Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting

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Scouting Wiki Project Wikipedia WikiProject Scouting is part of the Scouting WikiProject, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Scouting and Guiding on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to boy and girl organizations, WAGGGS and WOSM organizations as well as those not so affiliated, country and region-specific topics, and anything else related to Scouting. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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Archive
Archives


Article Content, remarks
Scouting Describes the movement of Scouting: history (founding, growth), activities one does in Scouting, organization, should cover both male (Boy Scouts and Cubs) and female (Girl Guides and Brownies), younger/older sections, international
Scout Movement redirect to Scouting
Boy Scout About the boy 11-17 years, activities he does in Scouting, Troop/Patrol, Scout Law, Motto, Uniform. Not about history, not about the organization or movement. This article should include a remark that girls may follow this line of Scouting too, instead of being a Girl Guide (Europe/World line of thinking)
Scout remains disambiguation page
Girl Guide and Girl Scout About the girl, article equivalent to Boy Scout
Girl Guide, Girl Scout redirect to GG&GS (US line of thinking)
Cub Scout, Brownie (Girl Guides) About the little boy/girl, equivalent to Boy Scout
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell About the person Baden-Powell, and his personal history. Not about the Scout movement other than his input/influence. Lots of redirects here, btw.
Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, etc General summary pages that have see also links to other Scouting pages. Used to avoid to lead users to more indepth articles, no longer disambiguation pages due to all the confusion of different naming conventions. All other plurals redirect to the singular per Wikipedia standard, not to Scouting or a separate organization oriented article
WOSM, WAGGGS Articles about the current international organization. Not about the Scouting movement, history pertaining to the organization only.

Contents

[edit] WOSM

Will someone please keep an eye on, perhaps lock WOSM, the acronym? The disambig doesn't apparently suffice for some, so it keeps getting changed back from the redirect to our article. It is far more important than the radio station in Mississippi. Thanks Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 04:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ireland

Would someone knowledgeable look at Sea Scout (Ireland) and see what images should be retained? The images have no source and are incorrectly licensed, but some should probably not be used. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 14:02, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scouting userbox MfD

Just thought you should be aware of this userbox up for deletion since it's categorized under scouting users: CFIREUSA MfD. Dreadstar † 22:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Boy Scout Handbook image

I took the new hazardous weather course offered online by the BSA.[1] When I get to the hypothermia section, I noticed a familiar image— the ripple in the cover is unique.[2] Compare it to Image:Handbook.jpg. I checked with Scoutersig and verified that he had scanned the handbook image at home and uploaded it. Looks like we are starting to get noticed. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 14:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dragonskin

Dragonskin is a Venture Scout activity in New South Wales. User:Francis.conroy wrote an article on it at the end of Dragon Skin, which is a disambiguation page. I removed it from there and added it to his talk page, where I also suggested a much contracted rewrite free of POV, that might be added to Scouting in New South Wales. Please keep an eye on it. --Bduke (talk) 04:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cabals

You BSA guys have made it at the Boy Scouts Cabal. Us non-USA folks do not get a look in. I'll have to be content with the Australian Cabal. --Bduke (talk) 21:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Strange that the Jews aren't on there, I mean, they did sink the Titanic... Iceberg-think about it. Oy, vey! :) Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 21:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
<groan> But the Australian Cabal doesn't mention vegemite, Foster's, Mel Gibson or The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 21:39, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Mmm, vegemite! How to get that here? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 21:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Can't stand the stuff. BTW, do not think we all drink Foster's. It is brewed overseas for overseas folks. You hardly ever see a Blue Tin here. Now a Green Tin, that's different. --Bduke (talk) 22:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
What does the green one signify? If you'll go ahead and send me your ration of vegemite... hey, since Japan is closer, maybe I can put in a request... :) Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 04:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
It was in the Northern Territory that we ordered beer by the colour of the tin. A Green Tin or if 24, a slab of greenies, is a VB = Victoria Bitter. It is one of the better cheaper beers.
Gadget850, is there a userbox for the Boy Scout Cabal? JGHowes talk - 16:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
This user is a member of the Boy Scout Cabal and is experienced at tying up discussions and truculent users.

For personal amusement only. Anyone stuffing this into the userbox list is going to get the Scout Stave of Justice administered. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recently found articles

I've been adding them one or two at a time as I've been finding them, but today I took a look at all the biographies of astronauts here, and there are quite a few that are not tagged. When I get done tagging, should I add them to the section on the project main-page, or should I just list them here, because there is at least 10. -MBK004 20:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's the list, feel free to move it to the project page if you see fit:
-MBK004 20:54, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Do we really want to tag all of these folks with only a passing relationship to Scouting? For example; Buzz Aldrin was a Tenderfoot but does not appear to have done anything with Scout since. Those with the DESA, Silver Buffalo or the like should be included. I think it would be better to create a List of astronauts who were Scouts. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 21:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the Eagles (at least) are notable because of List of Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America), and they can be referenced from existing refs on that page. As for the others, I'm not sure, I just do the gnome-type tasks and tag them. I'll leave policy up to you and Rlevse. Also, I didn't tag Harrison Schmitt because he was only a 1st class scout, and it isn't mentioned on that page, but it is on a ref I've read and mentioned above. -MBK004 21:20, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I think Ed's on to something. Support creation. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 21:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I also support creation, but also think the individual tagging is justified. Also, the BSA and NASA have made our job of creating the page easy: Astronauts and the BSA. -MBK004 21:28, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
And here is the GSUSA list. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 21:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Wait, _where's_ the Girl Scout list? There's no link. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 03:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Ooops- [3] --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 12:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I support creation of a List of astronauts who were Scouts (which include the Girl Scouts). I am working on tagging the Eagle Scouts and but references about their involvement in the articles. Some help would be nice. If I rated to low just change the ratings.-Yours in Scouting Phips (talk) 23:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "First-Ever National Eagle Scout Search"

I don't really know what they are doing with this, but NESA is sending out a mass-mailer this last week. It looks like they will be planning to publish a registry of some sort. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 23:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes- see NESA Eagle Scout Search. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 01:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of Scouts in Poland

I'm looking at this list and thinking, is there any reason we are keeping the redlinks with no explanation on them, or may I delete them and snug this up? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 14:04, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Was bold, did it, merged into parent article. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gadgets

Various tools keep quietly appearing under My Preferences > Gadgets. Some that I recommend enabling:

  • Twinkle— a really great set of anti-vandalism and maintenance tools.
  • Friendly— adds tabs for welcome, shared IP, tag and so forth.

If you do a lot of image work, I also recommend:

  • FURMe— a tool that helps with fair use rationales in a "fill in the blank" approach.

--— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 13:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Today's featured article-E. Urner Goodman

:-) I´m happy about that.-Phips (talk) 15:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] general question

is there a "move from Commons" tag, for images which are not appropriate there but which can be fairly used on the English Wikipedia? I am trying to save some images which were put on Commons but have no business there. Thanks. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 02:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Not that I know of. Reload it on en.wiki if it's FU. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
TCOd, thanks! :) Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 04:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, now that I have, I find there is a not-quite-duplicated image I uploaded some time ago.

graphic image saved from Commons:

photograph of badge, right coloring
Should we keep both, or choose one? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 04:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GSUSA megamerges

Today I went to go check a local Girl Scout website, and it redirected me thus: "Thank you for visiting the Girl Scouts of Colorado, Western Slope Service Center website. As of October 1, 2007, we are joined together with our sister Girl Scouts from the state as one Girl Scouts of Colorado council, where we will build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. To learn more about Girl Scouting on the Western Slope, please visit our new website at www.girlscoutsofcolorado.org." After I got over the mild diabetic shock from the writing style, ;) I wondered. Are such state-wide mergers going on throughout the GSUSA, and where would all this be documented? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 09:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Per Girl Scouts of the USA#Organizational structure: "As part of the 26 August 2006 reorganization, the National Board of Directors decided to restructure the 312 councils into 109 councils." --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 11:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WOSM applicants

WOSM is considering the applications of four NSOs:

--— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 17:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks interesting.
National Organization of Scouts of Ukraine: Who is SICH? Which organisation is this? Is this organisation already included in our article Scouting in Ukraine? Yours in Scouting-Phips (talk) 18:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
(SICH may not actually be an acronym, it seems to point here: Ukrainian Sich Riflemen) Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 04:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
"Sich" seems to mean "fortified settlement", maybe it is something like the German Stamm (tribe) concept.--Egel Reaction? 14:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
From the reference:

National Organization of Scouts of Ukraine (NOSU)
Following the recommendations of Resolution 2/05 adopted by the 37th World Scout Conference in Tunisia, the constitutive congress of the National Organization of Scouts of Ukraine (NOSU) was held on 27 March 2007. The congress, which gathered Scout representatives from most regions of Ukraine, approved the Constitution of NOSU and elected its governing bodies. This event was made possible thanks to efforts of three Scout associations (PLAST, SPOK and SICH) to work towards unification of Scouting in Ukraine in a new single NSO so as to be able to join WOSM.

