Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:GLAM/GibraltarpediA

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was No consensus - about half the editors favour keep, with a substantial minorities also favouring some sort of "no outcome" result, merger into Wikiproject Gibraltar, or outright deletion. There isn't really much in the way of precedent to guide any sort of close here, either.

Beyond this, what little evidence presented here is that Wikiproject Gibraltar doesn't want a merger; I don't think moving it from a subproject of GLAM to a subproject of Gibraltar would address the concerns of those who want the project deleted, nor those who want this closed without an outcome. Those who want it kept might not care much, but given that it appears Gibraltar doesn't want them, a forced marriage is likely to be a recipe for disaster, given that it's favour by less than a quarter of the commenters, I don't see how that outcome can be preferred.

The talkpage template is excessively gaudy, but it's had it's own discussion Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_September_25#Template:WikiProject_GibraltarpediA - which I believe should be deferred to.

The concern about COI editing is legitimate, but absent any evidence of actual malfeasance - occasions where the project was being used to undermine NPOV - I can't super-weight the less than a quarter of participants in this discussion who favoured deletion. If there was evidence of substantial undermining of the "Write a free, NPOV encyclopaedia" goal, I would be inclined to substantially upweight that argument (though it'd probably be unnecessary, as under those circumstances deletion would probably hold a strong majority of !votges).

To editorialise a little, Category:Museums in Toronto contains Museum of Inuit Art, which is how I ended up there on my first date with my (now) wife. A neutral, encyclopaedic article nonetheless promoted the location. There needs to be acknowledgement of this fact and a way to deal with it - but I don't see it in this discussion. WilyD 08:57, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:GLAM/GibraltarpediA

Wikipedia:GLAM/GibraltarpediA (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

There doesn't seem to be a good reason why this project, which duplicates all of Wikipedia:WikiProject Gibraltar and adds a few parts covered by other projects (Spain and Marocco), was created. According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#: "If a closely related group already exists, even if it is inactive, you should join that project rather than starting yet another WikiProject. Any editor can "revive" or "take over" an inactive or semi-active WikiProject simply by joining the project." It is clear that the Gibraltar project is a "closely related group". There is no good reason wny everything that has been done now couldn't have been done in the existing Wikiproject structure (95% of the articles falls straight inside the Gibraltar project scope).

This is not an attack against editors or articles; all interested editors are invited to join the existing project(s), and all articles will still fall in the scope of one or more existing geographic projects. This is, on the other hand, an attempt to keep some structure in the WikiProject jungle; creating new geographic projects which are slightly but not fundamentally different from existing ones is rather pointless and confusing (with e.g. two "Gibraltar"-project tags on many talk pages, making it hard to see for the less experienced editor where they should go with their questions).

