| This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
WikiProject Futures studies page. |
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Of course feel free to improve the project page in any way you can think of. The Transhumanist 06:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for your work in creating this page. This is a wonderful start! John b cassel ( talk) 15:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Future studies proposed move
Please weigh in here: Talk:Future_studies#So_what_is_this_beast_called.3F. I propose moving the article Future studies to Futures studies; if people agree then I think this project should also be renamed. — Jeraphine Gryphon ( talk) 07:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- I agree that if the article name changes, the WikiProject's name should change to match it. The Transhumanist 09:57, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
(Thread copied from User talk:The Transhumanist).
I notice you added a link to the transhumanism project on the new future studies project page. What is the relationship? Viriditas ( talk) 07:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- The technological future. See
transhumanism#Technologies of interest.
The Transhumanist 07:39, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- I respect your opinion but I find the link tenuous at best. Transhumanism is essentially an ideology. Future studies, OTOH, is an academic discipline known for its research methodology. I'm not really seeing the connection in this context.
Viriditas (
talk) 07:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Transhumanism is also a branch of philosophy interested in (i.e., studies) future possibilities, especially the positive and negative potential of technological advance. (Inorder to achieve the positive and avoid negative outcomes). I am primarily a philosophical transhumanist. See
category:Futurology. Transhumanism is listed there. The outcomes that transhumanism seeks are studied by futurists, including the
technological singularity.
The Transhumanist 08:11, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, that's what I said. Transhumanism is an ideology. However, future studies is not. They are not related. Please find me a single future studies textbook or relevant academic source that says they are. However, I am not interested in seeing a transhumanist source that says they are related. Future studies could not accurately study the future if it were an ideology or if it embraced transhumanism as "true". Transhumanism is also not the only ideology related to the future. In my mind, there is no difference between linking Transhumanism to the Future studies project page and linking to, let's say for example,
Christianity. Please take a look at
this list of recent publications from or related to the
Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies. There's a lot here, and nothing about transhumanism.
Viriditas (
talk) 08:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Christianity, and its prophecy of armageddon? Comparing transhumanism to that hints of POV. Transhumanism extrapolates future possibilities from current technologies. Though highly speculative (like future studies), it isn't mythological or spiritual. But you totally ignored the philosophical aspect of transhumanism. It's a branch of humanism, which is in turn a branch of philosophy. Philosophy studies things. Transhumanism studies the future. In that pursuit it conducts future studies extensively. Future studies (that is, analyzing future possibilities) is integrated into its approach. See
The Singularity is Near – it is a core transhumanist future study. Transhumanist philosophers are futurists.
The Transhumanist 09:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- I am well acquainted with transhumanism and its literature. It is not "POV" to compare transhumanism's vision of the future "singularity" with the vision marketed by Christianity. They are both considered to be religious visions of the future in the relevant literature. In any case, I am not interested in what transhumanists claim, but in what scholars of Futures Studies claim, as I've previously made clear. It is actually considered POV pushing to associate the two as you are doing, which apparently you don't realize. I've requested a source, so please provide it when you have time. Thanks. To remind you, I've provided dozens of sources related to the current Futures Studies literature that says nothing about transhumanism. Please provide sources that do.
Viriditas (
talk) 09:25, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- There is a large body of transhumanist future studies. That is, future studies conducted by transhumanists. It appears you are using a very specialized context of the term "related". I suggest we explore the requirements for being called a "related WikiProject".
The Transhumanist 09:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Futures studies might examine scenarios involving posthuman futures. But it doesn't argue, like transhumanism does, that such scenarios are necessary or beneficial. It only argues that it is one possible scenario. However this is not the primary focus of futures studies. And it certainly doesn't take the position that the human species is limited and should focus on enhancement, it just observes that this might happen. Transhumanism, on the other hand, argues that it should happen and encourages it. This is like saying WikiProject Ecology is relevant to futures studies because it studies and evaluates sustainability. Viriditas ( talk) 10:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- There is a large body of transhumanist future studies. That is, future studies conducted by transhumanists. It appears you are using a very specialized context of the term "related". I suggest we explore the requirements for being called a "related WikiProject".
The Transhumanist 09:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- I am well acquainted with transhumanism and its literature. It is not "POV" to compare transhumanism's vision of the future "singularity" with the vision marketed by Christianity. They are both considered to be religious visions of the future in the relevant literature. In any case, I am not interested in what transhumanists claim, but in what scholars of Futures Studies claim, as I've previously made clear. It is actually considered POV pushing to associate the two as you are doing, which apparently you don't realize. I've requested a source, so please provide it when you have time. Thanks. To remind you, I've provided dozens of sources related to the current Futures Studies literature that says nothing about transhumanism. Please provide sources that do.