It is not quite clear to me if PLAST, SPOK and SICH are actually merging or are forming a federation. The document also references the WP article on Ukraine. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
As far as I understand, NOSU has actually both individual and corporate membership with PLAST, SPOK and SICH as corporate members, so it is kind of a mixture between a federation and a single organization. But the paper is not very clear on this point. If I was to decide in my association I would request a clarification.
I wonder if Ukraine will be admitted with this presentation; five percent opposition means only eight NSOs. Could also be tricky for Syria, there may be doubts on its independence when receiving state fundings. --jergen (talk) 11:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Updates-Montenegro

  • WOSM referred to this organization as the Scout Association of Serbia and Montenegro
  • The organization split after the separation of Montenegro from Serbia
  • WOSM membership remained with the Serbia organization
  • Association of Scouts of Montenegro was founded on 19 November 2006

Reference: [8] --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 11:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Right now we have Savez Izviđača Srbije i Crne Gore, Savez Izviđača Srbije and Savez Izviđača Crne Gore. I calved the Serb one off the S&M (no, stop that) one two years ago. If we should integrate, would someone with a good eye make sure all changes are included for that period? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 04:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Headings

Is there a reason why three of the major headings on the main project page are Computer Science, Relational algebra, and Economics? Why is "New Scouting Articles" a subsection of "Economics"? Why the disambig page tag floating in the middle of what is clearly not a disambig page? Did I miss something? Kingbird (talk) 04:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks like someone added something we didn't catch...-MBK004 04:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Chris changed a template, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AWikiProject_Scouting%2FArticle_watchlist&diff=202701781&oldid=202682388, and inadvertently caused this. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scouts Canada

Someone who knows more about the situation in Canada needs to keep an eye on this article. I reverted an anon's continued removal of materials, and semi-protected to get discussion on the talk page. It looks like the anon has come back using a little used username, but he is explaining his changes. However sources are needed. --Bduke (talk) 06:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we have a long term member from Canada, but hopefully one will appear. Has the user engaged in talk? If it continues the page may need full protection. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
It is looking OK now so I have removed the semi-protection. The new editor is commenting fine on the talk page. --Bduke (talk) 02:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bhutan Scout Tshogpa article

This article dealing with the Bhutan Scout Association has some POV problems which needs to be sorted out. As Bhutan is an independent sovereign nation, the sections on scouting in Tibet and Sikkim should be removed from this article, and placed within the respective Chinese and Indian scouting articles. The inclusion of Tibet on this article is especially troubling, due not only to it being unreferenced, but also because the PRC, with which Bhutan does not have any diplomatic relations, has embarked on a campaign to have Dzongkha renamed by firms such as Microsoft to 'Tibetan - Bhutanese' - whilst Bhutan and Tibet share similar cultures, they are different and distinct cultures all the same. Additionally, due to a border dispute between Bhutan and China, and the lack of formal diplomatic relations between the two, the Chinese actively lead incursions into Bhutan and build roads and the like in Bhutanese territory. Having Tibet and Sikkim on the Bhutan page is opening a big can of worms which I don't believe that Wikipedia should be opening, and hence they should be split out of the article altogether. On another note, the Bhutan Scouts Association as it is officially known (English is an official language of Bhutan) is overseen by the Scouts and Cultural Education Division of the Department of Youth, Culture and Sports, which comes under the umbrella of the Ministry of Education. The BSA has an online presence at http://www.education.gov.bt, with the specific pages at http://www.education.gov.bt/Departments/Dept_YCS/SCED/SCED.html, with a multitude of information, including various handbooks and guides which might be beneficial for this project and development of the Bhutan SA page. Note, the association page on the page is incorrect, the correct badge can be seen in documents such as the scoutmaster handbook which can be downloaded from their site. Anyway, if someone from within the project can look at the Tibet and Sikkim issue, and make any necessary changes; not being familiar with the setup of scout articles on WP, I am hesitant to do it myself. --Россавиа Диалог 10:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I intentionally put Tibet and Sikkim there, as just as politically and culturally, if they had gone into the separate Chinese and Indian articles, they would have gotten buried or trashed by the persistent Chinese POV pushers. This article is a fine incubator for such sections, as three related cultures, and I am not inclined to move or rewrite as I seem to be the near-only contributor (and nearly only visitor) to that article. There are far vaster POV issues elsewhere to deal with. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 14:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
  1. The source at http://www.education.gov.bt/Departments/Dept_YCS/SCED/SCED.html contains valuable material that should be included.
  2. The illustrations are too bad to be used. I prefer a slightly differing emblem which has been published by the WOSM in a good quality to bad jpgs.
  3. I do not understand why Tibet and Sikkim are included, especially as both paragraphs are mere speculation.
  4. As English is an official language in Bhutan the article should be moved to Bhutan Scout Association. --jergen (talk) 08:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
If you want to keep the parts together, better rename to Scouting in the Himalayas. --Egel Reaction? 09:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

According to the official Bhutan site, it's Bhutan Scouts Association - with the 's', not "Scout" (without the 's'), so I've made the rename. I also think including Tibet and Sikkim is off the track. My suggestion to Chris is to take Egel's suggestion and make a topical article with the name Egel suggested or a similar name, leaving the Bhutan article strictly dealing with Bhutan. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I am a little surprised at the reply from Chris above, so I have made the decision to move the sections dealing with Tibet and Sikkim to the Chinese and Indian articles respectively. This stops the Bhutan article from being POV in this regard; if there is POV in the Chinese article, this is not reason to dump it in the Bhutan article, for the reasons I mentioned above. One thing I did forget to mention is that the Chinese government has done what they have done to Bhutan due to the ridiculous claim that Bhutan has territorial designs on Tibet (an incredulous claim considering Bhutan is still emerging from isolation, and doesn't have the ability to defend itself against Chinese incursions). I also removed speculation of Bhutan being involved in Tibet for 2 main reasons; 1) It is assuming that Tibet will (or is going) to gain independence from China, or that China will allow scouting in Tibet with outside assistance and 2) scouting in Bhutan is run under the Bhutan Ministry of Education, and whilst it comes under govermment, the Bhutan MoE is run on a tight budget as it is (with the country as a whole being a recipient of foreign development aid) and what money the Ministry does have would likely be spent on projects within Bhutan first. Whilst there may be more important POV issues to deal with, articles dealing with Bhutan are the poster child of why WP:BIAS was set up. I see that Rlevse has moved the article, thanks, the old name seemed somewhat problematic to me; not knowing Dzongkha, this is guestimation on my part, but Bhutan Scout Tshogpa is part Dzongkha-part English, and it most likely is not known as Bhutan Scout Tshogpa in Dzongkha - tshopga seems to mean party, group, and probably also association - the Dzongkha word for Bhutan is Druk Yul (commonly abbreviated to simply Druk in some settings, so the transliterated name would likely be 'Druk (whatever the Dzongkha word for Scouts is) Tshogpa'. In regards to images in the article, perhaps contact with the BSA on the email listed on the website (ygcdhead@druknet.bt) would be beneficial; it is my experience the Bhutanese are more than happy to answer questions and will go the extra yard to assist in matters such as this (just going by my own experience in researching the Drukair article which I am currently redoing and expanding). --Россавиа Диалог 11:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've seen the changes and now deletions over the last two days, and some people are just busybodies. >:^{ Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 14:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:CIVIL. --jergen (talk) 19:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Chris, keep it cool. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
There was no proper discussion, there were pronouncements and then everyone did what they wanted to do. It's hard enough to find good information about most of these smaller countries, and often I am the only one who adds any content. I work very hard on these, please explain why I should be civil to such editors. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 23:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inclusion of {{Asia topic}} and {{Europe topic}} etc. in Scouting articles

