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Operation Stub Killer Update

Well almost a week into our first challenge to eliminate stubs we have mixed results. We actually increased the number of overall stubs we had from 742 to 774. However, we decreased the overall percentage of stubs down from being 75% of Wine related articles to 74%. Part of this is the growth that comes from discovering new wine related articles that already existed. Stub killing will obviously be an ongoing and constant battle. But we need everyone to chip in to kill off at least one stub per member. Unfortunately, we do have a hefty number of Wine Project members that are mostly inactive so if any of more active members can kill off 2 or 3 more that would be great.
How do you kill off a stub?

  • The BEST way is to improve the article, add a section or two with a few references to bring it up to at least Start class
  • Some items listed at stub may not be stubs at all and just need to be reassessed.
  • Some stubs are about minor wine related items and could be better served by being merged into a bigger article. As a general rule of thumb, if you don't think there is more than a paragraph's worth of info that could be written about the subject-it will better served into a bigger article that covers that scope. Ex: There are several merge candidates to go into wine accessory. Just be sure to redirect the article title to the bigger article and delete the {{wine}} tag from the talk page.
  • Some stubs are advertisements or about non-notable items. These items can be WP:PROD and later deleted.

Now let's kill some stubs! AgneCheese/Wine 19:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I was thinking Agne, maybe we are going about this all wrong. Maybe we should see how many new Start (or other class articles) there are instead of JUST counting the Stubs. I have no idea how to check the difference in numbers though. But, I think there are quite a few more Start articles and that this shows a lot of improvement. Charleenmerced Talk 17:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
You know that is a really good point. I still want to keep track of the "percentage" of stub articles to the overall number of wine articles but I think in terms of tracking, your idea of following the increase in Start articles is a better way to go. AgneCheese/Wine 08:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • And a lot more encouraging ;-). I just created a couple of articles, all stubs (seriously no more info) and all I could think was, well, this so increases the number of stubs. ;-0 --Charleenmerced Talk 13:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced

Sparkling wine

This article is a WID nominee and I'm wondering if there is merit to merging the smaller "sparkling style" articles like Spumante, Frizzante, Crémant, Cap Classique, and Sekt into it. A significant advantage would be that it would reduce redundancy and duplication between the main sparkling wine article and the smaller stub articles (which may not grow out of their stub states). I encountered a similar situation when I was working on the Late harvest wine where I felt like I was just repeating some of the same info from the main articles talking about the various styles. Any thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 07:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. Each article could be merged into its own section in the sparkling wine article, and then you could redirect the articles to that section. ◄scharks► 07:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Picture requests

Does anyone have or can get any pictures for this articles? Charleenmerced Talk 19:45, 24 March 2007

As a side note I've added a photo request parameter to the {{wine}} template. To request a photo add "needs-photo=yes" to template on the talk page. These articles are then added to Category:Wine articles needing photos. ◄scharks► 02:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Now that is uber-cool. :) AgneCheese/Wine 06:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

New stub types

Although we're trying to kill stubs, the number of articles listed as {{wine-stub}} is probably going to remain very large. To try and make the process a little more maintainable I've gone and created 4 new stub types that are a little more specific than the top level "wine" label. These are:

In the next few days I'm going to try to go through the 700+ stub articles and try to sort them into these categories. If you come across a stub that could be relabeled with one of these new templates it would be great if you could update it. :) Also, for new stub articles please make use of these new templates if possible. --- The Bethling(Talk) 07:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

TERRIFIC! This will definitely make stub killing easier and easier to manage overall. Great work. AgneCheese/Wine 09:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I entirely agree. Well done. --Bduke 09:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

  • thanks for this. I say, we should definately first focus on expanding grapes and regions (unless anyone else has a preferrence for something else, then go with that). So, question, we use the wine stub template for everything else then? --Charleenmerced Talk 12:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced

Common watchlist

As per the prodding discussion above, one way of watchlisting lots of articles is to use something like this but it makes use of a fixed page with a list of pages, which means that new pages will NOT be on it and the page needs to be manually updated, I do not think this can be done with a category and I do not know how to make a page like that in a resonably automatic way, I now did a copy paste of the List of vineyards and wineries page which do not have many enties, just to show how it will look like. I'm sure a bot can be written that can check one category like the wine category and all subordinate categories and create this page every day, but then someone have to write the bot and run it every day, I can not do that. I'm not sure if we have anyone else with bot writing skills and a host to use that can volunteer. Stefan 15:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Stefan. Man! There are a lot of cool features on WP! Your list is cool! Didn't know you could do that. But, after sniffing around a little, Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:wine seem to work, too. --Saintrain 18:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Of course, like any good wikiproject, there are a lot of overlapping categories. For instance, this page isn't in the "Wine" category!? So maybe a page like yours with a list of categories?
Category:Wine                       -> Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Wine
Category:WikiProject Wine articles  -> Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:WikiProject Wine articles
Category:Non-article Wine pages     -> Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Non-article Wine pages
Category:other wine categories I don't know about
Or better yet, better categorization. --Saintrain 18:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't quite work. I made a page User:Saintrain/RCCats with a list of cats, so
# Category:Wine
and it just put the page in the cat, and Recentchangeslinked displayed nothing. Then I tried
# w:Category:Wine
That made links instead of cats but Recentchangeslinked still displayed nothing. Then I tried
# :Category:Wine
which linked but Recentchangeslinked only note changes to the cat pages themselves.
Interestingly, putting a cat in my watchlist doesn't seem to display anything!?
But the links are a workaround.
Still pretty new at this. Any suggestions? --Saintrain 19:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC) & 23:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
So recent changes for a category works, nice find I could not find it when lokking, BUT it does not display its subcategories, so I guess we should make a page with all wine categories and recent changes links for them, then we have to click one at a time, to bad but better than nothing. Stefan 23:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Articles for deletion

Please discuss any articles that you believe should be deleted here before adding a "prod" or "speedy" tag. I have removed a prod tag from two Australian wineries. Deletions of these would set the sense for not having articles on a large number of Australian wineries. Australian members of the project may know more about these wineries and where sources can be found. Both articles do need more work and I will look at them next week if nobody else has by then. We have visitors here now and I'm tied up. --Bduke 23:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Given the "speedy" and more severe nature of CSD, I would also encourage Project level discussions. However, I don't think that is needed with prods because the beauty of that method is that it gives 5 days for anyone to remove or contest it. In review some of the winery stubs, I felt that there were some wineries that didn't establish notability of being anything special apart from being just a winery. On a few there were a fair amount of g-hits so I placed a note on the talk page like with Talk:Torbreck. On others I prod, with the assumption that either someone will care enough about the winery to have it watchlisted and be motivated to improve the article enough to establish notability or that the five days will expired and it will be deleted. Given that these were all stubs, not much information was at risk of being lost that couldn't be easily recreated. A full fledge written article would certainly be a different story. On some of the articles, the prod was removed and a desire expressed to improve the article and establish notability. That is fantastic and I have complete trust and faith in the judgment of the editors who removed the prod. Our mutual goal is to have a quality wine related articles spring out of this project. In the end, that is all that matters. AgneCheese/Wine 05:37, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The only thing I have to say about this is that even though not a lot of info has to be re-created when a stub is deleted, we won't really know. Let me explain, if a stub is deleted, we may not know about its existence and thus its need to be improved. This is why I don't really like deletions. So, I wouldn't mind having a list (readily available) of the articles which have proposed deletions. We can do it right here in the Talk page Charleenmerced Talk 08:04, 24 March 2007
  • I don't think there's much a chance that there would be any articles that would be brought up for speedy deletion. Speedy deletion is mostly for articles that essentially harm Wikipedia by existing. Prods on the other hand are for cases where a user doesn't think an article (typically one that doesn't get updated much) belongs in Wikipedia. It's not an attack on the article. I really don't think that they need to be all listed here. If there's nobody watching them, and there's no claim of notability (e.g. why a winery passes WP:CORP)in the article, then they probably don't warrant inclusion. Although the information in the stub wouldn't be available, the stubs that I've looked at have only basic information about the subject - things that a person who would want to recreate the article would probably have access to anyways. --- The Bethling(Talk) 09:25, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with some of the comments in response to my initial paragraph in this section. The project is young. Not everybody has a lot of the articles on their watch lists. I did because I went through the Australian articles, checking that the Project tag was there. People outside the Project are going to want to delete some of our articles. We should be seeking to develop them or merge them. I think is is good manners to members of the Project to raise concerns about articles here before tagging them for "prod" or any form of deletion. It brings more expertise to the article. For example, I do not pretend to know anything about US wineries, but I do know about Australian ones, and I suspect the opposite is true for members of the Project who live in the US. Discussion here can also allow discussion of needed new articles. For example, I think we need more articles on wine regions and they would be good places to merge articles on small wineries whose notability may be marginal, but OK to be part of a larger article. BTW, the articles I removed the prod tags from were Chateau Yaldara and Belgravia vineyard. These are not "one line" articles. I think it was unacceptable to "prod" these articles. Concerns should have been raised here and that is what should happen in the future for all articles that someone thinks have concerns. --Bduke 22:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I strongly disagree with your assessment that it was unacceptable to prod the articles. These sorts of articles are exactly the sorts of articles that prod was designed for. Articles that for the most part well written, but just lack the notability that's needed for its own article. Often prodded articles have little activity, and the prod serves as a notice that the user feels "I don't think this article fails to meet some guideline for inclusion. Does anyone disagree?" Essentially, it's the equivalent of WP:BOLD for the editor who feels that Wikipedia is cluttered by too many stubs that are not well developed, ignored, and clutter it up. You disagreed with the assessment and removed the tag. That was the proper thing to do. However, Agne's tagging of the article was in no way "unacceptable", and should not be labeled that way.
The amount of discussion that should go on here before deleting (arguably) non-notable subjects is something that the project will decide, but please WP:AGF and remember that both you and Agne took actions that each of you thought were in the best interest of the project and wikipedia in general. --- The Bethling(Talk) 23:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
We should be improving articles or merging them, not putting them for deletion at an early stage of the Project when they may not be on the watchlist of too many people in the Project. I am assuming good faith. I am just saying it should not have been done and it should not be done again. It does not help the Project. It does not seem to me that this happens in the other Projects I am involved with. I can recall no such cases. --Bduke 00:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
So what is the consensus, basically we keep articles ONLY about wineries that have something 'special', are first with something...., that will make most wineries non notable? Is e.g. Rosemount (wine) notable? I think so, but I can only justify it by saying that it is large and well known, not notable by wikipedia standard, maybe it it because I do not know its history, but lets for arguments sake say that there is nothing notable about it, it is not largest in its region, did not do anything first or anything special, BUT it is large and well know, would that make Rosemount non-notable and it should be deleted? If so I guess there is not much point in write random winery articles, I have at least one more article that should be deleted then ..... sigh.
Reading WP:CORP again, does it mean that if there are magazine articles about a winery it can possibly be considered notable? Is my ref in the Rosemount (wine) article enough to substantiate notability as per WP:CORP? I do not think it meets WP:NOTWINE. anyone? Stefan 01:06, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, although the article doesn't make its notability obvious, Rosemount is certainly notable, magazine-wise I remember there being an article about its 20th anniversary in Wine Spectator. Although I don't know much about the winery (other than that I like its GSM :), a winery of that size has the potential of developing into a very thorough article. What I'm afraid of seeing is lots articles on smaller wineries that haven't done anything outside of being a winery notability wise. When it comes down to it, the typical winery is just a small business, no different than a local pizza shop or restaurant. It's known and important to its "local" community, but once you get out side that, it's mostly unknown. Some do get a reputation well beyond they're local area and those are the ones that are most likely able to pass WP:N. I see it as being similar for wines: if a winery has achieved a significant reputation then national/international press is likely to have noticed. --- The Bethling(Talk) 04:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It looks like there is two different issues here. 1.) Should Prod deletions be discussed on this project page or even considered at all and 2.) What is the notability for a winery. The first conversation should continue here but I would like to move the second question over to WP:WINEGUIDE because this is truly a subject that needs more collaborative discussion among Wine Project members. I'm going to copy the relevant comments to that talk page and respond over there. AgneCheese/Wine 06:18, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Prodding Wine articles