Viriditas (
talk) 09:25, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Christianity, and its prophecy of armageddon? Comparing transhumanism to that hints of POV. Transhumanism extrapolates future possibilities from current technologies. Though highly speculative (like future studies), it isn't mythological or spiritual. But you totally ignored the philosophical aspect of transhumanism. It's a branch of humanism, which is in turn a branch of philosophy. Philosophy studies things. Transhumanism studies the future. In that pursuit it conducts future studies extensively. Future studies (that is, analyzing future possibilities) is integrated into its approach. See
The Singularity is Near – it is a core transhumanist future study. Transhumanist philosophers are futurists.
The Transhumanist 09:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, that's what I said. Transhumanism is an ideology. However, future studies is not. They are not related. Please find me a single future studies textbook or relevant academic source that says they are. However, I am not interested in seeing a transhumanist source that says they are related. Future studies could not accurately study the future if it were an ideology or if it embraced transhumanism as "true". Transhumanism is also not the only ideology related to the future. In my mind, there is no difference between linking Transhumanism to the Future studies project page and linking to, let's say for example,
Christianity. Please take a look at
this list of recent publications from or related to the
Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies. There's a lot here, and nothing about transhumanism.
Viriditas (
talk) 08:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Transhumanism is also a branch of philosophy interested in (i.e., studies) future possibilities, especially the positive and negative potential of technological advance. (Inorder to achieve the positive and avoid negative outcomes). I am primarily a philosophical transhumanist. See
category:Futurology. Transhumanism is listed there. The outcomes that transhumanism seeks are studied by futurists, including the
technological singularity.
The Transhumanist 08:11, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- I respect your opinion but I find the link tenuous at best. Transhumanism is essentially an ideology. Future studies, OTOH, is an academic discipline known for its research methodology. I'm not really seeing the connection in this context.
Viriditas (
talk) 07:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Err, guys, feel free to take this discussion to the relevant talkpage, the WikiProject's. Viriditas, please note that we're discussing a WikiProject's work here, not an article's content. Demanding reliable sources is not justified here. — Jeraphine Gryphon ( talk) 09:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't see how this is an issue at all, transhumanism and potential futures are very obviously related. — Jeraphine Gryphon ( talk) 10:01, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Note: asking for a reliable source showing that the concept of transhumanism is a scholarly avenue of study and part of the domain of what is called Futures Studies is entirely justified. I suspect that no sources will be provided because a user by the name of "The Transhumanist" is pushing the POV of "transhumanism" when in point of fact, that POV is not part of Futures Studies. Viriditas ( talk) 09:59, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- I never said that transhumanism was part of the domain of what is called futures studies. The section I placed Wikipedia:WikiProject Transhumanism under was "Related projects", which is a pretty vague subheading. You are reading a lot more specificity into that subheading than I am. I don't agree with you that a WikiProject's subject must be a branch of or a subdiscipline of another WikiProject's subject in order to be considered related. The Transhumanist 10:06, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- How is it even related? Let me give you an example of a true statement in this regard: Futures studies is related to scenario planning. Where does transhumanism come into this? Viriditas ( talk) 10:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'll admit that I have my own skepticism about transhumanism, but I think it is valid to include it as a subject of study. To take a previous example (
Christianity), the view of various Christian sects about end times is also a valid subject of futures studies, as one can look at how these views changed over time due to demographic, cultural, and technological circumstances and the impact they in turn have had on society. We should give transhumanism at least this much leeway: it is a view of the future, and therefore a subject to which the methods of futures studies can be applied. However, we must be sure to include as much critical scholarship on this subject as we do other views about the future.
John b cassel (
talk) 23:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- My point is that the scenario is what is important not the ideology. In other words, futures studies might concern itself with the probability of a posthuman future, but it does not take the political position or advocate for transhumanism as another editor is doing. In the same way, futures studies might look at the scenario of ecological sustainability, but it does not study or take the position of environmentalism. The position that all transhumanists are engaging in futures studies isn't supported. That's like saying all Christians are involved in peace and conflict studies. I also object to the hijacking of futures studies by associating it with a fringe movement that is actively working to create a narrow future that they personally envision. That is not the role of futures studies and it basically contradicts its stated mission. Transhumanists already have a vision of the future. Their mind is closed and it is already made up. They have no use for futures studies.
Viriditas (
talk) 00:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
- It's a "related" WikiProject. That's it. "Related". And just a WikiProject. The point of linking to related WikiProjects is showing projects that some of the current members can reasonably be expected to have some interest and knowledge in. It's purely subjective and wholly up to the WikiProject itself (its members) to decide what they feel is relevant and useful for the project. — Jeraphine Gryphon ( talk) 06:35, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
- My point is that the scenario is what is important not the ideology. In other words, futures studies might concern itself with the probability of a posthuman future, but it does not take the political position or advocate for transhumanism as another editor is doing. In the same way, futures studies might look at the scenario of ecological sustainability, but it does not study or take the position of environmentalism. The position that all transhumanists are engaging in futures studies isn't supported. That's like saying all Christians are involved in peace and conflict studies. I also object to the hijacking of futures studies by associating it with a fringe movement that is actively working to create a narrow future that they personally envision. That is not the role of futures studies and it basically contradicts its stated mission. Transhumanists already have a vision of the future. Their mind is closed and it is already made up. They have no use for futures studies.
