Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mesoamerica/Archives/Archive 1

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NB: This was the Talk Page for WikiProject Aztec, which no longer operates as a separate project. Its function has been incorporated as a 'taskforce' under the active WP:MESO banner.

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Suggestions

1. Make the project page shorter, for example by removing some of the empty sections.
2. A section "Adopted guidelines" where we could _very_ briefly summarize issues we have reached a consensus about, maybe with a link to the relevant discussions. For example:

• Montezuma - Moctezuma
• Aztec - Mexica naming issue

Piet 20:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

# I have made the page a bit shorter but if there are specific sections that you think should be excised, please name them or, just be bold, and get rid of them. I *HATE* the project template that I used to create this project and I will never use it again. Instead, I will use this project as a template for any future projects that I create.

# My plan is for "Adopted guidelines" section to be in Wikipedia:WikiProject Aztec/Terminology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Aztec/Strategy because those are the page names suggested by the template I used to create this project. Alternatively, we could just lump all of it into Wikipedia:WikiProject Aztec/Guidelines. Thoughts?

--Richard 04:53, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject templates

BTW, does anybody know how "subst" works? This project was created using a "subst" template. How do I create one of those? --Richard 04:53, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

IIRC the difference between using and not using subst: in a template boils down to this- when you prefix a template call with subst: (ie by typing {{subst:sometemplatename}} instead of simply {{sometemplatename}} ), then all of the template's content and code are copied into the page when you save it. This is a 'once-only' operation, and afterwards there is no actual link to the original template and the text remains as it was first entered (ie subsequent changes to the template are not updated in the page). If you do not subst: the template then it remains as a template (ie, what appears on the page is reconstructed every time it is viewed according to the supplied parameters and the template's internal code). Subst'ing can be done for any template, it's an action ('expand the template here and convert the generated contents to permanent text/markup') rather than a type of template. Hope that makes sense.

As for the template used to create Project pages like this one, I rather agree that it is unwieldy, and contains a lot of bumpf. It does import a bunch of stuff which would otherwise be laborious to construct manually, and might give some consistency between Projects, but then I've yet to see a Project using all of its features.--cjllw | TALK 06:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a great help. BTW, what does "IIRC" stand for? --Richard 07:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Heh! Like "BTW", it's shorthand for an oft-used pithy phrase, in this case "If I Recall Correctly". It took me a while too to figure it out, and there are some others you see around the place here which I'm still puzzling over...--cjllw | TALK 07:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, here's one I like which is similar to IIRC... AFAIK (As Far As I Know)

I've been working on taking the WP:AZTEC project and turning it into a template for future projects. If you would like to critique it, create a test page and type {{subst:WikiProject (short)|foobar}} into it and then save the test page. Let me know what you think of the result.

--Richard 08:23, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

An overdue and useful idea. I've been (much more slowly) working on and thinking about the best organisational scheme and layout for WP:MESO, and will give your short project template a tryout in the next couple of days and add any suggestions which occur. Nice work.--cjllw | TALK 08:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment. If imitation is the highest form of flattery, you should be flattered since I stole huge pieces of WP:MESO when I created WP:AZTEC.

--Richard 08:33, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

"Spaniards" vs. "Spanish"

Moved this discussion here from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mexico/Terminology

There is a low-intensity debate over whether to use "Spanish" vs. "Spaniards" in articles related to the era of Spanish colonial rule over Mexico and Latin America. We are specifically talking about the Spanish conquest of Mexico and related articles such as Aztec. However, the general question applies to any article related to the Spanish colonization of the Americas starting from the time of the conquistadors through the end of the colonial era.

Some Wikipedians argue that the modern-day term "Spanish" should be used (as in "the Spanish conquered Tenochtitlan in 1521"). Others argue that, whatever the modern-day term may be for people from the country of Spain, the term "Spaniards" is more appropriate when referring to the conquistadors.

Your opinion is solicited.

IMHO almost a non-issue, except that within an article, consistency is definitely required for purposes of readability. Bridesmill 22:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Disagree that this is a "non-issue" for two reasons. First, User:Nanhuatzin and I had more or less agreed to use "Spaniard" over User:Rockero's suggestion that we use "Spanish". Then User:Madman2001 made a mass conversion of "Spaniard" to "Spanish" in the Spanish conquest of Mexico article without consulting anybody. So now that article uses "Spanish" and most of the other Aztec-related articles use "Spaniard" primarily and "Spanish" here and there where I haven't changed it to "Spaniard" yet.

We need to agree so that we can push all the articles to one usage and then document that usage clearly so that newly arrived editors won't undo all the work.

I was pretty annoyed at Madman2001's edits because it undid all the work that I had done changing "Spanish" to "Spaniards". I'm sure he'd be none too happy if I undid all his work by changing it back unless there was a clear consensus that "Spaniards" is the preferred usage.