Is this really necessary and helpful? Chris included the template in the respective Asian and European articles yesterday (or created the necessary redirects), but I'm not quite sure if I'm happy with it: Most of the articles are mere disambiguitions (as Scouting in Austria or Scouting in Armenia) and are blown up by the template. --jergen (talk) 14:22, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I put them there because I find it useful to have links between the "Scouting in..." articles, right now the only ones linked one to another are the WOSM and WAGGGS specific articles, but there is nothing to tie the non-aligned or alternately-aligned organizations. How are you meaning "blown up"? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 17:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
With "Blown up" I ment pages with only three or four lines and (now) an infobox that's far bigger than the article itself (as in Scouting in Albania). --jergen (talk) 18:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
If you can think of a way to close them, I would be happy to work with you on them. I just think it is a useful way of linking them. I found one untagged, and am going through them now as another graphic editor has offered cleanup on some of our images. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 18:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
You can use {{Europe topic|Scouting in|state=collapsed}} etc. --Egel Reaction? 08:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Splendid! Thank you! I will go back over them! Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] refToolbar

  • refToolbar will add a "cite" button to the right side of the editing toolbar for citation templatesImage:Button easy cite.png. Can be enabled from Special:Preferences > Gadgets. Allows "fill in the blank" editing for references. — Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 20:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
COOL! — Rlevse • Talk • 01:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
This is excellent! Now when I actually get back to writing articles, this will come in handy. :) -MBK004 21:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OA and wikilinks

Did you know that Chingachgook and Uncas have articles? I doubt that they deserve to be part of the Scouting WP, but should there be any linking between them and other OA pages? —ScouterSig 01:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Only if the OA article refers to them as there literary characters and not as OA roles. My two cents. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Notability for Local council camps of the BSA

See Category talk:Local council camps of the Boy Scouts of America#notablity

Is there a standard, guideline or policy for gauging the notability of a local council camp? What is the minimal standard needed for a local council camp to be considered notable? Or are all local council camps just inheriantly notable? I tagged many articles for lacking of assertion of notability and/or lack of citing sources. I'm not saying these camps are not a notable subjects, but many of these articles (as they are written now) don't show or explain any notability. What makes a camp notable? ScoutCruft (talk) 02:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that I'm comfortable discussing this with a single-purpose-account user with a negative username that was created less than a day ago. Watch for sockpuppets. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 04:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Have you noticed the edits by User:R00m c? --evrik (talk) 19:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I think this is a vaid question that should be addressed, reguardless of who is asking it and whatever you may assume about them. I would like nothing more than to see these articles flourish, prosper and become quality encyclopedic articles. I would love to see the coverage of individual scout camps grow and become even better. I would like to spend time expanding the articles in this category and I also want to create some new articles covering other local camps that are not yet covered here -- but before I do all this I want to make sure my efforts won't be in vein. Before I spend a lot of time working on cleaning-up and expanding articles, I want to know that my work won't be for nothing because the articles will eventualy be deleted for not meeting Wikipedia's standards of notability. So I ask again... What makes a camp notable? -- ScoutCruft (talk) 05:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I know little of the BSA situation in the USA, but here is a view from outside. In the UK there are articles for the four Scout Activity Centres. I think all other camp sites are only mentioned in articles on Scout Counties or Areas. In Australia I do not think there are any stand-alone articles. Camp sites are mentioned in the State and Territory articles. I have no thoughts on how you organise it in the USA. I thought you might like this information however. --Bduke (talk) 09:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

A similar question periodically arises concerning notability of local churches and middle schools etc. per WP:ORG. Having participated a little in AfD's about those subjects, I'd say that most articles about Scout camps are unlikely to have the required reliable sources to pass WP:N and would need to assert special notability. Even a very prominent Council camp such as New York's Ten Mile River Boy Scout Camp, which certainly has special notability because of Franklin D. Roosevelt's involvement, doesn't have a whole lot of secondary reliable sources. As to a "standard guideline for Scout camps", we have WP:SCOUTMOS#Non-national articles.JGHowes talk - 19:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I would disagree. Notability is a subjective thing. The fact is, all the information in these camp articles can't be rolled up into the state articles. That would make the state articles too unwieldy. The camp information is important, and I think it's preferable to have them there, even if in a linited form. I prefer to see all the "cruft" trimmed out. --evrik (talk) 19:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Jim Howes, notability standards exist throughout Wikipedia, and apply to our project as much as they do to others, hence our standards have been aligned to WP:ORG. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 20:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:SCOUTMOS says in part... "Individual chapters of national and international organizations are usually not notable enough to warrant a separate article unless sufficient notability is established through reliable sources. However, chapter information may be included in list articles as long as only verifiable information is included."

And:

"Local chapter articles should start as a section of the parent organization article. If the parent article grows to the point where it may be split to a new article, and notability can be demonstrated using the general notability guideline, then it can be split."

If these articles can't stand on their own, they should roll into the council article or secondarily the state article. Cruft definitely needs to come out. Everyone wants to write about their favorite camp, but no one works much on the state and council articles; which is a separate issue, albeit related. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Allow me to add a further comment and a question from outside the USA. How big are the Councils? I have taken the view that we go to one level of organisation below national. In Australia that is the State or Territory. This has lead to some reasonable articles, even for the Australian Capital Territory, although the very small Territories are a problem. In the UK, the Counties in England and Areas in Scotland and Wales are too small and there are too many. There are 7 in Northern Ireland, 12 in Wales, 31 in Scotland and 57 in England. This is far too many with the population covered being far too small. This leads to these articles being full of unsourced cruft; lists of Groups etc. Scotland has just reorganized to 7 regions and I am planning to merge the 31 Areas into 7 Region articles. In fact I have one in my sandbox when I get around to adding it. Unfortunately we do not seem to have any Project members from Scotland. The experience is that small levels of organization attract cruft. I intend in the process to remove the lists of Groups, etc. However, I am also adding them to the Scoutwiki with the lists. That is the place for them. I am probably going to need some support when I start wholesale removal of cruft. --Bduke (talk) 22:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe BSA has about 500 councils. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Within the BSA, National has four areas, then 308 councils. Within those councils are 307 OA lodges and over 500 local camps. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 00:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I have a council list at User:Gadget850/Scout2. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 00:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

This seems to put the USA Councils as about the same size as UK Counties/Areas or perhaps a bit larger. You may well attract the same kind of cruft that the UK articles attract, although you may have more editors watching them. The UK articles are hardly watched, but just attract edits from anons and others with an interest in only one of them. --Bduke (talk) 00:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] off-topic but near-topic ;)

My father finally found the Christmas present he had for me, and it was actually pretty neat, a 1920s-1930s Eagle Scout ribbon, plus what we found may be an old BSA silver Scout hat badge. Are you folks familiar with the large old brass First Class badges? It looks like that, it was tarnished almost burnt-looking, he test-cleaned the back and it is silver, and he just lightly polished the front. Two questions-

  1. did you even know such a thing existed? I did not.
  2. should we clean the front or leave the age patina on? Are there rules like there are for coins?

