RationalWiki:Projects

Please use this page to suggest projects that could improve RationalWiki content or processes, or to express your support or involvement in other proposed projects. Projects which receive community support can be moved to separate project pages.Please sign your comments.

Wikify
RationalWiki:Wikify project

I suggest that all mainspace articles, and as many articles as possible in other namespaces, should be in at least one category, preferably more, include a "See also" section, and have relevant internal links in the text. Currently a lot of articles don't, so my suggestion is to add more links & cats to these, either by searching them out (going through categories & following links, random searches or orphaned pages), or just when you come across a page which is lacking sufficient links & cats, to add these in. Where there are a lot of articles around the same topic, we should create more navigation bars & templates. All of this helps to make all our articles more accessible. 17:49, 11 February 2009 (EST)
 * I'd be happy to join such a project.  00:35, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * Yes, using arcane templates to replace all links possible...  ħ uman  01:13, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * : D Don't forget the incessant wikilinking  : )  And the alphabetizing.  And the sprucing up of references (though I suspect I'm the only one who cares about that).   01:59, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * Sprucing is important. I suspect you aren't the only one who "cares", by the way.  Please disillusion yourself.  ħ uman  02:41, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * I said that because, as far as I knew, I was the only one reformatting references. A large number of our references are simply a bare url, and in all my time here I hadn't seen anyone else make attempts to formalize them.   03:31, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * I went through a period of just clicking "random page" and expanding anything that I found interesting. You could count me in on this. I think we shouldn't be afraid of getting a list together and asking people to do certain ones. It's just housework really, we should all try and do a fairish share. :p  A rmondiko V  User_Talk:Armondikov 08:29, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * Made the page, although is this too similar to project whitewash? Not that that's been touched recently.  A rmondiko V  User_Talk:Armondikov 06:56, 18 February 2009 (EST)
 * One of the problems is that it is really hard to find any articles. Most articles that could use links and categories are not picked up because of the "stub" category that is put on by the bot.  So if you go to "orphan pages" and "category-less" pages, very little is listed.  These are always easy edits to make here, when I'm tired or annoyed at work in general, so I've been trying for a year, off and on.  A tool that filters "empty" or "useless" categories like "stub" would be a great help.-- 11:15, 3 March 2009 (EST)
 * I understand you not. Stubs are all in Category:Very short article, Or do you want something to filter them out? 11:24, 3 March 2009 (EST)
 * So sorry, toast. I'm confusing enough as it is, much less when it's only 1 hour into my day.  I would like a way to filter out "category:Stub" so that when i go to the link "categorized pages", it's more useful.  But not knowing crap about computer programs, I'm not sure such a thing is easily possible.-- 11:35, 3 March 2009 (EST)

Mathematics project
See RationalWiki:Mathematics project


 * Can we discuss it here too? I.E. What's the proposal?  What will it involve?   18:09, 11 February 2009 (EST)
 * Adding and subtracting things.  ħ uman  19:50, 11 February 2009 (EST)

Zoology project
See RationalWiki:Zoology project


 * Can we discuss it here too? I.E. What's the proposal?  What will it involve?   18:09, 11 February 2009 (EST)
 * The proposal is for a task force to work on zoology-related articles. We will debunk woo and expand the site's repitore of biological information. We won't get to in detail (i.e., no articles on snapping shrimp), but we will have some articles for some of the major, well known taxons. --"CURtalk 18:10, 11 February 2009 (EST)
 * Task force = why? Debunk woo and expand = what we do anyway. Are there any real plans for this? Mei 18:17, 11 February 2009 (EST)
 * Any project has group members. Anyone besides me want to join? Because I'll do it alone if necessary, but things would be done better in a group. --"CURtalk 18:25, 11 February 2009 (EST)
 * The concerns I have about this project are - 1. It's almost entirely off-mission & hence very low priority for the site. Zoology (at least in terms of felidae & suchlike) would be very low on the list of subjects we need better coverage for.  & 2. It seems to be a bottom-up project: writing articles on individuals animals, families & species.  If there is to be any kind of useful zoology project, it should start by writing a proper article about zoology itself, replacing the pathetic little stub we have at the moment.  Explain how zoology is studied, a brief history of the discipline, how it relates to other sciences & to political issues, environmentalism & conservationism, stuff about evolution, controversies, etc.  That stuff could actually be interesting & useful to the site.  A load of articles about different birds, beasts & butterflies seems like a fool's errand.   18:36, 11 February 2009 (EST)
 * What about an article on genetics? Or evolutionary biology? That would be done by the ZoologyProject. --"CURtalk 18:39, 11 February 2009 (EST)
 * I think both of those would clearly fall within the realm of Project Evolution. (Assuming we start one—certainly there is more need for it than a zoology project.)   02:03, 12 February 2009 (EST)