Viriditas (
talk) 00:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'll admit that I have my own skepticism about transhumanism, but I think it is valid to include it as a subject of study. To take a previous example (
Christianity), the view of various Christian sects about end times is also a valid subject of futures studies, as one can look at how these views changed over time due to demographic, cultural, and technological circumstances and the impact they in turn have had on society. We should give transhumanism at least this much leeway: it is a view of the future, and therefore a subject to which the methods of futures studies can be applied. However, we must be sure to include as much critical scholarship on this subject as we do other views about the future.
John b cassel (
talk) 23:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Referring to the project proposal page, I would say that transhumanism would be a subject related to "the history and critique of how futures/the future has been and is considered". Transhumanism is a "way futures are considered." Spaceflight, on the other hand, is not a worldview regarding the future. John b cassel ( talk) 14:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
- The scope of
WikiProject Spaceflight, including the proposed missions and technology required to develop and build those missions are implicitly supported by
space advocacy which has as its stated aim the exploration of space and the building of space settlements. Ironically, it is these space advocates who are behind the space settlement pictured on the current project page, an image added by The Transhumanist. More to the point, the project page says "We are a group of Wikipedia editors who work on topics related to the utilisation and exploration of outer space by humans and robotic spacecraft", which is most certainly a worldview regarding the future, and one of the most popular, I might add. To further clarify, all aspects of space colonization, including the past, present, and future, are part of the scope of WikiProject Spaceflight. Given this fact, I would say that the nuts and bolts spaceflight project is more relevant to futures studies (and more supported by published academic research) than the Transhumanism project considering the reality of the technology and the proposals at hand. Transhumanism, on the other hand, is little more than wishful thinking complete with religious symbolism involving the eschatological "singularity". To be fair, however, space colonization involving humans is also little more than wishful thinking at this point, so perhaps the Transhumanists will have the last laugh, with the Solar System eventually colonized by machines, not by people. My point, long-winded as it sounds, is that the list of relevant projects is endless. Futures studies should not associate itself with any other "relevant" projects that aren't part the scope of its discipline.
Viriditas (
talk) 03:14, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
- Your points are well taken, but there are some circumstances we should take into consideration: Very soon, we will be helping the University of Houston's Futures Studies program with a class project to improve Futures Studies content on Wikipedia. I'm sure that the appropriate scope of "Futures Studies" is something they would be able to bring some scholarly light to. John b cassel ( talk) 16:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
User Viriditas had the following concern: "How is terraforming the subject of futures studies? Terraforming is a science fiction concept that has received a great deal of attention in books and films. However, the technology needed to implement this idea is beyond our current grasp, nor do we have a clue if it would ever work. Because it is not currently possible, it does not appear to be a plausible scenario for futures studies. I say this as someone who has read the terraforming literature (Fogg, Oberg, Zubrin, etc.)"
Being in the scope of a WikiProject doesn't mean that the topic is exclusively a subject of the field. Also, as far as I can tell, "Futures studies" is quite a broad field -- not everything in the scope of this project has to be of interest to all relevant academics nor to all members of this project.
I tagged terraforming because it's categorized in Category:Futurology and Category:Space colonization. What's wrong with that? — Jeraphine Gryphon ( talk) 07:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
- Again, I ask, which futures studies sources discuss terraforming? Martyn J. Fogg wrote about planetary engineering in terms of planetary science, and very little about whether it was likely to happen. The basic problem here is that there seems to be confusion about what futures studies is and what topics it covers. I am unaware of any futures studies publications that cover this topic. Instead of having editors randomly tag articles that they think is covered by the discipline, I will ask once again, that these editors do the research and find the sources. Viriditas ( talk) 08:30, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
-
Viriditas may have a point on this one. To quote discussion from the project proposal page: ""Futurology" is seen as a relic of the past (with the possible exception of the UK where "futurology" is still seems used a bit currently, but that's an outlier) - a buzzword from the 1960-70s which is associated with a particular long-gone golden age characterized by a kind of overexcited faddish type of foresight that seems a bit embarrassing and outmoded today. I do think that futurology should be covered as a part of the history but would put off many people in the field if it was the title of the project".
John b cassel (
talk) 14:52, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
- We're talking about terraforming, not futurology. —
Jeraphine Gryphon (
talk) 03:09, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
- They are hopelessly interrelated: Terraforming came to be associated with with the field at the time of futurology's vogue and has certain connotations given that history. But, it occurs to me that this history isn't necessarily relevant to the participants of this project. Overall, I'm now agnostic on the subject of scope.