A new heading to discuss some of the nitty gritty of this aspect. There are a couple points above that I would like to directly respond to.

  • We should be improving articles or merging them, not putting them for deletion at an early stage of the Project when they may not be on the watchlist of too many people in the Project. --Bduke 00:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Reply While the wine project maybe young, there have been creation, contribution and development of wine articles since the foundation of Wikipedia. This is largely the biggest reason why we are in such a "metaphorical" hole in having a 1000+ wine articles of relatively poor state. We're not starting from scratch here but rather joining the race midstream. Of course, our primary focus is to improve and develop wine articles and no one can look at my list of contributions and argue that I'm a deletionist. However our interest in developing wine articles doesn't equate with blanket inclusionism. The simple truth is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia-not a wineguide. Our interest in wine related articles is encyclopedic and what they offer to the world of wine-not to replace Wine Spectator or your typical wine guide. Hence the reason we need to adhere to establish Wikipedia guidelines like WP:CORP, WP:NOT, and WP:NN as well as develop our co-existing guidelines at places like WP:WINEGUIDE. AgneCheese/Wine 07:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I think is is good manners to members of the Project to raise concerns about articles here before tagging them for "prod" or any form of deletion. - --Bduke 22:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Reply I don't think it's ill manners to have faith in the judgment and intentions of other wine project members. If a person is motivated to join the Wine Project in the first place, they probably have passion and desire to see that Wikipedia become a stellar encyclopedic resource about this wonderful beverage. As I alluded to before, the beauty of the "Prod" system is that it is a simple and rather soft method of "prodding" things along. There is nothing permanent about the Prod and it is easy to contest and remove. Obviously, any individual wine member is not the "be all and end all" of knowledge of the world's wines and their notability-hence the beauty that another wine project member can simply remove the prod and say "Wait, there is more to the story". If the end result is a better article that establishes notability, then all the better. Though I don't think there is a reason for hurt feelings. We are simply working towards the same goal. AgneCheese/Wine 07:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Concerns should have been raised here and that is what should happen in the future for all articles that someone thinks have concerns --Bduke 22:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Reply I, personally, have concerns about listing each and every wine article related issue on this project page. I think a continuing challenge with the Project is the fact that is SO MUCH that has to be done and it can be quite daunting and overwhelming. If we burden the project with an overly bureaucratic sense of oversight, then I think our progress will be quite stunted in any endeavor we attempt. Of course, we have this page open for discussion and extra opinions. But not every editorial decision needs to be posted here. Again, I think we just need to have simple faith in our fellow members. Bduke removed two of the prod's that I put up because he wants to improve the articles and feels that they have notability. I trust his decision and will gladly let him go about working on those articles. In our recent WID articles of Carmenere, Languedoc wine, and Pinot Gris, there are many times when another editors work is deleted, reworded or moved around. I know it has happened to some of my own edits but there is no reason to be offended because I see in the work of my fellow editors a desire to improve the same article that I so desire to improve. It is the same goal and we just have to have faith in each other. AgneCheese/Wine 07:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you make some good points, but I also think you are missing an important point. My point about the age of the Project is that it has attracted more people to wine articles and as time goes on they will have wine articles on their watch lists. Prod is a reasonable way if, and only if, several people have the article on their watch list and thus know it has been tagged for deletion. I agree that there are a large number of wine articles, some quite old, but I do not think a lot of the participants are likely to notice the deletion tag. If they do not have it on their watch list, they will not know and not comment. Simple removing the deletion tag is only possible if you know it is there. That is why I think issues should be discussed here. The situation when several editors are working on an article is quite different. They all see the other edits. Debate can be on the article's talk page. On the two articles in question, I will look at them during the week. I do think one of them is notable. I am not sure about the other. There are other Australian Project members and some may know more than I do and have access to more sources. All the more reasons for more eyes to look at them. What others did you tag for deletion? --Bduke 08:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Reply Well to the best of my knowledge, it is impossible to know how many people have a particular paged watch listed. But the benefits of Prod's don't just exist for the benefit of the watchlisted editors. It also puts the article into a couple categories which are regular watched by Wiki-gnomes and even stone inclusionists who actively work on improving those borderline articles to put them in compliance with guidelines and policies. There are also the uncountable influence of driven by editors and anon who are more likely to find the article through random articles/wiki links/ or just general searching then in coming to the talk page of this project. Those editors will see the prod tag and maybe motivated to do something about the article. But the second part of the problem is that common to any overly beaucratic or micro-management system-with the sheer girth of projects and articles that need the attention and limited resources of this project, why add more burden to the project with having to run every editorial decision through the project page? If there were borderline cases and it was obvious that no one was responding to a prod tag, then it would probably be worth adding a note on the page. The same would be true if these were full fledged articles rather then stubs. As I mentioned before, if we lose faith in the abilities of our fellow wine project members to edit and make editorial decisions-this project is not going to go very far. AgneCheese/Wine 19:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I have to say that I find this response terribly disappointing. It still misses the point. Of course, we can not see anybody else's watch list, but it is a reasonable assumption that participants in the Project will, as time goes on, be adding wine articles to their watch list. It is not a reasonable assumption that we are wiki gnomes going through the prod category. Of course we want to get others to come to the articles. If they come across it randomly, then it is the role of "cleanup" tags, NOT "prod" tags that will tell them the article needs work. There is no need to flag "cleanup" here, but I insist that all proposed deletions should be flagged here. If you use "cleanup" not "prod" for the ends you want, there will be few deletion proposals. You say "if .. it was obvious that no one was responding to a prod tag, then it would probably be worth adding a note on the page". It will be too late by then. It will be gone. It is not a question of losing faith in the abilities of Project members. It IS a question of whether they know. I think it more than likely, that if I had not got the Australian articles on my watch list and I had not raised the point here, then the prod'ed articles would have been deleted with nobody except you knowing. I consider that would have been a bad result. It almost seems to me that you do not want people to know things, and I am beginning to wonder whether I should let this Project go. I am involved in several other Projects and spend enough time on Wikipedia. Sorry, but it is best to be frank and Aussies generally are. I'm very disappointed in your responses. Finally, I wish you were not so concerned about the "sheer girth of projects and articles that need the attention and limited resources of this project". We are not building an encyclopedia over night. We will get there. There is no point in continually worrying about it. --Bduke 23:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
From her(?) contributions I can find:
Stefan 00:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Vinedo Chadwick, I should have left a note on the talk page explaining this one. That was my error and I apologize. The reason that I prodded it is because of after more research I found that the Berlin Wine Tastings were quite similar to the San Francisco Wine Tasting of 1978 in terms of being purely a marketing tasting. It doesn't really have any notability on its own and didn't even garner a mention in Wine Spectator or any other news source for that matter. Since the tasting was singularly focused on Chilean wine, I was going to merge the tasting in that small section on that article. Apart from this brief mention in a fairly non-notable tasting, there is nothing much else to find about that I could and the g-hits don't look promising. AgneCheese/Wine 19:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • "It almost seems to me that you do not want people to know things....project." Geez, that was overly harsh huh? I just HAD to say something because, even though I agree with you on some points (maybe we should keep a list of articles that have been prodded (or whatever the term is) since many articles have been deleted that I think should have not, I think we should not critisize the members so much. We have to have good faith after all. I understand where you are both coming from: Agne may feel that there are articles that may never go beyond being an adversisement stub (although sometimes we must live with the stub, not all articles can be improved that much, there is just not enough info-take Aligoté for example) and sometimes there are articles that should be deleted because they should either be merged, they are pure advertisement and/or they are not notable enough (and I hate notability standard, still - I do say there are **some** articles that are not notable enough). So, I suggest 2 things: let's stop the back-and-forth replying in this category and second, maybe, if anyone is interested, compile a list or template which compiles the prodded articles. So, instead of accusing members of "not want[ing] people to know things" we should look at that person's overall behavior...isn't Agne doing a Stub-killing drive, didn't she start (sorry if I am mistaken) or continue with the newsletter to keep us all informed and motivated about improving articles??? So, I think we have to just keep helping each other and improving articles, which is the purpose of the Project. So, in the spirit of this message...can anyone help me with the Aligoté article? Can't find anymore info to get this article out of a Stub class.--Charleenmerced Talk 01:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced

I appreciate your comments and I do think Agne is doing a great job, except on this one question where she has persisted in trying to oppose the idea that any article put forward for deletion by anyone or by any method (prod, speedy or AfD) should be listed on the Project page or the Project talk page - a proposal which as far as I can see is followed in every other Project I am involved in. I just do not see it is a big point or a difficult thing to do. If non-Project editors put an article up for deletion we clearly want to know. I do not think Project members should put articles up for deletion. I think they should be tagged for clean up and only put for deletion when there is clear consensus that nothing can be done to make it encyclopedic after extensive discussion. Sorry I can not help you with Aligoté as I know nothing much about it. I will however be putting forward some ideas on Chateau Yaldara soon. --Bduke 03:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

  • You missed one of my points, instead of just talking about it, you should compile a list or ask someone to write a template that complies a list of prodded articles. That is an easy solution to the problem you are interested in.--Charleenmerced Talk 03:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
    • I do not understand your "write a template that complies a list of prodded articles". I know of no way of automating getting a sub-list of all prodded (or speedied or AfD'ed) articles that are of interest to this Project. In other Projects this is done by people adding the articles to a list as they come across them. We have a preliminary list above covering the recent prodded articles. I'll certainly set up part of the structure needed, but unless Agne agrees it should be done, I do not think we can say there is consensus to do it. Could you expand your ideas on how we go about doing it? --Bduke 03:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps any articles that need attention of the project members can have "attention=yes" added to the {{wine}} template on the article talk page. This adds the article to Category:Wine articles needing attention. The other possibility is to create another importance parameter, maybe "importance=none", which will add the article to a similar category. Also for my $0.02, this whole issue regarding prodding articles is fine by me. I created the Chateau Yaldara article that was prodded and it did not bother me for two reasons, 1. It was done in good faith, 2. There was grounds for prodding it. I feel that futher discussion on this matter is unwarranted. ◄scharks► 04:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Compromise solution?

  • I think a lot of this conversation incorporates a diverging view of the benefits/flaws of the prod function. I can respect that and I can also respect Bduke's desire for some sort of notification system. I think Schark's idea might combine the best of both worlds. If changing the importance to "none" puts it into its own category, maybe we can "tweak" it into allowing a date that corresponds to the date that a prod tag was placed? Then how about linking to this category within the "open task" area that is available for any wine project member to view. That way an editor can still make editorial decisions (like deciding to prod an article) and wine project members can be kept fully informed and updated by simply checking on that category. With that said, I want to say that I value Bduke's contribution to the project greatly and would hate to see him go. I think our disagreements are certainly scalable and I can see potential in Scharks idea to get a lot of wine articles into better shape. AgneCheese/Wine 06:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Thank you, Agne, for not taking my harsh words in the wrong way. I was thinking of a rather different idea that could run along with your idea. My idea is to add wine to the pages of Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting and then link the deletion list to the Project page. An example is Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia which I am active in. That would take care of wine articles that are proposed to "Articles for deletion". Although nobody seems to use it, the template for starting a page like this does include a box for other forms of deletion. I will see if that works. Otherwise I will add another page, also linked to the Project page, that can be edited to add information on articles proposed for prod deletion or speedy deletion, as well as categories, images or templates proposed for deletion at WP:CFD, WP:IFD or WP:TFD respectively. I will try to transclude them in to the Project page. I'll do ahead and do this after checking it out more. If we do not like it we can get rid of it. We should also think about having something like this other Australia example, Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Australia, but that could be a later job. Finally, a question on your idea. Does it not depend on the person prodding an article, adding "importance=none" to the Project tag? I think Project members could easily forget to do this and non-Project members would not do it. The advantage of deletion sorting is that a whole of people start to look out for articles to add and it is not that difficult to do it. --Bduke 07:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I'm not very familiar with deletion sorting, but I'm not sure that it would work for prods. Though it might be nice to have it so that project members can weigh in on full fledged AFDs. There's no debate, so you'd just end up with a list of articles. That, like Agne's idea, seems to depend on the person who's prodding the article to go and remember to add it to the list of prodded articles. (Not commenting on the merits of either proposal, just thinking in text :) --- The Bethling(Talk) 08:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Deletion sorting

I have created Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Wine and transcluded it into the Project page. Please let me know what you think about it. I have also added an entry for wine to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Flat. The template article for creating the deletion sorting page had an infobox to the right near the top for adding deletions that are not AfD or Mfd. It was too narrow and I have never seen it used on any other deletion sorting page. I have therefore added sections at the bottom for other things (prod and speedy deletions, categories, templates and images) to be added. I have added the prods that I know about. Any others? --Bduke 07:50, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Chateau Yaldara

I have looked into this article, and following my stated wish that major issues be discussed here I am raising some concerns before wading in and editing. This winery certainly has some notability. It seems to have introduced spaetlese wines to Australia. It is not that small. It employs 140 staff and has a revenue of AUS$16 million (US$12.2 million). It exports to the UK and US. However it is owned by McGuigan Wines who have a winery in NSW and Yaldara Estate (as it is actually now called) in South Australia. The combined company claims to be Australia's No 1 public-listed pure wine company. Together there is clearly more notability. I therefore propose to write a new article McGuigan Wines, merge Chateau Yaldara into that article and make the latter a redirect, along with Yaldara Estate. Does this seem a good solution? Is it a general solution? Should we aim for articles on wine companies, if notable enough, rather than their separate wineries, unless of course a particular winery is particularly notable? --Bduke 09:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I think the best option is to go with the wine company when applicable that way we have less stubs and more "compact and compelte" articles. Charleenmerced Talk 13:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
  • This is a great point. I think that most of the "notable" wineries in Australia deserve their own articles. Wineries such as Wolf Blass, Orlando Wines, Hardy Wine Company, for example all have parent companies but definately deserve their own articles. I think it really comes down to how much historical information is available to write a decent articles about the individual wineries. By the way every wine company will say that they are number 1 at something! ◄scharks► 13:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm a bit unclear what you are saying here. I thought Hardy Wine Company was the parent and it is not a winery, but owns several wineries. Orlando is part of Pernod Ricard Pacific and that article lists the other wineries they own - all are redlinks. Should we convert all those redlinks into articles or combine the material. On Yaldara, are you agreeing with me that we write about the two wineries under the parent "McGuigan"? Note: I have just corrected the spelling of McGuigan above. --Bduke 23:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Hardy Wine Company is owned by Constellation Brands. I can see your point RE the red links in Pernod Ricard Pacific, however I was not suggesting that all of those red links should be articles, just the major wineries. Upon further reflection this could get very messy as the structure of wine companies can be quite complex, so it may just be easier to put everything under the parent company. Sections on individual wineries can be split to their own article if they are expanded significantly. Based on this rationale Yaldara could be merged into McGuigans. A good example of what you're proposing is Montana Wines which lists all of the smaller wineries under it rather than these wineries having separate articles. However one could also suggest that Montana be merged into Pernod Ricard NZ which holds the company, or in Pernod Ricard Pacific which holds Pernod Ricard NZ. Its hard to know where to draw the line I guess. ◄scharks► 10:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
        • As the author of the Montana Wines article, I should clarify. The physical wineries there (with the exception of 1) were all built by Montana to be located near their major plantings. Similarly, the brands listed there were all developed by Montana to target different parts of the market. In contrast, other brands they've bought and now own are NOT included in that article. I would be *extremely* reluctant to merge Montana into PRNZ. PRNZ has only existed for a couple of years, and may only exist for a couple of years in much the same way that Allied Domecq NZ only existed for a couple of years. In contrast, Montana was a long-running company with a good degree of history. Having visited both the Barossa and the McGuigan complex in the Hunter, I think it would be a mistake to merge the 2. McGuigan is a large soul-less place (with not very exciting wines). Rather than taking some legal entity yardstick, I would be far more in favour of some concept of history. For this reason, I'm arguing that the Corbans Wines, purchase by Montana, then Allied Domecq and now part of PRNZ deserves to continue existing, because it has an interesting history that PRNZ doesn't. --Limegreen 11:09, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
          • Hmmm. Two different pieces of advice. McGuigan may be soul-less but it is quite large, so the group probably does deserve an article. I also recall that Brian McGuigan has quite a history, but I need to research it. I'll leave this discussion open, particularly since I'm pretty tied up until the weekend, so I will not get around to writing anything anyway. --Bduke 11:29, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
          • Thanks for explaining Limegreen, I did not realise that Montana developed in that manner. I also agree with maintaining the history of the wineries as you mentioned. It has become clear that this winery (history) 'vs' parent company (business) issue is not clear cut by any means. ◄scharks► 12:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
            • I was probably being a little unfair to McGuigan, but having toured Barossa, McLarenVale, Clare, and Hunter, it appears the later doesn't have the same sense of history. A lot of the large corporate wineries are still quite impressive to behold (Hardy, Penfold, and Jacob's Creek). I think we should work out what to do with holding companies, however. I note that Pernod Ricard doesn't link to either PRNZ or PR Pacific, and in some ways it would seem that those stubbie articles deserve to be merged back to PR, rather than outfits with more history being merged into them. Any thoughts on this? I think another really interesting aspect is the difference between some wineries that had become quite corporate themselves before being subsumed (e.g., Montana & Corbans), versus wineries that were still quite boutique before being absorbed (e.g. Framingham and Cloudy Bay Vineyards). Certainly Cloudy Bay deserves its own article, rather than being pushed back into Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy.--Limegreen 21:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyone interested in helping the Good Article reviewers?