I would urge all editors from bith sides to not focus on side issues or turn this into an us-vs-them discussion, but to discuss this MfD calmly and fairly, indicating what the advantages and disadavantages are of having this extra project instead of using (and if needed revitalising) the existing ones. It is not about the editors, nor about the articles: it is simply about the project as such. Fram (talk) 09:00, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Keep, of course. I established Wikipedia:WikiProject Gibraltar back in 2007 and I am strongly opposed to this request. The two projects are not identical, any more than Wikipedia:GLAM/MonmouthpediA is identical to Wikipedia:WikiProject Wales. MonmouthpediA is a subnational WikiProject, focusing on one town and covering part of the territory of a wider WikiProject. Gibraltar is a supranational WikiProject, focusing on a broad region of southern Spain, northern Morocco and Gibraltar itself. That's actually a very good way to approach a topic, by inviting editors to consider cultural, historical, geographical and economic links across borders. Gibraltar is uniquely suited to such an approach as it's the gateway to the Mediterranean; it's impossible to cover it adequately without crossing the boundaries of different WikiProjects. The great advantage of Gibraltarpedia is that it encourages a holistic approach to Gibraltar that existing WikiProjects do not. In addition, Gibraltarpedia is not set up the same way as the entirely informal WikiProject Gibraltar; it is a formal Wikipedia:GLAM collaboration with national and cultural institutions, following a well-established and very successful model used elsewhere. Finally, let's not pretend that this is anything other than a political deletion request motivated by the recent controversy. Nobody could seriously think this request would have been made if not for that factor. Prioryman (talk) 09:20, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • WP:AGF please. While this project came to my attention due to the many discussions about it, my MfD is purely based on the fact that I see no need for or benefit in having both projects, despite your explanation here. Fram (talk) 09:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Monmouthpedia covers a clear subset of a larger project, not some unclearly defined region centered on the same thing as an existing project. A Wikipedia:WikiProject Mediterranean would perhaps be a feasible new geographical scope; this one isn't. Fram (talk) 09:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
    • No, it wouldn't, at least not for this particular purpose. WikiProjects are traditionally set up on a national or regional basis. That's fine as far as it goes, but it limits the scope for cross-border collaboration. The advantage of a transnational WikiProject such as this is that it encourages such collaborations. WikiProject Gibraltar is not transnational and it is not a GLAM, so you are in effect not arguing for a merger but a dissolution of Gibraltarpedia, which is no doubt the objective here. There is certainly no way that WP Gibraltar is going to take on the work of Gibraltarpedia. Prioryman (talk) 09:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
      • "There is certainly no way that WP Gibraltar is going to take on the work of Gibraltarpedia." Why not? Why are people willing to make edits under the GibraltarpediA banner, but not under the Project Gibraltar banner? Looking at the 10 most recent GibraltarpediA tagged articles, which ones wouldn't fit perfectly under the Gibraltar project? Solomon Abudarham, John Cortes, Victualling Yard, Geraldine Finlayson, Europa Road, Anthony Dudley, Line Wall Curtain, Devil's Tower (Gibraltar), The Rock Hotel and Gibraltar-Vatican Joint Issue; they all are clearly purely Gibraltar related. Please enlighten me: why wouldn't the Gibraltar project be sufficient and perfectly appropriate for them? Fram (talk) 10:03, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Comment: I'm very concerned about the less than subtle canvassing of user Prioryman. He has been mass posting to every contributor in the project a message inviting them here, instead of a central notification at the talkpage of the project. Coming from an experienced user is cause for alarm. See [1], [2], [3] among almost 20 of these messages. Yazan (talk) 10:09, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
        • Comment: If it were not for the direct notification of concerned editors like Prioryman, I wouldn't have even known that this political witch hunt was taking place. As one of the blacklisted DYK contributors, I, for one, very much appreciate the notification. Anne (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
• Close the project, archive the page; stop the damn car, let's sit down and have a long chat about it calmly and rationally As a Wikimedia UK member, and someone who is on good terms with people involved in this project, it pains me slightly to write this. The idea that Gibraltarpedia is going to carry on as is after all the controversies in the last week or so is utterly ridiculous. (On a rather technical note, I'm also not sure how the Gibraltar tourism authorities fall under the remit of WP:GLAM: is it a gallery, a library, an archive, a museum or a cultural institution? Can't see it myself.) There is a big and broad debate that needs to be had before projects like this carry on about the role of paid collaboration, the purpose of chapters and so on. Carrying on as if there's no problem is a recipe for absolute disaster. We probably shouldn't delete the page, but the project cannot carry on in its current state. That Wikimedia UK and others couldn't see that there would be an issue with this kind of thing eventually shows that someone massively failed to understand both the Wikipedia community and public perception (and I do believe, per Hanlon's Razor, that it is a cock up and not a grand conspiracy; if you want to get rich and powerful, investment banking seems like a much more effective way of doing it than anything Wikipedia-related). Sometimes the community has to readjust. This happened with Wikipedia:Esperanza: we had a big old debate about it and wrapped it up nice and calmly. We need to put Gibraltarpedia on ice for a while, have a big debate about the issues it has raised and then restart it once we have resolved the issues. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:33, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The Gibraltar Museum is the cultural institution in question. The tourism authorities are lending support, but the collaboration was initiated though the museum. As for the controversy, it's a one-week wonder; the media has already lost interest. It's not a story that has legs. Prioryman (talk) 09:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • [ec] The Gibraltar tourism authorities may or may not fall under GLAM, but this project involves unambiguous GLAM institutions. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:43, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Tom, that is not reasonable. The project is a highly significant advance for the movement. Perhaps it may have been preferable to partner with a more traditional GLAM entity, but it's on the road now and I don't see the point of excluding local and other government entities from partnership in the future if there are significant advantages over traditional GLAM entities, or no traditional GLAM entity is in a position to partner. There have been some serious misjudgements—particularly by the board of WMUK and a number of Gibraltar-affiliated editors at DYK—but let's learn from those and correct the systemic problems rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Another thing that should be made clear, probably in writing, at the start of an arrangement involving a political dimension, is that the non-commerical, volunteer nature of the movement must be respected in public comments. Memo to Mr Costa, but we're still pleased all the same that he's supporting the project. Tony (talk) 12:08, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Keep While we do need to have calm and reasoned discussions about this project and our wider and greatly beneficial scheme of collaborations with outside bodies, we don't need to throw this baby out with that bathwater. Deleting the project now would disrupt the positive contributions being made by both volunteer editors and legitimately paid advisors to improve the encyclopedia, publicise Wikimedia's offering, and make available more open-licensed media. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:43, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• (ec) Delete: There is nothing Wikipedia-related that is being done under the banner of this project that can't be done under the banner of the Gibraltar WikiProject and its affiliates. The other purposes of this project (the cooperation between WMUK and Gibraltar authorities, and QRpedia, and even categorizing it as a GLAM project -per Tom Morris-) are obviously highly contentious issues at the moment and the community at large needs to discuss them and decide about them. The only use for this project at the moment is as a PR vehicle for a commercial enterprise, and this has no place on Wikipedia, I'm afraid. Yazan (talk) 09:45, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Keep/Merge: There is an emotive debate going on. (Could we have it in one place please and do invite the people involved whatever their language) If you actually look at the proposal then its quite rational if it were to just join two projects. If we could create a project template that allowed us to specify whether it was in Gibraltar or in the wider area in Africa and Iberia then that would allow us to stop having the problem of two templates. We only have a seperate template because we lacked the template skills. Its in GLAM because it came from British Museum --> Derby --> Monmouthpedia --> Gibraltarpedia route. It does contain 3 or 4 GLAMs or so but its the same as Monmouthpedia in scope. If the proposal is to actually delete an active wiki project then that is at least strange. Just in case anyone missed this, this isnt like a normal wiki project. There are things happening in the real world. School children are being told about wikipedia, staff at GLAMs are getting their work ready, organisations are getting images to release as cc-by-sa. In Monmouth we have seen conferences coming to town because of the augmented reality demonstrations. That work got a wikipedian onto government committees, we have government ministers debating whether to use cc-by-sa for everything. I'm not sure that people know what could be lost here. There are just over 200 articles created so far - 19 edits today just on the English Wikipedia. I'm told that this is a lot more than the previous project. Victuallers (talk) 18:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• I agree. It's a very strange rationale that proposes deleting an active, established project because a moribund one exists with a similar but narrower scope. Voceditenore (talk) 20:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep It is quite normal for projects to have multiple pages and subpages. Per WP:OWN, no particular project has exclusive rights over a particular topic area and so the way in which such pages are managed may be diverse and devolved. If some restructuring seems helpful, then this should be managed using normal editing processes and there's no reason provided to explain why deletion is appropriate or the best way forward. The pious call for calm and fair discussion is blatant nonsense as this matter has already been discussed in several forums and so bringing it to MfD is obviously redundant, inflammatory and unhelpful. The nominator has also tried to delete good faith contributions such as Bristol Hotel, Gibraltar but there is no consensus to delete in those cases. Such repeated nominations indicate that the nominator is trying to make a witch hunt or vendetta out of this matter. Such nominations should be speedily closed so that calm and fair discussion can continue on more appropriate pages such as this GLAM subpage. Warden (talk) 09:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Keep per Warden: starting this MfD is just about the worst thing that could be done about the situation at this time, as all it's going to achieve is inflame a situation which has already been blown out of all proportion. It would be better if everyone was to take a week off from bickering about this, and then try to have a more sensible conversation. Nick-D (talk) 09:59, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Merge the templates. The issue here seems to be that there are two projects with a lot of overlap. Replace the template with one like that on Talk:Madrid Atocha railway station, where a "stations=yes" parameter files the page into the rail stations project while still acknowledging the parent Trains project. That way there's still a convenient way to keep track of which pages have been affected by the Gibraltarpedia project - either by the fans of the project who want to show off how much they've achieved, or the detractors of the project who want to keep track of which pages are of concern - without cluttering up the talkpages with templates. If at a future date the Gibraltarpedia project is shut down altogether, a bot can just remove "gibraltarpedia=yes" from the affected pages. (Maybe have a single "Pillars of Hercules region" - or something - template, with options for "gibraltar=yes", "ceuta=yes", "algeciras=yes" and so on, to allow for those articles which aren't within Gibraltar proper, or cover more than one area.) Mogism (talk) 10:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • That seems sensible to me; Wikiproject Military History has region, subject and period-specific task forces which operate in that way. There's certainly no good reason to delete this project. Nick-D (talk) 11:33, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• It is not a template which has been nominated for deletion - templates are discussed at WP:TFD. The page in question contains much more material, including several substantial subpages, and just uses the templated image as a banner heading. Warden (talk) 12:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I can read, I realize that it is the page itself which is nominated for deletion. That is obviously not going to happen, we can't just delete a project via mfd, so I thought I would put forward an actual practical solution to at least on aspect of the issue instead of wasting time pretending there is any chance an entire project is just going to be deleted. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:08, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• Freeze. I agree with Tom Morris - We need to put Gibraltarpedia on ice for a while, have a big debate about the issues it has raised and then restart it once we have resolved the issues. And they are substantial issues. It's not a bad project per se, and can certainly be rescued. Also merge templates following Mogism's suggestion, above; that's a very good way to allow overlapping collaboration. -- Hex [^t/_c] 14:09, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Merge in due course, no hurry. GibraltarpediA has created lots of new pages, and we need them identified and credited. In the long run, the fewer project links at the head of a talk page, the better. Andrew Dalby 12:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. There seems to be a misunderstanding in the last few comments above. Fram's proposal isn't about templates. This is about deleting an entire WikiProject and all of its subpages, and essentially telling all of its participants that they're not wanted. Combining templates isn't actually a bad idea, but it's not what's under discussion here. Prioryman (talk) 13:36, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• There seems to be a misunderstanding in your post. All participants are wanted, and most articles are wanted as well. There is no reason why these participants couldn't join and/or use the existing older project instead (as indicated in my reply to you above). And editors are free to use a discussion like this one to suggest other solutions, like merging, turning it into a taskforce, keeping the project but merging the template, ... This is supposed to be a constructive, open-minded discussion, not a straight yes-no vote. Fram (talk) 14:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Strong keep Per Warden. Ryan Vesey 13:57, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Delete WP:GLAM and all subpages. Its purpose is inviting people to engage in COI editing. If I created a "Corporate Outreach" program that encouraged large corporations to write about themselves on Wikipedia, I'd be rightfully hung out to dry. GLAM is no different. Gigs (talk) 14:04, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
•  Comment: I can scarcely believe that you're implying that galleries, libraries, archives & museums and "large corporations" are the same thing. Are you trying to troll this discussion? -- Hex [^t/_c] 14:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • A conflict of interest is a conflict of interest. It doesn't matter if the organization is for-profit or not. Gigs (talk) 14:16, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
    • If any one GLAM project ever hits the point where the primary function of the project is to promote the partner institution, as opposed to using the partner institution's resources to reach the shared goal of improving content within both Wikipedia and the partner institution's purview, then that GLAM project is "doing it wrong" and should be closed (if it can't be rapidly turned around). I'm pretty sure that most GLAM projects aren't "doing it wrong". This is also Sven Manguard 14:23, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
    • [ec] When your opinion is put into effect, I'll look forward to seeing you nominating for deletion everything contributed by a curator, librarian, or archivist about the cultural material which they are responsible for, as well as your future guarding of Wikipedia against the further gifting of knowledge by highly skilled cultural professionals. -- Hex [^t/_c] 14:25, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Sorry for piling on, but there is a difference. Cultural institutions are non-profit organizations with educational missions and subject matter expertise, which is quite relevant. They often make mistakes, and are sometimes don't play nicely with us, but overall, their interests are nicely aligned with us. They have resources that we don't, and can assist us in our mission of creating excellent free references works. It's true that they sometimes care too much about their image rather than sharing their collections, but that is why we need to cultivate partnerships that will serve as positive models, rather than spurn them. There are certainly examples of institutions acting thoughtfully and responsibly, and engaging with Wikipedia in good faith and on our terms. Dominic·t 14:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
    • This is absolutely throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If one were to read up on what WP:GLAM actually is, it's clear that the community has established solid best practice, perhaps some of the best that exists, around how to effectively partner with institutions with like-minded missions to share resources in ways that avoid Conflict of Interest. Rather than taking up the simple-minded notion that GLAM is the source of the problem, it's worth considering the fact that GLAM has actually established methods that are solutions to the problem. GLAM has significantly improved every manner of Wikimedia project through these partnerships and shared resources. This suggestion is borne out of a gross misunderstanding of what GLAM is. LoriLee (talk) 15:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure that any part of GLAM is representative of "the community". The community didn't ask for GLAM, it was just sort of foisted on the community. Gigs (talk) 19:27, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
        • There as no "foisting"; the GLAM initiative came from within the community; and has wide community - and foundation - support Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:07, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
• Freeze per Tom Morris. If a project has lost the trust of the Wikimedia community, which this project has, then it needs to be reorganized. I'm not saying "kill this with fire", and I have no problem with their increased presence in DYK, but at the very least a cooling off period is needed while everyone collects their thoughts and develops a coherent roadmap for how to deal with paid outreach/consulting in the future. This is also Sven Manguard 14:27, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• The idea of a "freeze" is nonsensical in that it literally doesn't make sense. How would it work? Would editors no longer be allowed to collaborate on articles about Gibraltar? What happens to the work being done on the ground to train new Gibraltarian editors (something which this discussion has no control over, by the way)? What happens to DYK / GA / FA submissions about Gibraltar? You can't "freeze" a WikiProject - it's just a collaboration, no more, no less, and unless you're prepared to topic-ban every contributor to the entire topic area and protect every article in it, there's simply no way to "freeze" it. And what kind of message would that send, not just to all the contributors to the project, but to the entire population of Gibraltar? "Sorry, your contribution aren't wanted here?" Great way to grow the encyclopedia and encourage new editors, guys. Prioryman (talk) 14:45, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh come on mate, it's not that hard. Editing Wikipedia continues as normal. Any activities being explicitly conducted by members of the project, under the banner of the project, in Wikipedia, or in Gibraltar, stop. If people want to make DYK / GA / FA submissions about Gibraltar, they do it the same way they would do it as if this project had never existed. And as to the editors on the ground, if people are being trained in the use of Wikipedia, until this situation is resolved they need to understand that it is not happening as an officially-sanctioned activity in formal connection with this project. -- Hex [^t/_c] 15:39, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