John b cassel (
talk) 16:13, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'm agonistic about scope too. While planetary terraforming is not part of futures studies or strategic foresight theory or methods, it would perhaps fit into a topic category area such as "Common themes in 20th century futurist visions" or something like that. It's like the difference between the
Battle of Agincourt and the theory and practice of history. The Battle of Agincourt is of course a target of historians' attention (and the attention of other specializations e.g. literature) but it is not part of what history is as a discipline or profession or set of methods and theories. Anyway, this is all good as a teaching moment for the upcoming class exercise!
Zhanli2012 (
talk) 00:15, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'd appreciate if you agnostics took a second to think about the rest of Wikipedia that's outside of your own interests. With this sort of insistence to keep the project all serious and academic, you're being very exclusive and denying attention to certain articles. There's plenty of articles that relate to fantastical and unrealistic ideas about the future -- do you suggest there be made a separate project for them?
- You don't have to work on or be personally interested in every article that gets tagged wit this project's banner, you know. I'm just asking you to try to be more inclusive, for the sake of the rest of Wikipedia.
- I was a member of WikiProject Death, another multidisciplinary project -- I was only interested in a small fraction of their scope and that didn't hinder me from participating. And I haven't seen anyone in there suggest that we should only scope on the reality of death and leave mythologies, beliefs and fictions about it to other projects if any other projects happen to care. — Jeraphine Gryphon ( talk) 07:09, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'm agonistic about scope too. While planetary terraforming is not part of futures studies or strategic foresight theory or methods, it would perhaps fit into a topic category area such as "Common themes in 20th century futurist visions" or something like that. It's like the difference between the
Battle of Agincourt and the theory and practice of history. The Battle of Agincourt is of course a target of historians' attention (and the attention of other specializations e.g. literature) but it is not part of what history is as a discipline or profession or set of methods and theories. Anyway, this is all good as a teaching moment for the upcoming class exercise!
Zhanli2012 (
talk) 00:15, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
- They are hopelessly interrelated: Terraforming came to be associated with with the field at the time of futurology's vogue and has certain connotations given that history. But, it occurs to me that this history isn't necessarily relevant to the participants of this project. Overall, I'm now agnostic on the subject of scope.
John b cassel (
talk) 16:13, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- We're talking about terraforming, not futurology. —
Jeraphine Gryphon (
talk) 03:09, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
-
Viriditas may have a point on this one. To quote discussion from the project proposal page: ""Futurology" is seen as a relic of the past (with the possible exception of the UK where "futurology" is still seems used a bit currently, but that's an outlier) - a buzzword from the 1960-70s which is associated with a particular long-gone golden age characterized by a kind of overexcited faddish type of foresight that seems a bit embarrassing and outmoded today. I do think that futurology should be covered as a part of the history but would put off many people in the field if it was the title of the project".
John b cassel (
talk) 14:52, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I think there's something very true in what you're saying. The less broadly Culture Studies looks at culture, the less relevant it is to the broader culture. This is likely an appropriate admonition for Futures Studies as well. A broad scope, but suitable organization so that everyone can find what they want and make the distinctions they need. Death is different, because to the best of my knowledge there is no specific academic subject of "Death Studies", but yet maybe it is an appropriate model. The challenge will be to capture the full diversity of views, including the professional and academic ones. John b cassel ( talk) 17:19, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
- The study of death is a serious academic subject called
thanatology and can be found as part of the curriculum in the health sciences, forensic sciences, humanities, and other disciplines.
Viriditas (
talk) 20:50, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
- Oopsie! John b cassel ( talk) 14:07, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Does the project want to move away from older naming conventions currently in use, such as Category:Futurology and Category:Futurologists? Viriditas ( talk) 09:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
- That's a very good question. The tricky part to my mind is how individuals classify themselves. If somebody calls what they do futurology, I'd be hard pressed to question it, but we definitely don't want anyone there who doesn't want that label. One alternative is "List of Major Contributors to Futures Studies", which includes not only futures studies practitioners, futurologists, strategic foresight practitioners, trend analysts, speculators, but also people who have made important contributions indirectly or even through direct criticism, such as Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner, respectively. John b cassel ( talk) 17:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Is it common to have 'Futures' capitalized and 'studies' not? If not, can you change the title of an article (just the capitalization?) RealFuturist ( talk) 23:06, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- There is some precedent for the mixed case, compare Culture studies. John b cassel ( talk) 23:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- Unless they are proper nouns, Wikipedia titles use "sentence case". See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Article titles.
- I hope that answers your questions. The Transhumanist 11:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's a good reference, but unfortunately it still isn't clear to me, and I think it bolsters RealFuturist`s argument. "I studied in the department of Futures Studies." would be how I would case it in a sentence. John b cassel ( talk) 18:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Talk:Strategic planning/Archives/2015#Merger proposal from Long range planning. --
Trevj (
talk) 13:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
See Talk:Futures studies#Merge.
