Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Brazil/Geography of Brazil task force

Guideline pages

I learned from @Prburley: that WikiProject Japan has a task force for Municipalities and Districts. They have built a page of guidelines for creating a good article. I think it’s a great idea. I can see a need for creating a couple of such guideline pages with ideas for infoboxes, categories, overall structure, sources, etc. (one for cities, another for rivers; basically, anything with a large number of stub articles that need to be expanded/improved). If we simplified what the Japan page has done, I think we could have a nice guideline template to recycle across all of the WP Brazil task forces. For that reason, I’d like to suggest that if someone wants to get a start on this, please name the page something more specific than ~/guideline. Maybe ~/Municipality article guidelines or something to that effect.

Looking at more active geography-based WikiProjects like WikiProject Japan or Russia is one great way to find ideas, but let’s not forget about the topic-based WikiProjects that overlap with this one, like WikiProject Cities, Rivers, etc. They probably have some best practices and guidelines documented as well. giso6150 (talk) 00:46, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. The WP Japan municipality guidelines mentioned above are an adaptation of WikiProject_Cities US Guidelines which in turn is one of the WikiProject_Cities Article guidelines and conventions based on that project's guidelines for article structure. I'd simply find something Brazil-specific quite helpful. Prburley (talk) 12:08, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Naviraí

The article for Naviraí is a disaster, I think this was just done with automatic translation. I'm going to attempt to rewrite it into English, but I may need some help from a native speaker to know what the original sentences even mean. Thanks! Prburley (talk) 16:39, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, let me know when you need some help. Victão Lopes ^Fala! 19:18, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Stations

Are rail / metro / bus stations included in the scope of this task force? I'd vote yes since they're discussed as places, not with construction details or technical specifications, etc. Thanks! Prburley (talk) 12:43, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My vote would be to include them in the Transportation task force instead, although there wouldn’t be much harm tagging them for both. giso6150 (talk) 13:30, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Moving forward: proposal for selected monthly group geo edit

Now that this task force is established and articles assessed via a first pass, would anyone be interested in working, as a group, on a new or revised article of importance to WP Brazil each month? Perhaps making a DYK submission an outcome, and submitting said article for further copy edit/content assessment? There are 90 articles of "top" importance that are either stub or start class. Not good.
We could also ask for participants from fellow WP Projects, if anyone is still at the wheel at them.
I'm willing to lead this effort if anyone else is interested. Of immediate concern in direct order: Sergipe and Rondônia.
If someone knows the link to top page views of WP Brazil articles, that would be a great resource. I had it for WP Japan and lost the link. (Note: porn stars articles are big winners on that page view list).
For a quick win to get things rolling, I'll be in São Paulo this month so I'll have access to resources re: SP requests at WP Brazil:Requests (these are all missing in English? Really?). Prburley (talk) 16:14, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good, count me in. Victão Lopes ^Fala! 19:59, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is a great idea. Thanks for taking the lead. Rondônia is an especially sad example, I would say. I’m sure there are many more in the Top and High importance categories that are badly in need of some TLC.

Crossed off portions of this discussion have been relocated to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Brazil

At least 90% of that list of requested articles are São Paulo articles that I found had no English equivalent. In most cases the Portuguese version is so problematic that it has been easier to just start from scratch rather than transfer over all of the problems. I think it would be nice to bust out requested articles to each of the 8 task forces: Arts, Geography, History, etc. I will work on that angle as I concentrate my energies on redesigning the WikiProject pages this month. Having one giant list of all requested Brazilian articles defeats the purpose of having these task forces at all. This section moved

I will pass along the page view link if I come across it. giso6150 (talk) 20:21, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

:::Unrelated topic, but. "Having one giant list of all requested Brazilian articles..." is precisely what these task forces need. A requested articles should be moved from a main page solicitation for articles to the respective task force pages if it exists. It's like acquisitions in the library. User-generated requests can be a strong part of collection development. Prburley (talk) 20:45, 8 October 2015 (UTC) This section moved[reply]

Any opinion on Jardim Botânico de São Paulo or Parque Ecológico do Tietê for October? And, can I propose Rondônia for November? It'll give me time to interlibrary loan some books. Prburley (talk) 20:45, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

:::@Prburley: What I meant was that if we have a list of 700 requested articles, say, it would be nice to at least have them grouped out by topic so people can more quickly identify the 100 that are of particular interest to them rather than scan the whole list or give up. Would it make more sense to keep Requested Articles as one page, but divide that one page into sections for each task force? I just don’t want to think that all the tagging and sorting that we’ve done for the past four months will amount to business as usual where the topic is just “Brazil”, rather than “Brazilian Arts”, “Brazilian Football”, etc. giso6150 (talk) 04:01, 9 October 2015 (UTC) This section moved[reply]

@Giso6150: This discussion on requested articles should move to the general discussion on the main page redesign proposal so it's not lost as part of that project. Prburley (talk) 11:29, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done giso6150 (talk) 12:23, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone have an opinion on Jardim Botânico de São Paulo, Parque Ecológico do Tietê, or Rondônia? Can I just move forward boldly? Prburley (talk) 11:29, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Since you are really just talking about making improvements to articles, so far as I can tell, go for it! giso6150 (talk) 12:45, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Created Botanical Garden of São Paulo. Hope there's some interest in expanding it leading to a Did You Know at the end of the month.