"Any activities being explicitly conducted by members of the project, under the banner of the project, in Wikipedia, or in Gibraltar, stop." Stop how, exactly? Do you think that such activities depend on the Gibraltarpedia pages existing? If those pages are deleted as this proposal suggests, do you think that the work that's currently ongoing will suddenly grind to a halt? To put it bluntly: this proposal has absolutely no way of stopping off-wiki work because, well, it's off-wiki. This proposal (and indeed any proposal) can't reach further than any pages on Wikipedia. Note that the proposer hasn't suggested some kind of off-wiki "freeze", hopefully because he recognises that he has absolutely no way of directing what happens off-wiki. Prioryman (talk) 21:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Merge - When I read things like -- subnational, supranational, links across borders, uniquely suited, gateway, crossing the boundaries, great advantage, encourages a holistic approach, entirely informal, collaboration with national and cultural institutions, well-established and very successful model -- never mind. I lost my train of thought. As for GibraltarpediA, can anyone explain what that Wikipedia project does for Wikipedia? Embrace, aspire, and aim: From its write up,[4] I understand it embrace a whole city, aspires to bridge two continents, and aims to cover. I'm happy to learn of the WikiProject's political aspirations, but what about the encyclopedia? Does GibraltarpediA have any plans to improving Wikipedia's coverage of the disconnected topics listed on the GibraltarpediA? Also, what is the basis for assuming that the WikiProject can attract Wikipedians with an existing interest in the unique group of "the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Spanish municipalities along the coast of the Bay of Gibraltar, the northernmost coast of Morocco and Ceuta." I don't see this WikiProject whose entire scope would appeal to more than a handful of people. Given the "paid consultancy agreement between the Government of Gibraltar and a trustee of Wikimedia UK",[5] I'm not seeing this as a WikiProject for Wikipedians. Translation - GibraltarpediA says "The project aims to cover xxx in as many languages as possible" Why can't Wikipedia:Translation do this? How does the WikiProject plan to "cover" every single notable place, person, artefact, plant and animals in as many languages as possible? What does that even mean? If GibraltarpediA is talking about a WikiProject on en.wikipedia.org, the WikiProject has to be related to and from English. QRpedia codes GibraltarpediA says "GibraltarpediA uses QRpedia codes." Really? How? Can anyone show me which Wikipedia article includes a QRpedia code posted there by GibraltarpediA? Is GibraltarpediA trying to say something like, "WikiProject GibraltarpediA coordinates Wikipedians to seek permission outside of Wikipedia to have QRpedia code plaques/labels placed outside of Wikipedia on structures to allow those reading the QRpedia code with a smartphone, etc. to bring up a Wikipedia article linked to the QRpedia code."? If that is what GibraltarpediA means by "GibraltarpediA uses QRpedia codes," then I'm all for it. However, that can be handled as a Gibraltar task force under Wikipedia:WikiProject QRpedia. Merge - As a collective of indefinite activities well beyond the scope of English Wikipedia, GibraltarpediA seems to be a project better suited for Wikimedia Foundation, if they want it, rather than English Wikipedia. To the extent the project can be merged, merge into existing WikiProjects. After the merge, terminate the project and delete the pages of GibraltarpediA. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:54, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Delicious carbuncle (talk) likes this.