I have proposed that turning the page into a disambiguation page would make more sense.
Yaris678 ( talk) 17:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej ( talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Hello everyone!
You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!
Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.
Harej ( talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Greetings! For this month's issue...
We have demos!
After a lengthy research and design process, we decided for WikiProject X to focus on two things:
- A WikiProject workflow that focuses on action items: discussions you can participate in and tasks you can perform to improve the encyclopedia; and
- An automatically updating WikiProject directory that gives you lists of users participating in the WikiProject and editing in that subject area.
We have a live demonstration of the new WikiProject workflow at WikiProject Women in Technology, a brand new WikiProject that was set up as an adjunct to a related edit-a-thon in Washington, DC. The goal is to surface action items for editors, and we intend on doing that through automatically updated working lists. We are looking into using SuggestBot to generate lists of outstanding tasks, and we are looking into additional options for automatic worklist generation. This takes the burden off of WikiProject editors to generate these worklists, though there is also a "requests" section for Wikipedians to make individual requests. (As of writing, these automated lists are not yet live, so you will see a blank space under "edit articles" on the demo WikiProject. Sorry about that!) I invite you to check out the WikiProject and leave feedback on WikiProject X's talk page.
Once the demo is sufficiently developed, we will be working on a limited deployment on our pilot WikiProjects. We have selected five for the first round of testing based on the highest potential for impact and will scale up from there.
While a re-designed WikiProject experience is much needed, that alone isn't enough. A WikiProject isn't any good if people have no way of discovering it. This is why we are also developing an automatically updated WikiProject directory. This directory will surface project-related metrics, including a count of active WikiProject participants and of active editors in that project's subject area. The purpose of these metrics is to highlight how active the WikiProject is at the given point of time, but also to highlight that project's potential for success. The directory is not yet live but there is a demonstration featuring a sampling of WikiProjects.
Each directory entry will link to a WikiProject description page which automatically list the active WikiProject participants and subject-area article editors. This allows Wikipedians to find each other based on the areas they are interested in, and this information can be used to revive a WikiProject, start a new one, or even for some other purpose. These description pages are not online yet, but they will use this template, if you want to get a feel of what they will look like.
We need volunteers!
WikiProject X is a huge undertaking, and we need volunteers to support our efforts, including testers and coders. Check out our volunteer portal and see what you can do to help us!
As an aside...
Wouldn't it be cool if lists of requested articles could not only be integrated directly with WikiProjects, but also shared between WikiProjects? Well, we got the crazy idea of having experimental software feature Flow deployed (on a totally experimental basis) on the new Article Request Workshop, which seeks to be a place where editors can "workshop" article ideas before they get created. It uses Flow because Flow allows, essentially, section-level categorization, and in the future will allow "sections" (known as "topics" within Flow) to be included across different pages. What this means is that you have a recommendation for a new article tagged by multiple WikiProjects, allowing for the recommendation to appear on lists for each WikiProject. This will facilitate inter-WikiProject collaboration and will help to reduce duplicated work. The Article Request Workshop is not entirely ready yet due to some bugs with Flow, but we hope to integrate it into our pilot WikiProjects at some point.
Harej ( talk) 01:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Hello friends! We have been hard at work these past two months. For this report:
For the first time, we are happy to bring you an exhaustive, comprehensive WikiProject Directory. This directory endeavors to list every single WikiProject on the English Wikipedia, including those that don't participate in article assessment. In constructing the broadest possible definition, we have come up with a list of approximately 2,600 WikiProjects. The directory tracks activity statistics on the WikiProject's pages, and, for where it's available, statistics on the number of articles tracked by the WikiProject and the number of editors active on those articles. Complementing the directory are description pages for each project, listing usernames of people active on the WikiProject pages and the articles in the WikiProject's scope. This will help Wikipedians interested in a subject find each other, whether to seek feedback on an article or to revive an old project. (There is an opt-out option.) We have also come up with listings of related WikiProjects, listing the ten most relevant WikiProjects based on what articles they have in common. We would like to promote WikiProjects as interconnected systems, rather than isolated silos.
A tremendous amount of work went into preparing this directory. WikiProjects do not consistently categorize their pages, meaning we had to develop our own index to match WikiProjects with the articles in their scope. We also had to make some adjustments to how WikiProjects were categorized; indeed, I personally have racked up a few hundred edits re-categorizing WikiProjects. There remains more work to be done to make the WikiProject directory truly useful. In the meantime, take a look and feel free to leave feedback at the WikiProject X talk page.
What have we been working on?
- A new design template—This has been in the works for a while, of course. But our goal is to design something that is useful and cleanly presented on all browsers and at all screen resolutions while working within the confines of what MediaWiki has to offer. Additionally, we are working on designs for the sub-components featured on the main project page.
