CZ Talk:Workgroups

Alphabetical

Agriculture

Anthropology

Archaeology

Architecture

Astronomy

Biology

Business

Classics

Chemistry

Computers

Earth Sciences

Economics

Education

Energy

Engineering

Games and Hobbies

Geography

Health Sciences

History

Journalism

Law

Library and Information Science

Linguistics

Literature

Mathematics

Media

Military

Music

Philosophy

Physics

Politics

Psychology

Religion

Sociology

Sports

Technology

Theater

Visual Arts

Proposed Grouping - Environmental Science

I would propose to have Environmental Science (or just Environment) as a grouping, to provide a category that is commonly searched and is so interdisciplinary that the standard disciplines do not cover it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paula Martin (talk • contribs) 10:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather see environmental sciences mainly under biology and earth sciences, and environmental engineering under civil engineering. There is also a place for environmental policy in the politics workgroup.

People searching for "environmental science" should find Environmental science, not Workgroup:Environmental science. The workgroups are mostly for gathering the right sorts of experts for approving articles, not for browsers trying to find articles. Otherwise, we'd adopt Wikipedia's categorization scheme. Anthony Argyriou 14:09, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

My problem with trying to put environmental science under biology, earth sciences, engineering or policy (or chemistry...) is that environmental science is by its fundamental nature interdisciplinary. Cutting it up into disciplinary bits is not useful. What do you do for a article on conservation? Its policy, biology, engineering...but mostly its environmental science. Also, because of the sometimes controversial nature of the field, it would be better to have a workgroup familiar with the interdisciplinary arena.Paula Martin 19:51, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

So, what about interdiscplinary workgroups in general? The field I work in, medical (or health) informatics is also interdisciplinary by nature. do electronic medical records (nowadays, EHR is the preferred term, I suppose) belong under the Computers workgroup or Health Sciences workgroup? What about decision support systems? Drug interaction databases? Coding systems (ICD9, SNOMED, LOINC, etc.)? Greg Woodhouse 16:38, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

It appears that articles can belong to more than one workgroup; I'd generally prefer that articles on interdisciplinary subjects be dual-classed (or triple-classed, etc.) as necessary. On the other hand, when it comes to finding editors qualified to certify an article, it would be easier if there were one editor expert in the interdisciplinary field, rather than multiple editors from each of the particular fields. Anthony Argyriou 17:59, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

Indeed it would. Beyond that, I believe it would be easier to recruit specialists if appropriate work groups were in place. I tried plugging CZ on Hardhats (a mailing list for users and developers of VistA, Veterans Affairs' HIS) but didn't get much response. An appeal would carry more weight if we could say that we need informaticists for such and such, or pharmacists for such and such. Greg Woodhouse 18:27, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

Which seems to bring us back to having an interdisciplinary field workgroup such as environmental science. Some interdisciplinary areas would be quite narrow and might fit comfortably in a dual-classed situation but others, especially those where the interdisciplinary field is developing in its own right (such as environmental studies or women's studies) might be more appropriate to have as a stand alone workgroup (potentially multi-classed but not necessarily).Paula Martin 19:51, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

On Proposed Grouping - Natural Science

Should Health Science(s) not be a part of "Biology"? Supten 23:14, 13 November 2006 (CST)

Biology would encompass stuff like Botany and Zoology, while Health Sciences focuses on human physiology and medicine. The idea being that doctors should gravitate towards health sciences, and biologists towards Biology. You are correct that there is a lot of overlap, though.

Discipline Workgroups

should point to the "Category' with that title rather than the specific page with that title! Supten 23:18, 13 November 2006 (CST)

The goal is to at some point revamp categories, or do away with them on the user page. Ideally before we go live. Therefore, it's better to have the main pages for each workgroup be well done. --ZachPruckowski 07:56, 14 November 2006 (CST)

Actually, we want several columns in a table: the article page (e.g., Philosophy); the workgroup homepage (e.g., CZ:Philosophy Workgroup; the article category page (e.g., Category:Philosophy Workgroup); the editor category page (e.g., CZ:Philosophy Editors; maybe an author category page (e.g., CZ:Philosophy authors).