OK, I don't know squat about zooology, but I've made a very primitive start on mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, mollusc & crustacean. I've tried to keep them fairly close to missions (e.g. stuff about evolution, creationism, etc.) That's probably as far as my involvement in this project is going to go, but as I said above, I think it's better to start with the broad strokes & big themes than with the details. 20:52, 13 February 2009 (EST)

Brains project
Mmmmm, brains. Food, smarts, symmetrical - how can we go wrong? &mdash; Unsigned, by: Human / talk / contribs 02:32, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * Zombies? --SpinyNorman 09:44, 3 March 2009 (EST)

Tea project
Certain editors here have no idea how to make tea. A Tea project would help them. Totnesmartin 09:07, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * I can help! 14:22, 12 February 2009 (EST)

Proper actual projects
How about these for initial projects?


 * Biology/evolution
 * Christianity
 * Complementary/alternative medicine
 * Conservapedia
 * Conservatism/capitalism
 * Conspiracy theories
 * Law
 * Mediawiki/technical
 * Paranormal
 * Religion
 * Snark/goat
 * Redirect and category cleanup
 * WIGO

btw, whatever became of Project Whitewash? Totnesmartin 11:02, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * I'm a bit lost on this project idea. What would creating a "project" actually mean?--Rationalist 11:09, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * That's the big question really. My opinion is that the most useful kinds of projects are universal things like the wikifying idea I suggested above, or working through the wanted pages, doing something about the number of stubs, tidying & organising the categories, getting rid of worthless pages, updating pages that are now out of date, improving the help pages, etc. I don't think the community is big enough for subject-specific wikiprojects to be viable.  They would probaly only consist of a couple of users or so each, & possibly be more divisive than unifying.   11:16, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * They're only divisive if they're exclusive. Totnesmartin 11:21, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * (EC)I'm guessing (I didn't dream it up, honest guv) that it would be similar to Wikipedia's wikiprojects - a group of editors gather at the relevant project page and share ideas, pick brains and agree common standards. WP's projects also assign ratings and priorities to articles, which might be worth doing. Totnesmartin 11:19, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * RW definitely isn't big enough to be too specific, but general outlines are a good start. If people want to gather a crew who are interested enough, you can go more specific.  A rmondiko V  User_Talk:Armondikov 14:11, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * Rw is still small enough to have a day's recent changes only cover a few pages, but it is growing rapidlyTM so this topic will come round again - there'll come a day when it's too much to keep up with everything and we'll be forced to rely on our watchlists, and the RationalWiki community as we know it will be a thing of the past. Totnesmartin 14:33, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * Exactly. On WP, with hundreds of thousands of editors, people interested in a topic "band together" into a subgroup to facilitate focusing on the "project".  Here, we probably have less regular editors than belong toa  particular WP project.  IOW, so far, RW is still "one project" in its entirety.  The "project" is still fully and adequately described by the mission and SPOV.  ħ uman  16:23, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * But let's face it, some editors specilize in specific areas. I do better in biology than in MediaWiki. Editors in a project, or sub-project, more properly, could share skills and a common goal. They'd be a bit more organized. --"CURtalk 16:26, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * They're useful for reference, because many relevant conversations are grouped together. At the moment I think it's just possible to stay up to date if you're here every day, but not for long. I give it until Christmas at the latest, at current rates of growth. Totnesmartin 16:34, 12 February 2009 (EST)
 * Heck, if people want to start a "project" I imagine there will be nothing in the "rules" to stop them. Though I can't see a big queue of names at the moment.--Rationalist 16:51, 12 February 2009 (EST)

Not exactly a project
I've just copied a List of scientists who support creationism from answers.com they could be investigated & given their own articles? 10:09, 3 March 2009 (EST)
 * I've been thinking along those lines myself. I want to work on the following topics: Expand Kent Hovind Article, expand Ray Comfort Article, and create the Hovind Theory, CSE Ministries, creation.com, Jonathan Safarti, and Janet Folger articles. I just need a lull in studies to get started. The Foxhole Atheist 13:48, 4 March 2009 (EST)