Per this conversation at Wikipedia talk:Good article candidates.
The GA crew are having a bit of a backlog issue at the GA Candidates page and need some help reviewing articles. For those who are unfamiliar with GA, essentially anyone can review an article against the Good Article Criteria and there is a diverse array of topics that need reviewing. It would be a nice way to help out and would also benefit the Wine Project by helping our articles to be reviewed quicker. AgneCheese/Wine 06:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

2 more days left

To help get our current Wine Improvement Drive article Pinot Gris up to GA level quality. A big area in need of improvement is the wine regions. We have only scant info on a few regions. Some more pictures would help too. This grape has been a bit trickier but I know with a concentrated push we can do it. AgneCheese/Wine 09:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Wine Country

A doozy of a conversation. Other opinions are welcome. AgneCheese/Wine 18:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I left a comment, kind of busy so it'll take some time for me to reply again. I do think the name of the article is a case of regionalism. Even here in Washington, "wine country" doesn't mean California, I can't imagine that Australians (for example) would think of Napa when hearing "Wine Country" ---- The Bethling(Talk) 21:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I stated I was going to stay out of the argument, which I believe I started with my post after your linked the article for merge. I now feel even more insistent that the article as it stands now needs to be either completely changed and remain a simple stub with a broad definition (An encyclopedia is not for definitions however) or should be deleted entirely. Thanks for dragging me back into the debate Agne27. By-the-way this also drew me to theCalifornia Wine article which really needs work hopefully this will help or after this term is over I'll get some work done on it.Christopher Tanner, CCC 02:54, 31 March 2007 (UTC)tanner-christopher
  • Update I appreciate the good faith effort that User:Anlace is using to add more encyclopedic relevance to the article. That, coupled with the current state of California wine, led me to remove the merge request for now. However the unambiguated Wine Country name is wholly inappropriate and very POV oriented. There is no universal (much less Primary) usage for Wine Country to mean this specific area in California. As I mentioned on the talk page "Wine Country" is like Downtown (which, interestingly has been transwiki'd and is poised for deletion). Every wine producing region has a "wine country" and that article titled is best served as a redirect to List of wine producing regions with the current article at "Wine Country" moved to either Wine Country (California) or California wine country. AgneCheese/Wine 06:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Update I went ahead and put in a move request at Talk:Wine Country with the additional request that wine country become a redirect to List of wine producing regions. I feel that this is the most NPOV destination since it is unfair to assume that ever US Wikipedia reader is searching for this one particular area in California when they think of "wine country", or every Australian, Asian or European reader for that matter. Feel free to chim in with your opinions, whether you agree or disagree. AgneCheese/Wine 19:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree, I haven't had experience with changing an article in this way with people so strongly opposing this however. What are the chances of them just arbitrarily changing it back to the way it was beforehand? I am unfamiliar with such processes on here and would hate to see time spent on an idea such as this for no result. Thank you for taking the initiative on this page though. This page is clearly a POV as you stated and Northern California is not the only Wine Country as I noted with the webpage http://www.winecountry.com which you noted as well on that page. Christopher Tanner, CCC 06:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)tanner-christopher

WP:WID and Category:B-Class Wine articles

I'd like to get some thoughts on splitting the focus of the Wine Improvement Drive. I'd like to narrow our WID candidates to those that are currently START or STUB because with those articles the improvement is more drastic and more needed. In theory, our B class articles should be articles that are pretty darn close to attaining GA status and would probably only need a few days attention versus our 2 week WID period. As a project, I think we should continually strive to bring all of these articles up to GA and maybe we could run a parallel project with each newsletter with a B-class adoption article. Essentially I'd like to propose that every B-class article is free to be adopted and every wine project member is challenged to "adopt" one B-class article which will be noted in the newsletter. Over the course of the two week period, we'll see how far we can go in bringing up a couple of these articles up to GA class. Even if only 2 or 3 wine project members adopt an article, that could still dramatically increase our rate of producing GA articles. Any thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 06:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree that WID should focus for now on Stub and Start aritcles because those are th articles that need it the most. Also, you can really see the change and the improvement and value fixing these articles brings to the project.--Charleenmerced Talk 17:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
  • I agree as well with working on the stub and start articles. Especially if someone is looking for information on here, at least at a B level article, they are getting a head start to gaining more acces to information. Many of the start and stub articles end up being more confusing for individuals with their lack of information. I have the feeling there are quite a few people here that could put their great minds to work in assisting others in learning from their knowledge on these articles. Christopher Tanner, CCC 07:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)tanner-christopher
  • This sounds alright provided that articles are adopted as suggested. I also think that the WID should continue to focus on topics in order of importance. ◄scharks► 12:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Standard structure of a grape article

'Moving conversation over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wine/Template grape article This is a really important discussion and I don't want to see it get lost in the middle of the Project talk page. AgneCheese/Wine 22:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Bot Archiving?

What does the project think about incorporating a bot(like User:MiszaBot) to handle archiving discussions? It is a bit tedious to do it by hand. AgneCheese/Wine 19:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Werdna bot is out of order at the moment. I will put in a request for Miszabot. AgneCheese/Wine 21:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Heh, after looking at User:MiszaBot/Archive HowTo, I fret that I might mess something up. I think I'll ask Schark's pretty please and see if he'll make the request. :) AgneCheese/Wine 21:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Wine Categories

While working on the newsletter (sorry about being late, real life is crazy), I had trouble finding any cohesive listing of wine related categories. Is there something that I'm missing or do we need to be ambitious and create a listing?. AgneCheese/Wine 05:20, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I started an easy reference list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine/List of wine related categories. If there is something already existing we can always MfD it. AgneCheese/Wine 23:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I think you mean WP:CFD. --Bduke 23:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Well my list would be miscellany since it is not a category itself. AgneCheese/Wine 00:48, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Of course, sorry. I thought you were talking about redundant categories. If you want to delete it, as the sole author, you can just tag it for deletion (I forget how) and an admin will come along and delete it. --Bduke 02:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you probably *are* missing the list on the main WP:WINE page... but I like the dedicated page, it's a good idea. Even better if there was a shortcut to it. mikaul 00:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

LOL!. It took me 4 looks to finally see but there it is. Gawd, I must be getting old. :p Well I started the dedicated page that is linked above. Anyone can feel free to have their way with it.AgneCheese/Wine 00:48, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Related note: I'm not sure how the category links work, but I have some wine-related images over on commons which I can't seem to tag with the enc-based category tags. Do I have to upload pics separately to the encyclopedia to get them onto the category:wine-related images page? mikaultalk 11:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Sparkling 1917

I'd like to get other editors' thoughts on this article. I'm concerned with the advertising aspects of this article and the overall notability for an entire article dedicated to this wine brand. What are your thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 10:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Should be merged with Sovetskoye Shampanskoye, a stub which would benefit from the majority of the encyclopedic text at Sparkling 1917. The brand probably warrants no more than the mention it has at Sovetskoye Shampanskoye, but the fact that the brand name article is so full of supporting info from an anon source is suspicious to say the least. Justice woud be served, I think, with a merge mikaul 12:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I'll throw a merge tag on and we'll see what kind of comments we get in a week or so. A similar anon IP keeps trying to interject information about the Russian sparkling wine into the article on the French Champagne (wine). In addition to reading like a sales pitch and being unsourced, I find that content to be off topic and inappropriate for the Champagne article. AgneCheese/Wine 19:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
As I read more about this brand, I realize that this article is nothing more then a sales pitch. It's like creating a page called Domaine Ste. Michelle to advertise for the Sparkling wine created by Chateau Ste. Michelle. The parent company behind Sparkling 1917 might be notable according to WP:CORP with a one line mention of this wine but there is absolutely no reason for an entire advertisement article for this brand. So I listed it for AfD. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sparkling 1917. AgneCheese/Wine 00:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Deletion sorting

I have moved the AfD debate on the article referred to in the section above to the intended place in the deletion sorting page. This is how everybody else does it. The debate is trancluded into the page. However, that not may be how we want it as, if there are a lot of AfD debates, it would take too much of the Project page. I could change it to just give a link to the debate. What do you think? --Bduke 04:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. Once you've read it, it's a real pain to scroll past. mikaultalk 13:30, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, I have changed it, but note that if you open up the full deletion sorting page there are transcluded instructions which give the older official way to do it. I have added comments to explain. This page is really not a correct deletion sorting page and perhaps at some point we should rename it. The WikiProject Australia has both sets of pages - the deletion sorting and one like ours is now, but it is a pain updating both. --Bduke 22:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Winemaking Merge Discussions

As an FYI, there have been several subtopics proposed to being merged in the main winemaking article. I'm going to try to format a discussion section there so that each item can be fairly evaluated. This would be a substantial change to this article as well as the subtopic articles so a diversity of opinions is ardently needed. AgneCheese/Wine 02:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Good sources of info

For those of us that can read Spanish, this is a great source of info. [1] If anyone finds any article there that they think it's good for a Wikipedia article, ill be happy to translate it.--Charleenmerced Talk 18:40, 5 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced

Brotherhood Winery

I'll add one that I know of that shows the label. A wine pic will be more difficult (at least for me) since it is a hard wine to get out side of New England/Mid-Atlantic region. Any project members in those areas should have better luck. AgneCheese/Wine 11:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Champagne (wine region) on WP:GA/R

An editor has requested that Champagne (wine region) be de-listed because the info there is more appropriate in the Champagne (province) article and has suggested the page be renamed Wine making in Champagne. AgneCheese/Wine 00:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I know it might seem a bit perverse to 'destroy' a GA article, but my preference would be to merge it with Champagne (wine) - about a third of that article belongs in the province article or at least doesn't really belong in a wine article, about a quarter of it duplicates stuff in Champagne (wine) about grapes etc, and the rest of it is historical development, soil etc which would normally go in a (wine) article.

