Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Backpacking/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Participants section

I recommend we update the participants section on the project page by emphasizing adding the userbox or category and removing the redundant in page list. philoserf (talk) 08:32, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done I updated the participant section today. —philoserf (talk) 02:19, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

TODO

•  Done Reach out to former members mentioned in that section or in the member category
• Reach out to editors of related Wikipedia articles

—philoserf (talk) 02:19, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Any interest in reactivation

I will be polling former members, active editors on this WikiProjects pages, and others to determine whether there is sufficient community to reactivate this WikiProject. philoserf (talk) 20:51, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Added notice of intent to revive —philoserf (talk) 02:21, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I am a highly active Wikipedia editor since 2009, now an administrator, and also a backpacker since the 1970s. My experience is that only a handful of wikiprojects are now active and flourishing. The vast majority are inactive. So, my question is, which specific goals would this revived project set out to accomplish? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:25, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

TL;DR: The Page Assessment System

Many backpacking (hiking) articles need work. I hope to find collaborators interested in a focused effort to improve and update backpacking related articles. I have not been highly-active until recently. My first sense, as I explored the WikiProject world, was that its time had, perhaps, passed. Still, I have a feeling that working within a WikiProject is an excellent way to get started. So, my transformed hope is to revive this WikiProject and work to contribute to the encyclopedia from within it.

Additionally, and the primary influence that moved my meter from exploration to reviving the project, is the page assessment system. None of the supporting categories had ever been set up for this project. Some of the articles' talk pages had been tagged. Perhaps I am on a fools' errand. Time will tell. We will either succeed in creating a community of collaborating editors focused on this topic OR I will have wasted some effort as I attempt it. Either way, I expect we will improve SOME articles related to the subject along the way. —philoserf (talk) 03:03, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Good answer, Philoserf. I have had one backpacking related article in mind for a long time. Maybe you can get me motivated to write that one. Feel free to ask me to comment at any time. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:24, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Glad to have someone experienced onboard. How 'bout you add your one backpacking related article in mind to the project's todo list! —philoserf (talk) 03:31, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Articles in/out of scope

The Scouting and Hiking Trails WikiProjects already have a number of the articles currently marked as of interest here in their scopes. I do not think a number of these need to also be in our scope. In particular I think we should remove Scouting camps grounds and trails that are not commonly used by wilderness backpackers. 19:47, 9 March 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philoserf (talk • contribs)

I agree. --Bduke (talk) 22:25, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I am by no means an expert in Scouting as my involvement was brief and many years ago. But if the Scouts operate trails where long backpacking trips take place, then they should be listed in this project as well. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

If they do, we can/will. What worried me was carrying the articles about the camps the scouts operate and trails that would not interest backpackers. There were a few of these tagged for backpacking. If we do this right, this project will have many articles, existing or new, on topics not covered by the Scouts or Hiking trails projects. There were a few hiking trails focused items among the project's pages when we began reviving it. I do not believe we want to steal collaborators from Hiking trails. There is room for both, and some of the original collaborators here were members of both projects. I do not think anything will be lost if we narrow our focus and let those active projects carry their load too. —philoserf (talk) 04:02, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Of course, a given trail can be both a backpacking trail and a day hiking trail. Consider the Mount Whitney Trail, which took my wife and I four days to backpack in our late 50s. Athletic young bucks sometimes hit that trail at 3:00 A.M. and complete the whole thing before sunset. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:08, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Article Assessment System

I recently created the categories needs to use the article assessment system. To get the most value we need to tag, evaluate, and grade related articles. Many of the articles tagged earlier in this project's history do not have the required |class=Xxx|importance=Yyy that make the system useful for prioritizing our editing efforts. If anyone understands the |auto=??? system, please help out. You can either feed me a clue here or on my talk page, do the needed work yourself, or both.

I registered the project with the Community Tech bot for Wikipedia:WikiProject Backpacking/Popular pages support.

—philoserf (talk) 18:39, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Popular pages has populated. —philoserf (talk) 02:05, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I have registered the project with the Article Alert bot for Wikipedia:WikiProject Backpacking/Article alerts support. —philoserf (talk) 19:36, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Backpacking/Article alerts is ready. Currently clean. —philoserf (talk) 19:52, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

International?

