Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics/Archive 1

This is an archive of the WP1.0 Core topics discussion page.

• Archive 2 covers material Feb 1st to March 12th, 2006.
• Archive 3 will cover material after March 13th, 2006.

B-I

The table looks good, but it's a little complicated for me. Here are quick evaluations for B-I. Maurreen (talk) 08:06, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

1. Biology -- B?
2. Biotechnology -- Usable, relatively short, much of it is a list, no references.
3. Botany -- Usable, relatively short, much of it is a list.
4. Buddhism -- B?, could probably be trimmed.
5. Business -- Usable, relatively short, no references.
6. Chemistry -- C?, needs references.
7. Christianity --B?
8. Climate -- -- Usable, relatively short, much of it is a list, no references.
9. Clothing -- C?, needs references.
10. Communication -- Usable, relatively short, no references.
11. Community -- Usable, relatively short, no references.
12. Computer -- C?, needs references.
13. Computer science -- Usable, much of it is a list, needs references.
14. Country -- C?, short but that might be OK, needs references.
15. Crafts -- Usable, short, much of it is a list, needs references.
16. Crime -- C?, needs references.
17. Culture -- C?, needs breadth, inordinate attention given to definition.
18. Dance -- B?
19. Demographics -- B?
20. Drama -- C?, needs references, expansion.
21. Drawing -- B?
22. Earth sciences -- Stubby.
23. Ecology -- C?, needs references.
24. Economics -- B-?, could use more references.
25. Education -- B-?, could use more references.
26. Electronics -- Usable, much is a list, needs references.
27. English language -- B?
28. Engineering -- B?
29. Entertainment -- Stub, list.
30. Environment -- Stubby.
31. Equation -- Stub.
32. Ethnic groups -- Usable, short, needs references.
33. Europe -- C?, needs references.
34. Family -- C?
35. Festivals -- Stub.
36. Fiction -- Usable, short, needs references.
37. Film -- B?
38. Finance -- C?, needs references.
39. Food and drink -- Usable, short, needs references.
40. Game -- C?
41. Gambling -- B?
42. Gender -- B?
43. Geography -- C?
44. Geometry -- C?, needs references.
45. Government -- C?, needs references.
46. Health -- Stubby.
47. Heuristics -- C?
48. Hinduism -- B?
49. Historiography -- C?
50. History -- C?, needs references.
51. History of the world -- C?, needs references.
52. Hobbies -- Stubby.
53. Home -- Stub.
54. Housing -- Usable, short, needs references.
55. Human -- B?, maybe should be trimmed.
56. Humanities -- Stubby.
57. Humour -- C?, needs more references.
58. Industry -- Stubby.
59. Information science -- Stubby.
60. Internet -- C?, needs more references.
61. Islam -- B?

I have held off inserting many of these assessments because the criteria used for assessment seem to be different from the criteria I used. If the system I was using needs to be amended, we should discuss that here. Alternatively, it may just mean re-adjusting. Upon reflection I suspect we have similar assessments, just called different things; your A = my FA, your B = my A and your C = my B (this seems to be reinforced by the fact that 3 articles you assessed as B-class are featured articles). Is this a fair assessment of your assessments? Cheers, Walkerma 15:31, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I have put in some assessments into the table. I have taken what I think is the "spirit" of Maurreen's assessments from above (see comments on grading above), and also looked over the articles myself. I have done up to the end of D, and will continue as time allows, unless anyone objects. Walkerma 06:38, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Drama and Theatre

Not sure if this is the place to address this, but I have worked considerably on the topic of theatre. I've noticed drama is on this list, but generally this is regarded as the literary portion of theatre. At it stands now, Category:Drama is a subcat of Category:Theatre. My point being that drama should be replaced with theatre which includes the literature as well as the performance aspect. *Exeunt* Ganymead ^Dialogue? 00:09, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Additional note, WikiProject Theatre covers drama. *Exeunt* Ganymead ^Dialogue? 00:12, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Ganymead! I support the switch. Of course we would really like to have good articles on both drama and theatre! We'll see what Maurreen thinks when she gets back. WVWPwatcher (Martin Walker) 17:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

