From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pathfinder Scouts Vietnam

What is the relationship (if any) between Vietnamese Scout Association and Pathfinder Scouts Vietnam?-- Kintetsubuffalo ( talk) 14:50, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm working on some updates to the article for Girl Scout Cookies, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of activity over there. Is this wikiproject fairly active? Could anyone here point me in the direction of someone who could help?-- FacultiesIntact ( talk) 05:06, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

What activity are you referring to 'over there'? In that article or a related project? This Scouting wikiproject is semi-active. What help are you seeking? — btphelps ( talk to me) ( what I've done) 23:52, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

US Scouting articles

The US articles are constantly being renamed, with some edits clearly trying to deny that the BSA now includes girls. Is there a place where these name changes are being discussed? I can only see Scouts BSA over Boy Scouts. If not, I think the project needs to start a discussion and freeze the article names while it is going on. Or am I missing something? -- Bduke ( talk) 05:54, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

This is the place to discuss these issues. I haven't been tracking the changes you describe. Can you provide some examples and editors involved... Agree we did to resolve this quickly. — btphelps ( talk to me) ( what I've done) 23:50, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
The article for the 11 + section was renamed to Scouts BSA (Boy Scouts of America) as that is what, as I understand it, BSA named it, and then renamed to Boy Scouting (Boy Scouts of America). I can not find where this was discussed. The article however still starts with "Scouts BSA is ..". The section name is "Scouts BSA" so the former should be the name of the article. -- Bduke ( talk) 05:46, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
I suggest you start a discussion on the article's talk page stating that further changes should be postponed until an agreement is reached. Pitch what idea you think is correct and interested parties can support or oppose your idea. Of course, make sure you reference appropriate sources. — btphelps ( talk to me) ( what I've done) 07:26, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Well, I have asked for an explanation there but nobody is addressing that. -- Bduke ( talk) 10:20, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
I have been receiving lots of info on that from BSA. I'll go find it. In general, BSA is transitioning into allow girls into all of it's programs. (previously they were not allowed in its largest programs.) Another big factor is that the Girl Scouts organization is not happy about it. And BSA is being hyper-cautious to avoid people using terminology that poaches from the Girl Scouts. So, for example, you can never say that the girls in BSA are girl scouts. North8000 ( talk) 19:21, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
The two biggest BSA programs are the two that previously didn't allow girls. One was cub scouts, the other was Boy Scouts. This was the second meaning of "Boy Scouts" so one is the overall organization (Boy Scouts of America) and the other was the specific program for boys roughly in the 10 1/2 - 16 year old age range. The latter is being renamed to "Scouts (BSA)" The Cub Scouts program started taking girls last year and the Scouts (BSA) (formerly "Boy Scouts") program is starting to take girls sometime around now. There is still partial separation by sexes within the programs. I forgot the details....whether packs or dens or troops or patrols are sex-specific.North8000 ( talk) 19:46, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Scouts BSA (Boy Scouts of America) looks right. The title that it is redirected to ( Boy Scouting (Boy Scouts of America)) looks wrong.North8000 ( talk) 19:49, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
This is a major error, we need to fix it soon. I'd fix it but I don't want to repeat the error (renaming a major article without discussion) that caused the error in the first place.North8000 ( talk) 20:17, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
What a mess. There is a move war going on over there. Somebody just closed the discussion (I unclosed it) hours after it was opened and they moved the article again. North8000 ( talk) 19:58, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
Plus they reclosed it and deleted the info that I added. North8000 ( talk) 20:01, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
Hi all - Per WP:RMUM, I've reverted the move and closed the open RM. You are free to open a fresh move request, but the recent move "war" is all based on undiscussed moves. Any further backdoor personal requests made to a page movers talk page will be similarly reverted. Do this with discussion in the open, with the long-standing title as the status quo. -- Netoholic @ 20:03, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
Nethoholic, you closed the discussion hours after it was opened, and unilaterally made a controversial move. Let's move on beyond all of the wild crap that has been happenning there and have a nice careful, non-rushed discussion on what the article should be named. I opened a discussion there.North8000 ( talk) 21:00, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Sea / Air Scout logos

No way is World Scout Emblem Sea Scout.svg or World Scout Emblem Air Scout.svg a fair use image. They are modifications of the copyrighted World Scout logo, they seem to occur only on Wikipedia, and they aren't in compliance with the World Scout branding guide. Zaian ( talk) 09:34, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The Air Scout logo was created from a copyrighted source at User talk:Arnaud.ramey/Scout image requests. Zaian ( talk) 10:06, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Scout (Scouting)

Scout (Scouting), 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. AIRcorn  (talk) 09:56, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