Thanks, folks! Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 13:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I think hat pins have been around from the start. Collar pins were used up to the 1960s. Some good info: [9] I like the current pewter hat pin— I use it on my comfy summer straw hat. [10] A new pin was just introduced for Venturing. [11] --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 14:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletionpedia

Looking for information from that deleted article? Check out Deletionpedia. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 15:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Admins can pull up the entire history of a deleted article or page, unless it's been oversighted. — Rlevse • Talk • 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Scotland Regions

I have started the process of merging the old area articles in Scotland to a smaller number of articles for the new Regions. See a longer discussion about it at Talk:The Scout Association#New Scotland Regions. Help is very much needed. I started that one new article on a sandbox weeks ago, and created the new articles and all the redirects today. --Bduke (talk) 04:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Can I get a little help

I'm trying to improve the Jamboree 2008 (Ireland) article, can anyone tell me the appropriate infobox to use, is there an infobox for Jamborees, much appreciated.Seanor3 (talk) 16:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tobasco Donkeys

If you have information to add to The Tobasco Donkeys, it is currently nominated for deletion, and at the moment, it meets the criteria for deletion for bands. —ScouterSig 14:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Exported to http://en.scoutwiki.org/The_Tobasco_Donkeys --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 00:04, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
The situation about keeping the license trail on ScoutWiki is confused but I think you have to do more than your did. There is a page somewhere that says you have to give the link to the version number in the edit summary on SW. You go to "Permanant link" of the left column of the WP article and click on "Copy Link Location". The admin on ScoutWiki seems to think you should add {{From Wikipedia}} to the talk page and that is all that is needed. I do both. I have added the version and the template to the talk page. --Bduke (talk) 00:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Country templates

What is the view about the recent bold changes to country templates such as Template:Scouts UK Counties, Template:InteramericanScout and many others by User:Fred Bradstadt. See the question I raised at User talk:Fred Bradstadt#Scout country templates. --Bduke (talk) 11:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't like them either. There's a lot of wasted space in them. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Both of the mentioned templates – and most of the other Scout templates I edited – have actually decreased in vertical size after being edited (except when using a very small browser window). –Fred Bradstadt (talk) 11:59, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
The wasted space is in the left on the new one and you should have brought this up before making wholesale changes. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I have been bold too and placed some extra linebreaks in Template:Scouts UK Counties. Is it better this way? --Egel Reaction? 18:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
{{Scouts UK Counties}} was 167 mm high on Bduke's last edit, Fred Bradstadt made it 162 mm, then Egel made it 178 mm. Results will vary with screen and window sizes.
When I converted these to {{navbox}}, I looked at using groups, but it is ugly when some of the navboxes are stacked and the group columns are different widths. See Polish Scouting Association and show all the navboxes for example. We since defaulted most of these to autocollapsed.
Looking at the navbox template, we could set the groupstyle and liststyle so that the group column is the same width on all of the templates.
--— Gadget850 (Ed)talk 19:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Gadget makes good points. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Anybody want to do something here, or are we just going to drop it? LEt me know and I'll make it happen. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 10:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Implement your plan. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
On {{Scouts UK Counties}}, I agree that there is too much text in the last 2 groups. I hoped that someone more knowledgeable on scouting could shorten it down a bit. Otherwise, I have no problem with keeping the templates as they are – but I’m also not gonna protest an implementation of the Gadget850’s proposal. –Fred Bradstadt (talk) 16:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I have yet to see any virtue in the changes made by Fred Bradstadt. In particular for {{Scouts UK Counties}} I would like to see it reverted back to what, as it happens, was my last version after I started the process of changing the Scotland articles. --Bduke (talk) 00:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Support Gadget850's proposal. JGHowes talk - 01:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Consensus is clearly to undo Fred's changes and to accept Gadget's proposal. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:39, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted Fred's changes per this talk and am ok with Gadget850's changes. Sumoeagle179 (talk) 22:12, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

My proposal was to basically keep Fred's changes but make the groupcolumn on the left a consistent width on all of the templates. Bduke had objections to the change to groupstyle, so I was waiting to see where this was going. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 23:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
That was also my interpretation of your proposal. I was a bit disappointed to see all my edits reverted “per talk at WT:SCOUT”… I’d prefer that 1) the text for the last group parameters of {{Scouts UK Counties}} is shortened, and that 2) the groupstyle parameter on all the templates in question is set to a specific width. –Fred Bradstadt (talk) 17:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Ugh, looks like group confusion here. Can you take one of the templates, make a sample of each proposal, and then we can see them? Just a thought. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Start afresh

Let's start afresh and reach a consensus here. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll accept the proposal by User:Gadget850 to have the group columns a uniform size. However, the reduction of the amount of text in the left column in {{Scouts UK Counties}} is unclear and this raises another issue. The heading is "Scouting in the United Kingdom". It is nothing of the sort. It does not cover traditional Scouts or Guides. It is about the Scout Association. If the heading was changed to "The Scout Association", the reduced wording would be clear. --Bduke (talk) 00:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts as well, especially since {{Scouting}} has a section for "Scouting in the United Kingdom" (which needs reorganizing). --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 00:40, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I can support this. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:58, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I did three templates. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Templates/Navbox and check out Scouts Canada, Scouting in Canada and Scouting in the United Kingdom. Lets get these tweaked before we go any further. I also added a state parameter so that they can be set to collapsed or expanded as needed. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 01:16, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
The group column is a bit wider (48mm instead of 45mm) in "Scouting in the United Kingdom" because "Non-sovereign territories" doesn't fit in the standard width. So there must be a break in long groupnames or the group column must be wider. --Egel Reaction? 10:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
You added a break to shorten the line. Groupstyle now sets the column to a fixed width, so I changed it from 13em to 10em to accommodate. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 15:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
And the UK is wider than Canada again. I think it depends on the bowser: in Opera the UK and Canada have the same width and in Mozilla the UK is wider because the longest groupname doesn't fit in the standard width. I think we mustn't try to have a tied fit, but to give it a bit "moving" space, so I changed it from 10em to 12em to accommodate --Egel Reaction? 22:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
The column width is going to be a compromise that we can work out. Look at the navboxes for Scouts Canada— they are now all consistent. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 13:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I like this. Sumoeagle179 (talk) 10:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I like it too. Though already, the navboxes for Scouts Canada aren’t the same size anymore – 2 of them got change to 12em while the 3rd still is 10em. But when they were the same size, they looked great. –Fred Bradstadt (talk) 10:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Fixed Scouts Canada. Again, we may need more tweaking as this goes on. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 10:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I have consulted with another editor - outside of Scouting - on the Scouting In Counties pages. Assuming good faith, I'm afraid that I cannot see that these new sites fit in with Wikipedia as they appear effectively nothing more than a list of branches of The Scout Association. For further information on this please see the section Wikipedia is not a soapbox on Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, notably the section on advertising. Even before they were amended, when open to Groups of all Associations, these pages were of suspect standard, and closing them to independent Groups has not helped in any way.

I suggest returning them to their original format, a new format that allows all Scouting in a County to be reported, or, alternatively, deleted as inappropriate. -- DiverScout (talk) 18:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This really belongs in the related discussion below. No article should contain lists of groups or units (discussed below) and the plan is to do away with these and develop full and proper articles. Dividing countries into their geopolitical regions (states, counties, etc.) was a good idea at the time, but I consider it a failure. The county and state articles were supposed to act as incubators to expand on and then split, but have mainly attracted cruft and were definitely problematic— they need to be fixed or deleted, and we are working on a fix. Please review the structure changes and the comments below and help us come to a proper solution. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 19:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ranks

I was trying to make some userboxes that showed what rank a user was, but I couldn't find any pics of the rank badges. I will try to upload some stuff to the commons, but I would like everyone to help out. Thanks! Wyatt915

Rank badges are copyrighted and Fair Use, so not eligible for commons. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:57, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
And you can't use non-free images in userboxes. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Userboxes for a full explanation and a list of current userboxes. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 16:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template maintenance

While looking at the templates, there are some other things that need to be done:

  • {{Polish scouting ranks}}: delete; template is unused and all links redirect to the same page since we merged all the articles
Y Put up for TfD.

