Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines

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Wikipedia's goal is to provide knowledge. But knowledge is only useful if you can find it and make sense of it. The main limitation of a search box is that it can only look for what you already know exists. The function of an outline, and the mission of this WikiProject, is to show what exists and provide easy access to that knowledge.

An outline is like a table of contents or a menu, except that, instead of listing chapter titles in a book or food dishes in a restaurant, outlines present the topics in a subject.

A useful metaphor is that each page in Wikipedia is a teleportation chamber. To use the search box for teleporting, you specify your destination. An outline is a teleportation chamber with its own destination registry. Each outline lists the available targets, and clicking on one instantly takes you there. You don't need to know where you are going in advance — the list helps you choose.

Outlines present the topics belonging to a subject as a tree structure, using sections, subsections, and indented item entries to signify branching of the tree. These tree structures provide the following benefits:

They can help the user see how a particular topic fits in with the whole subject.
They also show how topics are related to each other: what belongs to what, and what topics fall into the same sections.
Having a subject laid out on one page saves time. Split up as categories, a 76-section subject would require visiting 76 different category pages to see all the subject's topics, which entails a lot of back-tracking. Scrolling down a is much faster.
The bird's eye view provided by outlines allows users to see patterns in the information in a relatively painless way.
Through how they are organized, outlines help users find individual pages, even when they don't know precisely what they are looking for, or exactly what it is called.
Outlines reveal gaps in the subject's coverage that need to be filled in with new articles.

For examples of well-developed outlines, see:

Lists of outlines[edit]

Scope[edit]

Each outline article is a list of a subject's topics arranged hierarchically to show the relationships between them: those that are the most important, general entries and those that give more specialist detail. Outlines show the structure of articles about a subject, opening a whole new way of navigating it. They could be considered Wikipedia's equivalent to Brittanica's Propædia.

Each outline is intended to help the reader become familiar with the subject it presents, and also serves as a table of contents or site map to that subject's coverage on Wikipedia. Outlines are different from portals or indexes. While a portal focuses solely on well-developed featured content, an outline's main purpose is to direct readers through a subject's related articles. Indexes are intended to be comprehensive alphabetical lists of articles related to subject, but finding something in an alphabetical index can be difficult if one does not know the article title (and if one does, one hardly needs the index). Outlines might not list every article in a subject, and often their links lead to lists or other outlines to provide further detail. For an example, compare Portal:Japan, Index of Japan-related articles, and Outline of Japan.

Article alerts[edit]

This project is served by Article alerts, which can be seen in this section directly below, or at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Article alerts. This lets us to know about any AfDs or other such discussions without having to rely on manual notifications. To have the alerts show up on your user page or user talk page, include this code on that page: {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Article alerts}}

No Article alerts at this time.

Advice[edit]

Related guidelines

Related projects

Create outline drafts in userspace[edit]

It's best to create outline drafts as sub-pages of your user page, such as in your sandbox, and not in the draft namespace. That's because drafts in the draft namespace disappear after a certain period of time with no edit activity. There are dozens of outline drafts, in various stages of completion, that have died and gone to draft heaven. But, even though a deleted draft can be revived upon request, we don't know what their titles are, or what work has been done on each one.

Outline design and development[edit]

Open tasks[edit]

Here are some things you can do to help (listed directly below, and in the subsections that follow):

Scour the outlines for the best ones, to present them in the example list in the lead section at the top of this page.

Update Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines to include all the outlines in article space.

Once an outline has been sufficiently filled-in or fleshed out, please add its link to Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines.

Maintain links to topic outlines: each article of the corresponding topic should have a link to its topic outline in its see also section. Periodically check each see also section, as the links sometimes get removed. Link Ninja comes in handy for this.
Place outlines on your watchlist and check it every time you log on. This link or a FF addon can be used alternatively. This needs to be done in order to prevent against vandalism and possibly AfD's.
Place a WikiProject banner at the top of the talk pages of all lists of basic topics, leading here. Use {{subst:BLT|topic uncapitalized|topic capitalized}}.
Place a coverage banner at the top of the talk pages of all articles matching the subjects in the titles of topic outlines, leading to the corresponding list. Use {{[[Template:Outline of knowledge coverage|Outline of knowledge coverage|subject}}.
- the coverage banner template needs to be designed

Outlines needing reformatting and/or renaming[edit]

Outlines here need to be converted to the standard outline format. Only after a page has been converted to outline format should it be renamed to Outline of $x$ . Otherwise, others may assume the formatting is correct, and emulate it.

Add pictures[edit]

Examples of outlines with good picture support include:

Start a new outline[edit]

To start a new outline...

See also: Helpful tips (read it!)

First, decide which topic you'd like to outline. It could be as broad as Outline of mathematics, or as narrow as Outline of chocolate and start the page. The title should be in the format of Outline of $x$
Write a little introduction before outlining to get warmed up, this will also become the introductory paragraph of the outline.
Start listing articles on your topic. You can find them by using Special:PrefixIndex and a site allintitle Google search.
Organize links in a way that is accessible so that people can find the articles linked to. You might use an {{Outline generator}} template, like this: {{subst:Outline generator|topic uncapitalized|topic capitalized}} or, if you're outlining a specific country, {{subst:Template:Outline country|country name}}.
After that, you can add a few pictures to make the outline look nicer. Try using different ones than the ones on the article by searching on Wikimedia Commons.
Once you've finished, take a look back and see if you were able to outline the subject successfully and then post your work here so that other editors are aware it exists and can review it.

Work on an existing outline[edit]

Most outlines are incomplete, because subjects change over time, and so does Wikipedia's coverage of them.

See Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines, and choose a subject that interests you, and start adding links.

Fill a gap in the outline collection[edit]

Here is a list of some subjects that do not yet have an outline (the links in red):

Social science[edit]

Technology[edit]

Transport

Biology[edit]

Outline of bacteriology
Outline of bacteria (redir to Outline of bacteriology)
Outline of virology
Outline of viruses (redir to Outline of virology)

Unsorted[edit]

(place the following links in the sections above)

Watch over the outlines[edit]

Wikiproject Watchlist - WikiProject Outline of knowledge

Templates[edit]

{{Outline footer}} - (placed at bottom of all Outlines)

For talkpages

{{WikiProject Outlines}} - (placed on talkpages of all Outlines)
{{Outline of knowledge coverage}} - (for main articles covered by an outline, talkpage banner)
{{Outline of knowledge coverage WPT}} - (for country WikiProjects covered by an outline, talkpage banner)

For building outlines

{{Outline generator}} - (template for outline creation)
- {{Outline country}} - (template for outline creation)
- {{Outline U.S. State}} - (template for outline creation)