- A new WikiProject talk page banner in Lua—Work has begun on implementing the WikiProject banner in Lua. The goal is to create a banner template that can be usable by any WikiProject in lieu of having its own template. Work has slowed down for now to focus on higher priority items, but we are interested in your thoughts on how we could go about creating a more useful project banner. We have a draft module on Test Wikipedia, with a demonstration.
- New discussion reports—We have over 4.8 million articles on the English Wikipedia, and almost as many talk pages as well. But what happens when someone posts on a talk page? What if no one is watching that talk page? We are currently testing out a system for an automatically-updating new discussions list, like RFC for WikiProjects. We currently have five test pages up for the WikiProjects on cannabis, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and Ghana.
- SuggestBot for WikiProjects—We have asked the maintainer of SuggestBot to make some minor adjustments to SuggestBot that will allow it to post regular reports to those WikiProjects that ask for them. Stay tuned!
- Semi-automated article assessment—Using the new revision scoring service and another system currently under development, WikiProjects will be getting a new tool to facilitate the article assessment process by providing article quality/importance predictions for articles yet to be assessed. Aside from helping WikiProjects get through their backlogs, the goal is to help WikiProjects with collecting metrics and triaging their work. Semi-automation of this process will help achieve consistent results and keep the process running smoothly, as automation does on other parts of Wikipedia.
Want us to work on any other tools? Interested in volunteering? Leave a note on our talk page.
The database report which lists WikiProjects according to the number of watchers (i.e., people that have the project on their watchlist), is back! The report stopped being updated a year ago, following the deactivation of the Toolserver, but a replacement report has been generated.
Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:
In July, we launched five pilot WikiProjects: WikiProjects Cannabis, Evolutionary Biology, Ghana, Hampshire, and Women's Health. We also use the new design, named "WPX UI," on WikiProject Women in Technology, Women in Red, WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health. We are currently looking for projects for the next round of testing. If you are interested, please sign up on the Pilots page.
Shortly after our launch we presented at Wikimania 2015. Our slides are on Wikimedia Commons.
Then after all that work, we went through the process of figuring out whether we accomplished our goal. We reached out to participants on the redesigned WikiProjects, and we asked them to complete a survey. (If you filled out your survey—thank you!) While there are still some issues with the WikiProject tools and the new design, there appears to be general satisfaction (at least among those who responded). The results of the survey and more are documented in our grant report filed with the Wikimedia Foundation.
There is more work that needs to be done, so we have applied for a renewal of our grant. Comments on the proposal are welcome. We would like to improve what we have already started on the English Wikipedia and to also expand to Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Why those? Because they are multilingual projects and because there needs to be better coordination across Wikimedia projects. More details are available in the renewal proposal.
The Wikimedia Developer Summit will be held in San Francisco in January 2016. The recently established Community Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in investigating what technical support they can provide for WikiProjects, i.e., support beyond just templates and bots. I have plenty of opinions myself, but I want to hear what you think. The session is being planned on Phabricator, the Wikimedia bug tracker. If you are not familiar with Phabricator, you can log in with your Wikipedia username and password through the "Login or Register: MediaWiki" button on the login page. Your feedback can help make editing Wikipedia a better experience.
Until next time,
Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:
Some good news: the Wikimedia Foundation has renewed WikiProject X. This means we can continue focusing on making WikiProjects better.
During our first round of work, we created a prototype WikiProject based on two ideas: (1) WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and (2) The content of WikiProjects should be automated as much as possible. We launched pilots, and for the most part it works. But this approach will not work for the long term. While it makes certain aspects of running a WikiProject easier, it makes the maintenance aspects harder.
We are working on a major overhaul that will address these issues. New features will include:
- Creating WikiProjects by simply filling out a form, choosing which reports you want to generate for your project. This will work with existing bots in addition to the Reports Bot reports. (Of course, you can also have sections curated by humans.)
- One-click button to join a WikiProject, with optional notifications.
- Be able to define your WikiProject's scope within the WikiProject itself by listing relevant pages and categories, eliminating the need to tag every talk page with a banner. (You will still be allowed to do that, of course. It just won't be required.)
The end goal is a collaboration tool that can be used by WikiProjects but also by any edit-a-thon or group of people that want to coordinate on improving articles. Though implemented as an extension, the underlying content will be wikitext, meaning that you can continue to use categories, templates, and other features as you normally would.
This will take a lot of work, and we are just getting started. What would you like to see? I invite you to discuss on our talk page.
Until next time,
Existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence to be moved to Unfriendly artificial intelligence. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. — RMCD bot 00:16, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
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Hi all
I just thought I'd make everyone aware of hpluspedia, a project to become the best resource on transhumanism and futurism. Do let me know if you have any questions / comments! Deku-shrub ( talk) 14:21, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
This month:
Development of the extension for setting up WikiProjects, as described in the last issue of this newsletter, is currently underway. No terribly exciting news on this front.