"Food"

Because the Food article is longer than the Cuisine article, I would replace cuisine with food. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 04:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Evaluating P's

Stub class

• Publication

Start class

• Personal life
• Pet
• Polular culture
• Proof theory

B class

• Philosophy
• Physics
• Plant
• Poetry
• Politics
• Psychology

Happy new year, all!

Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 04:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

"R" evaluations

• Radio - B Class
• Rail - dab page
• Recreation - Start Class
• Reference - Start Class
• Religion - Start Class

Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 02:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Jobs to be done

I think the following need to get done over the next few months, if we are going to get to Wikipedia 0.5 before the end of the year:

1. Finish off the assessments of the main core topics list (only a couple of hours work, I'd say).
2. Have a second person review the assessments to check them, and to amend them for changes made.
3. IMHO, we will have to take on the task of widening our search to the next level of the hierarchy, which means looking at the lists of 1000. These are linked from the core topics page as "articles XXX encyclopedia should have." The middle link, which takes you to Wikipedia:List of featured articles English Wikipedia should have, looks the most suitable to me, and has the advantage that the FAs have already been highlighted, so some of our work there is done! Feel free to choose an alternative, or maybe we could use all topics from all three lists?
4. For core topic articles that are unusable in their current form, we need to (a) possibly find an article on a closely related topic that is the main source of info on Wikipedia for that topic, or (b) contact people who can work on specific articles to bring them up to scratch. For example we might ask if Arithmetic could be a Wikipedia:Mathematics Collaboration of the Week.
5. Coordinate activities with the other sub-projects, find out where the good quality non-core articles fit in with these core topics.

Can we all pick something to work on, and list it below, so we can coordinate things? I will offer to take on numbers 4 & 5, unless others feel strongly, though I will keep helping out with basic assessments as time allows also. Walkerma 04:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll work on 1 and 5. --Ahmed 11:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to work on No. 4. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 03:33, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm cool for 2. TastemyHouse Breathe, Breathe in the air 02:30, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

work?

Work links to a dab page. Is it referring to Manual labor? Gflores ^Talk 15:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think so, though in the 21st century career might be an alternative core topic. However both of these are painfully short. I would try to improve them, but I can't be bothered (feeble joke). We'll have to review all of these stubs/starts soon, see #4 above. Thanks, Walkerma 16:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

My original intention listing Work was to be roughly synonymous with employment for pay (such as career or occupation. But everything will work out one way or another. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 04:30, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Would employment work as an alternative? That is at least a decent-length article. Walkerma 06:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 03:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

NOW DONE. Walkerma 17:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

space?

Space is a dab page. By space are we referring to Outer space? --Ahmed 01:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I would say so. Walkerma 04:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

NOW DONE Walkerma 17:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

publication?

Any objection to changing Publication, a stub, to Publishing, at least start class?

And thanks and congratulations all on getting through the list on round one. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 04:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right, let's use publishing, it even looks like a possible B to me. Walkerma 05:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

NOW DONE Walkerma 17:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Stub/start articles- start of the discussion on scope

Now we have some sense of what's out there, I think we need to reflect on which core topic stub/start articles need work, and which ones should be abandoned in favour of decent articles that cover the same ground, perhaps from a different perspective or at a slightly different level.