--Richard 04:29, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

We are not the only group of Spanish speakers in the English Wikipedia and personally I find this discussion to be out of place in this particular board. This issue would be better discussed in the Village Pump since this discussion is quite likely to affect articles that are not related to Mexico anyway. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 11:39, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Why does it all have to be the same? That is the same argument as 'should all spelling be American or UK English' That's what I mean by non-issue. If things are mass reverted one way or the other, invariably people are going to be annoyed (q.v. Jewelry/Jewellery) Both forms are technically correct, if one is considered 'off' in one place, odds are good the other is not preferred somewhere else. Consistency within an article should suffice.Bridesmill 02:52, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Additional thought - two people agreeing to change all usage of a word in WP seems a bit bold; then two people coming along & disagreeing - not exactly unusual or unexpected; one of the reasons I would suggest stick with article consistency.Bridesmill 02:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to confess that I can't remember whether it was predominantly "Spanish" or "Spaniard" before I started editing. I do know that some articles said "Spanish", some said "Spaniard" and some had both.

I think it was predominantly "Spaniard" but I can't say that I actually counted every instance of each word. I started changing them all to "Spaniard" because Nanahuatzin (a Mexican editor) was using that.

My main concern is that the Hernan Cortes article now says "Spanish" but all the Aztec-related articles predominantly say "Spaniard" with a few instances of "Spanish" here and there. I don't think this kind of inconsistency is professional.

--Richard 04:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's drop Aztec religion article

I spent some time reviewing the Aztec religion article today and I believe it does not contain any unique information. It has 3 sections:

• Mythology which is a summary of the Aztec mythology article.
• Human sacrifice which is a summary of Human sacrifice in Aztec culture.
• Aztec religion in contemporary society, which doesn't really contain any information. It does say "many folks gather on Aztec pyramids at the solstice", which I believe is false - folks gather at the Maya and Teotihuacan pyramids, don't they??. Moreover, this section is vague and poorly written.

In the interests of keeping our Aztec collection manageable, clean, and crisp, I strongly suggest that we have Aztec religion redirect to Aztec mythology. Madman 04:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the issues that you raise but not with your solution. I would merge "Mythology" and "Human sacrifice" into "Aztec religion".

I created "Aztec religion" because there was only "Aztec mythology" and I needed a place to put "Human sacrifice". I have always wanted to get rid of Aztec mythology.

--Richard 05:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Madman's remark and Richard's solution. Piet 11:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Before merging, I think it would be well to consider and discuss what is the project's view on the definitions and differences, if any, between "religion" and "mythology". Formally, the two are generally not held to be the same thing, and both mythic and religious elements can be identified in Aztec belief systems. Is one to subsume the other, or do others feel that there's a useful distinction in the Aztec context which needs to be teased out?--cjllw | TALK 14:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

A good example that shows the difference between religion and mythology is the article Ancient Greek religion, which opens thusly: "Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in Ancient Greece in form of cult practices, thus the practical counterpart of Greek mythology." I would be very happy if someone were to write such an article, perhaps discussing aspects of the Aztec priesthood (if anything much is know about this).

A case could be made for using the Human sacrifice in Aztec culture article as a basis for an Aztec religion article as well, but I do think that readers expect an article on Aztec mythology just the way they expect articles on Greek mythology, Norse mythology, Egyptian mythology, Maya mythology, etc etc. Madman 22:58, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Mesoamerica- updates

Hi all. The project structure and content for WikiProject Mesoamerica has been substantially overhauled and updated, and the content further expanded. As some of the proposals, guidelines and activities undergoing development there may have relevance and reference to this WikiProject you might like to take a look, comments are welcome. There's also a first catalogue dump of a few hundred Mesoamerica-related articles including many Aztec-related, these latter could also be copied to this Project to be worked on.--cjllw | TALK 15:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Mexico

Can anyone give me an idea of what geographical region the Nahuatl term Mēxihco was originally applied to? All I can find is that it means "Mexico", but somehow I doubt that the Aztec concept was the same as the modern country. --Ptcamn 20:52, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The name Mexico was applied to the Two city: states Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco. Ussualy the aztec refer to "Mexico -tenochtitlan" to refer to their city. Eventually this Two cities merged. Only after the conquest it was used to refer to the territory dominated by the aztec. Nanahuatzin 04:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Article rating and assessments

Hi all. I've been implementing an article rating and assessment scheme for WP:MESO scope articles, details of which can be seen here.

Basically, this provides a facility whereby editors can record an assessment of a given article according to its current class (or quality) and importance (significance/priority of its subject matter). It's done by assigning particular values to a couple of optional parameters associated with the project banner, {{WP Mesoamerica}}, and once these values are chosen the article (actually its talk page) is automatically placed into particular categories, by quality and also by importance.

The general idea is that by doing this we can build up a picture of the overall status of these articles, and by combining the two data sets can more readily identify and prioritise articles most in need of work, and those "most important" (ie, those articles and topics which would make 'essential reading' to give an overview of the whole subject area and its associated history).

Once the parameters assigned, an automated bot runs each day to update a listing of articles by quality/importance, statistics, and a daily log of changes. Examples of these outputs can be seen here:

• Listing
• Stats
• Log.