In the meantime, we are working on a prototype for a new service we hope to announce soon. The problem: there are requests scattered all across Wikipedia, including requests for new articles and requests for improvements to existing articles. We Wikipedians are very good at coming up with lists of things to do. But once we write these lists, where do they end up? How can we make them useful for all editors—even those who do not browse the missing articles lists, or the particular WikiProjects that have lists?
Introducing Wikipedia Requests, a new tool to centralize the various lists of requests around Wikipedia. Requests will be tagged by category and WikiProject, making it easier to find requests based on what your interests are. Accompanying this service will be a bot that will let you generate reports from this database on any wiki page, including WikiProjects. This means that once a request is filed centrally, it can syndicated all throughout Wikipedia, and once it is fulfilled, it will be marked as "complete" throughout Wikipedia. The idea for this service came about when I saw that it was easy to put together to-do lists based on database queries, but it was harder to do this for human-generated requests when those requests are scattered throughout the wiki, siloed throughout several pages. This should especially be useful for WikiProjects that have overlapping interests.
The newsletter this month is fairly brief; not a lot of news, just checking in to say that we are hard at work and hope to have more for you soon.
Until next time,
Harej ( talk) 01:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
This month:
In the last issue of the WikiProject X Newsletter, I discussed the upcoming Wikipedia Requests system: a central database for outstanding work on Wikipedia. I am pleased to announce Wikipedia Requests is live! Its purpose is to supplement automatically generated lists, such as those from SuggestBot, Reports bot, or Wikidata. It is currently being demonstrated on WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health (which I work on as part of my NIOSH duties) and WikiProject Women scientists.
Adding a request is as simple as filling out a form. Just go to the Add form to add your request. Adding sources will help ensure that your request is fulfilled more quickly. And when a request is fulfilled, simply click "mark as complete" and it will be removed from all the lists it's on. All at the click of a button! (If anyone is concerned, all actions are logged.)
With this new service is a template to transclude these requests: {{
Wikipedia Requests}}. It's simple to use: add the template to a page, specifying article=, category=, or wikiproject=, and the list will be transcluded. For example, for requests having to do with all living people, just do {{
Wikipedia Requests|category=Living people}}. Use these lists on WikiProjects but also for edit-a-thons where you want a convenient list of things to do on hand. Give it a shot!
The value of Wikipedia Requests comes from being a centralized database. The long work to migrating individual lists into this combined list is slowly underway. As of writing, we have 883 open tasks logged in Wikipedia Requests. We need your help building this list.
If you know of a list of missing articles, or of outstanding tasks for existing articles, that you would like to migrate to this new system, head on over to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Requests#Transition project and help out. Doing this will help put your list in front of more eyes—more than just your own WikiProject.
WikiProject X maintains a database that associates article talk pages (and draft talk pages) with WikiProjects. This database powers many of the reports that Reports bot generates. However, until very recently, this database was not made available to others who might find its data useful. It's only common sense to open up the database and let others build tools with it.
And indeed: Citation Hunt, the game to add citations to Wikipedia, now lets you filter by WikiProject, using the data from our database.
Are you a tool developer interested in using this? Here are some details: the database resides on Tool Labs with the name s52475__wpx_p. The table that associates WikiProjects with articles and drafts is called projectindex. Pages are stored by talk page title but in the future this should change. Have fun!
- The work on the CollaborationKit extension continues. The extension will initially focus on reducing template and Lua bloat on WikiProjects (especially our WPX UI demonstration projects), and will from there create custom interfaces for creating and maintaining WikiProjects.
- The WikiCite meeting will be in Berlin in May. The goal of the meeting is to figure out how to build a bibliographic database for use on the Wikimedia projects. This fits in quite nicely with WikiProject X's work: we want to make it easier for people to find things to work on, and with a powerful, open bibliographic database, we can build recommendations for sources. This feature was requested by the Wikipedia Library back in September, and this meeting is a major next step. We look forward to seeing what comes out of this meeting.
Until next time,
Harej ( talk) 01:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, featuring the first screenshot of our new CollaborationKit software!
Harej ( talk) 00:23, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
I'd like to tag the article on the Center for Applied Rationality to get some third party reviewing. One user has been removing RS'd material pretty obsessively and rewrote it with a fairly biased POV. (I don't know if this is the right place for such a notice, if not then please suggest somewhere better.) K. Bog 04:07, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
This month, we discuss the new CollaborationKit extension. Here's an image as a teaser:
23:59, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Whilst I'm well aware that transhumanism and future studies are not synonymous, given that transhumanism has a low level of traffic, we could merge it into this one and slightly broaden the scope? Deku-shrub ( talk) 22:48, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
- Strong oppose - they only overlap. A low level of traffic is imo no reason to merge. Also that could change. (Should actually; people should promote and recruit interested people via WikiProjects such as this one for Wikipedia on relevant websites.) -- Fixuture ( talk) 12:56, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, with plans to renew work with a followup grant proposal to support finalising the deployment of CollaborationKit!