FlagSteward 12:47, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Both articles are too large to consider merging. AgneCheese/Wine 02:04, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe at the moment - but like I say, a lot of the stuff in there is duplicated or redundant. FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Champagne production name

Over on Talk:Champagne_production, I've suggested renaming it Sparkling wine production, given that it's the same process used around the world, and it would allow incorporation of the otherwise-stubby Charmat process and some comparison of the different methods within the same article. I guess an alternative would be to keep Champagne production and rename Charmat process into Sparkling wine production, and turn the CP article into more of a compare and contrast article, but I think I marginally prefer just one article as a central reference for all things fizzy. If anyone has any better ideas for Charmat process, let's hear them. FlagSteward 12:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC) Just a prod on this - aside from the Charmat issue, we seem to have a bit of a problem with what to call Champagne_production since Brussels deprecated the use of Methode champenoise, I'd rather merge Charmat with Sparkling wine but renaming Champagne_production to Sparkling wine production with the addition of Charmat does get us out of a hole on the naming front. Discussion required over on Talk:Champagne_production. FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

New stub types

Looking at that ever-lengthening Stub list, three new stub types suggest themselves :

{{stub-wine-style}}
{{stub-wine-tastings}} or {{stub-wine-competition}} is perhaps clearer
{{stub-wine-production}} for all those odd articles about techniques and tools

And I think it would be useful to widen the scope of {{stub-winery}} to {{stub-wine-company}}, to catch a few extra companies like Enologix and hybrid companies like Nicolas.FlagSteward 12:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC) Whilst we're about it, would it be sensible to set up a {{stub-wine-company-Bordeaux}} before the Bordeaux guys get too carried away?

And a {{stub-wine-brand}} might be a good idea too? FlagSteward 15:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Out of all of these, I think {{stub-wine-style}} is the one most needed and could serve as a catch all for "stub-wine-brand" as well. I could possibly see a need for {{stub-wine-prod}} (provided, we haven't merged the smaller stubs by then). I know as a general rule of thumb, the stub projects likes to a stub category populated with at least 30+ articles on a consistent basis in order to be deemed needed.AgneCheese/Wine 02:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
OK - tastings probably doesn't get over the 30 stub count, the others would I guess (I've not counted production methods, but there seems to be a lot). Certainly company-Bordeaux would, and that might help clear some wood from the trees for those not interested in Bordeaux. Re: wine-style/wine-brand, I guess what we really want is {{stub-wine-wine}} :-)) An alternative to wine-style would be to use {{stub-wine}} for styles and brands alone, and then dump everything else into a dustbin :{{stub-wine-misc}} category. FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Article names (wine)

There seems a bit of inconsistency with article names, you get eg Chablis wine but Vouvray (wine). The latter 'feels' more right to me, but I figure it's the sort of thing that it would make sense to be consistent on. FlagSteward 12:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we should have some time of consistency. I am also a bit partial to the (wine) disambiguation because of the ease of pipe linking. I often found myself wanting to link to the Bordeaux wine page as just "Bordeaux" and then having to take the extra step of pipe link [[Bordeaux wine|Bordeaux]]. Thankfully I found that the presence of the Bordeaux (wine) redirect allowed me to easily type [[Bordeaux (wine)|]] to get Bordeaux. Hence, my partiality to that style. However, I suppose if we adopted a universal convention in the other manner (XXXX wine) we could just as easily set up redirects in the (wine) fashion. AgneCheese/Wine 10:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I've changed Chablis (wine) - worth flagging up any others, as I think the (wine) format is the way to go FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Views on Merging

Operation Stub killer is really kicking into gear and more merge discussions are being started up. At this time I do think there would be some benefit in discussing the differing views and philosophy on merging (and stubs in general). It is obvious that there will be disagreements but I do think there should be some cohesion among the wine project in the basic outlook of merging, and how we will handle disagreements. I encourage every to take part in the conversation and share their thoughts. I also encourage wine project members to delay being bold in merging content that another editor has voiced a disagreement on until we have come to some sort of consensus on how to handle those situations. AgneCheese/Wine 02:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Purpose of merging

  • I love killing off stubs as much as the next person but I think the content in first section of WP:MERGE sums up my general outlook on merging quite well.
  1. There are two or more pages on exactly the same subject.
  2. There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept in the universe. For example, "Flammable" and "Non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on Flammability.
  3. If a page is very short and cannot or should not be expanded terribly much, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic.
  4. If a short article requires the background material or context from a broader article in order for readers to understand it.

For items where there is a distinct overlap (like Wine making and Wine production) it pretty much an easy call. However for other items that are currently stubs, the number 1 consideration is whether or not this article has the potential to develop into a worthwhile encyclopedic article. I believe that a benefit of leaving a stub as a stub is that it does encourage an editor to want to develop the article beyond it stub status-more so I believe then if the info was bury within the girth of a "Mega article". Some things will never grow beyond a few lines of text and those are my ideal merge candidates. An item like Chaptalization, with the controversy and history, was just an encyclopedia article temporarily trapped in a "stubs body". AgneCheese/Wine 02:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree with this sentiment. If an article can be expanded well beyond a stub (Chaptalization is a great example), then it should probably not be merged. Merging, makes it less likely that a significant amount of important information will be added about the subject, since the editor will need to take the time and effort to split the information out. Otherwise they could feel that they're adding information that's not directly related to the subject of the article. --- The Bethling(Talk) 03:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I guess that chaptalisation is an example where the 'potential' is a matter of debate - and you won't know until you debate it :-)) So for instance several people didn't think that chpatalization didn't have enough scope for expansion, some people did.
  • For the articles that get proposed to be merged into sections of a longer article, then if anybody says that there's scope to be expanded, I think they should be given the benefit of the doubt and given time (several months?) to demonstrate that scope by destubbing. If noone's bothered to destub the article within x months, then the pro-merger camp get their way. Put up or shut up in other words :-)
  • And just for the benefit of the stub hunters, I propose that if a stub is proposed as a section in a bigger article, then its Importance is downgraded to at least one level below the bigger article. So for instance, whilst we're debating whether riddling should go into the High importance Champagne production article or destubbed as a standalone article, it gets assigned Mid importance (down from High). If there's a significant argument that it is merely a subsection of a bigger article, it seems likely that it is less Important than that 'host' article. And it scratches the itch of losing another High stub :-))))

FlagSteward 15:33, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Personally, I'm not too concern with the importance level of articles. Since we started doing the assessments, it's become readily apparent that different wine project members view articles with varying consideration of importance. As a whole, I don't think we need to get too caught up in it. If a topic is of interest to a wine project member and they are compelled to make a better article then regardless of the topic it is certainly of High Importance to them. And that is fine. In regards to your second comment, I think that is an exceedingly fair approach and allows other editors the opportunity to expand the article. The several month time frame might even be a little too generous. Perhaps we should encourage an agreement being worked on the relevant talk pages setting up a time frame for the destubbing. I think in most cases, a few weeks to a month should be sufficient. AgneCheese/Wine 10:42, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
However there are guidelines on assigning Importance levels that go beyond mere personal preference ;-/ And Importance is useful for working out what stubs to prioritise - the list above of High stubs has a couple which look more like Mid to me. OT, but talking of this kind of stuff, are you prepared to withdraw your opposition to merging riddling into Champagne production, we seem to have a pretty overwhelming majority otherwise? FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Objections to merges

  • What is the best way to deal with objections to merges? I think we need to consider this question in two contexts. 1.) How to deal with an objection after an editor boldly does a merge. 2.) A merge discussion takes place prior to the merge an another editor has expressed an objection. In the case of one, an editor can just revert the redirect merge on the article as an easy solution. See the edit history of Sovetskoye Shampanskoye. If any editor still wants to go forward with a merge, then a more formal discussion could be brought up with maybe an WP:RFC to solicit more opinions. For me, personally, when I'm being bold I'll abide by the spirit of WP:BRD. If another editor reverts me, I put good faith in their judgment and give them time to work on the article. If after sufficient time has passed and things have not improved overall, I'll open up a formal discussion.AgneCheese/Wine 02:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I think that if there's going to be any rule about a number of objections stopping a merge, I think that it's vital that there be a requirement that they justify their rational. Simply saying "Oppose" shouldn't be enough. ---- The Bethling(Talk) 03:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Consensus on Merge discussions

  • On the case of a formal discussion with objection, I think the Project needs to decide how we are going to gauge "Consensus". Is it going to be a simple majority of views, a super majority? Personally, I think any "shared" objection by more then one editor should be enough to leave a discussion at "no consensus". The wine project is currently at a point of low activity and the shared opinion of two different wine editors would be a sizable consideration.AgneCheese/Wine 02:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Article length & focus

  • I think a relevant discussion is the ideal article length & focus on our content. I am very leery of Long articles because I think the girth of text distracts the average wikipedia reader and maintenance becomes more burdensome. See the current Wine article. My ideal articles tend to have less then 6 sections within the table of contents. I am a big fan of splitter articles because I think "focus" should be a tad higher priority then comprehensiveness within the scope of a single article. We can still be comprehensive on a subject over the course of two or three articles. AgneCheese/Wine 02:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Ithink it depends - stuff like Wine will always be big, and personally I'd rather have one bigger article for that kind of thing as it absorbs what could be a lot of pseudo-Wiktionary entries, and puts them into a context which would otherwise be repeated many times. The official guidelines have this to say
"Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose....Do not take precipitous action the very instant an article exceeds 32 KB"
(ie excluding references, footnotes etc) I don't think we're there yet are we? FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

White Zinfandel

  • I noticed that the White Zinfandel article was changed to a Low importance and I feel that it was an inappropriate change. Just to elaborate on my reasoning, based on sales volume the wine has given profits to wineries that have been able to produce other great "connoisseur" wines. It is still the highest volume sold wine in America and that states much for its importance to the industry. Many may not enjoy it's flavor, but that doesn't make it unimportant, thats just POV. In addition White Zinfandel has been produced in California since the grape was introduced in the 19th century, commercially it is a new product but that doesn't make it a new wine or any less important. I just wanted to get a consensus before I changed the article back to what I feel should be High importance.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 05:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)tanner-christopher
While I personally think it is a dreadful wine, it is none the less a very popular one in the US and the history of the style plays a large role California Zinfandel production. I can see an argument for "high importance" but at the very least it should be mid. AgneCheese/Wine 10:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I've switched it to Mid, as the Zinfandel grape is of much more importance than a "style" of wine made from the grape. Thanks for the input and for the others who did so on the article. --Christopher Tanner, CCC 13:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)tanner-christopher
FWIW I'd say it fails the 'international relevance' test for a High importance, and as you say it definitely deserves to be at least one step below Zinfandel itself.FlagSteward 14:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