By the way, I much prefer "Category:Philosophy Workgroup" to "Category:Philosophy," because what we are categorizing are not articles, but which workgroup has responsibility for which articles. This is an important difference! We don't want all and only articles that happened to be categorized "Philosophy" articles by Wikipedia necessarily to be managed by our own Philosophy workgroup. For this we make our own decisions. --Larry Sanger 14:30, 19 November 2006 (CST)

Business

Should business be part of Applied Arts and Sciences ? It should be in the same category than Economics.. Anh

Confusion

I have no idea why the editors list and authors lists aren't being displayed. I'm trying to figure it out... Note, these should be categories, not in the CZ Pilot workspace. --Larry Sanger 21:46, 19 November 2006 (CST)

You've inadvertently added this page to each of those categories. There's a way to make it link to that page without having it add you to that category, I just don't know how yet either --ZachPruckowski 22:00, 19 November 2006 (CST)

You do it like this, with a leading colon: Category:Philosophy Authors. I just don't know it's not working! The bizarre thing is that it's working for the "Article list" categories, but not the next two columns...but they are coded exactly the same way in the template! --Larry Sanger 22:04, 19 November 2006 (CST)

OK, now it seems to be working (at least for me). maybe you had to change the page to get it to reload the template? Anyhow, I'm going to finish my news reporting and go to bed, because I have to be up at 6 am to report it. I'll do more template adding tommorrow if I get a chance. For anyone curious, the templates are {{Editor_list|Field=XXX}} and {{Author_list|Field=XXX}} where XXX is the name of the field. -- ZachPruckowski, sometime on Nov. 19th, 2006.

Computer Science?

Into which workgroup would the topic Computer Science fit in? Mathematics workgroup, Computers workgroup, somewhere else? My guess would be that Mathematics would be most appropriate out of the two, and there are already some related topics there such as Automata theory and Cryptography. I would have suggested an independent Computer Science Workgroup, but I am not sure it is such a good idea to split things up further than needed - the WP WikiProject on Computer Science is rather inactive right now. What do others think?--Konstantin Tchernov 21:48, 21 November 2006 (CST)

I'd stick it in the Computers workgroup. I think that was a union of an original proposal's Internet and Computer Science groups. However, you're right in that Discrete Math and Cryptography are going to be joint articles between Math and Computers (at least as far as my basic CS education goes). --ZachPruckowski 00:06, 22 November 2006 (CST)

Architecture?

I am not sure about the categories. Per example: Colosseum, Great Pyramid of Giza, Parthenon, etc. are listed as "Architecture", but would not those be "Archaeology" or "History"?--Versuri 06:15, 22 November 2006 (CST)

• I tagged them as "Architecture Workgroup (Top)" as it was in CZ:High priority articles for pilot, but I think it is better to check it. --Versuri 16:40, 22 November 2006 (CST)

Architecture will likely cover a lot of articles also belonging to other workgroups, since a lot of major architectural examples that people will be familiar with will have history behind them, or political/cultural significance. I think that the architecture workgroup can add to the architecture sections of some of those pages, but it'll also do the articles on "flying buttress" and "Gothic architecture". Also I'd like it to explain the point of those creepy gargyole things, because who ever decorates their building like that must be nuts :-) --ZachPruckowski 00:01, 23 November 2006 (CST)

Regions?

Should we have workgroup for discussing topics related to regions/countries - e.g., India / USA / UK , etc.? Supten 06:34, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Please, see CZ:Geography Workgroup and Category:Geography Workgroup (Top).--Versuri 06:43, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Is there any category as in WP e.g., Indian Wikipedians? In WP I have edited a substatntial number of articles related to India / Bengal but the CZ:Geography Workgroup does not point out towards any such category. Supten 03:39, 5 December 2006 (CST)

There is not a sufficient number of geography authors. The workgroup have not started yet. --Versuri 05:43, 5 December 2006 (CST)

Proper place for Astronomy?