* WOSM regions templates: retitle from "Members of the xxx Scout Region" to "xxx Scout Region of the World Organization of the Scout Movement"

Y Done
  • WAGGS templates:
    • Retitle from "Members of the xxx Region of WAGGGS" to "xxx Scout Region of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts"
    • Change "Countries working towards WAGGGS" to "Potential members"; shorter and consistent with WOSM templates
Y Done

--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 11:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not with you on the proposals for the WAGGGS templates:
  • Both "Countries working towards WAGGGS" and "Potential members" (of WOSM) are defined by the respective worldwide organization and not interchangeable. There is no possibility to reach consistency when speaking of different facts.
  • It is very insensible to propose a renaming in "...Scout region ...". Only WOSM has Scout regions, WAGGGS has a totally different structure (and speaks always of "Girl Guides and Girl Scouts").
I also oppose the renaming of the WOSM templates. None of the templates defines the respective region, they only list the member (and non-member) countries. --jergen (talk) 20:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Please revert your changes immediatly as there is no consensus. --20:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
All templates rolled back. Project abandoned. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 20:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
There is no need to abandon the project completely - but there was also no need to put matters forward without discussion. Especially when the creator of the templates is regularly active and contributing.
I appreciate the idea of a consistent style and I'm - at the same time - against the changes in the wording:
  • I just had a look around, eg at Template:Members of the European Union (EU) and Template:Arab League: There is actually no consistent naming for these templates but I'd prefer the style used on the EU-template: Member organizations of the NN Region of WAGGGS/WOSM. In my eyes this is more helpful to the readers, because it says clearly the the links lead to articles on organizations and not on countries.
  • Concerning Potential members and Countries working towards WAGGGS: WOSM just lists all countries with one or more known independent Scout movement and does not set any standards for listing them, while Working towards WAGGGS is an official status with WAGGGS and can also be revoked. That are real differences that should also show up in the templates. --jergen (talk) 08:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
You are correct and I apologize. Too many frustrations at once and I blew some steam in the wrong place. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 13:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Done the less-controversial changes. Now you can do the more controversial ones. I have only renamed "Scouting in Australia" to "Scouts Australia". --Egel Reaction? 14:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Structural changes

We have discussed this in depth, now it is time to make some decisions on structure and levels. My proposals:

  • Definitions
    • National Scouting organization (NSO): An organization that delivers a particular program within the broad outlines of the Scouting movement.
    • Sections are membership divisions within an NSO, usually defined by age or specialty.
    • Unit: The group of an NSO that delivers Scouting directly to youth.
    • Federation: A group of NSOs, generally formed within a country or political union; often formed to present a single group for representation in an affiliate that recognizes only one NSO within a country or political union
    • Affiliate: A supra-national umbrella group of NSOs and federations.
  • General
    • Each article must show notability on its own.
    • Each NSO must be given equal weight, regardless of size or representation.
  • Scouting affiliates and federations
    • Each affiliate or federation may have an article. Articles should include a list of all of the affiliated NSOs or federations thereof; long lists may be in a subarticle.
    • Each affiliate or federation may have articles on the top level operational sub-organizations and geopolitical sub-regions.
  • NSOs
    • Each NSO may have an article
    • Each NSO may have subarticles on sections, national camps and other national level subgroups.
    • Each NSO may have subarticles on operational regions one level from the national organization; there will be no lower level articles. Example: The BSA may have council articles that includes districts, lodges and camps, but no articles on districts, lodges and camps.
    • NSO articles will not try to cover other NSOs.
    • Units should not have articles.
  • Scouting by country or political union
    • Each country or political union shall have an article outlining the various NSOs, federations and related organizations; if there is only one NSO in a country, then the article shall be on the NSO and "Scouting in country" will redirect to the NSO; the article will state that there are no other NSOs.
    • There will be no articles on geopolitical sub-regions. Example: No articles on U.S. states or UK political counties.

--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 19:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Could you please give examples for each of your proposals? I am not sure if my English is to bad to understand your ideas or if I just cannot see the background.
In special I have problems with the points "Scouting by federation" and "Scouting by NSO": If I understand these right, you are proposing ("Scouting by federation") to merge Bund der Pfadfinderinnen und Pfadfinder, Deutsche Pfadfinderschaft Sankt Georg and Verband Christlicher Pfadfinderinnen und Pfadfinder into Ring Deutscher Pfadfinderverbände, but we should likewise have ("Scouting by NSO") 12 different articles for the 12 German members of WFIS who do not form a federation. That seems quite strange to me: The three organizations put up for merger have 30,000 to 95,000 individual members (and are thus notable as association on their own), while the twelve WFIS' organizations have less then 4,000 members altogether (and onbly one is perhaps notable). --jergen (talk) 19:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I am not proposing that the NSOs within Ring deutscher Pfadfinderverbände or any federation be merged. All articles follow standard policies and guidelines, especially notability. If a federation consists of NSOs that are essentially local units, then they probably do not meet notability. What I am proposing is that:
  • We can have afilliations articles (WOSM, WAGGS, WFIS, etc), we can have federation articles (Ring deutscher Pfadfinderverbände, Ring Deutscher Pfadfinderinnenverbände) and we can have NSO articles as long as each meets notability. This is not a change, but is included as part of the overall structure.
  • We do away with geopolitical sub-regions of a country that try to cover all of the types of Scouting in the region. We replace these with one and only one sub-level of the NSO. This mainly applies to the BSA and TSA articles, the German-related articles have never been by länder. This is the big change.
--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 20:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

"There will be no articles on geopolitical sub-regions; this includes US states, UK counties, Canadian provinces and territories, Australian territories and the like". Are you really saying that these hundreds of articles should be deleted? If not, what criteria do you have for inclusion? My own view, which I thought had consensus, was that articles for levels of organizations one below national for large associations would contain material that was notable. Of course many of them need cleaning up and lists of Troops/Groups/Units need removing (they need removing from some country articles like Singapore also). Please clarify, Ed. --Bduke (talk) 00:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