User:AlexNewArtBot

This bot searches works with the Wikipedia:New articles by topic page to categorize New pages listings. Currently there is no wine category. Would there be any value in setting one up? I really can't estimate how many new wine pages crop up on a given day but at the very least I can see a benefit in ensuring that it is tagged and assess by the project. Any other thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 10:27, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't see why not FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti merge

As part of my attempts to try and sort out some of the High priority Stubs, I've proposed the merger of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Romanée Conti and La Tache - I don't think there's enough to be said about the two vineyards that doesn't also belong in the winery article. I've left open the subject of the name - my preference would be Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, but I wonder if the average Wikipedian might not expect to see Romanée Conti. See Talk:Domaine_de_la_Romanée-Conti FlagSteward 12:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC) I'll go ahead with this as noone's objected FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, we seem to be having some objections. I've upgraded the DRC article a bit to give a better idea of the direction it could be going in, would anyone else care to comment on the Romanée Conti and La Tache articles as merger candidates with Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. For me it's a no-brainer, so I'm surprised at the opposition. FlagSteward 01:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

The Miszabot thing seems to work pretty well, might I suggest that the archive frequency is extended to 8-9 days, to allow people who only say come here at weekends to see what's happened during the week? FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I would personally like to see it moved back up to 7 days. The project does get a flurry of activity from time to time but the talk page doesn't get that overwhelming with an extra 2 days. AgneCheese/Wine 19:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Wine on the Front Page!

Thanks to the Bethling for nominating Chaptalization for a DYK which is now on the Main Page. The increase traffic on a wine related article is always a plus for the project. I know when Charles Heidsieck was on the front page, a flurry of edits happened which greatly improved the article and helped to eventually get it to GA. Hopefully the same will happen to Chaptalization. I encourage all wine project members to be mindful of DYK's especially when we create a new article or substantially improve a stub. If you are shy about nominating yourself, put a mention on this project page and another a wine project member will take a look and see if there is a nice "hook" for nominating. AgneCheese/Wine 19:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

To Do list

How does the To Do list work? It feels like it could do with some updating - for instance, Expand links to the stub list, but some of the articles there had got up to B status. I didn't want to tread on any toes by removing them completely, but I thought it more appropriate to move eg Rioja to the 'To GA' list. Does Expand include Stubs and Starts, or just Stubs? Is there scope for an 'Improve' list of Starts and leave Expand to cover only Stubs? Should the lists of Expand/to GA/to FA only feature Top Priority articles at this stage?

I think we should certainly add "Discussion of the grape article template" as an urgent matter, as once we've got that nailed that will allow us to really go stub hunting on the grape varieties - there doesn't seem much point in starting that until we've got a template that everyone's happy with. I guess going 'live' with Template:Infobox_grape_variety would also be part of that process. FlagSteward 13:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

  • In regards to the "To-do" list, don't fret about treading on anyone toes. Feel free to boldly update it whenever you feel like it.AgneCheese/Wine 11:01, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, the To-Do list now has all the Top articles in the appropriate sections, plus the more pressing High stubs. I've also taken the liberty of bunging all the Top Start articles into WID nomination, as there's some real biggies in there like Chardonnay, which gives useful perspective on some of the existing nominations. FlagSteward 11:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Re-assess of ex-stubs

  • Pinot blanc - I think I have added enough to this article to change it to Start. Anyone else agree? Needs a copyedit though. Charleenmerced Talk 20:48, 23 March 2007
  • Cabernet franc - also added info and fixed it a bit, needs a copy edit.

Agree that these two could be changed to Start level. Camw 00:18, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Definitely start level. Nice work BTW. AgneCheese/Wine 07:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I'll go ahead and nominate it. And Mick, that picture with the wine glass to show the color is simply GORGEOUS! AgneCheese/Wine 00:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks :o) mikaultalk 13:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, it's above Start, but is it at GA level? I think it needs more improvement, especially in the History section. There is just not that much History around.--Charleenmerced Talk 00:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
If you find relevant information by all means add it. However the worst case scenario is that it fails GA with some good notes on what we can do to improve it. Ordinarily Peer Review would be ideal but considering the dreadful response that I had with Languedoc wine, I think PR is pretty much useless now. AgneCheese/Wine 01:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I thought the History section was a bit "wooly", rather than "thin" - could do with shearing! (especially toward the end) mikaultalk 13:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Aligoté - I have been trying to get more info on this grape all day to make it a Start article and can't find anything else. Anyone care to help out? I have also re-assessed this article to High imp since it is the 4th most planted grape in the world. Charleenmerced Talk 20:35, 24 March 2007
  • Malbec - changed to start but might be pushing it. Needs a copy edit. Charleenmerced Talk 03:51, 25 March 2007
  • Chenin blanc - may or may not be a Start. Needs assessment and a copyedit. Charleenmerced Talk 04:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
  • Sémillon - ok, I added some more info and fixed it a little. I tagged it as Start. I think it needs a serious copyedit and some more work. Does anyone know whether it IS true that Chile has the most Semilón planted???? --Charleenmerced Talk 04:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
    • Just finished a thorough copyedit of this, including a rephrasing to play down the "Chilean world leader" factor. I searched everywhere and couldn't find another supporting ref :o/ --mikaultalk 18:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I should probably add that I've added a fair bit to noble rot and raised it to Start. I think the merge proposal on this one is a bad idea, incidentally. --mikaultalk 18:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • New York State wine - I've reworked this article and added much more information to the article. I'm not quite sure on the scale of articles where the quality of it would lay now to have it changed. Christopher Tanner, CCC 05:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)tanner-christopher
  • Folks, you might want to cast your eye over some of the Top Start articles that are currently in the Improve section of the To Do section of the WP front page. Looking at them briefly I felt that some of them are getting into B territory, but would value a second opinion. I've put all of them up for WID nomination, so if you feel that any are B class then feel free to remove them from the WID page, it would help focus our attention for the WID noms. (but by the same token, I feel it was useful putting them up for WID nomination, it highlighted some real doozies like the current state of the Chardonnay article.) FlagSteward 00:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions for grape varieties

I've noticed that some grape varieties have a capitalised second name and then others do not. For example Sauvignon blanc and Pinot blanc versus Chenin Blanc and Fumé Blanc. What is the convention that we should be using? It would be good to get consistency on this. ◄scharks► 03:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm encountering the same issue with sources for Pinot gris. I have some sources that have it listed as Pinot Gris, some as Pinot gris and admittedly I'm not sure which is correct. AgneCheese/Wine 07:21, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I think there are rules for this but I am not sure what they are. This was addressed in another article, not sure which...maybe in Cabernet Sauvignon? But, it was definately discussed and an answer was given. I wish I remembered...Charleenmerced Talk 07:24, 24 March 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced

I just found a discussion at Category talk:Grape varieties which seems to answer the question. This suggests that all varieties with descriptors in their name should be renamed to remove capitalisation. This would include -Blanc, -Noir, -Gris, -Rosso, -Rose, -White, which all describe colours, but not for example -Sauvignon. It would be handy to have this formalised for future reference as I'm sure it will come up again. ◄scharks► 08:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I missed this. It's (somewhat) my pet crusade. There was actually a post here last month [2] explaining it. What is less clear (as I noted in the that post, is whether this same capitalisation applies to non-English (e.g., Pinot Grigio v. Pinot grigio). Having said that the lower case version is technically correct, I've come across editors who refuse to have "Sauvignon blanc" in their publications. --Limegreen 01:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Limegreen, sorry I missed that previous discussion. Hopefully we can work to tidy this up. I'm also thinking of setting up a naming convention for grape varieties so these discussions are formalised. ◄scharks► 01:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I've been stumbling across some good resources on grape clones and cultivars, but to be honest, capitalisation doesn't seem to be a strong point. One thing I did note on my travels is that it appears that it is Cabernet franc, so it isn't only colour descriptors. There is an interesting discussion here[3] on the semantics, but it stops short of capitalising. Most interestingly/relevantly to this discussion is that individual clones of Pinot (e.g., Davis vs Dijon) are likely more different genetically than the colour based categories (e.g., gris vs noir). --Limegreen 02:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm just trying to fix up Pinot gris and in it we now have Pinot Gris, Pinot gris and pinot gris, should I change it all to Pinot gris? Is that consensus or not? If we are trying for GA I would never accept it as GA unless we at least had the same name all through the same page. Stefan 13:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Both Jancis Robinson in The Oxford companion to Wine and Oz Clark in Grapes and Wines call it Pinot Gris. Stefan 13:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
I would go with eg Pinot noir in general, with double capitals where the second word is a name. Double capitalisation is a reasonable second bet, which avoids the need to think too hard about the origins. Double lower case just seems wrong. FlagSteward 12:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
It is proper to capitalize both names, they are a title for a grape. Even the second word which is often a descriptor is still a proper name. Just to verify I checked with my grad professor from Readings in Wine History MET630 which he grades in that manner. In addition I checked every wine reference I have and all of the entries are fully capitalized. Christopher Tanner, CCC 14:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)tanner-christopher

Again, I've seen wine references use both. I echo Schark's desire to see something formalized. Would it be worthwhile to have a poll to try and gauge wine project member's views?AgneCheese/Wine 10:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so, I think it's fairly clear-cut: the "lower-case second name" thing comes from the scientific binomial nomenclature naming convention in taxonomy etc (eg Vitis silvestris) in which only the first word of the binary name is capitalised to emphasise genus over descriptor. It's a 20th century invention, hence the confusion, perhaps. Certainly seems eminently sensible to stick to the normal Proper Noun capitalisation common to all other English (and French and German) nomenclature, as Sauvingnon isn't a genus, even if Blanc *is* as descriptor. mikaultalk 19:01, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
No it's not a binomial thing, people aren't following the example of the 18th century Linnaeus, it's more to do with capitalising proper names and not capitalising adjectives. In English one wouldn't normally capitalise white Pinot, but you would capitalise Frontignan Muscat. That's the argument for having some in the Big little format, but I am tempted to agree that prior art and ease of consistency might argue for capitalising everything. FlagSteward 00:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, that's more or less what I was getting at; I think our friend Carl used caps for his descriptors (adjectives), the reasoning being that what once might have been a descriptive phrase has become a proper name. So Sauvignon (blanc) becomes Sauvignon Blanc. I'm sure there are other examples.. Great Britain? mebbe not.. mikaultalk 17:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Globalization of wine