-— Isarra ༆ 21:26, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Open (sharing) economy listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Open (sharing) economy to be moved. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. — RMCD bot 22:46, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
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This month: WikiProject X: The resumption
Work has resumed on WikiProject X and CollaborationKit, backed by a successfully funded Project Grant. For more information on the current status and planned work, please see this month's issue of the newsletter!
-— Isarra ༆ 22:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
This month: A general update.
The current status of the project is as follows:
- Progress of the project has been generally delayed since September due to development issues (more bitrot than expected, some of the code just being genuinely confusing, etc) and personal injury (I suffered a concussion in October and was out of commission for almost two months as a result).
- I currently expect to be putting out a proper call for CollaborationKit pilots in January/February, with estimated deployment in February/March if things don't go horribly wrong (they will, though, don't worry). As a part of that, I will properly update
the page and send out announcement and reach out to all projects
already signed up as pilots for WikiProject X in general, at which point those (still) interested can volunteer specifically to test the
CollaborationKit extension.
- Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Pilots was originally created for the first WikiProject X prototype, and given this is where the project has since gone, it's only logical to continue to use it. While I haven't yet updated the page to properly reflect this:
- If you want to add your project to this page now, feel free. Just bear in mind that more information what to actually expect will be added later/included in the announcement, because by then I will have a much better idea myself.
- Until then, you can find me in my corner working on making the CollaborationKit code do what we want and not just what we told it, per the workboard.
Until next time,
-— Isarra ༆ 22:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
There's a discussion about a possible User Group for STEM over at Meta:Talk:STEM_Wiki_User_Group. The idea would be to help coordinate, collaborate and network cross-subject, cross-wiki and cross-language to share experience and resources that may be valuable to the relevant wikiprojects. Current discussion includes preferred scope and structure. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) talk 02:55, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
Peak oil, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Chidgk1 ( talk) 18:26, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.
We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma ( talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Effects of global warming on South Asia listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Effects of global warming on South Asia to be moved to Effects of global warming in South Asia. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. — RMCD bot 05:32, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
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Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? to be moved to Expert Political Judgment. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. — RMCD bot 08:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
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This template is underused compared to {{ Censor}}, and used only on a small collection of articles about doomsday scenarios. Is it redundant, or just used too narrowly? I won't go directly to TfD, since the last nomination in June closed as no consensus. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 11:37, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
The Future is Wild listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for The Future is Wild to be moved to The Future Is Wild. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. — RMCD bot 03:03, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
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Futurist writer Hazel Henderson has died. The nomination for Recent Deaths expires in six hours. Any help in improving the article would be appreciated. Thank you, Thriley ( talk) 17:51, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
Singularity University listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Singularity University to be moved to Singularity Group. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. — RMCD bot 16:16, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
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Merger discussion for Peak uranium
An article that you have been involved in editing—
Peak uranium—has been proposed for
merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in
the merger discussion. Thank you.
Chidgk1 (
talk) 19:26, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Cornucopianism listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Cornucopianism to be moved to Cornucopian. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. — RMCD bot 08:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
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Merger discussion for Predicting the timing of peak oil
An article that you have been involved in editing—
Predicting the timing of peak oil—has been proposed for
merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in
the merger discussion. Thank you.
Chidgk1 (
talk) 14:57, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at
Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent
Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{
WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.
No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{ WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.
However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{
WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present.
Aymatth2 (
talk) 20:26, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
Post-scarcity economy listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Post-scarcity economy to be moved to Post-scarcity. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. — RMCD bot 03:46, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
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I'm seeking help to improve the article on bioartist and futurist Amy Karle and resolve the template warning on the page. I did what I could to clean up the article. I am seeking more support from the editing community to help correct issues listed on the template and edit the article appropriately to meet BLP standards.
It was suggested that I ask for help from additional editors on the talk page of one of the WikiProjects that appear on the article talk page, which is you WikiProject Futures studies!
Would fellow editors please help update the page and remove the template warning on the main article? Or if you feel that it has been sufficiently updated, please remove the template.
If there is a better place to post this request, please advise. Thank you, ArtistWatch MuseumSurvey ( talk) 22:27, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
There is a discussion at this talk page as to whether or not the life-extension practices of Bryan Johnson (entrepreneur) should be mentioned in the article. Given that it is what he is most known for by the general public and media, I feel as though it would be violating both WP:notability and WP:NPOV to not include it, as long as his practices are described neutrally. The other editor feels as though it is too fringe to include and that it cannot be properly contextualized. We would appreciate if others could give their input. Thanks! Vontheri ( talk) 05:18, 15 August 2023 (UTC)