User talk:RightCowLeftCoast: Difference between revisions

By Lionelt

Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Right Stuff, the newsletter of WikiProject Conservatism. The Project has developed at a breakneck speed since it was created on February 12, 2011 with the edit summary, "Let's roll!" With over 50 members the need for a project newsletter is enormous. With over 3000 articles to watch, an active talk page and numerous critical discussions spread over various noticeboards, it has become increasingly difficult to manage the information overload. The goal of The Right Stuff is to help you keep up with the changing landscape.

The Right Stuff is a newsletter consisting of original reporting. Writers will use a byline to "sign" their contributions. Just as with The Signpost, "guidelines such as 'no ownership of articles', and particularly 'no original research', will not necessarily apply."

WikiProject Conservatism has a bright future ahead: this newsletter will allow us tell the story. All that's left to say is: "Let's roll!"

By Lionelt

A new style guide to help standardize editing was rolled out. It focuses on concepts, people and organizations from a conservatism perspective. The guide features detailed article layouts for several types of articles. You can help improve it here. The Project's Article Collaboration currently has two nominations, but they don't appear to be generating much interest. You can get involved with the Collaboration here.

I am pleased to report that we have two new members: Rjensen and Soonersfan168. Rjensen is a professional historian and has access to JSTOR. Soonersfan168 says he is a "young conservative who desires to improve Wikipedia!" Unfortunately we will be seeing less of Geofferybard, as he has announced his semi-retirement. We wish him well. Be sure to stop by their talk pages and drop off some Wikilove.

By Lionelt

On August 3rd Peter Oborne, a British journalist, became the Project's 3,000th tagged article. It is a tribute to the membership that we have come this far this quickly. The latest Featured Article is Richard Nixon. Our congratulations to Wehwalt for a job well done. The article with the most page views was Rick Perry with 887,389 views, not surprising considering he announced he was running for president on August 11th. Follwing Perry were Michele Bachmann and Tea Party movement. The Project was ranked 75th based on total edits, which is up from 105th in July. The article with the most edits was Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2012 with 374 edits. An RFC regarding candidate inclusion criteria generated much interest on the talk page.

By Lionelt

The Right Stuff caught up with Dank, the recently elected Lead Coordinator of WikiProject Military History. MILHIST is considered by many to be one of the most successful projects in the English Wikipedia.

Q: Tell us a little about yourself.
A: I'm Dan, a Wikipedian since 2007, from North Carolina. I started out with an interest in history, robotics, style guidelines, and copyediting. These days, I'm the lead coordinator for the Military History Project and a reviewer of Featured Article Candidates. I've been an administrator and maintained WP:Update, a summary of policy changes, since 2008.

Q: What is your experience with WikiProjects?
A: I guess I'm most familiar with WP:MILHIST and WP:SHIPS, and I'm trying to get up to speed at WP:AVIATION. I've probably talked with members of most of the wikiprojects at one time or another.

Q: What makes a WikiProject successful?
A: A lot of occasional contributors who think of the project as fun rather than work, a fair number of people willing to write or review articles, a small core of like-minded people who are dedicated to building and maintaining the project, and access to at least a few people who are familiar with reviewing standards and with Wikipedia policies and guidelines.

Q: Do you have any tips for increasing membership?
A: Aim for a consistent, helpful and professional image. Let people know what the project is doing and what they could be doing, but don't push.

If you've got a core group interested in building a wikiproject, it helps if they do more listening than talking at first ... find out what people are trying to do, and offer them help with whatever it is. Some wikiprojects build membership by helping people get articles through the review processes.

By Lionelt

The arbitration request submitted by Steven Zhang moved into its second month. The case, which evaluates user conduct, arose from contentious discussions regarding the naming of the Pro-life and Pro-choice articles, and a related issue pertaining to the inclusion of "death" in the lede of Abortion. A number of members are involved. On the Evidence page ArtifexMahem posted a table indicating that DMSBel made the most edits to the Abortion article. DMSBel has announced their semi-retirement. Fact finding regarding individual editor behavior has begun in earnest on theWorkshop page.

Last month it was decided that due to the success of the new Dispute Resolution Noticeboard the Content Noticeboard would be shut down. Wikiquette Assistance will remain active. The DRN is primarily intended to resolve content disputes.

By Lionelt

Was your article deleted in spite of your best efforts to save it? You should consider having a copy restored to the Incubator where project members can help improve it. Upon meeting content criteria, articles are graduated to mainspace. The Incubator is also ideal for collaborating on new article drafts. Star Parker is the first addition to the incubator. The article was deleted per WP:POLITICIAN.

WikiProject Conservatism is expanding. We now have a satellite on Commons. Any help in categorizing images or in getting the fledgling project off the ground is appreciated.