Hello All,

something to consider: is astronomy not a subdivision of physics (with huge links to math)? If so why create a new workgroup for astronomy as it (possibly) should be a sub-group for physics? Please your thoughts on this. Robert Tito 10:48, 3 February 2007 (CST)

You could be right. What we need to do is to collect all such requests for changes in one place. I suggest Citizendium Pilot talk:Discipline Workgroups. --Larry Sanger 11:06, 3 February 2007 (CST)

There are two main issues to consider here. First is that the discipline of Astronomy must be considered not just in its present, modern-day form, but also historically. Was Astronomy always a sub-discipline of Physics? Historically, all the natural sciences were considered sub-disciplines of Philosophy (natural philosophy - remember Newton's Philosophiae naturalis Principia mathematica or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy). Surely you wouldn't want to see Astronomy (and with it Physics) rolled into Larry Sanger's discipline ;-) ? Just as interesting is the somewhat unfortunate phrase almost metaphysical (unfortunate because I don't know what it means to be almost metaphysical) which occurs in the lead paragraph of the present version of the CZ article on Astronomy. So maybe, at least in some respects, we are returning to that earlier era of natural philosopy.

Secondly, taxonomy is as much a practical as a theoretical task. The above exposition shows how very arbitrary it can all be. Basicaly, Astronomy should be a separate workgroup, in spite of its enormous and growing integration with math and physics, because that is what people have come to expect and that is where people expect to turn for work on the subject. It's somewhat like organizing books in a bookstore. If your customers are expecting to find astronomy books in an astronomy section, then you create such a section, otherwise you lose sales. That's the way it is with essentially artivicial systems of taxonomy. James F. Perry 11:10, 3 February 2007 (CST)

Interdisciplinary Cycles Studies - where to put them

My interest in joining citizendium is cycles research which is an interdisciplinary field covering all manner of subjects - economics, biology, geology, astronomy, physics, history, etc etc. Therefore it doesn't sit neatly in the scheme of subjects unless added in its own right (which I generally find people object to). Any suggestions are welcome. I consider myself an expert in cycles research with a smattering of knowledge in many other fields. I would like to be an Author and Editor regarding cycles subjects. If this is possible then I will start making some contributions. Please see my user page for more info. RayTomes 18:36, 3 February 2007 (CST)

I (RayTomes) have copied the following from my talk page to here as it seems this would be a good place for it:

This didn't take a lot ot time to think about. Since I am in the as the americans call it natural sciences I know some about cyclic processes. The reason cyclicity faces alot of objection as a separate area is because it has angles with every area even outside "hard-core" science. For you to start I would take three major areas: chemistry, physics and math. Try to see where you can find a place to get a start - as elavoration.

For one I can tell you physical science is one place to create your tree of cyclicity.

But the generalities belong once again in math, and are related to physics.

Hope this is something like an anchor where to start. Robert Tito 22:52, 29 January 2007 (CST)

Thanks Robert. Of course the mathematical side of cycles is well accepted with Fourier analysis and other techniques. In physics and astronomy (and to a lesser extent chemistry) much of a cyclical nature is not actually referred to as such, but it is everywhere: spectra, simple harmonic motion, wave equations, planetary motion, etc etc. These are of interest and are part of the picture, however the main studies of cycles that are called as such is in the areas like climate and geology with Milankovitch cycles and other longer and shorter cycles, economics and business, animal populations (many instances), diseases, solar cycles (quite a few of these), biological rhythms especially circadian etc, and many many others. To get a brief overview of all this I would recommend the fine paper by Edward Dewey "The Case for Cycles" found at http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/dewey/case_for_cycles.pdf which summarises much of the interesting interdisciplinary nature of discoveries. Anyone who reads and understands Dewey will never see their own area of science the same way again, I promise you. RayTomes 06:48, 4 February 2007 (CST)

