Hey,

When developing the ((WkP X)) template (and before you say so, yes I'm aware of the Metabanner), I was thinking that WikiProjects and their template were terribly different, and bot maintenance of them would be very useful, but near-impossible as of now. So I am now building Wikiproject X, whose goal is to be an easily adaptable bone-structure of a "well-structured" WikiProjects, as well as to help uniformize current ones. One of the the goal is that by replacing X by "Something" and "x" by "something", about 95% of the work would be done if you wanted to start WikiProject Something.

I also thought of new features that could be implemented. You already heard of the "-Type" parameter, but it would also have an automatic categorization that will classify any pages in "X-type x page of Y-Class of Z-Importance" categories (instead of a mix of projets that categorize with not all parameters). If we standardize the WikiProject templates "core" code, then bot-assisted maintenance would be much more easier. We could even have each WikiProject "Current Activities" sections bot-updated as well, to monitor AfD, GAC, FAC, FLC, RfC, Peer reviews, GA-promotion, FA-promotion, FL-promotion, etc...

There are some technical challenge that will be associated with things, such as converting current templates into WP 2.0 compatible templates (one thing I thought would be nice is that most templates right now are of the form WP X, so a WP2.0 compatible template would be of WkP X form, since this would distinguish it from the WP1.0 ones, and from the "shortcuts" such as WP:AIV which can lead to some confusion for newcomers), etc... but that's for later. This should give you an idea of the scope of what I have in mind.

You guys (Carl, Oleg) handle the WP 1.0 Bot right now. While I can't ask you to write the WP 2.0 Bot code, you are the ones who know how a good template should be written, and would probably be the ones to write the code for a WP2.0 bot were a 2.0 proposal to pass. But for sake of efficiency, both in WikiProjects, and in Bot-handling of tedious tasks, there needs to be a balance between the functionality of a template, and the work required out of bots (not WP2.0 bot alone).

The key features of a good template would be (IMO)

• Categorization into X-Type x page of Y-Class of Z-Importance categories
• Categorisation into X-Type x page of Y-Class/ X-Type x page of Z-Class categories
• Categorisation into X-Type/Y-class/Z-Class
• Allows for Bot-update of "Current Activity" within WikiProjects, (Meaning a bot, not necessarily WP2.0 Bot) could monitor Good and Featured articles/lists nominations, failures, promotions, as well as nominations for deletions and deletions, redirects, and update a Wikiproject X/Current Activity page if the article/list was tagged with ((WkP X))
• Interacts well with other templates such as ((WikiProjectBannerShell)).

Note that this is all still very crude and still has months to go, and didn't really have any input from anyone. I want to have at least a rough "bone-structure" established before presenting this to the community to discuss the finer details, which would perhaps be in 2 months. But template writing is ready for discussion. If you could review the ((WkP X)) code, to find flaws, things that could be better (especially for bots), suggestions to improve functionality, etc.. that would be really great. I believe the code to be well-structured, and well-commented so it shouldn't be too hard for a stranger to find his way around.

Thanks. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 02:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck. :) Try to get as many opinions as possible on your proposal early in its development to avoid wasted effort. I have little time to work on any bot beyond making sure WP 1.0 bot is maintained. Not sure what will Carl be up to. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:50, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have been working making a working demo of some ideas I have for the next generation WP 1.0 bot, and I'd be glad to have help. Maybe I'll actually sit down today and write up the ideas I have. I think that if the templates generated the detailed categories you are suggesting (X-Class/Y-Importance in particular), that would be widely appreciated. I would think the current WP template could be changed to do that without too much work.

I'll keep you informed when I get my ideas into writing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cool beans. There's no rush yet. The X-Class, Y-importance scheme is already implemented in WikiProject Physics, and it's incredibly useful (see the drop-box [1]), especially if you use category trees in your categories. Makes assessing way easier since you don't have to go through 800 "low-importance" articles to find the 3 without class ratings. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 13:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]