and check it every time you log on. This link or a FF addon can be used alternatively. This needs to be done in order to prevent against vandalism and possibly AfD's.
Place a WikiProject banner at the top of the talk pages of all lists of basic topics, leading here. Use {{subst:BLT|topic uncapitalized|topic capitalized}}.
Place a coverage banner at the top of the talk pages of all articles matching the subjects in the titles of topic outlines, leading to the corresponding list. Use {{[[Template:Outline of knowledge coverage|Outline of knowledge coverage|subject}}.
- the coverage banner template needs to be designed

Add entries missing from Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines

Sometimes, when an outline is created, the author forgets to add its title, and a description, to the main list of outlines. You can help by placing them there, in the appropriate section.

Here are the titles missing from Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines:

Outlines needing reformatting and/or renaming

Outlines here need to be converted to the standard outline format. Only after a page has been converted to outline format should it be renamed to Outline of $x$ . Otherwise, others may assume the formatting is correct, and emulate it.

Add pictures

Examples of outlines with good picture support include:

Start a new outline

To start a new outline...

See also: Helpful tips (read it!)

First, decide which topic you'd like to outline. It could be as broad as Outline of mathematics, or as narrow as Outline of chocolate and start the page. The title should be in the format of Outline of $x$
Write a little introduction before outlining to get warmed up, this will also become the introductory paragraph of the outline.
Start listing articles on your topic. You can find them by using Special:PrefixIndex and a site allintitle Google search.
Organize links in a way that is accessible so that people can find the articles linked to. You might use an {{Outline generator}} template, like this: {{subst:Outline generator|topic uncapitalized|topic capitalized}} or, if you're outlining a specific country, {{subst:Template:Outline country|country name}}.
After that, you can add a few pictures to make the outline look nicer. Try using different ones than the ones on the article by searching on Wikimedia Commons.
Once you've finished, take a look back and see if you were able to outline the subject successfully and then post your work here so that other editors are aware it exists and can review it.

Work on an existing outline

Most outlines are incomplete, because subjects change over time, and so does Wikipedia's coverage of them.

See Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines, and choose a subject that interests you, and start adding links.

Create drafts

The outlines that have been deleted over the years need to be developed from the ground up in draftspace.

Work on drafts

Note: If a draft goes six months without an edit, it is subject to routine deletion. To learn when each draft was last edited, see this WikiProject's draft tracker.

Priority one outline drafts

Draft:Outline of the arts (major branch of knowledge lacking an outline!)

New drafts

Outline drafts very near completion

Please see if you can finish these up:

Draft:Outline of Delhi

Outline drafts over half-way done

Outline drafts well underway

Mostly bare-bones outline draft starts

Templates

{{Outline tpm}} - placed at top of an outline's talk page
{{Outline footer}} - placed at bottom of all Outlines

For talkpages

{{WikiProject Outlines}} - placed on the talk page of all Outlines

For building outlines

{{Outline generator}} - for outline creation
- {{Outline country}} - for outline creation
- {{Outline U.S. State}} - for outline creation

{{Annotated link}} - for automatically annotating a link with its short description

Userboxes

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/userboxes

Other project subpages

/Directory
- /List of discussions concerning outlines

Participants

If you'd like to get involved, and help with outline-related tasks, please add your username below:

Userboxes

Wikitext

userbox

where used

[[Category:WikiProject Outlines participants]] none linked pages

{{User WikiProject Outlines}}

File:Global thinking.svg

This user participates in WikiProject Outlines.

linked pages

{{User WP Outlines}}

A tree structure with nodes

This user participates in WikiProject Outlines