UK counties as a geopolitical region, not TSA Scout counties as a national sublevel; BSA councils instead of Scouting by state. Articles by geopolitical region artificially shove different NSOs together (BSA/GSUSA, TSA/B-PSA, etc.) and by doing so they usually appear unbalanced towards one NSO or the other. See "Each NSO may have articles on organizational regions one level from the national organization: Councils for the BSA, area/county/region for TSA and so forth; there will be no lower sub-regions."
So- the TSA articles are already working towards this. The BSA would go from 50 by state articles to 305 council articles, but would subsume the lodge (potentially 304) and camp articles (potentially 500+). As another example, Scouting in Norfolk included the TSA and the B-PSA; we reworked this to Norfolk Scout County (The Scout Association) and if there needs to be a B-PSA article for the same geographic area it would be East Anglia District (Baden-Powell Scouts' Association).
--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 01:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, that clarifies it, but it raises other issues and I am not sure I entirely agree with you. One example is the case of Northern Ireland where I suggested merging the SA areas into one on the SA in NI. However looking at the area articles, about half of what should be retained in a merge is actually about the Scouting Ireland troops and structure. Why not lump everything, including Guides, into Scouting in Northern Ireland, rather than several articles. If we do not, we will need one on SI in NI as well as SA in NI. Another case is Australia where the States are a very clear subdivision. We could easily add material on Guiding and BPSA etc to the State and Territory articles. The articles should be renamed to Scouting and Guiding in Victoria etc. Yes, I know this is against our guidelines, but nobody in Australia describes Guides as Scouts. The coverage of Guiding is poor is far. There is only Guides Australia and that says nothing about structure in the States. Are the US State articles only about Boy Scouts or do they cover Girl scouts? If not, why not? Nevertheless, I am happy to go along with your view if it is clear that everybody actually understands it and that there is more consensus than I see right now. At the same time let us try to clarify what can go into these articles, including but not restricted to "no list of Troops, Groups, Units, etc. --Bduke (talk) 02:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Lumping NSOs together, other than a country article seems to give undue weight to one of the NSOs, depending on the editors. The US by state articles try to cover the BSA and the GSUSA in one go, but gives the impression that the BSA is bigger simply because there are more BSA editors— see Scouting in New York for an example. Separate articles give the same weight, even if they are unequally developed. And yes, as we develop the article structure, units and the like should not be listed. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 03:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, you are convincing me for now. Scouting in New York is very BSA biased. When are you going to delete these? A small point, but the term country is not clear. England, Scotland and Wales are countries, while I take it you want to think of the UK only under what you are saying about countries. --Bduke (talk) 03:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
We really need more editors to participate in this discussion for such sweeping changes. I changed country to country or union. Please feel free to edit my proposal where you see something that is not clear. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 10:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
{{Infobox WorldScouting}} has been updated with types for council, area, region and county. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 12:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal has been refactored in response to comments, please review. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 17:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Isn't one level down with the BSA the 4 regions?
Or maybe it is beter to make a exception for NSO with more than 5,000,000 members: allow two levels down for Gerakan Pramuka and Boy Scouts of America -> So 24? BSA area articles.
"Before" writing a subarticle on an single section, national camp or an other national level subgroup there should be an overall article or good section describing the sections, (national) camps or national level subgroups in the NSO: what are the tasks and where can we find which area, region, national camp etc. In that way less-notable areas, regions, national camps can stay there or can be merged (back) to.
--Egel Reaction? 11:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • WAIT, NEED CLARIFICATION are you saying abandon the 50 "Scouting in x state" articles in favor of 300+ council articles? Why, for god's sake? What makes any but a handful (and I do mean a dozen or less) particularly notable? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 16:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Levels: Let's make that operational levels. In the BSA, regions and areas are direct divisions and have little to do with delivering the actual program, whereas councils are distinctly separate and legally incorporated entities. If anyone can figure out how an area can deliver a program, let me know. Take a look at the areas in the Southern Region and you will understand that comment.[12] Southern Region is divided into ten non-contiguous areas, so you would still end up with 40-50 articles for the U.S. if you just went with areas. And I am not drawing goofy area maps. With the varying terminology, it might be best if we had a list:
Boy Scouts of America: councils
Girl Scouts of the USA: councils
The Scout Associations: counties (England and Northern Ireland), areas (Wales), regions (Scotland)
Scouts Australia: branches
Subarticles: See WP:SCOUTMOS#Non-national articles: "Editors are encouraged to use a top-down approach; expanding high-level articles to the point where they can be split into smaller articles of good quality. Thus, a national article may beget a regional article that begets a camp article." Some of this needs to be reworked if we go forward. The article layout section can readily be updated.
Gerakan Pramuka: I know it is a huge NSO, but the article really does not reflect it well. I have no sense of the organization, but I would expect some similarities with the BSA.
BSA states/councils: The original concept was that the state articles would act as incubators towards council articles— this has failed. Editors are churning out council camp (500+ possible) and lodge (300+ possible) articles with no regard to the fact that the linking council article is nonexistent. The state articles try to consolidate BSA and GSUSA information and do a very poor job— the BSA has every appearance of being bigger than the GSUSA in these articles simply because we have more BSA editors. We already have 19 council articles, 54 council camp and 8 lodge articles and 3 unit articles and they are not going to fit into the state articles. You may recall a few months back when MinsiPatches AfDed ten different camp articles and they were all kept. These articles are here and we need to deal with them. Now— go back and review the proposal- "Each article must show notability on its own"; "Each NSO may have subarticles". We do not have to have an article on each council.
A prime example of a state article is Scouting in New York. Both the BSA and the GSUSA started in New York, so you would think that this would be highly developed. Instead, the GSUSA material looks like an afterthought, simply because we don't have the editors with expertise. It would be better to not even have that GSUSA section than to have that limp list. Neither the BSA or GSUSA are divided by states and we are wrong in trying to force that.
--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 17:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
So the BSA will have 4 region articles if area articles can't be writen.;-) The first "distinctly separate and legally incorporated entity" down rule don't work or isn't universal enough, for example in FOS Open Scouting the first distinctly separate level is the grouplevel and even those aren't (always) legally incorporated entities. I am not even sure all NSO are distinctly separate and legally incorporated entities. I think it better to keep the top-down approach: BSA region articles, area articles plus some council articles for the councils that are notable, the others have to "stay" in their area article. It shouldn't be to difficult to write an article about a region and most area articles will be filled with lines about the less notable councils. 40-50 articles for the U.S. looks like a good number to me, 300+ is far to much.--Egel Reaction? 11:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
The majority of people in the BSA, especially the youth, have no identification with region or area. If we want to stick the number at 50, we might as well keep it by state, as there is more identity, even though the BSA is not organized by state. If the number is 50, then that should be the limit for each NSO, regardless of organization and size. BTW, the Order of the Arrow is also administrated by region and area; the OA regions match the National regions, but areas do not. For example: Southern Region (BSA) Southern Region (OA)

[edit] Structural changes UK

Sorry, but with regard to the UK counties I think that you have accidentally created a problem. As I have indicated on the pages, I have consulted with another editor - outside of Scouting. Assuming good faith, I'm afraid that I cannot see that these new sites fit in with Wikipedia as they appear effectively nothing more than an advert for branches of The Scout Association. For further information on this please see the section Wikipedia is not a soapbox on Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, notably the section on advertising. Even when open to Groups of all Associations these pages were of suspect standard, and closing them to independent Groups and rebuilding them to reflect internal TSA boundaries has not helped in any way. This is especially when the TSA counties often share their name with the regional county and can easily mislead casual readers, and just removing the list of Groups will not help resolve this.

I suggest returning them to their original regional county format, although without the long lists of Groups, or, alternatively, that they are deleted as being inappropriate to Wikipedia. I cannot see any reason why the nationally accepted regional boundaries cannot be employed, with each TSA county serving them included as appropriate, with links to TSA county pages and District pages, and independent Associations provision included where required. This would allow users of Wikipedia to see what is happening in terms of Scouting in a county, without being accidentally mislead into thinking that only TSA Scouting is available to them in their area. -- DiverScout (talk) 06:30, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

How do you address the inherent imbalance caused by the comparison of the various NSOs in a geopolitical region? And that geopolitical regions do not match the Scouting regions. Lets look at Scouting in Norfolk:
  • TSA: 128 groups; the Scout county only generally matches the English county
  • BPSA: 1 groups; Norfolk County is part of the BPSA East Anglia District that includes two counties
  • BBS: 2 defunct groups
  • Girlguiding UK: not listed
The articles need a lot of work, but the changes are a step towards trying to resolve these issues. Greater Manchester West Scout County (The Scout Association) is an article that has been cleaned up to a point.
Let me illustrate the BSA issues: The BSA currently has 54 by state articles, 19 council articles, 54 council camp articles, 8 Order of the Arrow lodges articles and 3 unit articles. Most of the camp articles do not have articles for the council they are located in; ten of the camps recently survived AfD, so they aren't going away. The state articles are crap (see Scouting in New York), the camp articles are bad (see Yawgoog Scout Reservation) as are the lodge articles (see Tamegonit Lodge, which looks like it was copied from some website. I would just as soon yank the whole system- delete the state articles and let council articles develop naturally and merge the camps and lodges. Merging camps and lodges into the state article won't work— they just won't fit. Stonewall Jackson Area Council is a better council article that includes the camp and the lodge. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 16:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Nothing will ever be perfect, and one size will not fit all - especially internationally - but using the recognised political boundaries within the UK is better than what is being created. If I type in "Scouting in Suffolk" because I want to know about Scout Groups in the county of Suffolk I am taken to "Suffolk Scout County" and only shown TSA Groups. What about the Rover Explorer Scout Group that operates there? Please also note that the Geopolitical map of Britain appears on each of these pages, which further encourages readers to believe that they are reading about something other than an internal Scout Association region.