For example, science can be broken apart into either applied science or pure science; however both of these articles are stubs, and indeed applied science has recently been made a redirect to research (why, I can't fathom - I posted an objection). However an alternative way to cut up science is into physical science and biological science (the latter redirects to biology, appropriately). These articles are both quite long, so should we cut the pie that way and abandon applied science? Also, technology covers some of the same ground. Walkerma 06:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove applied science, put in physical science. Walkerma 06:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 03:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

NOW DONE Walkerma 17:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

As for using articles from a different level, I note that with transport-related articles we have several stubs/starts. At the highest level in the subject hierarchy we have transport (start) and vehicles (stub), then at an intermediate level we have watercraft (stub), and at the lowest level we have aircraft and automobile, rail transport (all B). This seems to be quite a common trend; the most general articles are stubs or starts, but as one narrows down the subject to more specific topics one finds better articles. I would suggest that we keep transport as the top level. We can then either break down this subject via modes of transport, with the following being the three big ones: rail transport, road transport and ship transport (other modes tend to be shorter articles). These even have a template, the "transport" series. An alternative is to break things down by common vehicle types, namely automobile, aircraft, boat, bus, ship, train and truck. Clearly in core topics we will have gaps in coverage; in the modes we would probably omit human-powered transport, while in vehicles we would omit hovercraft as core topics (they may appear lower down in the hierarchy). So, what should we do? If I were an average Joe looking in an encyclopedia, I suspect I would be more likely to look up by vehicle type such as truck rather than under road transport. I suspect too that I would not look up vehicles as a starting point, I'd go straight to the lower level article. Walkerma 06:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove vehicles, watercraft and rail transport from this list, put in boat, ship, bus, train and truck. Sorry this adds two overall, but that gets us to a full set of major vehicles. Walkerma 06:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

OK. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 03:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

NOW DONE, but without adding bus or truck (see #Transporation_redux). Walkerma 17:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: Replace timelines with time. The latter is a proper article of reasonable length. The former is a redirect to List of themed timelines). We will need to include lists in WP1.0 for indexing purposes, but we aren't typically listing them here in core topics. Walkerma 06:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 03:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, should we include spacetime as well or instead of time, or instead of outer space, or what? Walkerma 06:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's not use spacetime; too narrow for this stage. I'm OK either way with outer space. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 03:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

NOW DONE. Time not timelines, reassessed. Walkerma 17:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts on more stubs

• Entertainment -- Swap with Recreation, which is at least a start class?

Swap, let's put in recreation instead. Walkerma 15:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Equation -- Abandon?

Abandon, I think it's more a tool of math, rather than a subdiscipline, so we can do without it. Walkerma 15:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Festivals -- Abandon?

Abandon, we can manage without it. Walkerma 15:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Home is a stub. Housing is rated B, but it redirects to House. I was hoping for a more general article that recognizes other types of housing.

I agree housing would be much better, but unless one of us has the time to read books/thoroughly research the topic and then write the article, we have to go with what we have. At least the definition is pretty broad - "A house in its most general sense is a human-built dwelling with enclosing walls, a floor, and a roof." Walkerma 15:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Humanities, Performing arts -- I'm ambivalent. I think we have OK articles on the subtopics. But it probably wouldn't be too hard to make these adequate.

With performing arts, I agree with you, abandon this stub. Pretty much every one of the performing arts listed there is one of our core topics anyway, let's ditch it. We also have Art at the top level. As for humanities, I say weak keep. We may have to ditch it, but I do think it is a very important topic right at the top of the tree. I must mention that as someone who contributed to the article I am a little biased, but the only reason I did contribute was because I consider it an important core topic for this project (my expertise is in chemistry!). An example of the importance of humanities: With the WikiProjects we are contacting we have seven lists, of which one is called Humanities WikiProjects. To me this topic is up there with Science as a basic subdivision of knowledge. We have upgraded it to Start-Class after the COTW work, and I still have a little more content to add. I think if it can be brought up to B-Class for the 0.5 release we should include it. Walkerma 15:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Telecommunication -- I think this should be kept, unless someone can suggest a suitable substitute.