For the Aztec-related subset of Mesoamerican articles of interest to this project, this could if desired be implemented in a couple of ways:

1. Add the WP:MESO project banner to talk pages (ie in addition to {{Project Aztec}} );
2. Replace/update the {{Project Aztec}} banner with the WP:MESO banner, but utilise another parameter switch |aztec=yes which identifies the article as a WP:AZTEC article and categorises it as such (see Talk:Auítzotl for an example of this in action);
3. Incorporate the functionality separately into the Aztec project banner, which would also require a bit more work to set up the category scheme for bot-reading
4. Ignore them, or some other option

Soliciting comments on the preferred manner in which to proceed here, or whether others think it to be of use. From a WP:MESO POV, #2 is the simplest and most consistent, but if someone is thinking of or is prepared to work with some other level of classification/priority scheme for Aztec-specific articles some other solution could be devised. Cheers, --cjllw | TALK 08:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to say that my first reaction was "Nah, doesn't seem worthwhile." However, when I looked at the listing, stats and log pages, I was quite impressed with the functionality and could see how it could be useful.

My second reaction was "WP:AZTEC doesn't have enough pages to make this worthwhile to do for our project". However, it's possible that there are more Aztec-related pages than I am aware of.

So, I'm interested in pursuing this idea for WP:AZTEC but I'm not sure whether to go for option #1 or option #3. I think I prefer option #3 so that we get a separate set of statistics for WP:AZTEC but I need to understand how much more work is required to set it up.

--Richard 14:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, if you think it would be useful to have a separate set of automagically-updated listing, stats and log for Aztec-specific articles, then option#3 would be the way to go. To implement this, the Aztec project banner would need to be coded, and a dozen or so new categories created, plus some instructional materials written. However, once set up the system updates automatically, and I could easily re-use the coding and instructions for WP:MESO. It should take not more than a day to do.

As for the numbers of articles which might be of interest for the project, I'd guesstimate that there'd be around a hundred, possibly more already in existence- if you include for eg the separate articles on Aztec deities (though many of these are recognised in other Mesoamerican cultures as well), personages, related sites, etc. There's potential for a great many others, as well.

Let me work on it, I think it should be possible with a little tweaking to have these registered in both assessment schemes, so that they can be seen as part of the overall picture as well as identified separately for WP:AZTEC purposes. For now I won't implement some of the other options in the WP:MESO banner, these could be done later if needed.--cjllw | TALK 02:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

update: OK, I've now implemented the similar functionality to the Aztec project banner, {{WP Aztec}} (note I've also abbreviated the banner's name), and set up the corresponding by quality and by importance categories. Unfortunately I completed the setup after the bot (Mathbot) had completed today's run, and so the auto-generated listing, stats and log pages are not yet generated. However, these should be automatically created and updated in tomorrow's run (Jul 12, around 0300hrs UTC). I've also set up an instructional page at /Assessment, and included a view of this on the main project page.

The functionality is the same as for the WP Mesoamerica banner, and so to apply assessment ratings to an article tagged with the WP:AZTEC banner, you just need to specify the parameters, {{WP Aztec|class=|importance=}} using the appropriate values for class and importance as noted on the Assessment subpage. As well as being recorded in Aztec-specific rating categories, WP Aztec assessments will also be included in the Mesoamerica-level rating categories for the overall picture.

I also left in a couple of other optional parameters, reassess and attention, which could be used or not used by WP:AZTEC also. At the moment these default into Mesoamerica-level categories.

Please try it out and let me know if any adjustments are needed.--cjllw | TALK 06:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

update #2 The bot has completed its run and created the Aztec-specific lists & stats - see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Aztec articles by quality. As mentioned above, there's potentially a good many other articles which might be of interest to WP:AZTEC, but are not yet tagged as such.--cjllw | TALK 04:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 18:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for consolidation as "task force" into WP:MESO pages

Although there's continual work being done on the Aztec-related articles, the WP:AZTEC project pages themselves have not been updated or added to for a few months now, thus the project is appearing to be 'inactive'.

Given that the parent WP:MESO project pages are at least being maintained (and I for one haven't the resources to maintain two sets of project pages), I'd propose that the WP:AZTEC project pages and banner be rationalised into the WP:MESO project pages and banner, identified as a specific "task force". The assessment ratings and cats could still be separately identified for Aztec-related articles, but the main project pages here would be redirected to corresponding WP:MESO ones (with perhaps one or two retained for separate discussion).

If there are no objections or other comments, I'll look to do the consolidation at some point in the (hopefully not too distant) future. Any other ideas/ comments welcome.--cjllw | TALK 09:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

collaboration of the history projects

Hi, I'm newly appointed coordinator of the Wikipedia: WikiProject History. I was coordinator of the Wikipedia: WikiProject Military History before. My scope is to improve the cooperation among the different history projects andf use the synergy of a common infrastructure to improve article quality. One idea would be to merge small project into a larger wikiproject history with a common infrastructure and the small projects continuing independently as task forces of this project. What are your suggestions? Greetings Wandalstouring 15:23, 28 October 2007 (UTC)