• Shut this sucker down - This may have been instigated originally by a museum or other legitimate GLAM entity; but the minute the tourism board gets involved, it's pimping! Tourism boards are not cultural entities, they are commercial promotional entities dedicated to making their home base look as attractive as possible for the benefit of the local tourist industry, and there's no way around that. We (especially Bamkin) have done serious damage to the reputation of the entire project by letting ourselves be bought this way, and you can't put enough lipstick on this pig to change that. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Keep for now and revisit this issue in a month's time. I say this because of the two projects, GibraltarPediA is the larger (both in terms of membership and scope) and by far the most active. Has anyone looked at WikiProject Gibraltar? It lists 8 members, of which only one is still a frequent editor at Wikipedia. Its talk page is moribund. Portal:Gibraltar, which it is supposed to maintain, hasn't been updated since 2008, including the "Recent news" section. If the stated goal of this MfD is "an attempt to keep some structure in the WikiProject jungle", then does it make sense to delete GibraltarPediA or even make it a "task force" of a smaller, less active project which is also narrower in scope? If anything, it should be the other way around. Nevertheless, there are some real problems with the way GibraltarPediA has conducted itself so far. I'd say to give both projects some time to work out a new relationship, and for GibraltarPediA to re-structure itself to behave more like a WikiProject than a GLAM project. It really doesn't fit into the GLAM framework which is meant for cultural insitutions to share their resources and expertise with Wikipedia. GibraltarPediA seems set up to get editors to do a lot of work for Gibraltar's Tourist Board, and as far as I can see, Wikipedia has received nothing in return, so far. For example, has The Museum of Gibraltar (or its staff) contributed images, made reference books easily accessible to editors, uploaded archival material? In other words, this sort of thing. They also need to get out of bed with the Ministry of Tourism. Articles like this in the Gibraltar Chronicle are very off-putting. But deleting GibraltarPediA now without giving them a chance to restructure and address various concerns seems precipitate. It may be that in the end they won't be able to address these concerns, but they should have a chance to try. Voceditenore (talk) 15:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Strong keep Per Warden. I also think that a calm centralized discussion of all the policy issues raised by Gibraltarpedia would be fruitful - there are significant issues, but all the different fora get in the way of discussion. It has mainly been rather shallow and directed at individual(s) so far. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• Keep. Shutting this down would send a message to potential GLAM collaborators that we're hesitant to partner with them. Restrict this collaboration if you don't like it (even though they seem to be producing good content; shutting them down would prevent further improvement of encyclopedic content, which is the basic purpose for which we exist in the first place), but don't get rid of them entirely. Even if we closed this project completely, deletion would be a bad idea — problematic pages get tagged with {{historical}} so that we don't obscure past bad ideas. Nyttend (talk) 18:32, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • comment Nyttend, you are conflating this project with GLAM projects. The minute the Tourism Board got involved, it ceased to be a legitimate project and became prostitution. Tourism boards are advertising agencies, dedicated to pulling in the tourists for the benefit of locally based (albeit not necessarily locally-owned) businesses. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
    • That's an extreme position. Yes, tourist boards are responsible for promotion; but in this case they're evidently seeking to do it through improving public awareness of things to do with Gibraltar. That meshes nicely with Wikipedia's objectives of improving access to information, especially given that Gibraltar is underrepresented here anyway. Prioryman (talk) 22:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
      • You'll notice that I didn't call this a GLAM; I understand that it's not. However, that's largely irrelevant; the tourism board is trying to collaborate with Wikipedians for the improvement of Wikipedia articles related to the board's activities. GLAM projects do the same thing, and because they might not understand that this situation is in trouble because of the motives of the collaborating organisation, this MFD might be seen as encouragement for Gigs' "get rid of all GLAMs" position. Even if you don't want to allow this project to be active, why do you want to delete it instead of tagging it as historical? Nyttend (talk) 02:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • comment - let me give you 2 cases where I think working with Tourist Boards *might* work, with proper safeguards of course. This spring Philadelphia announced a tourist campaign aimed at the arts that was formally organized as a group of museums led by the local tourist board. I asked a few glammers whether I should contact them and the advice ranged from "be very careful" to "don't do it". I went ahead and wrote anyway. It didn't work out, but if the Tourist Board had wanted to act as a conduit between a GLAM project and the museums, maybe even throw in a free lunch or 2 and a prize, I still wouldn't be against it. 2nd, much smaller example. I'd like to put a QRpedia code on every NRHP covered bridge in Pennsylvania. The problem is - who owns the bridges - so who can give permission to post? Those who know the usual state of the inside of covered bridges might say "just post the QR codes. Nobody will mind a couple of 1 inch square codes inside." The state owns about half the bridges, the counties about half, with a couple of private owners thrown in. It's not always clear which, e.g. a bridge that straddles 2 counties on a newly designated state road, with the old bridge replaced by a new one off to the side. Getting a general permission from a tourist board would likely be easy. They might say "nobody is going to mind, but we'll inform the owners." That would be good enough for me. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
• We now have political party WikiProjects. Why not have wikiprojects that do marketing campaigns? A WikiProject is just a group of editors. If they decide they want to work for the Gibraltar Tourism Ministry (or whatever its name is), why not? What I object to is the spamming of various Wikipedia pages with a recently invented name of a PR campaign which has its intellectual property owned by a non-WMF, third-party consultancy. Tijfo098 (talk) 22:54, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't think we should have any Wikiprojects with partisan goals. We have almost no guidelines on what can and can't be a Wikiproject. That may need to change at some point. We can't prevent people from collaborating, but we can send them a message that it's not OK to collaborate to push a particular POV. Gigs (talk) 16:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Perhaps you should find out how Wikprojects work before sounding off? Wikiprojects with partisan interests (Wikiproject Israel, Wikipoject Palestine, even Wikiproject philately) are fine. Wikiprojects are already prohibited, on the other hand, from editing in a partisan manner, by WP:NPOV and other policies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:16, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
      • I know how Wikiprojects usually work. They are a way for editors to collaborate against community consensus, develop their own policies, and provide a way to coordinate tag-teaming of POV pushing and AfD voting without appearing to violate canvassing rules. They are a great boon to our encyclopedic mission, for sure. Gigs (talk) 14:47, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: I've written an essay on the issue of Gibraltarpedia's supposed ability to produce commercial benefits for Gibraltar; see User:Prioryman/Gibraltarpedia, monetisation and myths. Prioryman (talk) 22:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
  • How do those estimates of minimal benefit for Gibraltar tie in with (a) the Gibraltar tourist people's great enthusiasm, (b) Roger Bamkin's claims on his LinkedIn page of " > £2m payback on £50K investment" in Monmouthpedia? JohnCD (talk) 00:09, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
• Keep. I know of no precedent for disbanding a WikiProject based on an alleged COI of one or two persons involved. The content about Gibraltar, whatever the circumstances, has been written, featured in DYK, and exists now as part of Wikipedia. The page about the collaboration that produces it should remain also. Put it this way -- suppose you decided the project was rotten from stem to stern, and every one of those DYKs has to be scrutinized or stricken. Then where are you going to keep the list of what all these articles are? Might as well be right where it is, on this page that's been nominated. Wnt (talk) 00:16, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
• Delete or merge: Clearly violates WP:PROMOTION. Individual editors editing for recompense, such as free air travel to Gibraltar as has been promised as part of this project, is fine. However, Wikipedia cannot officially support commercial enterprises like GibraltarpediA. What about the locations that compete with Gibraltar for tourist dollars? Why does Gibraltar get picked and not them? What about the government of Spain, which doesn't agree with the current political situation with Gibraltar? Is Wikipedia going to get involved in taking sides in politics? Also, aren't the WMF and WMUK charitable entities? Then, it's definitely wrong for Wikipedia to be sponsoring a commercial enterprise. Using charitables organizations for commercial enterprises is unethical, and WP's administration has a clear duty to stop it from happening within the English Wikipedia, at the very least. Cla68 (talk) 01:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • This is something I might be suspicious about, sure. But can you show me actual evidence that any of the articles, hooks, or the actual page nominated here has actually committed "Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, religious, national, sports-related, or otherwise." The policy says "An article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view." Wnt (talk) 02:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Exactly. As I've documented at User:Prioryman/Gibraltarpedia, monetisation and myths, not only is there no evidence of monetisation going on, but almost all of the articles produced so far probably aren't capable of being monetised. Furthermore, it's quite insulting to imply that the other project members are working for commercial purposes. We're not, clearly, otherwise we wouldn't be producing articles of no commercial value like Gibraltar War Memorial. Prioryman (talk) 06:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
      • The government of Gibraltar, to its credit, has been very honest about the commercial aspect of the project. Cla68 (talk) 06:40, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
        • Just so. "Monetising articles" is not the point, the point is the purpose and effect of the whole project: when the other party's publicity in the Gibraltar Chronicle talks about "marketing Gibraltar as a tourist product through Wikipedia... effectively marketing but done at the lowest possible cost", and refers to "Gibraltar's Wikipedia site", and the project leader's LinkedIn page claims that his previous project generated " > £2m payback on £50K investment", it is disingenuous to start claiming now that there is no commercial or promotional aspect here. JohnCD (talk) 09:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
          • That benefit-in-kind was not derived from Monmouthpedia, but from press coverage of Monmouthpedia (its literally a multiple of the amount of press articles and social media traffic discussing the launch; it does not measure coverage on Wikipedia). It is perfectly legitimate for partners such as GLAMs and pubic authorities to publicise the fact that they're working collaboratively with us. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:24, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - I don't think the existence or no existence of a Gibraltarpedia project is the question. The issue is government money for perceived benefit through article creation and placement, an all-too-cozy relationship between the overfunded WMUK organization and private consultants, and an absolute lack of transparency with respect to who is getting paid what by whom for what. The project isn't the problem; it's bigger than that, unfortunately. I have no opinion in this deletion debate. Carrite (talk) 02:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Keep I think it's quite apparent that there's a significant difference between Wikiproject Gibraltar and GibraltarpediA that is a part of GLAM. As Prioryman, creator of Wikiproject Gibraltar, explained at the beginning of this MfD, they are completely different and should be treated as separate entities, as they have different focuses, with GibraltarpediA being much larger than what the Wikiproject focuses on.

