Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-07-19/WikiProject report - Wikipedia

WikiProject report

Up close with WikiProject Animals

This week, we checked out WikiProject Animals, a project that covers describe all animals (all species belonging to the kingdom Animalia). The project was started in September 2007; the project's current coordinator is Intelligentsium. WikiProject Animals is home to over 1,000 articles, including 12 GA-class articles. This week we interviewed project members Intelligentsium, Brambleclawx, Belguaboy, and The High Fin Sperm Whale.

Questions:

What motivated you to become a member of WikiProject Animals? Intelligentsium: I joined this project to collaborate with fellow Wikipedians on articles pertaining to a broad and fascinating topic. While not much collaboration has occurred, I did get to work on some interesting articles which I might not have found otherwise. I saw this project needed help and I wished to contribute.

• Brambleclawx: I joined WikiProject Animals a few months ago, largely due to an interest in animals of all kinds. In particular, I happen to like wolves, deer, birds, and cats. I am also a member of WikiProject Cats. From a young age, I was fascinated by animals, and often read a lot of books about them. After using Wikipedia for research about animals for several years, I decided it was a good idea to give back, and created an account. Although I did not initially join the project, I did, after discovering that many WikiProjects all across Wikipedia seemed to be undergoing a lack of activity. I decided that, since I had some knowledge of animals, I could try to help.
  So far, I have not contributed much to the project, and have mostly focused on White tiger, which was listed on the to-do list as requiring cleanup. I am now in the process of carrying out a lengthy copyedit of the page. On a side note, I was actually invited to join the project by a now indefinitely blocked sockpuppet.
• The High Fin Sperm Whale: I started out by creating lizard stubs. Then I decided to help out with article requests, so I joined the project. No I do most of my work here either at WP:ANREQ and WP:WPAAR.
• Belugaboy: I have always loved animals, and I was already a member of WP:MAMMAL so that was really motivational.

Covering a large range of articles is difficult for projects. How do you focus on improving so many articles? Do you just work on core articles, like mammal and such?

• Innotata: I see this project's scope as mostly articles on broad topics like animal, and articles for which no subproject like WikiProject Birds or Arthropods exists.
• User:Belugaboy: What I do is cover the details. Mostly like Felines and Canines and Whales and all that good stuff.

Looking at the tree of projects here, WikiProject Animals has a lot of subprojects. Do you regulate or guide these projects or are they independent? How does working amongst them turn out?

• Intelligentsium: These projects are not under our control; we do not guide or regulate them in any way. The consensus of the descendent projects' respective members determines their individual article style guidelines, and consequently these guidelines may be quite different. For example, (digression) WP:BIRDS requires articles discussing species using the common name to be titled in capital case; there was recently a discussion to apply this to other projects, but if I remember correctly the discussion ended without a consensus being achieved. Please clarify the second part of this question: do you mean working with them?

mono: I suppose with them. I used the term as it is possible that you'd have to work around them.

• Belugaboy—Again, we are not in control of our subprojects and our parent project, Tree of Life, is not in control of us. It is just a big group of projects. And we're one of them.

Intelligentsium: In that case, working with other projects is usually a positive experience. I say this from a very limited sample size, if you will. Due to the lack of members, there are relatively few opportunities to work with editors from descendant projects.

I've noticed your project has had a difficult time finding new members. Describe how this feels and how new members can help.

• Intelligentsium: Having a lack of members means, frankly, that little gets done in the project. Collaboration is impossible without editors to collaborate with. New members can help by simply creating and improving articles within the project's scope—for those who are not prolific article writers, there are other tasks that need completion too. Taxoboxes need to be created and formatted for all articles on taxa, spelling needs to be checked, and general copy-editing needs to be done on many pages.
• Belugaboy: It's something every project goes through at some point. For example, our subproject, WP:MAMMAL, only has a few members, averaging one new member a month. Ours is about one new member every other week give or take a few. I just go with the flow and hope for the best, and if possible, use banners.

Overall, what have been some of the project's greatest achievements? What have been some of your favorite tasks?

• Belugaboy: I would say when we restarted our daughter project WP:MAMMAL after coordinator ZooPro retired. I was the only jump from this project taken, but I got it done. You need to reach out to subprojects. They're projects nonetheless.
• ~~~: my answer.

What are some long-term and short-term project goals? What can a new member help with?

• Belugaboy: To get every article to at least C-Status is one I've set. A new member can help with editing and even creating.
• ~~~: my answer.

Many projects are dealing with little activity and initiatives ending unsuccessfully. Has your project experienced these and what lessons have you learned from them?

• Belugaboy: I would say take baby steps. I once tried to get a big initiative running but it undoubtedly failed.
• ~~~: my answer.

Anything else to add?

• Belugaboy: Come on and join our project, our daughter projects, or our parent project WikiProject Tree of Life for a great time! Thank you, Mono!
• ~~~: my answer.

Thank you to all the participants in this interview. For next week, get ready to sail the seven seas! Until then, feel free to paddle through our archives.