The list includes mainly US examples. Also do we need to advertise all these clothing companies, especially as it looks like they are mainly American? Yes, articles on tents backpacks, etc, but it makes me squirm to see all these manufactures listed here. WP is an encyclopaedia not a catalogue.

Also should trails and mountains be listed? The list could be endless (ridiculously so) and there are other places for these items. Rwood128 (talk) 15:03, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

This list is generated by a bot. It reflects popularity by page visits. —¿philoserf? (talk) 16:37, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Well? Do we just follow the bot? More to the point are you using it correctly?

You don't really seem to understand my point —¿philoserf?. Lists of trails and mountains. for example, have less to do with backpacking than the article on trails, surely. I see the point of a group of topics, like camping, mountain huts, backpacks, maps, under this topic heading, but not the Appalachian trail, or the like. Also is your point that the bot has a US bias? And do you really think clothing companies need to be included? Rwood128 (talk) 17:58, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps I am not understanding. This list is not subjective. It is an objective measure of popularity on Wikipedia that is also tagged as of any internet at all to this project. There are other lists in the project space that indicates our intentions, priority, etc. This project has been only recently reactivated/revived. Much to do. You can learn more about how this specific page is built on the bot's page. TL;DR: If you want this page to change then we must make changes elsewhere in the project. —¿philoserf? (talk) 18:09, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

In reference to US rather than international focus. That reflects the editorial interests of the projects founders and members before it was recently reactivated. I have recently added over a dozen international trails on all continents. Perhaps we should also add Antarctica Route 1! That whole continent is missing right now from our tagging. —¿philoserf? (talk) 18:13, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Rwood128 (talk) 18:19, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

And, incidentally, I removed a bunch of short trails in the US. Some only 2 miles (3.2 km) in length. —¿philoserf? (talk) 18:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Good. There inclusion was ridiculous. But I'd exclude, even E4 European long distance path. See my comment below.

My point is ignore the bot, if what it says doesn't make sense (and it isn't objective anyhow, because a person created it). There is an urgent need to clearly define what should be included. Trails and mountains have their own projects, Wkikproject Hiking and Wkiproject Mountain. I have been attempting to define the topic, since discovering the list, and seeing some good examples. But this is conversation needs other participants. Rwood128 (talk) 18:39, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

My point is this. do not focus on what the bot building Popular content does. It only reports what wikipedia readers do with pages we have tagged of internet to this project. If they do not belong on the list then we need to untag them as of interest to this project. —¿philoserf? (talk) 18:49, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Importance

There isn't any consistency here:

• 1 Camino de Santiago: Low (probably the world's most used long distance trail)
• 4 Appalachian Trail: Mid
• 5 Pacific Crest Trail: High (more a mountaineering route?)

Again, to be repetitive, the list of even long trails is endless (leaving our Antartica). There are over 100 GR footpaths. I added National Trail – and this is just trails supported by the UK govern – and rated its importance=Mid. It covers numerous trails and don't intend to add all the trails listed there. On the other hand the article Long distance trails in the United States is rated low, and numerous individual trails are included in the Backpacking Project list here, with higher ratings.

That is why we are here. Fix what you think is wrong. Let's move off the 'Popular pages talk. This is a report built by a bot. —¿philoserf? (talk) 23:11, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be best to focus narrowly on a few main trails and lists of trails? Or should every long trail in every continent, but one, be included? Rwood128 (talk) 22:49, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I am okay with narrowing focus of effort by prioritizing. And please remember this is not [WP:WikiProject Hiking trails]]. —¿philoserf? (talk) 23:11, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Let's move conversation that is not about this report to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Backpacking —¿philoserf? (talk) 23:13, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Havasu Creek

Why is this included? Rwood128 (talk) 23:38, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Unknown. —¿philoserf? (talk) 23:47, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

However, since it is popular, perhaps we should research why Havasu Creek was notable enough to include in the encyclopedia, be added to this project, and appear in a list of popular pagers created from objective data. —¿philoserf? (talk) 23:49, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