Furthermore, I would like to note (and I know you said this isn't about the editors, Fram, but i'm not talking about you here) that all the people who have been attacking GibraltarpediA as a whole and the articles its editors have been making should be ashamed of themselves. If you have an issue with Roger, then take it up with him, but don't take it out on the volunteers that have been working really hard as a part of this project. GibraltarpediA has resulted in a ton of great new articles for Wikipedia that probably would have taken years to get added otherwise, if ever. And volunteers like Anne have dedicated a ton of time to make articles on a number of topics and they're getting attacked for it. It's just shameful. Silverseren^C 03:52, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment GibraltarpediA.org was registered on 23-June-2012 by organisation "Victuallers" (which I believe is a for-profit owned by user:Victuallers) and this 'GLAM' page was created on 27 June 2012 by user:Mrjohncummings. This isnt the first time that wiki contributors have acquired domain names like this, but it is not typical for the wiki contributor to be engaged in for-profit activities using that intellectual property. (It's worth pointing out that Victuallers & co are likely only getting enough profit to pay to keep a roof over their head and food on the table.) So I have concerns about the trademark being promoted on Wikipedia, but it appears to have been intended to be a net-positive for Wikipedia.
  We have a long tradition of allowing GLAMs to set up a project workarea under WP:GLAM without going through Wikipedia:WikiProject Council and, while GibraltarpediA is clearly not a GLAM (sector) itself, I assume that GibraltarpediA is like WP:GLAM/MonmouthpediA and Wikipedia:GLAM/HOPAU in that there is a reasonable commitment from GLAMs to the project. IMO GibraltarpediA should not call itself a WikiProject as it is not approved by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council, but it is OK to stay under WP:GLAM if it can better describe the involvement from GLAMs that are related to the project. I am leaning to agree with Tom and others that this project should be put on ice, but I think we should give everyone involved a bit more time to rescue this. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:37, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Could you clarify what exactly needs "rescuing"? It seems to be working fine as it is. Lots of new articles are being produced and the off-wiki work on the ground (training etc) seems to be going fine too. The only problems it's having currently are those being caused by the likes of the editor who started this discussion. Prioryman (talk) 06:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
• There's no requirement for a project to be "approved" by the WikiProject Council. It is simply recommended that editors go through the process to see if there are a viable number of people interested in working on the project and to get feedback from experienced editors re possible pitfalls. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. Some projects like Women's History were up and running while they were simultaneously in the proposal stage. - Voceditenore (talk) 06:47, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Convenience break

• Comment This nomination seems to be misconceived on two additional levels: first, as far as I know, it's completely unprecedented for a large, active WikiProject to be nominated for deletion. As far as I know, it's never happened before. Second, WikiProjects aren't customarily deleted. The usual precedent is for inactive WikiProjects to be marked as {{inactive}} and kept for historical purposes, but that clearly wouldn't apply in this case as Gibraltarpedia is anything but inactive. Finally, there have been rare occasions when WikiProjects have been redirected or merged due to inactivity (see e.g. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Dragon Quest) but again that wouldn't apply in this case. Bottom line – there is quite simply nothing in policy or precedent that would support this proposal. Prioryman (talk) 06:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia doesn't really work by precedent, and I don't know of any precedent where a project was created with a 95% overlap with an existing project. Do you know of any similar examples? If not, all discussion about precedent is useless, if there is no precedent for the situation then there is no precedent on how to handle it one way or the other. Fram (talk) 06:54, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• It has happened before (a large, active WikiProject nominated for deletion), and the motivation of several of the participants was similarly based on a dislike for the project and its perceived "agenda". The result was an overwhelming "Keep". See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Conservatism. Makes interesting reading. And the overlap with another project is not a valid reason to delete an active project, especially since GibraltarPediA's stated scope is broader than WikiProject Gibraltar. Voceditenore (talk) 07:10, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• That's a major point there. Because it's broader, that means that GibaraltarpediA doesn't actually fit inside Wikiproject Gibraltar and any attempt to merge them just doesn't make any sense. Unless you're trying to merge the other direction, but there's even more issues with that idea. Silverseren^C 07:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Yes. In my view the stated rationale for bringing this to MfD is very flawed. Note this from the WikiProject Guide:

A WikiProject is a group of editors that collaborate on encyclopedic work at a collection of pages devoted to the management of a specific topic or family of topics within Wikipedia. A WikiProject is a group of people, not a set of pages, a subject area, or a category.

"Forcing" WikiProject Gibraltar to absorb GibraltarPediA via an MfD is not on. That's for the two groups of editors to decide, as well as the degree to which they choose to collaborate. And in any case GibraltarPediA is currently a GLAM project not a WikiProject. Voceditenore (talk) 07:49, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, starting a new project and forcing the old one inside it is perfectly on? "For the GibraltarpediA project, which includes this project within its scope(emphasis mine), see[...]" is added by Prioryman at the top of the Gibraltar project. A removal of this (not by me) was undone by Prioryman with a very WP:OWNish edit summary here. No header like "For articles relating specifically to Gibraltar, see the Gibraltar project" can of course be found on the GibraltarpediA project. And since when is a GLAM project not a Wikiproject? Fram (talk) 08:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

First of all, Prioryman is the founder and an active member of WikiProject Gibraltar (one of the few). His action is entirely appropriate. WikiProjects have the right to define their scope as well as their collaborations. Again please see the WikiProject Guide:

"A WikiProject's members have the exclusive right to define the scope of their project, which includes defining an article as being outside the scope of the project. Similarly, if a WikiProject says that an article is within their scope, then you may not force them to remove the banner. No editor may prohibit a group of editors from showing their interest in an article per Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikiproject tags on biographies of living people."

In any case, my point is that using an MfD to force mergers of projects against the wishes of their members is inappropriate. You might also want to read this section of the Council Guide. If you want to insist that there is no difference between GLAM projects and other WikiProjects, then what the WikiProject Guide says is all the more valid concerning the flawed rationale for this MfD. Voceditenore (talk) 09:07, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Your reference above is about a project deciding which articles are in their scope, not deciding that another project is in their scope. And what would that flawed rationale be? Don't you believe that it is up to the wider community to decide whether a proliferation of nearly-identical projects is wanted or not? This is not about one editor, this is about the community denying a group of editors the right to create nearly-duplicate projects. People may disagree with that position, but it is entirely appropriate to have the discussion and to see whether this is a situation that is wanted (or tolerated) or not. That there are a lot of knee-jerk votes in this MFD is regrettable, I do still hope that a number of people will discuss the actual premisse of this MfD and not what they read into it. Fram (talk) 12:30, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

This case hardly constitutes "proliferation of nearly-identical projects". We're talking about two specific projects here. What I and several people here contend is that these two projects are significantly different in both their scope and their focus of activity. Each of them has the right to define what activities they will undertake and which other projects they wish to collaborate with and on what terms. A general discussion about "the community denying a group of editors the right to create nearly-duplicate projects" is possibly an appropriate subject for an RFC, if you think this proliferation is a widespread and serious problem. It is not, in my view, an appropriate rationale for singling out one established, active project and nominating it for deletion and/or forcing another project with a narrower scope to absorb it whether they want to or not. I'm afraid we will just have to agree to disagree on this one. Voceditenore (talk) 13:16, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

