Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gibraltar/Archive 1

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4
This page is an Archive of the discussions from WikiProject Gibraltar talk page (Discussion page).
(January 2007 - December 2007) - Please Do not edit!

Good work, SqueakBox 18:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I dissagree, we need more good material about Gibraltar not stupid templates. --Gibnews 11:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't take the template as an "in your face" sort of thing. It is simply a way to tag together related subject articles. Regards, Asteriontalk 10:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a vanity project created by one editor without any proposal or consultation and who does not have any connection with Gibraltar. It exists only as a 'tit-for-tat' answer to project Spain and it only creates needless confrontation. The real solution is to deal with overtagging from that and reduce the real estate occupied by templates. If everyone did it Wikipedia would become unworkable. --Gibnews 12:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. There's more than enough scope for the WikiProject - I've tagged 151 articles so far and there are certainly more that could be tagged. The vast majority need substantial improvement - many are stubs, only a few cite sources, etc. If you don't want to participate in the project, fine, but please don't try to undermine it. -- ChrisO 17:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I joined the wikiproject thinking that it seemed a sensible enough thing to do having been a part of other wikiprojects ( and found them useful as ways of centralising work on articles, requesting help etc. But if it's just going to be a focus for edit warring and such then that a shame. I'll keep an eye on this and see what happens. Robotforaday 22:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
The only reason to create it was to give some credibility to including the project Spain template with its national symbol, on Gibraltar pages. Its presence will cause endless edit wars. --Gibnews 19:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Getting Gibraltar to Featured Article status

Now that we have this WikiProject up and running we can start work on our first major mini-project: getting the Gibraltar article up to Featured Article status. If at all possible I'd like to see it featured on the main page on September 10th, Gibraltar's National Day.

Getting the article to featured status will be tough: there are only about 1,300 featured articles on the whole of Wikipedia and they have to pass a stringent set of criteria. What we have now is a good start, but it will need some work. I've been working offline on a revised version of the article which is based largely on the current text but with changes to reflect the manual of style and other applicable featured article criteria.

One of the key things that we will need to do is to ensure that the article is fully neutral. This will require us to balance the British, Gibraltarian and Spanish viewpoints. I'm sure our Gibraltarian editors can take care of their end and I'm happy to do what I can for the British end, but we will need to have some substantial and sustained Spanish involvement as well. To that end, I intend to ask the members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Spain to get involved, so that the Spanish angle is properly represented.

This mini-project will require a fair amount of work, fact-checking, negotiation etc over the next few months. The desired outcome will be an article on Gibraltar that can be counted as one of the top 0.1% of Wikipedia articles. I hope everyone would agree that this is a worthwhile goal, and will be willing to contribute to it in good faith and with due regard for the neutral point of view and other foundational policies. -- ChrisO 07:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It is unclear in what specific ways the article is imbalanced - the Spanish claim over sovereignty is stated plainly, as is the constitutional history and the response from the Gibraltarians. Before inviting people over for an edit war, I think we should take a long hard look to see which, if any, articles violate the NPOV policies, or present any other evidence of bias. Robotforaday 15:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I honestly don't know if it's imbalanced or not. As a Brit, I'm not exactly best placed to judge whether it fairly represents the Spanish POV, or for that matter the Gibraltarian one. That's why we need to get as many people as possible to look at the article, so that we can be sure that we've done all we can to cover all the angles. -- ChrisO 23:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I can honestly say, as somebody who has spent a good amount of time researching the social and constitutional history of Gibraltar, that while the article certainly needs to be better written and more detailed in places (e.g. the language section), I would be very hesitant to suggest that there is any evidence of systemic bias, or that any point of view is not being adequately represented. I think at the moment the perspective is very grounded, with an account of the history and culture of Gibraltar as it has shaped its current circumstances, without getting bogged down in what every man and his dog (and every newspaper) have to say about the issue. I think that this article is a very good example of one which has kept a NPOV, in spite of the strength of feeling generated by the topic. I would think carefully before jeopardising that by allowing it to become overwhelmed by editors from other wikiprojects who may or may not understand the issues at hand and may in fact have very real agendas to push (sorry if this seems a bit strong, but I've seen it happening around wikipedia before) Robotforaday 09:57, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I'll go along with that; The Spanish period of the history of Gibraltar is well described and largely insignificant, in his book General Jackson has a chapter called 'Spanish neglect'. I think its better if the energy of the Spanish editors went into something related. Gibraltar is not Spain. Nor has there been any benefit seen from the introduction of a Spanish flag where it does not belong. Indeed that and the other squabbles have curbed my enthusiasm to add content. --Gibnews 18:24, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
It's one thing to say that a particular contribution from a particular contributor is POV, it's quite another to say that all possible contributions from a particular nationality of contributor will be POV and that therefore they should be discouraged from contributing. That would be discriminatory. Spanish editors have as much right to edit the article as you do, as long as they adhere to Wikipedia's policies of neutrality etc. I remind you that the Wikipedia article is not a territorial offshoot of Gibraltar, and the fact that you are from Gibraltar affords you no special status, no special rights, no pedestal, absolutely nothing over any other editor, from Spain or otherwise. Regarding your dampened enthusiasm, as someone who has and still "squabbles" with you, I have to say that it might be no bad thing if you took a wikibreak. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick 23:52, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Featured Barbary macaque image

Hello everyone, I know I am not a member of this project, but I thought you would be interested to hear that one of my photographs of a Barbary macaque has been promoted to featured picture status. It currently appears on various articles including the Gibraltar Barbary Macaques and Gibraltar itself. I may include another image of the top of the rock soon. PS. It should therefore be appearing on the main page sooner or later. Chris Buttigiegtalk 17:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It appeared on the main page on the 27 September 2007. :o) Gibmetal 77talk 13:12, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Ratings

How about adding the option to rate articles on the project notice template like the majority of the other WikiProjects have? if someone could edit the template to include this it would be great. Gibmetal 77talk 13:57, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

To do list

I added two sections to the to do list. These are for articles to be created and those that need improve. Lets add all those articles we think need creating or impoving to the list to better our WikiProject Gibraltar database of articles! Gibmetal 77talk 14:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Image issue

Not at all sure where to bring this up, but this image appears to show Gibraltar as part of Spain. I don't want to get involved in any of the politics of this, and for all I know this sort of issue might have already been discussed - so I'm just flagging it up, and will leave it to you to decide what (if anything) to do about it. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 12:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for pointing this out. It doesn't mention Gibraltar as being part of Spain as it does with the Spanish territories. but it doesn't distinguish it as not being part of Spain either. I'll see what can be done. Thanks again. --Gibmetal 77talk 13:04, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
  Fixed Cheers, -- Chris.B | talk 15:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)