(splitting out of previous section FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)) I'm not sure that globalisation of wine is a tangible enough thing to be able to write a sensible article on, but someone's welcome to try. ;-/ FlagSteward 15:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

My inclination would be to oppose this one because a lot of the "threat" of the Globalization of wine has nothing to do with the new world at all. From the wine lake to Négociants to Michel Rolland to Fat Bastard to Vin de pays, there is really more going on in the Old World that is related to the globalization of wine then the New world. In fact, one of my favorite movies on the subject Mondovino, spends the clear majority of its time in the old world commenting on the influences within the old world that are pushing the globalization. AgneCheese/Wine 11:01, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
See, to my eyes that list you've just reeled off exemplifies why 'Globalisation of wine' isn't a real subject for a Wiki article. Like the Parkerization article, it's just a ragbag of whinges that is about 75% POV and 25% belongs in different articles. For instance Fat Bastard isn't a tale about the globalisation of wine, it's the spiritual successor to Blue Nun - or the Romans' Falernian wine. And even the Romans had wine lakes, Domitian ordered the grubbing up of vines in AD92.
There are some tangible bits to the globalisation thing, but they can be dealt with in the appropriate article - for instance you could plausibly have an article or article section about flying winemakers. But hey, maybe that's just a POV from someone who lives in the country that's been the centre of the international wine trade for the last millennium, I can see that the POV from more inward-looking countries with substantial indigenous wine production might look a bit different. But personally I'd scratch the article completely.FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Just to confuse this discussion a little more, I was about to take up the stub-killing baton of New World wine when I realised the bones of what I might want to write on the subject are already there on the wine competition page, while the flesh is at Judgement of Paris, leaving New World wine to become either a (short) list or an overlap of these two. A merge with globalization of wine doesn't ring true, for some reason, even though this seems to link the preceding three together; in any event, I'm not sure about deleting NWW any more than the globablization article, but I don't think it warrants any more consideration than it's already had. A nautral born stub, perhaps? What are we going to do with this lot? mikaultalk 16:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Heh - I love this kind of thing, when different people have completely different ideas of what an article is about. :-))) You're right, NWW shouldn't just duplicate existing articles. But the way I saw it, the wine competitions were going to be no more than a paragraph in NWW - as they are in my new version of Globalisation. It's weird how large Paris 76 looms round here - it's as bad as Wembley 66 in a certain part of the UK.... ;-/
I view NWW as an article of two halves - a general introduction as to a bit of the common history of winemaking outside Europe, and some general comment about the single varietal thing and styles (plus how they've no concept of terroir, always make blowsy overoaked palette killers, you know the sort of thing ;-/ ;-/ - those are smileys for the humour-impaired :-) ). Then the second half would be a bit like my dessert wine and straw wine articles, a series of thumbnails to act as jumping off points for the casual reader to deeper into the wine content of Wikipedia. I really enjoyed doing those two articles, and I think I'm quite good at that kind of 'big picture' stuff, so I'd planned to do NWW as one of my main two tasks for this weekend, along with Hungary - and then whatever it took to get the region High Stubs down to single figures ;-/ If your muse isn't with you on NWW, shall I do a first draft over the w/e and then you might be able to contribute more once there's a framework in place? You can always be getting on with those photo tips ;-/ Or if you're looking for things to do, some of the region articles would be good - one reason I've been leaving them is that while I enjoy the wines of almost all of them, I'd have to look up a lot of the geography stuff, and my HJ Atlas (plus all my other wine books) is several hundred miles away at the moment. It's a long story.... ;-/ I'll start on Hungary in the meantime. Oh, and incidentally, once this current stub drive is over, I've got my eye on the Fortified wine article, to convert that into something along the lines of the dessert wine one. I also think that there might be a whole new lot of stubs to find - having discovered that both Cote d'Or (escarpment) and Cote de Beaune existed but weren't in the Project, I'm wondering what else might be out there....
Oh, as an update to the subject of this section - the old Globalization article was so US-centric (ironic, really ;-/) that I dashed off a new version which was a bit less biased. Nothing brilliant, but it will do for now - one option might be to morph it into a Flying Winemaker article, as that's a bit more specific. Since the article is also in the Economics project, they might have some ideas, they're more used to dealing with this kind of waffle intangible subject matter, I prefer articles about stuff I can drink :-)) FlagSteward 18:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Tempranillo picture

I have read up on Tempranillo quite a bit these past few days and discovered that a mutaiton caused a white variety recently. I have put all of this info on the Tempranillo article. I found a picture but it is copyrighted. I put it up anyways for the time being because I think it is gonna be IMPOSSIBLE to find another. I found it here [4]. Can anyone help me obtain another picture of white tempranillo that won't have licensing problems?--Charleenmerced Talk 13:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced

Aagh - Portugese! I'd say it was worth asking them for a release, if I could. Are you sure these aren't just an immature cluster? I'm checking some other sources, found that [5] I was on about (pic there too, but tampoco sure it's actually Tempranillo.. vaya peroiodistas..) which says the white version has actually been approved by the consejo for the DO now. mikaultalk 14:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Press release from DO La Rioja this year - still no pics :/ mikaultalk 14:25, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I read the protuguese article I posted and could pretyy much understand a vast majority of it and yes, I am pretty sure those are white tempranillo grapes. I wanted to ask them for permission, but dont really know who to ask. BTW, that link you posted does not work.--Charleenmerced Talk 16:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
Hm. See if this works: [6]
Try sending an email to the address linked at the top of the page that the photo is on, should find its way to the right person. mikaultalk 17:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I sent the e-mail. Gotta say, I am a lot happier with the Tempranillo article, it is going nicely. I am still trying to look ofr hisotry, I read somewhere that the wine may not have originated in Spain, or at least not in the Rioja region.--Charleenmerced Talk 18:40, 5 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
    • Fingers crossed for the pic. Talking to folk round here (Penedès) they've grown Tempranillo longer than anywhere else in Spain, but find a citeable source..? According to our friend sr. Hernández, the Rioja didn't start producing anything until the first century AD, a good 6-700 years later than Penedès. Who knows what the Phoenicians got up to further south, even earlier, with indigenous wild grapes? The grape has so many names, and there are so many undocumented claims to the 'original', I'm close to convinced that we'll never be able to say for sure. I'd be very surprised if it first appeared outside of Spain, though. mikaultalk 22:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

More photos

I've found some more decent Tempranillo pics - a diseased cluster, some semi-mature clusters and a white-background ripe cluster showing good deep blue-blacks - all from this wiki-friendly source. They'll be on the category:wine-related images page and if there's anything else on the guy's website you like, please copy & paste the permission details from the Description section of one of the Tempranillo ones displaying his URL. He has a good, in-depth, technical library of pics, almost all from northern Spain (Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Navarra etc) but also a decent selection of more generic wine production shots on a searchable database. The links from his site are v good too. mikaultalk 18:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been thinking about offering some hints and tips to boost up WikiWino editors' photo-taking confidence and generate more original image input. I'm thinking along the lines of wine & bottle shots, pics showing wine colour, etc, which are technically quite tricky and off-putting, but I'd be open to suggestions/questions. Opinions? mikaultalk 18:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

One last thing - can anyone answer my question about commons pics not linking to the wp:category:wine-related articles? mikaultalk 18:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I'll be checking out this page. The pics you added are great! I've tried to take pics but they dont come out that well. We should do a "Take a wine-related picture" drive. I guess the common things it's because it's kinda difference from wiki, different account and all and different links, maybe???--Charleenmerced Talk 19:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
I can't understand the commons things either so I upload my photos directly to en-wiki. Some of them eventually get trans-wiki over but the article link normally stays in tact needing nothing further for me to do. As for hints and tips, by all means....please. :) Both the mrs and I have been trying our best to get good quality wine pics but with very marginal success. With my shop I have plenty of means and opportunity to take a variety of wine pics. I'm just lacking the skill. AgneCheese/Wine 11:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Photo tips are good for me (qv my pic of Penfolds Grange :-) - in my defence it was only a quick snapshot just to get something in the article) - perhaps the way to do it would be a webpage outside Wikipedia? FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

  • It's such a specific thing (glass+wine and bottle+/-glass) it won't amount to much of an essay; I could write up some pointers on my user page and maybe move them or link to them here, whichever. I do think there's great scope for illustrating many wp:wine pages with our own shots: it's easier to count the ones which *wouldn't* benefit from a pic of a relevant bottle. Let me draft something over the weekend and see if I can't make artists of you all ;o) mikaultalk 15:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Open Wiki-Winos Invite

Howdy all! Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a response for a new Wiki-Winos for the next newsletter addition so I am sending out an opening invitation for anyone who would like to participate. Take a look at the questions found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine/Newsletter/Wiki-Winos and post your reply at User talk:Agne27/Wiki-Winos. There you can also take a look at how the interview with previous Wiki-Winos Charleen, Chris, Steve, and Mroconnell went. If you have any questions feel free to drop me a line on my talk page. Thanks! AgneCheese/Wine 19:06, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Schwalbenwinkel

Um... I'm requesting a lil' article on a German wine called Schwalbenwinkel. It's mentioned in the film Judgement at Nuremburg, as the local wine of that region, and to my amazement I finally found something that is not in Wiki yet, even on the German Wines page.71.125.152.188 06:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Great - if you can supply information on it and can prove notability, but at the moment the Wine Project has more than enough stubs, there's whole countries with articles that are only stubs. ;-/ FlagSteward 14:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