Great Improvement to the Workgroups and new tools for Recent Changes

http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,539.0.html

excellent job chris on running with this idea. As we used to say, "you da man." As I mentioned in the forum post, it'd be nice to have few more features, but this is 500% better, if not more. Again, you rock. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 01:10, 16 February 2007 (CST)

Numismatics Workgroup

I think that a specialist Numismatics Workgroup should be created separately from the Hobbies Workgroup, as numismatics is a very specialised field in its own right. - (Aidan Work 04:11, 19 February 2007 (CST))

I'm not sure this makes sense. Consider how many very specialised groups are under the umbrella of biology. This is only a first layer in the hierarchy. It would seem better to have the first layer of work groups as more general and then have sub workgroups within the more general workgroup. Chris Day (Talk) 04:26, 19 February 2007 (CST)

colours

I just changed the colours for the workgroups. See below for a comparison of the changes I made. I retained the lighter lightblue and light green and adjusted the others to be compatible with those two. Possibly the new colours are too pastel/light now. Any comments? Chris Day (Talk) 15:01, 28 February 2007 (CST)

Former workgroup colours

lightblue (ADD8E6)

FFCC00

FFFF33

CC9900

lightgreen (90EE90)

00ffFF

Alternative colours?

lightblue (ADD8E6)

FFCC66

FFFF66

FF9999

lightgreen (90EE90)

CC99FF

Web compatible colours?

99CCFF

FFCC66

FFFF66

FF9999

99FF99

CC99FF

Colour blindness

I had not considered colourblindness issues but clearly this needs to be considered when choosing navigation colours. We probably need to go back to the drawing board. Chris Day (Talk) 01:05, 2 March 2007 (CST)

small change

added economy to natural sciences --Rob Tito

It is also in social sciences. Chris Day (Talk) 22:18, 8 March 2007 (CST)

if nobody has any real objections, economy (being a subfaculty of the faculty of mathematics and natural sciences) will be totally moved into its natural place. Robert Tito | Talk 09:57, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Objection. First AFAIK the science is called economics, not economy. Second although economics has probably a much more math-based approach in parts of it (e.g. finance but also microeconomics trying to explain how the economy works in the first place) this is a science about how people interact by trading, working and consuming. No laws of nature involved (except of course TANSTAAFL ;-). IMHO it should be completely removed from natural science and only be mentioned under social science.

I second that ;) Joe Quick | Talk 19:10, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

I have removed "Economics" from "Natural Sciences" for the quite obvious reason that it is a social science if anything is a social science. I've also removed "Engineering," which is as much an "applied art" as anything possibly could be--and not a science, but applied science. On similar grounds, I've moved "Computers." Obviously, there are "hard science" aspects of comp sci, but the "purpose" of computer science is to make sense of something man-made--computers--not natural. Moreover, a central function is also to improve programming and related practices--which is applied.

Finally, I've also moved "Health Sciences" back to where it was originally, "Applied Arts." I don't know why, exactly, it was moved, but it probably has the greatest claim of these to being a "Natural Science" for the simple reason that medical scientists study human biology, which is a natural science if biology itself is. But on the whole, the purpose of medicine and of health science is essentially an applied one--it is to cure people of disease. For that reason, if it must go in one place, it belongs in "Applied Arts." --Larry Sanger 20:03, 13 March 2007 (CDT)

Topic Informant

Where this workgroup belong in? I put it under "humanities", just to show it, but I'm not sure it fits the template. --AlekStos 09:54, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

It's not a discipline workgroup. It's a different kind; I forget what I called it but you could look it up in Policy Outline I think. So it doesn't belong in this list at all. I'll move this page to "CZ:Workgroups", and then we can create a new list of non-discipline workgroups. --Larry Sanger 09:58, 14 March 2007 (CDT)

Changes to workgroup templates etc.

