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This discussion page is inactive and preserved for reference in the English Wikipedia's historical archive. As an archive item, its contents don't necessarily represent current information or consensus on project matters. It was active in early 2001.
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This proposal is not in its definitive form (it may never be!). Discussion is more than welcome. The proposal is rather abstract. If you prefer to take a look at what we're talking about before you read this, take a look at the following example page:
/Examples of concepts
Title: WikiProject Concepts
Scope: This WikiProject aims to organize all known concepts in a logical manner.
Parentage: None yet.
Descendant Wikiprojects: No descendent WikiProjects defined yet.
Strategy:
There are three guiding ideas here. The first is that we wish to have the simplest possible definitions for concepts, definitions that leave as little ambiguity as possible concerning their meaning. Make everything explicit when you can.
The second is that we want to be able to navigate logically from concepts to closely related concepts. We wish to avoid links that lead the reader towards concepts that are not clearly related to the concept. To this end, we use a structure which reflects this concern and is homogeneous across concepts to facilitate navigation.
The third idea is that we are first and foremost concerned with ideas and things that are true in the perfect world of ideas. We are not immediately concerned with the real world. Obviously the real world gives us inspiration to invent concepts, and we hope to have success in applying ideas to the real world. But we have to keep in mind that stuff in the real world seldom conforms exactly to the perfect, unambiguous idea that we conceive.
It is thus risky (from the viewpoint of our peculiar concern for truth) to classify such or such real-world entity as being an instance of a particular concept, because we seldom have all possible information concerning that entity. Thus we may for instance precisely define the concept of a "greedy corporation"; but whether a particular real-world corporation does in fact satisfy this definition is a matter of debate.
Entry Naming:
Concepts must be given names. Some concepts don't have a generally agreed-upon name yet. In such a case you have to invent one. Try to avoid the confusion that may result from choosing loaded words (words that have different meanings for different people).
In order to easily distinguish Wikipedia entries from entries in this classification project, each concept should be identified with the prefix wpc, standing for "WikiProject Concepts". For instance, the concept of an atom should be called wpc/Atom.
Formatting:
A concept entry includes:
- A list of alternative names for the concept;
- A precise definition for the concept, containing links to the concepts that are involved in it;
- A list of links to concepts that are generalizations of the concept;
- A list of links to concepts that are specializations of the concept;
- A list of links to concepts whose definition directly involves this concept;
- A list of links to relevant Wikipedia articles:
- The Wikipedia article about the concept itself, if one exists;
- The Wikipedia articles about the field(s) to which this concept is central;
- Wikipedia articles about particular real-world entities which some people believe are examples of the concept.
A template for this structure can be found here.
Hierarchy definition: No hierarchy is predefined for this WikiProject.
Directory of Participants
This WikiProject was proposed by Seb.
General Strategy and Discussion forum