International Grape Genome Program

I've just created this page following a paper trail which started when I was helping research the white Tempranillo grape. It's interesting on several levels, not least the GM debate. I realise the info about the origins of white grapevines already has a mention on the Vitis vinifera page but it seemed like a good opportunity to put some flesh on the bones of the story. I'm thinking it would make a good WP:DYK but I'm not sure whether you can nominate a section of an article..? I'd appreciate any comments, anyway. mikaultalk 23:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Good stuff, like it :-) FlagSteward 00:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Very neat article. Definitely DYK potential. Just have to find a good hook to nominate. Bethling is pretty good at finding one. AgneCheese/Wine 21:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and nominated a DYK for the article. AgneCheese/Wine 10:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

And it is on the Main page today! Great work Mick! AgneCheese/Wine 06:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Cool :o) thanks Agne! mikaultalk 11:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Pssst.....they're watching us

While browsing the web I came across this from the Wine for Newbies podcast. Much to my surprise, I found that the host makes frequent use of Wikipedia as a wine resource for his podcast. With Wikipedia's free license, he compiled several of our wine articles in a Wine Appreciation book that he published. This sort of hits home about the work and benefit of what we do here. I think this also heightens our goal of creating quality wine articles that people can reference and use. So kudos to every one in the project. :) AgneCheese/Wine 09:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Although it is cool our work is being appreciated, there are som mistakes in that pdf...Is there a way to contact the author about them? In page30 he/she says there is no Merlot in Chile...since when?!--Charleenmerced Talk 00:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced

PS..I've updated the Portal

  • LOL! You're right. I think he did a direct copy from the article at the time, which apparently had that mistake. I guess that goes to show how important it is that we get good info in the articles. :p If you want to contact the author his website is [7]. There is an email link as well as links to his blogs where you can leave comments. AgneCheese/Wine 06:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

American wine rename

I've put in a formal request for American wine to be renamed USA wine on the grounds that the rest of the continent have reasonable grounds to complain of WP:BIAS - and USA wine is more accurate. Discussion is over on Talk:American wine

USA wine is rather cretinous. How about North American wine? Canada can be stuck in there too :) VanTucky 06:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent changes

I have been very busy recently so not much time, now I had some and made the recent changes list that was discussed earlier, see Recent changes list, please edit the order, not sure what you want first. Still would be good if we could include sub cats ...Stefan 00:23, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Straw wine merger

This one seems to have been hanging around a few weeks but with no response. Suggestion is to merge in Vin de Paille, Recioto,Passito and Amarone to a) remove a load of stubs and b)make Straw wine a more coherent, better, article that would probably deserve promotion to High priority. FlagSteward 15:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be a consensus on the first three, I still think that PAssitoRecioto and Amarone belong together... FlagSteward 14:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I've done a big revamp on Straw wine which has incorporated the current four articles but I've not done anything about a formal merger yet. I must admit, it's one of the most satisfying articles I've done, bringing together a whole load of disparate threads into something that really starts to make sense when viewed as a whole - I really fancy getting my hands on some Passito di Pantelleria now :-)) Perhaps the pro-Amarone folks could take another look to see how Amarone fits in? The other 'biggy' is that I think the article needs a rename given that a lot of similar wines don't use straw - Raisin wine seems to be one sensible option.

FlagSteward 14:23, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It's wrong to keep the "popular" varietals with their own pages and shunt the lesser-known ones to the sidelines in generalized articles. Keep all of the individual straw wine articles or none. Personally, I think the solution is to keep a general article about the straw wine process, but also keep pages for each grape. Stubs have a purpose, and its not just to be merged. VanTucky 06:05, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not a question of 'popularity' (and nor is it a question of 'varietals' - we're mostly talking blends) - it's just a question of whether articles can reasonably be expanded into full articles without just duplicating what's in the 'gateway' article. I can live with some of the raisin wines having their own articles, such as vin santo, but for most of them there's not a great deal to be said once the basics of production have been dealt with - and there is a significant value in having a single article that compares all of them. If individual sections of the straw wine/raisin wine article become unmanageably big, then by all means splinter out a dedicated article, but for now, I think most of them work better as part of the bigger article.FlagSteward 17:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

List of vineyards and wineries

If this list could ever be exhaustive and complete it would probably be larger then some of our foreign language wiki's. :p Any thoughts on what we should do about it? AgneCheese/Wine 10:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Quick comment - I think this page should be separated by country. FOr COmpanies with wineries in more than one country, it could just appear twice.--Charleenmerced Talk 17:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
  • Personally I wouldn't put a single company on that page. Again using the hierarchy principle, I would just make it a list of other pages such as

**[[Category:Wineries of France]] **[[List of wineries in the Barossa Valley]] **[[List of Italian DOCG wines]]

Unfortunately the sub pages need some work, as they're all done different ways - for instance the ITalian lists are done by DOC, DOCG etc, you get some regions (Oregon, Barossa) but not others in the same country, it's a right mess. And then side by side you have the Categories. I can quite happily live with Categories and list articles side by side, just saying that it's worth having both. Long term though hierarchies have to be the way to go. FlagSteward 19:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm also having trouble seieng how this would work, or more to the point who would DO the work. There are over 160,000 viticultors in Spain alone... mikaultalk 22:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • My comment was regarding the already existing list - that it should be separated into Countries. Also, who would do the work? I think everyone should do it...Everytime you remember a winery/vineyard - add it; everytime you drink wine, look up the winery and add it...overtime it would be a pretty long list. It doesn't have to be all at the same time. Also, I bet there are lists of wineries online, we can copy the list to get ahead in this project.--Charleenmerced Talk 22:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced
  • I also don't see the benefit of having a list, at least in its current capacity. As Mike pointed out, Spain alone has 16,000 wineries. There is no way we can even have a list of Spanish wineries. Categories work much better and we can have a sub page here on the project for winery cats if needed. I think the best course for this article is for us to make sure all the entries are properly categorized and then AfD it. AgneCheese/Wine 02:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Just for the record, that wasn't a typo: there really are 160 thousand viticultors in Spain, but I've just realised that once you translate that to actual bodegas (ie identifiable wineries) the number is a little under 5000. Apologies for the confusion.. it would still be a very, very long list.. mikaultalk 23:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree, Wikipedia is not a directory.Gsherry 03:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

What to do?

(Section break) I think consensus is that this article will be impossible to maintain. The next question is what do we want to do with it? Do we want to AfD it. Merge its content somewhere else? Turn it into a category, etc? Any ideas? AgneCheese/Wine 19:05, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I would probably AFD it. Camw 23:35, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree it should be deleted. There are far too many wineries and we are agreed that they are not all notable. I think we should not have lists and rely on categories for those that are notable enough to have articles. I would not suggest this in areas other than wines but the number of wineries is vast, names change rapidly, new ones are started and some close down. Lists are not usefully maintainable. AfD is probably the way to go. --Bduke 00:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • While I take the point that Wikipedia is not a directory, there are some regions where lists are feasible/useful - Bordeaux is one, it looks like the Aussies are close to doing the Barossa Valley, and there's probably others. Just because Spain is such a big task doesn't mean that it's impossible elsewhere. So i would certainly delete the current wineries on the list - but reinstate them in sublists, and use the current List of vineyards and wineries as a index list of cateogories and other index pages. Noone's going to be able to keep up with every winery in the world - but people may be interested in maintaining lists of Bordeaux, or the Barossa Valley, and since that's the case, it's useful to have a list of those pages. FlagSteward 17:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Wine Library TV and Gary Vaynerchuk

I know that I am not the only wine project editor who has removed spam links from the Wine Library TV sites on our grape and wine region articles so I was shocked to find articles about these subjects. The thing that concerns me most is that the majority of these links go from the "free lesson" to the wine store with plugs on which wines you should buy from them. The object seems more commercial and sales oriented then educational and is a bit troubling. I can possibly see a case for the Gary Vaynerchuk article since (albeit brief) mention in the Wall Street Journal does show some notability but the Wine Library TV article is.....well, a bit much. Case in point Wine_Library_TV#Vayner-isms. Any other thoughts? AgneCheese/Wine 16:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Update- I left some comments on the Wine Library talk page about some improvements that are drastically needed on that article. I also proposed to merge the two articles together. AgneCheese/Wine 19:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd guess with a turnover of $25m or whatever that's reasonable, but a passing mention in the WSJ doesn't establish notability, and there must be some kind of 'good faith' rule for inclusion in Wikipedia - if the guy keeps taking the mickey, block him I say. FlagSteward 17:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Less then 1 more week

For our Bordeaux WID articles to get up to GA! Right now the current states are....

-Sections to expand Lead intro, Climate and geography, Wine style (namely this is a section to comment on the Bordeaux wines other then red wines, like the sparkling and deserts). -Sections to reduce and summarize Wine regions & classification and History. We need to look at the splinter articles and mine the text from those areas into no more then two paragraphs worth of info that serves as a good summary of what is in the splinter article. -Section to clean up and reference - Problems and Prospect. Needs a little POV work to. Ideally I like to see more comment on the globalization of wine in this area.

  • Bordeaux wine regions - Getting there. Major work needed on the Right banks and just general tweaking and fleshing out of the information.
  • History of Bordeaux wine - Major work still needed. It still needs to be divided into sections and fashioned into an article. Pictures would also be a plus
  • Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855- Largely untouched during the WID period so far. The most obvious need is to trim the lead and carve out at history section from it that could then be expanded. The Criticism area needs POV and referencing work.


This was an ambitious project and I'm grateful to the editors who have helped so far but we need more. Giving the diversity of the articles there should be an area for everyone that they can pitch in. Every little bit help from copy editing to pictures to format to adding content. Together we can do this and help make Wikipedia a world class resource on another wine related subject. AgneCheese/Wine 17:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Hiatus

Hey all, I'm starting finals soon....so ta ta till then!--Charleenmerced Talk 02:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)Charleenmerced

Definitely, best wishes and here's hoping you'll have a nice wine to celebrate acing those finals. ;) AgneCheese/Wine 10:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
A little late, but good luck on your finals! I'm in the middle of writing terms papers. Four ten pagers and a twenty page, one is on wine though, debunking the "spiritual" aspects of terroir, very exciting.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 08:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
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