I could use your help. If you want to help with all this categorization stuff, please look at CZ:Astronomy Workgroup. Notice "Checklist-generated categories." The templates used to generate those pages are:

• Template:Workgroup developed articles
• Template:Workgroup developing articles
• Template:Workgroup stub articles
• Template:Workgroup external articles
• Template:Workgroup internal articles
• Template:Workgroup advanced articles
• Template:Workgroup nonstub articles
• Template:Workgroup internal articles
• Template:Workgroup underlinked articles
• Template:Workgroup category check
• Template:Workgroup cleanup
• Template:Workgroup checklisted articles

In each case, to create a page, simply type (for example):

{{workgroup developing articles|group=Astronomy}}

The trouble is that we need to do that sort of thing for 11 category pages for all the rest of our workgroups.

Note, I changed CZ:Workgroups so that all rows now use Template:Workgroup, which is now more generic, and requires just a single parameter: the workgroup name. The template now fetches the supercategory and forum location information separately. That means we need to maintain that information separately as well. The locations are: Template:Supcats (assigns workgroups to supercategories); Template:Forum locations (assigns forum URLs to workgroups]]; and, least intuitively, Template:Workgroup names with underscores (which maps un-underscored workgroup names to underscored versions; e.g., takes "Visual Arts" and spits back "Visual_Arts"; necessary to make the links to recent changes not break). --Larry Sanger 15:42, 17 March 2007 (CDT)

The supercats and forum locations are good and make a lot of sense since future maintenaince will be much easier. I'll put the conversion to checklist links on my to do list. The simplicity of the single parameter is great too. Hiding the guts can only be a good thing. The unscored solution works well too. I had never seen the 'switch' before your checklist template but that turning out to be really useful. Chris Day (Talk) 11:42, 18 March 2007 (CDT)

Biography Workgroup

I think there is a need. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 17:32, 18 March 2007 (CDT)

Was just swinging by to suggest this myself. ;-) Having done some work on the Big Cleanup, I feel like we really need this. Most biographic articles fit into other categories as well, but "Topic Informant" doesn't fit people long dead and "History" doesn't fit many people who are still alive. --Joe Quick (Talk) 11:38, 23 March 2007 (CDT)

Biochemistry Workgroup

I think a biochemistry workgroup should be formed, but I think MANY of the biochemistry articles should remain tagged with Biology and/or Chemistry Workgroup tags in addition to Biochemistry tags depending on the topic. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 18:08, 18 March 2007 (CDT)

The place to discuss new workgroups will be the Editorial Council, or a workgroup thereof...which still hasn't been convened, because (again) we've been waiting on servers. --Larry Sanger 22:56, 18 March 2007 (CDT)

Dance workgroup?

I've introduced an article on Irish dance, which needs a home. (I can also probably provide articles on a couple of other sorts of dance in the future.) Right now, the Arts group has workgroups for architecture, music, theatre, and visual arts. I propose creating a dance workgroup in the Arts group, when the editorial council is able to meet and decide on new workgroups. Anthony Argyriou 11:08, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

Jewelery and clothing

Jewelery and clothing are both very wide fields. What's your opinion on adding them to the list? Yuval Langer 21:26, 11 April 2007 (CDT)

Philanthrophy Workgroup and Additional Workgroup Mailing Lists

I've been reviewing the workgroup lists as there are two mailing lists that need to be added--for Robotics and Food Science--I intend to set these up today, although I would like to know if there are have been any names put forward for editors under these groups. I also note the appearance of a new Philanthrophy Workgroup on this page. Is this a confirmed new workgroup so I may set up a new list as appropriate? Thanks. --Louise Valmoria 10:27, 18 November 2007 (CST)

I have set up a Robotics Workgroup List Food Sciences List, but I don't know how to update the workgroup templates. Could I get some tips as to how to do this? Thanking you!(Talk) --Louise Valmoria 16:44, 18 November 2007 (CST)