If the US state articles are of, erm, poor quality, then perhaps they need to be developed properly? Yes, it takes time and effort - but when I spent ages typing in all the details of all the Groups in Norfolk (to reflect the style of the other pages at that time) I did not exclude the Scout Association ones. If the proper regional pages are restored I will not be ignoring any association when researching content for the East Anglian counties. Each will be given fair and equal treatment in a NPOV and non-COI manner.
It is, I'm afraid, really unacceptable for one organisation - no matter that is is bigger than the others or has more members working on this WikiProject than the others - to attempt to give the impression that it is the sole provider in areas where that is actually not the case. Hopefully this is unintentional, but that is exactly what is happening with these changes. -- DiverScout (talk) 21:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm starting to think that you are right- there is no acceptable solution. The only way to do this and keep it properly weighted is to not have regional articles below the national level. We aren't a directory— if someone want to know what groups are in their regional area, the NSO website will lead them there. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 22:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

DiverScout makes some good points. For example, the Geopolitical map of Britain should be removed because I think it refers to areas that are different from the SA Counties. Nevertheless, I think he is too swayed by East Anglia where the SA counties and the administrative counties are the same. This is not the case in other parts of the UK. I too am beginning to think that these articles should be deleted. We have to recognize that, while in earlier years we had keen experienced editors such as User:Horus Kol who worked on these County articles to improve them, we mostly no longer have good editors working on them. They get a lot of edits but they are mostly by IP editors who edit just one article and add or remove Groups or links to Group web sits. Mostly this is original research and the material is not encyclopedic. Nevertheless, there are some geographical regions of countries that are suitable for articles. In Australia for example, everything hinges around the States and Territories. The articles on Scouting in the States and Territories are not perfect but they do not contain cruft. Scouting in the Australian Capital Territory is a good example. I strongly support leaving these articles as covering everything including Guiding and not restricting them the Scouts Australia. I am surprised that the USA State articles are so bad. Like in Australia, the States are long established and their boundaries do not alter like those for Councils. Scout Counties etc. The emphasis should not be on organizational structure but on the history and the influence of Scouting on the community. I think the BSA folks should look at the State articles again. The UK is another matter. I think there could well be a good article on Scouting in Scotland (note currently redirected to Scouting in the United Kingdom) that covered both Scouting and Guiding. The SA in Scotland has its own Scout HQ and is own Scottish Commissioners for the sections and specialized duties. Wales is more combined with England, but nevertheless I think a good article could be written on Scouting in Wales (also a redirect). I am even more convinced that we merge the articles about SA Areas in Northern Ireland, but perhaps it should be to a single article Scouting in Northern Ireland rather than one on Scouting Ireland and one on the SA in NI (I'm not sure there are any BPSA Groups in NA). If these work out, we could perhaps have an article about Scouting in England. A major problem is that those talking here about the UK Counties are small in number. If we suddenly started deleting them, it might cause a bush fire. Maybe that would be a good idea. Finally, let me suggest that we should transwiki all these articles to the ScoutWiki. I think we owe it to Scouting and to all those editors who want lists of Groups etc. to do this. Also if and when we make changes we can point to the fact that the information is not lost. The general articles can have an external link to a page on ScoutWiki that links to all the area articles in a particular country.

I guess this is the appropriate time to introduce the {{scoutwiki}} template that I created last week. For example:

I'd go for that. The ScoutWiki move would make a lot more sense, being a more specialist site. Your suggestion to relocate the Counties entries from here to there gets my support. -- DiverScout (talk) 15:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

If we are going to do this, we need to:
  • Canvas for more editors to join the discussion and gain consensus
  • Create a cohesive plan
  • Tag the articles in question as "candidates for a transwiki to ScoutWiki"
  • After an appropriate period, copy the articles in question and redirect them to a list of subregions (list of councils, list of areas and counties, etc.)
--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 20:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The issue is whether we transwiki (i.e move) the UK County articles to ScoutWiki or whether we copy them there. We do not need a consensus to copy them and in my opinion this should be done in order to keep the long lists of Scout Groups. When it is done we can then remove the lists on WP if we want to keep them or delete them if that is what is wanted. We need more editors to get consensus on whether to keep them or redirect them. I also do not favour lists as such, but the areas or counties could be included on articles on Scouting in Scotland, Wales, NI, or England. Note that NI is different both since they are already tagged for merge and the presence of many Groups of "Scouting Ireland" in NI. --Bduke (talk) 23:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

"Nevertheless, I think he is too swayed by East Anglia where the SA counties and the administrative counties are the same. This is not the case in other parts of the UK." I said that where more than one TSA County served a regional county they ALL should be included. How is this being swayed by East Anglia? We don't have that problem?!!!! :)
The country-level page, with a list of counties, seems a better idea - but it still must not re-direct "Scouting in county" searches to it unless the page reflects all organisations rather than just TSA, otherwise the same POV/COI will result. All that is required to prevent this is a paragraph identifying other Scouting organisations, with linking to their entries. -- DiverScout (talk) 06:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
My point was not that more than one SA County was included in an administrative counties, but that I am unconvinced that some SA Counties do not cross the borders of administrative counties. East Anglia is, I believe the simplest counties can get - Traditional County = Administrative County = SA County. Most places are much more complex. However, I no longer have the knowledge of counties in my head having been in Oz for 20 years and I admit I was too idle to check. I have just checked Wales. There are 22 administrative counties and only 12 SA Counties. Some SA Counties cover two administrative counties, but I am not convinced the Snowdonia bit of Snowdonia and Anglesey Scout Area (The Scout Association) corresponds to any administrative county. --Bduke (talk) 06:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
If we were to delete all these articles (and I think we need more consensus from more people) I assume that it would be the SA counties with their current names that would be redirects. The BPSA would have it own article for the UK. Note also that we need to think about Guides in UK. The policy of the Scouting Wikiproject is that the term Scouting includes Guiding, but the UK articles do not reflect that. --Bduke (talk) 06:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Bduke is quite right to say that the UK Scouting articles don't include Girlguiding UK info. I suppose as I had a hand in this, I better explain what happened. Some time ago, I started adding information about the regional activities of Girlguiding UK. Mindful of the fact that it's this project's policy to including Guiding in with Scouting, I initially thought that I would add Guiding info to the geopolitical county articles, like the Girl Scouting info in the USA. I found this was impossible as I couldn't get the right information. I also knew that no-one from Britain was likely to look for Guiding info on a Scouting page, and that no Girl Guide would want to share a page with the Scouts. So I did what I could do and not what I couldn't. I started adding information using Girlguiding UK's own regional structure. I found that actually there often wasn't a huge amount to write about, and eventually I got disheartened and the remaining articles got pushed aside in favour of more interesting projects. I hoped other editors would contribute once an article existed. This has happened in some cases and not in others. If I'd been a more experienced user, then maybe I'd have acted differently. But I wasn't and I didn't. Nowadays, I think there's no clear advantage to either organising British Scouting and Guiding info by geopolitical county or by organisational structure. Both have moving boundaries. Historical information is awkward to place in either system. Kingbird (talk) 04:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


"My point was not that more than one TSA County was included in an administrative counties, but that I am unconvinced that some SA Counties do not cross the borders of administrative counties. East Anglia is, I believe the simplest counties can get - Traditional County = Administrative County = SA County. Most places are much more complex."
I think that we're talking at cross-purposes. I am aware that TSA counties do not always relate to real counties, which is one of the reasons that using them to illustrate regional Scouting in the UK is so potentially misleading to members of the public. That is one of the reasons why I have said that they should not be used, but that, where appropriate, EACH TSA county that serves a real county shoud be listed on a page illustrating all scouting options in an administrative county. This option would also make it easier to add Guiding content, along with independent scouting content.
The present pages show an unacceptable bias towards TSA internal boundaries, although I accept that this was not the intention when the pages were created. If we are creating encyclopedia entries about Scouting in regions of the UK, they ought to reflect all Scouting (and Guiding) in those regions. As each organisation has its own boundaries, the only logical option is, surely, to use the official boundaries and then list each Association, and, if needed, list the internal divisions of each organisation that are appropriate to the regional boundary?
If the TSA Counties are going to be used to redirect to a TSA England page, that is fine. However, it will still not be acceptable for "Scouting in (regional counties)" searches to be redirected to the page advertising one individual Association as this would continue to mislead the public. -- DiverScout (talk) 08:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

We are certainly not understanding each other well and I am still confused about your points. The current articles are about TSA Counties, so why is this unacceptable bias to TSA Scouting? That is what they are now about. Non-TSA content should be removed and should appear in other articles. The bias was in the earlier naming of Scouting in X, where X was actually a TSA County. You seem to be suggesting that we should use the current administrative counties. That would replace 12 articles about Scouting in Wales with 22 articles. That would simply be unmaintainable. We can not maintain 12. I remain unclear about what we should do. At this time, I am clear about only three things. First, we have too many (way too may) articles about Scouting in geographical areas of the UK. Second, I think we want some articles below general UK articles, particularly for the Scout Association, which is much bigger than any other organisation and therefore more notable as it is is noted by more sources. Third, there is no way, for the reasons that Kingbird gives, that articles that only have Scouting (not Guiding) in the title, can cover both Scouting and Guiding. I think we should stick with the articles on the small number of Guide Regions. How we work through this, I do not know. I think my first point is key. We need fewer articles. Here are some general thoughts:-

  • In Northern Ireland, I think we should have one or two. Two if we have separate SA and Scouting Ireland articles. Two if we combine them into a single article. IF BPSA or other traditional scouting exists, then that might push us to one or perhaps three, with a separate article on traditional scouting in NI.
  • In Scotland, we can either have one article, or 11 on the new SA Regions and one on traditional scouting in Scotland. The latter is still better than the current 31 possible articles on Areas.
  • In Wales, I think we should move to just one article.
  • England remains the difficult area. A single article may become too large. Other solutions seem to give us too many articles.