Maurreen (talk) 03:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Keep, I agree. While not as fundamental as some topics it is one of the key technologies of the 21st century, it has to be there. Maybe a possible article improvement drive candidate? Walkerma 15:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I've nominated it at the AID drive. It's going to be a while before it gets selected (if it does). Gflores ^Talk 03:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Should I remove the aforementioned stubs from the Core topics list? Gflores ^Talk 23:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead, as long as you agree with the decisions. Walkerma 02:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed all the stubs above except for humanities and festival. Gflores ^Talk 03:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

In the absence of any objections, I removed festivals and performing arts also. I feel like such a Philistine! Walkerma 17:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it ok if I put festival back in, I feel it is a core topic. Sorry, I should've mentioned it earlier. Gflores ^Talk 00:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I noticed we have recreation, leisure, and hobby, all of which are stub or start classes. Seeing as how they're all similar, I think we can get rid of hobby. Thoughts? Gflores ^Talk 00:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly, I'd prefer treating both "hobby" and "recreation" the same. Maurreen 04:11, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Festival is now back in, is that OK Maurreen? The 3 you mention are indeed similar, but I'm unsure what Maurreen means - is the idea to ditch both or keep both? If so, which? The major subdivdision of WikiProjects is called "Hobbies and Recreation" and it covers mainly games and sports. Walkerma 04:24, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I meant I prefer to either keep both or ditch both. For the sake of streamlining, maybe we should ditch both. We can keep Leisure; I see that as the primary parent.

I see Recreation as implying outdoors or more-active types of leisure, with Hobbies such things as collecting, models, crafts, etc. Maurreen 03:04, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Cuisine

Do we still want to change Cuisine to Food? Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 04:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Gflores ^Talk 00:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Aren't they two different things? "Food" is nourishment, for all living beings, plant and animal. "Cuisine" is a human cultural construct, consisting of the food choices of a particular group or culture. Bruxism 03:57, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

You are right about the difference, but the distinction is not important to us at this stage of this project. We're only focusing on about 150 articles right now; I expect later we might have both Cuisines and Food. Maurreen 03:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Toy

Toy is a stub. Any comments either way? Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 04:16, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Keep. I've expanded a bit, but there's a lot to be written. Gflores ^Talk 00:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Quality standards for initial release

I'm thinking maybe we should build on the assessments so far to try to get a better idea of what we're shooting for.

Here's a proposal.

"Release quality" (or whatever we call it) would mean:

• At least two people give the article a recent and at least moderate level of review and agree that it meets the standard. Ideally, at least one would be involved with the 1.0 project, at least one would be at least moderately knowledgeable about the subject, and at least one would be a layman about the subject.
• In no particlular order, articles should:
  • be factually correct,
  • be reasonably clear,
  • be organized adequately,
  • be visually adequate (that is, not ugly),
  • be adequate in scope and proportion,
  • use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation,
  • use style consistent within the article,
  • list at least one appropriate reference, source, further information item, or external link (any external links must still be valid).
• Any easily fixable problems should be fixed.

Thoughts? Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 04:16, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds very sensible. My only change to the above would be to require that the external link be from a .gov site or from a reputable professional source in the field (e.g., the American Chemical Society or a reputable university, we shouldn't just allow any old website. Should we team up with the stable versions project for this part of things, so we can generate stable versions of all the articles once they have been vetted? We can perhaps request help from the WikiProjects, though I should mention that some WikiProjects are either inactive or too wrapped up in their own thing to care. We get about a 50% response rate to our requests from the [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Work via Wikiprojects|Work via WikiProjects] group. Walkerma 06:04, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Good point about the external links.

Is the stable versions project ready? I looked at it a couple of times and it seemed complicated. Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 03:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Transporation redux

On second thought, I'm thinking we could leave bus and truck until a later round. Thoughts? Maurreen [[User_talk:Maurreen|(talk)]] 03:25, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed The list of transportation articles is pretty huge atm. TastemyHouse Breathe, Breathe in the air 02:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)