A quick search produced hundreds of hits like this: https://www.wildlandtrekking.com/havasu-falls/havasupai-tours.html —¿philoserf? (talk) 23:52, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

See Talk:Havasu_Creek#Hiking? Rwood128 (talk) 00:00, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

—¿philoserf? (talk) 00:03, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Most important articles

Am I right in thinking that the list of 100 items is just something generated by a bot (based on popularity), and not necessarily the 100 hundred most important articles that the Project needs to focus its efforts on improving? Up to now I had presumed that this was a list of the most important – hence my strong reaction Philoserf, elsewhere, to both the commercial articles and the mainly US trails and mountains. I had, furthermore, not realized, until now, that the list was limited to just 100. This leads me to raise the question of the need for a list of articles that require especial attention (though I suspect, Philoserf, that is already in the works). Hope this makes sense, as I'm still learning this aspect of WP. Sorry but popularity is a dubious criteria given the list presented here, because important articles, particularly, relevant to the Project are missing.

And will the bot produce a new list, over time, based on articles that have been recently tagged? Rwood128 (talk) 15:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

This list of most popular articles is a generated monthly by a bot. It is not a list of most important articles. While the popularity should inform our evaluation of importance, the by importance category pages are where to find how important to the subject editors have rated articles. The categories are a live view. —¿philoserf? (talk) 15:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks,Philoserf, I may eventually understand. The top 75 (mid+high) make much more sense. Sorry to be slow/dense. Rwood128 (talk) 16:17, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Cleanup lists

The first results of the bot that patrols our articles for clean up issues is in. I have added a cleanup link to the links at the top of our Articles section. The cleanup results can be found here: https://bambots.brucemyers.com/cwb/bycat/Backpacking.html Much to do. —¿philoserf? (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

3.4 On article priority/importance section

The first item in this section should be revised, to read something along the following lines: "National and international long distance trail networks and many subjects related to hiking upon them should probably be High priority."

There's no argument about the following: The Ten essentials and individual articles about the use of the essential or skills need to use it effectively should be High priority. Other equipment critical to a safe and comfortable backpacking trip should be Mid priority unless it is more—or less—notable for another reason. Organizations that support long-distance hikers, or the trails they use should be Mid priority.

Change to: Hiking trails shorter that ten miles (16 km) do not belong to this project. Though that's weirdly short for a backpacking trip. Perhaps this should read 50km/30miles?

Delete the following. Not needed. Not every trail can be included!! "Hiking trails longer than ten miles (16 km) should be Low priority unless they are of significant interest to backpackers"; or change to 50km/30 miles.

Change "Manufacturers, or brands of equipment used by backpackers should be excluded unless they are essential to backpackers for an important reason". Rwood128 (talk) 20:23, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Two new templates

We now have a stub template {{Backpacking stub}} and a barnstar {{subst:Backpacking barnstar|Your message here. ~~~~}}

		The Backpacking Barnstar
		For ... while ... in support of .... —¿philoserf? (talk) 21:18, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Merger

Should we consider a merger with Wikipedia:WikiProject Hiking trails? As I imagine it, Wikipedia:WikiProject Backpacking and Wikipedia:WikiProject Hiking trails together become Wikipedia:WikiProject Hiking. Details to be worked out. For an example of another Hiking project see fr:Projet:Randonnée (Google Translate if needed). After spending energy reviving the Backpacking project it seems to me a merger is the better result if our sister project were open to that merger. Both projects could be stronger. —¿philoserf? (talk) 19:23, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

An excellent idea. I fully support it. --Bduke (talk) 21:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Opened a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hiking trails/Archives/2020/April#Merger too. —¿philoserf? (talk) 21:18, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

A possible issue I identified as I explored the hiking trails project more closely is origins. Hiking trails considers Geography its parent. Sports has been the parent of this project. Hiking trails explicitly excluded general hiking related articles from scope (although its banner can be found on non-trail related articles). If the idea of a merger is ultimately rejected then we might consider expanding our scope to Hiking articles except trails. —¿philoserf? (talk) 02:36, 31 March 2020 (UTC)