Litígio de limites entre Ceará e Piauí

Hello! You are all invited to take a look at this topic. Victão Lopes ^Fala! 00:57, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please write Jari Ecological Station

Everything is available in the Portugal page. The Category:Ecological stations in Brazil contains many unsourced substubs. Xx236 (talk) 08:05, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Xx236: I noticed the same thing the other day. Most of those Ecological station articles are quite tiny and badly in need of expansion …and references! I added the template {{Expand Portuguese}} to Jari Ecological Station; this will add it to Category:Geography articles needing translation from Portuguese Wikipedia. Thanks. giso6150 (talk) 22:47, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tupiniquins Ecological Station, RECOR Ecological Reserve Xx236 (talk) 11:43, 29 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Xx236: Brazilian Wikipedians: References needed in the Portuguese-language articles. I created Caxiuanã National Forest on just a shoestring of information. I'd like to submit more Did You Know (DYK) nominations but the lack of references makes that pretty impossible. How depressing.Prburley (talk)

What is RECOR Ecological Reserve? Xx236 (talk) 13:03, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. Perhaps Dr. Blofeld would remember something about the source(s) used to create the article (and the template), although it was a long time ago. giso6150 (talk) 13:42, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

see this link (in Portuguese) giso6150 (talk) 14:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In all honesty seems as nobody has expanded them in 8 years they should probably all be deleted. They're pretty embarrassing at the moment. Agreed with Xx236 they need writing properly like Caxiuanã National Forest. If you want me to delete all the sub stubs I created and let you start and create them decently at your own pace I'm happy to do that. I just created it from a list of reserves I had at the time.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:47, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree that it is sad, embarrassing even, that these have not seen more attention over the years, but I think that most would be easily expanded. Rather than deleting them, since they are notable, we should work to expand them. I will add this to my personal to-do list. giso6150 (talk) 13:52, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, at the time of creation I was in the mindset of thinking that is was important to have an article for every protected area/reserve of Brazil. At the time our coverage was poor and we badly needed missing articles started. But I didn't have the time to work on them. You would hope that they would be expanded but they largely never were. I think now we're more likely to have a decent article on one of them if started like Prburley's one. I think there's too many of them to really make anybody want to realistically work on them all. Most will be notable, but can just as easily be restarted I think. Whatever you decide anyway. Glad to see you have a geography taskforce of Brazil and some interest in this at last! I started a sizeable portion of the municipalities of Brazil too mich were missing. They're also in an undeveloped state. Rivers too, sorry about that, but at the time it seemed a very productive thing towards tackling systematic bias. I did create the List of Brazilian films though, I'll complete all the years eventually! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:02, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is a shame that most editors, most people, aren't more interested in these topics, but I think that it makes them even more important. There is an overwhelming amount of work to do, but having a stub is better than nothing. giso6150 (talk) 14:13, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What we need Giso is a contest to win up to £200 for tackling articles like I'm doing with Wikipedia:WikiProject Wales/Awaken the Dragon and we can attach a value to expanding such stubs! An editathon/contest could potentially be run for Brazil too and such geography articles given a focus. Like a £50 Amazon voucher prize for the editor who expands the most reserves or municipalities etc. In turn people can then use vouchers to buy books about Brazil and contribute more work!♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:22, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You give us a great example of something to work towards! giso6150 (talk) 14:35, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Brazil is really a vast country, and the overall quality low. We could really use something like this. An idea might be to work on a Wikipedia:WikiProject Brazil/Core articles list like my Wikipedia:WikiProject Wales/Awaken the Dragon/Core articles one by topic. There could be a strong focus on Geography given the size and state of many of the articles, in it we could include such reserves and municipalities, but also cover everything in general. Potentially if we could attract interest from within Brazil we could run something which also benefits Portuguese wiki at the same time and facilitates translation. I'd imagine there must be Portuguese language schools which could potentially contribute for practice. It's early days but I think this sort of thing could really work and benefit the project. Work on a core list gradually and something could be proposed later in the year I think. I was also thinking about one for Africa and even a state of America, but want to see how this initial Welsh one goes.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:42, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please write Lapinha Biological Reserve, Perobas Biological Reserve