The other point is that we can not decide this between two of us, one from Australia and one from a non-TSA background!! We need to get more people involved. --Bduke (talk) 09:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Are the 9 regions used on local.direct.gov.uk an option for England? (East Anglia, East Midlands, London, North, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands) Probably the same regions as the NUTS 1 UK regions and the regions in Category:Government Office Regions.
Girlguiding UK (540,000 members) is larger then TSA (450,000 members), so it not a strange idea to use the 6 Girlguiding Regions for all Scouting and Guiding in England.
--Egel Reaction? 13:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, I agree that we need more than two people to decide this - but I am very concerned that you seem to feel that it is acceptable for articles to appear in Wikipedia that imply that TSA Scouting is the only option in certain areas. For the record, I also have a TSA background.
The size of The Scout Association, and that fact that the majority of content editors on here working on UK Scouting are either TSA, ex-TSA, or WOSM does not mean that content can continue to be biased towards one particular service provider - even if they are the largest. Having searches for scouting in counties leading to pages that only illustrate one side of Scouting is, in several cases, providing false information.
I am becoming worried that there may really be a Wikipolicy Conflict Of Interest here that needs to be addressed more forcefully. To use an example outside of Scouting, Dereham Town Football Club is smaller than Manchester United FC, but both have their pages on Wikipedia. It would certainly not appropriate for the Manchester fans to decide to delete content relating to Dereham just because they are a larger organisation and are, therefore, more "notable".
The fact that, seemingly as soon as non-TSA content began to be added to them, the Scouting in (County) articles were re-designated, apparently by members of WOSM, so that only TSA(WOSM) content could be listed is not a valid reason for keeping them. If the Guiding content can be added, their boundaries used (as they seem larger and easier to administer), and all Associations given fair representation, we may end up with articles worth having in an encyclopedia rather than the present pages which are essentially advertising for TSA branches. -- DiverScout (talk) 16:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
"seemingly as soon as non-TSA content began to be added to them...": There has never been any such intent here. I started the discussion on the TSA articles in February: see Talk:The Scout Association#Renaming the County/Area articles.
Your example of the two football clubs is not really analogous— there are no sub-organizations and they co-exist in one town.
--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:50, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
DiverScout, can you give an approximate size of the non WOSM/WAGGGS scouting in the UK? In Members or in groups?--Egel Reaction? 19:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
If I may guess: Non WAGGGS/WOSM scouting has less than 100 units in the UK. --jergen (talk) 20:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough, Gadget850. Sadly the result has been the same. My comparison with the football clubs is, as far as I am concerned, perfectly analogous in respect of what is happening here, but I'm not letting this conversation get bogged down in semantics. In terms of size, I cannot give figures. All independent groups know that they are a lot smaller than the TSA, but don't seem to pay much attention to numbers. Jergen's guess may well be right. Maybe, if these Scouting pages become representative of Scouting rather than just TSA, we'll find out eventually. -- DiverScout (talk) 22:24, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Being down under, a lot of discussion often goes on while I am asleep. First, let me strongly agree with Ed that there was never any intent to remove material about traditional scouting from WP. The problem was that it was often in articles that clearly were about TSA Counties. I have a lot of sympathy for traditional scouting and have worked with an editor here in Oz who is now Chief Commissioner for the BPSA in Australia. I meet him a few weeks ago when he visited Melbourne. We should treat them seriously. However, they are less notable, not in the general sense of that word, but in the wikipedia sense that they are inevitably less noted in sources because there are less Groups. Getting good independent sources for the SA Counties is difficult. It is much harder for traditional scouting Groups. We have in general in our Scouting articles, too few third party sources. Second, on football clubs, I also agree with Ed. These articles are on individual clubs as ours are on individual associations. Not all clubs are notable enough for an article. I think we go down to level 11, whatever that really means. Third, I think Egel's suggestion of 11 English articles on the regions should be seriously considered. That might give 11 on England and one each on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, covering everything about Scouting, not Guiding (on that point Kingbird is right, in that the term Scouting in UK is never considered to include Guiding). Are there regions in Scotland, other than the new TSA Regions, that we could use? --Bduke (talk) 01:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll accept the fact that there is no intentional actions being taken by people, in good faith and in respect of the Scout Law of course. Some of the comments in the Discussion sections, however, seem to suggest that this is not always the case - but in an open source media I suppose that that will happen.
I have no problem with TSA having its own pages, as it is, after all, a huge corporate entity - but it is not appropriate for searches for Scouting in UK counties to re-direct to these TSA pages. It is if these re-directs are going to stay that the content needs to be made wider and cover all aspects of Scouting.
I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of redirects. Firstly they are used for plausible search terms. Since the X in "Scouting in X" is the name of a SA County, they are plausible search terms. Second, they keep the history of contributions for licensing purposes. It often happens that when an article shifts focus and is renamed, that the redirects do not have the new focus, but they have to be kept for the licensing of contributions. It would not really matter if we moved to general articles on the regions. What do you think about that proposal of Egel? Also what do you think we should do about Wales, Scotland and NI? --Bduke (talk) 08:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree that including Guiding in the UK on the Scouting pages may cause a lot of Guiding hackles to rise. Whoever carries out that operation will need very good diplomatic skills! -- DiverScout (talk) 08:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
In spite of the emphasis of the Scouting Project that Scouting covers both Scouting and Guiding, I do not think that Guiding content would be acceptable in these articles, unless the name was changed to "Scouting and Guiding in X". --Bduke (talk) 08:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


Thought I'd leave a gap, as it's a bit busy here! Egel's idea seems like a pretty good one to me, as the GGUK boundaries would reduce the number of pages to a more manageable level. I also agree with you that the pages should then be renamed "Scouting and Guiding in ..."
I still remain to be convinced, however, that having scouting in county searches being re-directed to point at limited content pages is appropriate to Wikipedia. It's not as if there are so many independent Groups that TSA need to be worried about the competition!  :)
I still strongly feel that the option for a sub-title "Other Associations" to be tagged onto these pages would improve the notability of the pages, and raise the level of inclusivity to the point where those re-directs would again become valid. I have not yet seen any reasoned argument for not including them. -- DiverScout (talk) 10:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I do agree on "Scouting and Guiding"— there was a consensus to roll this into Scouting some time ago, but I always thought it rather marginalized Guiding in some ways. This is a separate subject and should be discussed separately.
I still believe that when we are wrong to impose even the appearance of dividing an organization into structures in a manner in which they do not operate. As I understand it, Girlguiding UK has nine administrative regions, each then divided into counties. If TSA and BPSA do not use those regional structures, then we are creating artificial divisions.
Let me use a BSA example to show what is happening here:
See Scouting in Virginia: Virgina is within three administrative regions of the BSA— Northeast Region, Central Region and mostly in Southern Region. Southern Region in turn is divided into ten areas— Virginia includes Area 7 (two non-contiguous regions with parts of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina) and Area 9 (parts of Virginia and North Carolina).[13] Stonewall Jackson Area Council includes 11 counties in Virgina and 1 in West Virginia. The BSA does not operate by state— there is no Boy Scouts of Virginia.
Within the BSA, regions and areas are administrative structures; the top level structure that delivers the Scouting movement is the council. Scouts do not self identify with regions or areas, but with councils. If we do not want 300+ council articles, then so be it— but we should not have 50 artificially divided articles.
--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 14:11, 9 June 2008 (UTC)