From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Welcome to the Outline of knowledge WikiProject, dedicated to building an outline encompassing all knowledge. Currently, it is composed of and divided into many outline articles, each one a topic outline dedicated to a particular subject.

A "topic outline" is a hierarchical list of topics, that is, a structured list of topics, as opposed to a "sentence outline" which is a structured list of sentences. Outlines on Wikipedia are not restricted to a particular type, and some of our outlines have already started to evolve into hybrid outline form of topic outline that includes elements of sentence outlines and annotations.

The key characteristic of an outline is that is hierarchical. Wikipedia's outlines show our readers the structure of knowledge and how things fit together in the world, and they also form a site map for the encyclopedia, helping users to find their way around more easily.
For more information on outlines, please see Wikipedia:Outlines.

Shortcuts

Wikipedia's goal is to provide knowledge. But knowledge is only useful if you can find it. The main limitation of a search box is that it can only help you find what you already know exists. Our mission is to show what exists and provide easy access to that knowledge.

The system is far from complete. So keep in mind that recruiting more people to join this effort is currently as important as the effort itself. If you know anyone who loves Wikipedia, please tell them about this WikiProject!

By the way, do you use Firefox? If so, Linky is an invaluable add on. You'll also need WP:AWB (an auto page-loader) which works with Internet Explorer. I've found these two tools essential for working on multiple topic outlines. If you know of even better tools, please let me know.

The Transhumanist 03:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC) reply

Goals

  1. Finish drafting the Wikipedia:Outlines guideline for the project
  2. Increase awareness of readers of the existence of the outlines on Wikipedia
  3. Complete the existing outlines
  4. Create an outline for every subject that is extensive enough to benefit from having an outline (core subjects and major or extensive fields). There are thousands of these.
  5. Recruit more editors
  6. Get the major outline subject areas displayed on the Main Page (in place of or in addition to the portal links at the top of the page)
  7. Increase the Wikipedia Outline of Knowledge (OoK) to higher quality than Britannica's (published in its Propaedia volume).

Project scope

  • This project covers all outlines, and all links leading to them.
  • And since this is a reverse outline, one benefit is that it uncovers problems in the publication it outlines (Wikipedia). We generally clean up those problems as we encounter them (things like lack of standard naming for pages in page sets, poorly formatted page sets, missing redirects, etc.).

What's missing???

Please take a look at Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge and then tell us here what subjects should be added next.


Outreach

Main article: OOK outreach

The outreach department is for attracting and encouraging editors to join this project.

An invitation is under development.

Procedures and tips

Outline creation

This project's main procedure is the creation of outline articles. The creation template is called Template:Topic outline. Instructions on how to use it is included with it. (Another template exists called Template:Topic outline country which was used to create a topic outline for every country of the World (unless we missed some). The country topic outlines are all listed below, further down this page).

If you create a topic outline list in article space, be sure to place a {{ under construction}} template at the top of it. Otherwise, you run the risk that someone will come along and nominate the page for deletion after you barely get started. For example, the Outline of Canada was nominated for deletion at AfD when it only included a few links. Someone had to jump in and develop it fast in order to save it. The same thing happened to Outline of mining.

A safer approach is to create new topic outlines in this WikiProject's space, starting the page title with "Wikipedia:WikiProject Topic outline/Drafts/Outline of ". One must have a compelling reason to delete a draft, since it is by definition under development, which means all problems are subject to being discussed on its talk page before it gets moved to article space. There are lists of drafts under development, below.

Outline maintenance

Information may become out of date, and when it does it needs to be updated. For example, the population and area figures presented in the country outlines.

Wikipedia is constantly expanding, and as coverage on a subject expands, so too should its topic outline. For each topic outline, a search for articles on its subject should be conducted periodically, and links to topics added to the outline. If there are too many of a particular type of link, for example, the cities in a particular country, a link should be provided to a list of them rather than listing them all in the outline itself.

Volunteers

If you would like to work with this team on Wikipedia's Outline of knowledge and receive task assignments and updates, please add your name below:

Participants

Note: To keep this list up-to-date, inactive editors are periodically removed.

To join this WikiProject's advanced wiki-tools team, contact The Transhumanist.

Previous discussions

See List of discussions concerning outlines.

Projected outline

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of Knowledge/Projected outline

There are still gaps in this collection. We need outlines to fill those gaps. The projected outline is for identifying needed outlines and creating them.

Please go over the projected outline and add any extensive topics that are missing.

Tasks

  • Maintain links to topic outlines: each article of the corresponding topic should have a link to its topic outline in its see also section. Periodically check each see also section, as the links sometimes get removed. Linky comes in handy for this.
  • Build new topic outlines. See Template:Topic outline.
  • Maintain existing topic outlines
    • Please place them on your watchlist and check your watchlist every time you log on or use this link. The lists need to be monitored for vandalism and new mistakes.
  • Improve existing topic outlines
    • Add missing links
    • Match the structure of the subject (outline it)
  • Place a WikiProject banner at the top of the talk pages of all lists of basic topics, leading here
  • Place a coverage banner at the top of the talk pages of all articles matching the subjects in the titles of topic outlines, leading to the corresponding list.
    • the coverage banner template needs to be designed

Unfinished

Once an outline has been sufficiently filled-in or fleshed out, please add its link to the base outline page and mark it as  Done below:

The hunt for hidden outlines

They hide in two ways:

  1. By not being hooked included in Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge, or
  2. By not having "outline of" in their titles

Such outlines tend not to be in our standard OOK formats, and usually need conversion.

By the way, we need outline hunters! How many hidden outlines can you find?

When you find them, add them to the subsections below. Be sure to include your sig (that way, we'll know who the best hunters are).

Outlines needing rename and/or reformatting

Those marked converted have been converted to an OOK format. Those marked placed have been added to Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge.

Outlines to merge

When an outline for the subject already exists, redundant outlines generally get merged into them.

Those marked merged have been merged into and redirected to an outline listed at Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge.

Topic outline formatting

Most of the topic outlines are presented in single-column, and this makes the pages long. These should be converted to a multi-column format, as has been done in Topic outline of geography, or as dash-separated lists, as has been done for some of the lists, or a combination of both, or some other scheme that looks good and is easy to use (see the basic concepts section of Topic outline of painting, for example). Here is a list of the pages which need to be converted from single-column format:

Once a list has been nicely formatted, please remove that page from this list:

Geographical topics – Subnational entities

Mathematics –

Self – Biology – Psychology – Relationships

Philosophy – Ethics – Epistemology – Humanism – Logic – Metaphysics – Philosophical theories – Philosophical theories – Thinking – Transhumanism

Physical science – Astronomy – Biochemistry – Biology  Chemistry  Ecology – Earth sciences – Geology – Meteorology – Oceanography –

Major social sciences – Archaeology – Business – Cognitive science  Community – Critical theory – Economics  Education – Finance – Law – Linguistics  Management – Marketing – Parapsychology – Politics  – Psychology – Public affairs – Relationships – Sociology

Technology – Aerospace science – Artificial intelligence – Agriculture – Architecture – Cartography – Communication – Energy development – Engineering – Health science  Industry – Library and information science – Manufacturing – Military science – Transport

Categories

Templates

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