USA Girl Boy Scouts

More accurately, it's girls who are members of the Boy Scouts of America in the centerpiece BSA program which was renamed from "Boy Scouts" to "Scouts, BSA" and began accepting girls Feb 1st. I just worked at a large weekend event, the first one with lots of girls in it. The numbers surprised me even though it just officially started February 1st. Apparently lots of units were getting spun up prior to Feb 1st and went official on Feb 1st. The best way that I could describe the reaction was "no reaction" ....everything was like it had happened 10 years ago. But they are still learning. One group introduced the smallest youngest-looking girl in their group as their "Scoutmaster". Then I learned that she is the SPL and explained the difference. North8000 ( talk) 15:39, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Mormon / LDS USA Boy Scouts

I learned more about the (but not from a wp:RS). LDS was/big in BSA numbers because basically all LDS boys were Boy Scouts. LDS started their replacement program and ended this. The big drop in numbers will occur next year because they were "on paper" still chartered for 2019. North8000 ( talk) 15:43, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

2019 World Scout Jamboree

Will anyone here be attending the 24th World Scout Jamboree in West Virginia next month? I will be on the program team in the Communications & Media area and one of the activities we're running is on using and editing Wikipedia! We'd love for you to get involved if you're going to be there, or at least stop by and say hi. We will be in the new Rex Tillerson Building in Centro Mondial.

A special shout-out to Wikimedia DC for sponsoring the activity. We even have an official Meetup page ( WP:WSJ19)!

TiroAethra ( talk) 21:53, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Infobox WorldScouting

{{ Infobox WorldScouting}} was changed to red. Why? -- Eagleinflight ( talk) 18:48, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I dunno....it wasn't discussed here and IMO a bad idea. And the color change wasn't in the edit summary. So it's protected so people can break it but not fix it? North8000 ( talk) 19:17, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Charlesaaronthompson Why the change to the color? Naraht ( talk) 19:21, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
I had it reverted. -- Eagleinflight ( talk) 00:06, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

There has been massive vandalization of this article by a new editor. I have banned him for a week and protected the page. He seems to think my contributions are invalid because I live in Australia!! Could others keep an eye on the article when the bans and protection ends? -- Bduke ( talk) 07:36, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

The use is blocked for 24 hours but the article is protected for a week.-- Bduke ( talk) 07:37, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Bduke, the user did have one point, intentionally or not: that article is excessive, way excessive--I tried to read it, but it is too much information, the level of detail is excruciating. What's funny, and what should be an impetus for editors to scrutinize the article, is that almost 40% of its content was added by someone blocked for socking (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jagz), someone who says this kind of stuff ( MastCell, you have to make better friends than that). Most importantly, they were blocked for racist stuff (OK, "racialist", whatever), and I wouldn't trust someone like that to write neutral content in an article on controversies. Plus, it was formerly an FA, and that star was yanked after review-- Wikipedia:Featured article review/Boy Scouts of America membership controversies/archive2. High time for serious pruning and improving. Drmies ( talk) 17:46, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
BTW I blocked that user indefinitely for that "go fuck a kangaroo" comment, which struck me as uncollegial. ;) Drmies ( talk) 17:46, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Grand Howl

Grand Howl was recently replaced with a redirect, but I've added a lot of sources. Could do with more - especially to show cultural significance. Bogger ( talk) 15:44, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

  • Thanks! -- evrik ( talk) 17:02, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Bogger, I appreciate you adding sources, but you have to admit the coverage is entirely minimal. "A 'grand howl' with lips firmly set" or "After the Grand Howl and Inspection, pennies were collected" is about as deep as the coverage gets--in other words, these are trivial mentions that prove the thing exists (which no one ever doubted), but existence does not entail notability. Thus evrik's removal of the refimprove tag was unwarranted; adding a "notability" tag would be more appropriate. Srsly, I sometimes get the feeling that the coverage of Boy Scouts is very similar to that of K-pop and anime: a plethora of primary sources, but no indication of real-world encyclopedic importance, no in-depth secondary sourcing. Drmies ( talk) 17:32, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
    • Unwarranted? Hardly. There are enough references there that in total document the subject. looking at this search,
      https://www.google.com/search?q="Grand+Howl"&oq="Grand+Howl"
      what exactly do you require? -- evrik ( talk) 17:41, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
      • Are you actually showing me a Google search to prove something? (Your URL is broken,) That's even sillier than your removing that tag. What I require is what we require: in-depth discussion of a topic in reliable, secondary sources. Not passing mentions in a local paper. Seriously. Drmies ( talk) 17:47, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
        • The search itself works, just not the coding. The search was meant to show that there are many sources that reference 'grand howl.' As for your assertion that there are no secondary sources, the search above produced this: Hildebrandt, Eleanor (2019-02-06). "10 Wild Things You Didn't Know About Boy Scout History". Popular Mechanics. traditions—like the "Grand Howl" and "Council Rock" meetings—in clear reference to events in The Jungle Book. So again, what will make you happy? -- evrik ( talk) 18:07, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
          • evrik, if it is not too much to ask, I have two things. 1. don't present a Google search as "evidence"--it is the lamest thing one can do. 2. stop pretending (or thinking?) that "ten fun facts about Boy Scouts" somehow means "proper secondary sourcing", esp. if that page has NOTHING more to say than this, "Baden-Powell also developed some Cub Scout traditions—like the "Grand Howl" and "Council Rock" meetings—in clear reference to events in The Jungle Book." If you call that "in-depth", I wonder if you actually have a definition of "shallow". Drmies ( talk) 14:03, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
          • I did neither. Just showing that there are many resources here. -- evrik ( talk) 14:28, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
    • @ Drmies: at a minimum, I think there's enough material there for a merge, after a discussion, into a new section in Cub Scouts, but a redirect would be overkill. Bogger ( talk) 09:23, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
      • Bogger, I would be perfectly happy with a merge OR a redirect. When I made the redirect there was no properly sourced content. It is pretty obvious that as a search term there is enough validity for a redirect, and given the length of the tradition it seems obvious to me also that there should be some content in the main article--and in that case, the source requirements are a bit lower (evrik, above, does not seem to grasp that we are also talking about notability per the GNG), and that's fine. But let me just point out that Cub Scout is also a problematic article: that entire article does not have a single secondary source, and that should be a cause of embarrassment for the entire Scouting project. Five minutes on JSTOR and I have this and this, and that's without searching very carefully. We can improve this, if you like, and I'd be happy to help. Thanks Bogger, Drmies ( talk) 14:14, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
  • No merges. No redirects. This article would clutter up another article. It is good as a standalone. -- evrik ( talk) 14:28, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