You claim that they are significantly different in scope and focus. How does this match with what I said and linked here? Fram (talk) 13:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Like it or not, the clearly stated scope of GibraltarpediA is: "the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Spanish municipalities along the coast of the Bay of Gibraltar, the northernmost coast of Morocco and Ceuta." Their scope is not defined by you or anyone else on the basis of the last 10 articles they've produced or even the last 100. The kinds of activities they coordinate are also very different. Voceditenore (talk) 14:40, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

So far as I know, there's no precedent for WikiProjects closing themselves and refusing to accept outside editors or those belonging to some other WikiProject - is there? So if you abolish this one, by all means WikiProject Gibraltar must accept the overflow. And as this will include editors with a COI, and the pages it will have sole interest in will remain the object of QR clicks by tourists and therefore be a valuable resource, you must also delete that project - that is, if you agree with the rationale for deleting this one. Can you poke a hole in that reasoning? Wnt (talk) 15:50, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Interesting scenario ;). WikiProject Gibraltar with its brand new members (refugees) can then decide to do all the stuff that GibraltarPedia did. They could even change their talk page template to:

WikiProject Gibraltar, the home of GibraltarPedia

They can add a nice big one of these to it as well. Joking aside, it does illustrate how misguided this whole MfD is, at least to me. Voceditenore (talk) 16:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Keep. Perhaps Gibraltarpedia should be stopped; perhaps it should keep going; I don't know. One way or the other, this is not an appropriate venue to discuss the termination of the project. Even if the project were to cease, the page would still be kept as a reminder to future generations, so deletion is not on the table. — This, that, and the other (talk) 07:33, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Keep. Although I started the article Gibraltarpedia, I have absolutely no vested interests in the project. From the start, though, I have appreciated the motivating effect the initiative has had on building up cultural coverage of Gibraltar and surrounding areas. The idea of building bridges to Africa is also innovative, as is the use of QR coding in the wake of Monmouthpedia. Many apects of Wikipedia and Wikimedia have led to critical press coverage over the years. This will blow over like all the others. But it seems to me important not to give in to a few critical articles. The project is providing excellent results -- so let's maintain it and support it. --Ipigott (talk) 09:36, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Stop wasting your time with silly discussions and let the people of Gibraltar put Gib on the map without hating and demotivating them every step of the way. I actually refuse to read the block of text above me (although I have scanned it briefly). I don't think that reading through it will teach me anything, will make me a better person or will contribute in ANY positive way to anything. The people who started this whole argument (not the current discussion but the whole Let's-delete-Gibraltarpedia thing) seem to forget some important points. The time you have spent hating you could have spent improving Wikipedia and sharing the knowledge. This is what Wikipedia is about after all, isn't it? It is not just another forum on the internet for people to vent out their negative energy. I personally only realized the impact of Wikipedia after we met with John and Roger in Gib, they have been a true inspiration for me to start editing and translating Wikipedia, as they have been for many other people in Gibraltar. I just want to do what I do best - share the knowledge, but it is very frustrating to read comments such as "Delete the sucker". Is this how you want to motivate people to contribute to Wikipedia? Cut the crap if you really care about Wikipedia so much that you are willing to spend hours defending the deletion of something we have worked and keep working hard on. If you keep hating, you will keep demotivating new/potential contributors - very constructive. Not. If you think this is a rant, try and put yourself in my shoes; I don't believe anyone deserves to have to go through so much hassle for someone else's amusement. Invest your energy in something better instead and you might wake up with a smile tomorrow. Just my 2 pence. BulgarianLlanita (talk to me) 10:10, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • It's not a "silly discussion" if there's this much constructive commentary on it. Don't attack the forum just because you don't like the discussion. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:28, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
    • I agree that it's not a silly discussion, though its a silly nomination and many silly comments have been made in its support. However, that a new editor sees it as a silly discussion tells us something we should hear, about how Wikipedia conducts itself. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:31, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
• Keep This project has a number of editors writing appropriate content for the pedia. There are concerns about the motivations of some of the people who are encouraging them and recruiting them for us, but it would be better to address that in a more focussed way, such as an RFC on future "place pedia" type events. I see these events as distinct from GLAM and needing different rules, an RFC might settle that. In hindsight having a disputed territory as the focus on such an event was always going to be contentious, it would have been better if Gibraltar had not been such a trailblazer. In any event we want good content and we want to make our content accessible, this project is designed to do both, we may need rules to ensure that any incentives (prizes, expenses and so forth) are awarded in ways that benefit the pedia and don't skew it. But the way to achieve that is to discuss our concerns and our boundaries, not delete the project. Disclosure, I'm an active member of Wikimedia UK and put some hours of entirely voluntary time into Monmouthpedia, and I may have made a handful of equally voluntary edits that are related to this project. ϢereSpielChequers 12:10, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree that a community RfC is the way to go. Would you like to draft one? It seems to me you have a good grasp of the issues surrounding these projects – both the benefits and concerns – without being wedded to either the pro or the contra view. JN466 13:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
    • I'd like too, but I currently have too many spinning plates and shouldn't take that on as well. Maybe next week if no else ha done so by the time I've run a training course I'm delivering on Monday. ϢereSpielChequers 21:08, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Sounds good. I have a feeling this will still be here in a week's time. JN466 18:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
• Take no action - Close this MFD as neither "Keep" nor "Delete". GibralterpediA is a bigger issue than this MFD could ever hope to deal with, and closing as either result sets a precedent that the (inevitable) RFC will have to fight against. Wrong venue. Achowat (talk) 13:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
• Take no action – per Achowat. JN466 14:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Keep The reason why Gibraltarpedia was created was to advertise or to make Gibraltarians more aware of their surrounding history as well as educating visitors around the world. Deleting this page merely because there is a page similar to it is unfair and unnecessary. It's existence coincides with the Gibraltarpedia QR codes that are yet to be put up around notable areas and landmarks. Another reason why this site should not be bypassed as a simple link from Wikipedia is because the government of Gibraltar has already agreed to aid us in this project financially and supportingly. On a personal note, I reckon pages like this should not be discarded but started up for each country of province to aid the future generations of Gibraltar — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matthew gib (talk • contribs)

• Take no action – per Achowat. It is too late to stop now, but move this page from under the GLAM umbrella. It is not a GLAM and that is obscuring some of the problems and is tarnishing GLAMs by association. Any collaboration launched with lots of publicity carries the implication that Wikipedia supports the other partner's aims, and risks the perception that our editorial content might be affected in order to please the partner, or to avoid offending them. That is an important reason why we do not carry advertising. With genuine GLAMs that is not a problem, because their aims are aligned with ours: making information available free.

Like a GLAM, this project is also attracting editors and providing content, and that is good, but the vital difference here is that the partner is a commercial organization whose aim is to attract tourists, and their statements in the Gibraltar Chronicle make quite clear that they see this project as a means of "marketing Gibraltar as a tourist product through Wikipedia... effectively marketing but done at the lowest possible cost" and do not expect any editing of "Gibraltar's Wikipedia site" by those who "do not have Gibraltar's best interests at heart". The outside world will not understand the subtleties of exactly who is getting paid for what: the disastrous message going out is "Wikipedia can be bought - and bought cheaply - to help a marketing campaign". In a way we are fortunate that most of the external comment so far has been about paid editing rather than about Wikipedia being used for promotion.