We have a few new members who joined the project in September. Please give a hearty welcome to Conservative Philosopher, Screwball23 and Regushee by showing them some Wikilove. Screwball23 has been on WikiPedia for five years and has made major improvements to Linda McMahon. Regushee is not one for idle chit chat: an amazing 93% of their edits are in article space.

On October 7, WikiProject Conservatism was nominated for deletion by member Binksternet. He based his rationale on what he described as an undefinable scope, stating that the project is "at its root undesirable". Of the 40 participants in the discussion, some agreed that the scope was problematic; however, they felt it did not justify deletion of the project. A number of participants suggested moving the project to "WikiProject American conservatism". The overwhelming sentiment was expressed by Guerillero who wrote: "A project is a group of people. This particular group does great work in their topic area[,] why prevent them from doing this[?]" In the end there was negligible opposition to the project and the result of the discussion was "Keep". The proceedings of the deletion discussion were picked up by The Signpost, calling the unfolding drama "the first MfD of its kind". The Signpost observed that attempting to delete an active project was unprecedented. The story itself became a source of controversy which played out at the Discuss This Story section, and also at the author's talk page.

Two days after the project was nominated, the Conservatism Portal was also nominated for deletion as "too US-biased". There was no support for deletion amongst the 10 participants, with one suggestion to rename the portal.

In other news, a new portal focusing on conservatism has been created at WikiSource. Wikisource is an online library of free content publications with 254,051 accessible texts. One highlight of the portal's content is Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke.

October saw a 6.4% increase in new members, bringing the total membership to 58. Seven of the eight new members joined after October 12; the deletion discussions may have played a role in the membership spike. Mwhite148 is a member of the UK Conservative Party. Stating that he is not a conservative, Kleinzach noted his "lifetime interest in British, European and international politics." Let's all make an effort to welcome the new members with an outpouring of Wikilove.

Click here to keep up to date on all the happenings at WikiProject Conservatism.

By Lionelt

Timeline of conservatism, a Top-importance list, was nominated for deletion on October 3. The nominator stated that since conservatism in an "ambiguous concept", the timeline suffers from original research. There were a number of "Delete", as well as "Keep" votes. The closing administrator reasoned that consensus dictated that the list be renamed. The current title is Timeline of modern American conservatism.

By Lionelt

On January 21, The Conservatism Portal was promoted to Featured Portal (FP) due largely to the contributions of Lionelt. This is the first Featured content produced by WikiProject Conservatism. The road to Featured class was rocky. An earlier nomination for FP failed, and in October the portal was "Kept" after being nominated for deletion.

Member Eisfbnore significantly contributed to the successful Good Article nomination of Norwegian journalist and newspaper editor Nils Vogt in December. Eisfbnore also created the article. In January another Project article was promoted to Featured Article. Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, a president of Brazil, attained Featured class with significant effort by Lecen. The Article Incubator saw its first graduation in November. A collaboration spearheaded by Mzk1 and Trackerseal successfully developed Star Parker to pass the notability guideline.

By Lionelt

Another discussion addressing the project scope began in December. Nine alternatives were presented in the contentious, sometimes heated discussion. Support was divided between keeping the exitsing scope, or adopting a scope with more specificity. Some opponents of the specific scope were concerned that it was too limiting and would adversely affect project size. About twenty editors participated in the discussion.

Inclusion of the article Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was debated. Supporters for inclusion cited sources describing the KKK as "conservative." The article was excluded with more than 10 editors participating.

Project membership continues to grow. There are currently 73 members. Member Goldblooded (pictured) volunteers for the UK Conservative Party and JohnChrysostom is a Christian Democrat. North8000 is interested in libertarianism. We won't tell WikiProject Libertarianism he's slumming. Let's stop by their talkpages and share some Wikilove.

Click here to keep up to date on all the happenings at WikiProject Conservatism.

By Lionelt

Articles about the GOP presidential candidate and staunch traditional marriage supporter have seen an explosion of discussion. On January 8 an RFC was opened (here) to determine if Dan Savage's website link should be included in Campaign for "santorum" neologism. The next day the Rick Santorum article itself was the subject of an RFC (here) to determine if including the Savage neologism was a violation of the BLP policy. Soon after a third was opened (here) at Santorum controversy regarding homosexuality. This RFC proposes merging the neologism article into the controversy article.

The Abortion case closed in November after 15 weeks of contentious arbitration. The remedies include semi-protection of all abortion articles (numbering 1,500), sanctions for some editors including members of this Project, and a provision for a discussion to determine the names of what are colloquially known as the pro-life and pro-choice articles. The Committee endorsed the "1 revert rule" for abortion articles.