For a topic like this the information/coverage about it will inevitably be primarily about the usage and history of it. We should not be expecting deeper coverage of the a monosyllabic sound itself. North8000 ( talk) 14:55, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

  • I don't think anyone is asking for that, North8000. What evrik doesn't seem to grasp is the very basics of the GNG. It's quite simple: any topic needs to be covered in reliable secondary sources, in some depth. Maybe this topic can be, but no one has proven that yet. And that isn't too much to ask: if this thing, this ceremony, is so important, and it's been around for decades, SURELY someone will have written about it, outside of scouting of course (and outside of stuff like "Ah-kay-la! We-e-e-e-ll do-o-o-o o-o-o-u-u-r BEST!"). If that is not the case, well, then Bogger's point about merge/redirect should be considered. Drmies ( talk) 16:03, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
I 98% agree, I wasn't implying otherwise. My main point was to not discount coverage of usage and history. But with "Scouting" consisting of 100's of independent organizations over 100+ years, with, during that time, thousands of publications and maybe 100,000,000 members over time, maybe 100,000 of those writers, what would "outside of Scouting" mean and why would that be a requirement? If it were a "human race" topic would only a Martian source count?  :-) Sincerely, North8000 ( talk) 16:24, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
I grasp what you are saying, however, since you've chosen to be insulting, and started off this whole round of edits by redirecting the page solely by your own fiat, and since the page IS well documented - I think you're not being very cooperative. -- evrik ( talk) 16:35, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
In Dutch it is called "Horderoep" 250 reliable secondary sources -- Egel Reaction? 20:09, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Lead Coordinator for WikiProject Scouting

WikiProject Scouting has not had a Lead Coordinator for years, since Gadget850 retired, and before him, Rlevse. I'd like to nominate Evrik for this important role. He has been active for years and has a thorough understanding of Wikipedia policies and procedures. Having a Lead Coordinator is needed, to promote (and retain) Scouting-related GA's/FA's and keep the project page up-to-date concerning AfD's and so forth.

[added]--> General guideline discussing WikiProject Lead coordinators is here.  JGHowes  talk 05:13, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

I am happy to support this proposal. -- Bduke ( talk) 11:15, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
I'll take the mantle, but only if we agree to work together. ;-) -- evrik ( talk) 19:23, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
I'll all for it.North8000 ( talk) 18:17, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

May I suggest that we just say that this is a done deal? Term is 1 year if somebody else wants to run, or 2 years (would need renewal then) if not. North8000 ( talk) 13:06, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

  • Okay -- evrik ( talk) 14:00, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Cool! North8000 ( talk) 17:44, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Boy Scouts versus Scout BSA

Could you please weigh in here:

-- evrik ( talk) 19:07, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

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)


Sol George Levy

Could someone take a look at User:Naraht/Sol George Levy and give opinion on Notability and anything else? His Obit according to AP has him creating the first Cub Scout Packs in the USA, he got the Silver Buffalo, and was responsible for bringing Alpha Phi Omega (scouting honorary) to the Philippines.. Naraht ( talk) 17:44, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

IMO it might stick. But to be on solid ground you'd need 1-2 sources that write about him in more depth. North8000 ( talk) 18:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
So sources that actually talk about his life for a page or so? Naraht ( talk) 20:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, or that spend a page or so talking about some aspect of him. North8000 ( talk) 17:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I made some edits. When you publish it, make sure you link it from as many other articles as you can. -- evrik ( talk) 18:52, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
    • @ Naraht: Are you going forward with this? -- evrik ( talk) 20:34, 18 December 2019 (UTC)