I am sure that those who set this up didn't anticipate this, didn't think through the consequences or the appearance to the world of what they were doing, but this is what has happened and what we must not allow to happen again. An RFC on non-GLAM collaborations sounds a good way forward. It would also help defuse this situation if there were a clear statement of the relationships between this project, the English Wikipedia, Wikimedia UK, Victuallers Ltd, and the websites www.gibraltarpedia.org, qrwp.org and QRpedia.org. JohnCD (alt) (talk) 17:19, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

qrwp.org is being transferred by Roger Bamkin to Wikimedia UK. He is retaining QRpedia.org. There has been some discussion of this on the UK list and Wikimedia UK wiki. ϢereSpielChequers 21:08, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Note the joint statement by Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK published this evening: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/09/28/joint-statement-from-wikimedia-foundation-and-wikimedia-uk/ JN466 22:28, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• "When in doubt, appoint a Royal Commission." Interesting, but it looks as though that review is concentrating on COI and people being paid, rather than the issue of WP's perceived independence of commercial interests. We don't know how long it will take, and I don't think we should delay having an en:wp RFC about non-GLAM collaborations: should we do them at all, and if so with what safeguards? JohnCD (talk) 09:19, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oh, I quite agree. I just mentioned it for completeness' sake. JN466 18:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Keep for multiple reasons - (1) The GLAM/Gibraltarpedia page is part of the ongoing public documentation of the Gibraltarpedia project. Since there is controversy about the results and intentions of the project, it's in all our interests to preserfve that record. (2) GLAM/Gibraltarpedia does not duplicate Wikiproject Gibraltar: one is a collaborative project involving GLAM institutions (hence the name) and the other is purely internal to Wikipedia. (3) Deletion or even "freezing" of the project page would send a clear, strong discouraging signal to the engaged new users who have improved dozens of articles, to experienced Wikipedians doing outreach, to current and to potential partner organisations. This would undermine our mission of bringing free knowledge to everyone. (4) The discussion about the pace of the project ("freezing") does not even seem to belong in a debate about whether or not to delete the page. At the very least, they're in the wrong forum. (5) Look at the arguments being offered for deletion. Gigs above writes "Delete WP:GLAM and all subpages." - so the target is not some issue specific to Gibraltar, but mutually successful collaboration with the storehouses of knowledge and culture? We have to route around such arguments to fulfil Wikipedia's mission in the fullest sense. Uzma Gamal above seems proud not to understand the rationales given for Gibraltarpedia (and Delicious Carbuncle "likes" the comment). If people object to widening the contributor base and geographic reach of Wikipedia, creating more content in and about the Global South, promoting international co-operation, and freeing up the knowledge and culture stored in museums and other institutions for access by everyone on the planet, then, whatever their protestations, they don't fully believe in the mission of Wikipedia or Wikimedia (and so what are they doing here?). Arguments coming from that perspective need to be ignored or at least given a very low weight. MartinPoulter (talk) 09:10, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
• Merge templates only It is just silly to be filling talk pages with tags for two projects that obviously have a massive overlap in scope. The easy solution is to consider Gibraltarpedia the same way we do with geographic "task forces" in large countries like India. Take for example the tags at Talk:Bhopal. A single tag, properly encoded, identifies the article as being within the scope of three separate but closely related projects, India, Indian cities, and Madhya Pradesh. Simple, doesn't pollute the page with excess tags, but still links it to the relevant areas. And it should have the side effect of helping to assuage the concern that there is spamming going on I the tags. Win-win as far as I can see. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:25, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• This I can agree with. Even though GibraltarpediA is a separate project, in terms of talk page taggings, it would be much better if they just added a sentence yes/no switch to the existing Wikiproject Gibraltar tag, like how certain task group projects do it. That would save on talk page space. Silverseren^C 22:49, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Keep No rational reason to delete and there is absolutely no evidence that this project is damaging to Wikipedia. It might be useful for all those who oppose to be familar with Wikimedia Outreach and embrace those efforts to further the goals of the movement in a positive way. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Delete This has nothing to do with Wikipedia, and should never have been here. What if every city and every company wants a Wiki page too? This is ridiculous. Jørgen88 (talk) 00:49, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• It's not a question of every city wanting a page. It's a question of groups of editors who wish to collaborate on and expand coverage of particular cities having a space to do so. Wikipedia has many, many of these city-focused WikiProjects. See this list for just a few of them. There seems to be a real misunderstanding in this discussion about what WikiProjects are and what they do. They exist as places for editors working in a specific area to organize their collaboration. I wish everyone would read What is a WikiProject? and inform themselves about how projects work on Wikipedia before making arguments in favour of deleting an active, productive project based on misunderstandings of a longstanding and highly productive feature of Wikipedia editing and collaboration. Voceditenore (talk) 05:22, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• I wish you would not assume long-standing contributors are ignorant of what a Wikiproject is. Wikiprojects that run counter to community-wide values have been shut down before, and will continue to be shut down, regardless of the outcome of this MfD. Gigs (talk) 21:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

A project to improve articles on Wikipedia, which has apparently been very successful, has "nothing to do with Wikipedia"? Sounds self-refuting. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:04, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• Keep. I agree with Mike Cline. The vast difference of opinion between Mike's and my view, and that of Jørgen88 and others is surprising and not a little worrying. Outreach to GLAM and similar organisations is crucial to our development. --Bduke (Discussion) 04:05, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Nobody (well, hardly anybody) objects to outreach to GLAM organizations; the difference is that (even if the Gibraltar Museum is involved), this is outreach to a Ministry of Tourism whose objective is marketing Gibraltar as a tourist product through Wikipedia. JohnCD (talk) 09:10, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
• Keep but move to Wikipedia:Wikiproject GibraltarpediA. This is not a GLAM initiative, and actually has very little to do with GLAM. I don't have a problem with the project itself, nor with the MonmouthpediA sister project or any future similar project; however, it should not be coatracked to an unrelated project. Risker (talk) 05:48, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I was under the impression that the Gibraltar Museum's involvement made it a GLAM project, as that is after all a GLAM institution. Prioryman (talk) 07:49, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure what proportion of the articles created have had much to do with the museum, but even if it were quite significant, this is a "place pedia" project not a GLAM or not just a GLAM. The defining characteristic of a GLAM venture is that it is a collaboration with a cultural heritage institution a Gallery, Library, Archive or Museum. For good or for ill the link on "place pedia" projects is with the community, presumably via the local council. Whether we should have them and if so whether we need additional safeguards for them is worth discussion, but unless the primary relationship is with a local museum GLAM we shouldn't try to shoehorn them into the GLAM model, even if sometimes they include a GLAM. ϢereSpielChequers 12:30, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
      • The "M" in GLAM is only one of four components; there is no requirement for a museum to be involved in collaborations with the other three types. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
        • Fair point. I've tweaked my comment accordingly. However I would be surprised if many GLAMs other than local Museums were well placed to be our partner in a "place pedia" type of program. My assumption is that the sort of Galleries, Libraries and Archives that we work with will have a narrower subject focus than a museum but cover that over a broader geography, or like local reference libraries they will be too small to partner with us. But provided the collaboration is with people whose job it is to curate and communicate cultural heritage rather than market a tourist venue I'm not that fussed if my assumption were to be refuted. The important thing is that if we badge something as GLAM it needs to be at heart a GLAM collaboration, and I'm not convinced that Gibraltarpedia is more a relationship with the Gibraltar museum than it is with the Gibraltar tourist department. ϢereSpielChequers 15:26, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• The GLAM acronym should not be taken too literally. For example, it has been suggested that we might have some GLAM activity at Kew Gardens. We shouldn't get hung up on debates about whether a botanical garden is a GLAM institution or not. There are lots of institutions which we might want to work with, such as the National Trust, National Theatre or Royal Institution, which might not fit exactly. The essence of the idea is that it is a partnership with some respectable institution. Warden (talk) 09:32, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, we shouldn't get hung up on exact definitions. The test is something like: is the proposed partner's primary aim the acquisition and dissemination of information? That lets Kew in, and it doesn't matter that they sell admission tickets and a collaboration might help to sell more. Another way to look at it is, would we be embarrassed to see our name in the press as a collaborator and supporter? From where we are now, the point is to recognise that not all collaborations are desirable, and that we need a way to decide which ones are and who can make that decision and commit us. JohnCD (talk) 17:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yes. What is this? And this? Those do not pass the test. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:40, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• I've done quite a bit of categorisation of Kew Gardens images on Commons, as well as various zoos, and I have no problem treating them as GLAMs. Though I'd have to admit I'm more comfortable with a GLAM if it is a not for profit or Public body as opposed to a purely commercial enterprise, and some Zoos are as I understand it purely commercial. However the point of this thread was to put it into the context of Gibraltarpedia and similar place pedia events. Kew Gardens or London Zoo would be great partners for a GLAM event. But unlike say the Museum of London I doubt that a Zoo would be a natural partner for a place pedia event, and the reason why this is relevant to Gibraltarpedia is that I for one would be much more comfortable with it if the participants who are actually writing these Gibraltar related articles responded to this RFC by redefining Gibraltarpedia with a local museum as their main partner rather than a tourist board. ϢereSpielChequers 21:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Comment This seems like a case of "it's done enough damage, destroy the project". I'm not voting either way on this for the moment but I do think that it should be downsized and it should stop offering tangible prizes for edits without consent of the Wikimedia Foundation. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 18:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Convenience break 2