Lapinha Biological Reserve is a biological reserve in Brazil. is a joke, a list of the reserves would be enough. Xx236 (talk) 09:38, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the majority of the stubs linked to the navigation template {{Protected areas of Brazil}} and listed at List of protected areas of Brazil are ridiculously small. Earlier this year, a similar article (IBGE Ecological Reserve) was expanded quite a lot—thanks, Aymatth2…! I would look at the sources for that article (and at ptwiki) as a starting point for expanding Lapinha, Perobas, and the other micro-mini-stubs on that list. Alternately, if these sad little 6–7 word stubs are offensively small, someone could just redirect those articles to List of protected areas of Brazil. My opinion is that a new editor is more likely to contribute to or help to expand a tiny stub than build a new article over the top of a redirect page. Someone who is looking for a project to work on will have a lot to keep them busy. giso6150 (talk) 12:43, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess that all these parks and nature reserves are notable, with plenty of sources, perhaps mostly in Portuguese. I agree that a lot of the stubs are meaningless, but also agree it is best to leave them. Turning them into a redirect would discourage anyone building full-size articles. http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/156279/ has a list of IUCN category Ia reserves. I just went through it adding the information on category and area to the stubs where there was a stub. There are surprising omissions, such as Reserva Biológica Maicuru (1,166,655 hectares). I wonder if some of the stubs have been deleted and removed from the template. That would be unfortunate as it would strongly discourage recreation. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:03, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I pumped up a few of them a little bit, e.g. Atol das Rocas Biological Reserve, Canela Preta Biological Reserve, Caracaraí Ecological Station, adding a map and some very basic information, perhaps enough to give the reader a starting point. It could be worthwhile to run through them all getting them up to this level to at least prevent deletion. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:01, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Aymatth2 for your great example! I have had these articles on my personal to-do list since they were first brought up on this talk page. Your point about having to fight to add them back is so true. It's hard to build a better encyclopedia when so much time and energy gets wasted fighting with one another about notability. Thanks again! giso6150 (talk) 17:38, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have been plugging through the articles in {{Protected areas of Brazil}} adding infoboxes with maps and a bit of basic stuff from the official websites about size, date created, fauna and flora. The idea is that when a reader clicks on XYZ Biological Reserve they should get a bit more than "XYZ Biological Reserve is a biological reserve in Brazil" More could be added, but I took the {{stub}} tag off most of them. Now I see that user:Dawynn has flagged category:Brazilian protected area stubs ([1]) with: {{popstub}}

I thought we had too many stubs, but it seems we do not have enough. We could add more stubs on protected areas in Brazil, but there is a limited supply even with state and municipal areas. Or we could get tougher on the existing articles, ratcheting up the criteria for them to be "not a stub". Thoughts? Aymatth2 (talk) 01:18, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Aymatth2: This is all good news! The orange 'warning' box that states that we don't have enough stubs is just added to any category with fewer than 60 stubs in it. It's a little misleading. We do want to expand articles, as you have been doing—so, thanks!! If we have a total of fewer than 60 stubs left, then someone from WikiProject Stub Sorting will come around and 'up merge' the remaining ones into a more general stub category. The real category won't change, only the one that's added to keep track of the stubs. It really isn't much to worry about. Does that make sense? Once again: GOOD JOB!! giso6150 (talk) 02:43, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand the way stub templates and categories are meant to work, but am glad to hear that we are not being asked to create more stubs, which are worse than useless in my view – annoying to readers and less likely to lead to meaningful articles than redlinks. I checked the definitions and find:

Stub: "Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition..." Example: Abrolhos Marine National Park (as of June 2011)
Start: "Provides some meaningful content, but most readers will need more."
C: "Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study."

I am happy to get to Start or C, which is where I think Abrolhos Marine National Park and most of the others are now. Probably a short overview is all that most readers want and expect, not a detailed study. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:00, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Pattern when naming microregions

Hello. When creating an article for the Microregion of Frederico Westphalen, i noticed how many microregion articles are named as "Microregion of [name]" (which i think is better, as there are articles referring to Microregions) and other articles named as "[name] (micro-region)". Could we define a pattern, a standard for naming such articles? The current system, which has no pattern, makes it harder to sort things in category pages. Any thoughts? I also believe there might be a similar problem with a lack of naming conventions in Macroregions. YuriNikolai (talk) 00:46, 26 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Even if we do not define a pattern for "Microregion of X" versus "X (microregion)", i think it would still be welcome to rename mentions in titles to "micro-region" to "microregion", as the second spelling appears to be more correct, being used on a few infoboxes and on this page. YuriNikolai (talk) 17:15, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done using the pattern Microregion of (similiar to the pattern used for subprefectures). Great suggestion, YuriNikolai! giso6150 (talk) 01:33, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'm glad this issue is solved :) YuriNikolai (talk) 19:30, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Resplendor - MG

This was just something I noticed on a random wikipedia search of my parent's city. The article for Resplendor has been the target of some wikipedia vandalism I guess, so it would be great if anybody who knew more or has any known reliable Brazilian sources to fill in some information, and just take the time out to edit out a lot of the very obviously false statements on the city's page. I know it's a stub on an already pretty small city anyway, I just was struggling a bit with the wikipedia editing. Thanks! 129.22.21.194 (talk) 16:07, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]