Below this line break is a working draft of Wikipedia:WikiProject. Go to this page's discussion page for more about this and any comments you may have. --J. J. 20:55, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
- Note: WikiProjects are not Wikimedia sister projects.
A WikiProject is a collection of pages devoted to the management of a specific family of information within Wikipedia. It is not a place to write encyclopedia articles, but a resource to help coordinate and organize article writing. The attached talk pages are a convenient forum for those interested in a particular project. Projects can also have associated Wikiportals.
Regional notice boards also seek to improve a broad category of articles based on geographical regions.
See the complete List of WikiProjects.
Before you begin edit
Ask yourself this question—is a WikiProject right for what I want to do?
A Wikiproject is designed to coordinate the efforts of several users, and to allow a group of conceptually related pages to have similar structures and appearance. However, using a WikiProject adds a considerable amount of additional effort and administration and it only begins to deliver value once several users are actively involved.
Generally you should have at least 5–10 people involved before a Wikiproject structure makes any sense and adds any value. If you don't think you'll get at least 5–10 people on board, then don't waste your effort—you'll be better off just writing your articles.
If you are not sure: If you have a subject you are passionate about, but you aren't certain if anyone else is interested, then write a brief description of your project on your user page, and a link to it on Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List of proposed projects. If interest is good, feel free to launch the project; otherwise you will probably find it more effective to focus your efforts on the articles themselves.
Suggestions for new projects edit
- Read Wikiproject Best practices for tips on leading a WikiProject.
- Create the main project page at Wikipedia:WikiProject projectname. (See Starting a new page)
- Create an outline on your project page:
- Add {{subst:WikiProject|projectname}} into your main project page and save. (See m:Help:Template for details.)
- Identify pages within the scope of your project:
- A good way to do this is to copy the listings of Special:Whatlinkshere for the most important articles related to your project.
- You will probably want to save a copy of the list on a project status subpage.
- Create a project to-do list to focus and coordinate your collaborative efforts.
- If possible, link to a sample article to give other Wikipedians a feel for the project's goals.
- Add the new portal to the list of WikiProjects.
- Advertise!
- Announce the new project on the community bulletin board.
- Create a project notice template, and insert it at the top of the talk page of related articles.
- Find prospective members on IRC at Freenode in the general #wikipedia discussion channel.
- Collaborate in real-time with other project members using IRC at Freenode. Log into #wikiproject, which was created especially for WikiProject coordination and collaboration.