A GLAM project is "a partnership with some respectable institution", as the Colonel said. This, on the other hand, was a partnership with a tourist board: a purely promotional commercial-minded entity, with a self-admitted desire to get publicity on the cheap by getting eager Gibralter Wikipedians, and at least one or two mercenaries holding positions of trust, to do their marketing for them in Wikipedia, and (apparently) a tacit understanding that any unfavorable content would be swept under the table (re-read Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, folks). --Orange Mike | Talk 17:32, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Is the Monmouth GLAM any different? Or the Palace of Versailles... which is a commercial for-profit Hotel nowadays. Gigs (talk) 21:32, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I know a lot of users are concerned about this project and its associations with groups outside the WMF, but an MFD can't just remove an entire project. As far as I know that would be completely unprecedented, even inactive projects are not just deleted. A broader, properly organized RFC on these issues may be in order, all it needs is for a concerned party to put it together, but this MFD cannot be used to wipe out an entire project, problematic or not. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:43, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

It's not completely unprecedented (Esperanza), but even if it were, we could still do it. It doesn't matter where a consensus is formed, as long as it's well advertised. That said, I don't think this is going to end in a consensus anyway, so your point is still valid. We probably should start a new RfC on the scope of GLAM. Gigs (talk) 21:58, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Delete: need to send a strong message on not stretching ethical borders. (Btw; News flash: We all have to eat! ..but most of us do not expect wikipedia- or wikipedia-associated projects to feed us.) Cheers, Huldra (talk) 23:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

What message do you think this sends to the overwhelming majority of the project: the engaged new editors, the collaborating GLAMs, the potential future collaborations? Are they going to be punished for success in sharing free knowledge? Sounds like a strong and very wrong message. MartinPoulter (talk) 18:35, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Eh? Most of us have not become involved in editing wikipedia as part of a push to "marked" a place for tourists. And only cash-rich places can do this, eg the cash-poor areas in southern Spain (who desperately needs tourist-money) will not be able to do the same. Do you think that is fair? And I am stunned by the lack of political background knowledge here; when a Gib-person is called "nationalistic", that is, to put it bluntly, Gib-speak for "anti-Spanish". Have anyone even questioned why they want to involve North-Africa, but never mentions Spain? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 17:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Huldra, please try to remember that some if not most of the people drawn into this will be people who want to voluntarily write articles about important topics related to the place where they live. The prize is unlikely to have been a motivation for the people already living in Gibraltar. As for cash rich v cash poor places, I would hope that if anyone who wants to do something similar in their home town we could come up with some guidelines as to which aspects of this they can replicate and which they shouldn't. Clearly the physical plaques with QR codes are going to cost money, and putting them up on buildings costs money and requires permission. But collaborating with your local museum or local history society to write articles for Wikipedia can be a purely voluntary thing. ϢereSpielChequers 14:11, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Keep As ar as I know WP:IDONTLIKEIT has not yet been promoted to be a valid deletion criteria, and that what the nomination amounts to. This whole hounding of the project is a massive drain on editors that should be used to produce good articles - which is exactly what the project was attempting to achive - and very nicely. The nomination is a WP:POINT violation as it is a direct reaction to me telling the nominator that there are no policy reasons to delete the the project. The above posters have sofar done a good job explaining why . Let me highlight a few points. You do not merge a larger project into a smaller one. Projects decide their own scope (minor exceptions when nationalist or other POVwarriors are involved) ect as above. In addition I would like to add that a) you do not counter systematic bias by deleting the surplus but by increasing/promoting the deficiancy - which brings me back to my earlier point that every country or region needs a project like this. Just imagine what this would do to the quality of articles promoted at DYK. b) Wikipedia has long been struggling to retain editors and recruit new ones. This project has not only focused on using existing editors like normal wikiprojects do but also has aa)recruited new editors and more importantly bb) trained those to comply to wikipolicies & guidelines. To be met with such hostility in uncalled for and not in line with our core principles of collaboration. . Agathoclea (talk) 09:00, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Any reason why these things couldn't have been done within the existing Gibraltar project? As for the training to comply with wikipolicies and guidelines, I hope that they do a better job than what most of the experienced members of the project are doing at Flat Bastion Road, the AfD and the DRV, as that one sets an extremely poor example. But you are probably well aware of this, having contributed to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flat Bastion Road (where you sadly never responded to my question). Fram (talk) 09:15, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Why? You will need to ask the project not me. A different geographic scope together with the political implications does come to mind. Also since it is a collaboration with external institutions it appears logical to follow the GLAM model. As far as your question regarding that AFD is concerned you will notice that I only commented to point out the fallacy/strawmans argument that any current news article refering to contruction of a road in the 19th century is "routine". This to me is a clear example of "I want this deleted - no matter how". Agathoclea (talk) 10:03, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
      • Apart from the fact that there is no current news article referring to the construction of the road in the 19th century. That's exactly what I asked you: what news article? Not answering that makes your argument a strawman, not mine. The number of project members who have so far incorrectly used sources to fabricate whole parts of the article and keep arguments for the AfD is staggering, and makes me wonder if there isn't a much larger problem here than just the needless and pointless near-identicality in scope of two projects. The bad faith editing and us-vs.-them attitude shown by many of the most prominent members of the project (and supporting non-members like you or Colonel Warden) is quite worrying. Fram (talk) 10:15, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
        • • I have not looked at the Flat Bastion Road article in a few days. However, I was one of the contributors who worked on it to save it from deletion. Not only did I not fabricate anything, I worked to correct and source any errors inadvertently made by other contributors. I saw absolutely no evidence of bad faith editing. However, what I cannot accept in good faith is this persistent, unjustified attempt to delete this project and its related articles. Anne (talk) 22:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
        • Bad-faith editing against wikiprojects seems to have become the new game now and I do react very sensitive to that. People for example remove projectbanners before articles get put up for deletetion so that projects do not get alerted and similar shenanigans. My question to you is: Are you here to build or to destroy? Then the second question is: Is the project in question here to build or to destroy/harm? We know the answer to that one. If you make it a political agenda to delete articles of a particular project you don't have to be surprised that the The Boy Who Cried Wolf principle applies even in cases of articles where you might have some argument. See also First they came... Agathoclea (talk) 10:38, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
          • Godwin's law. Fram (talk) 10:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
            • Welcome to Pokemonpedia! Because that is what weill be the only thing left when all knowledge is destroyed. Agathoclea (talk) 11:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
              • Speaking of knowledge, perhaps now is the time to provide that mythical "current news article refering to contruction of" Gibraltar "road in the 19th century"? Fram (talk) 12:18, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
                • Then ask the person that brought it up. Agathoclea (talk) 17:40, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
                  • You are the one that brought it up. Repeatedly. I have no idea where you got it from. So I'm asking you, since you use that argument to accuse me of bad faith and strawman arguments. If you are just accusing me of such things without any actual evidence to back it up, then it may be better to drop these accusations completely. Fram (talk) 06:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

You two. Take it somewhere else. — Hex (❝?!❞) 17:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.