Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sociology

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	To-do list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Sociology:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
Populate Category:Wikipedians interested in sociology and Category:WikiProject Sociology Refactor Project page and create subpages Draft first issue of Sociology Project News Review List of sociology topics and begin Organizing it Look for FAs, GAs, FLs and FPs in above list Begin compiling content for The Sociology Portal Finish cleanup of Category:Sociology

Contents 1 Old discussion 2 Improvement Drive 3 Science pearls 4 Improvement drive 5 Strategies for improvement 6 General user survery 7 Collaboration of the Month - August 2006 8 Anthropology wikiproject? 9 Homelessness 10 Project directory 11 Peer review request - Gun violence in the United States 12 Stablepedia 13 Wikipedia Day Awards 14 Douglas Massey 15 Income reminder 16 Assessment question 17 Sociology article 18 Social Darwinism to Social darwinism? 19 Potential article of interest 20 Missing topics about social customs. 21 The term 'race' 22 Start class rating for scientific method 23 Professor Burns has posted here 24 Question about tagging subcultures 25 Obesity 26 Does this article belong?

[edit] Old discussion

Although having been out of the field for a while now, does one ever lose the "sociological perspective"? Where I am able, I will strive to add content to and help organize some Sociology pages, starting with the Sociology of deviance page and pages to which it links. I am new at Wikipedia, so please bear with me. --JimCollaborator 18:23, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good! I think you'll find articles on the humanities in general and on sociological topics in general are quite lacking. I'm still working towards my BA so my knowledge of specific topics in the field is still somewhat limited, so it's nice to see a veteran helping to contribute. Ironically enough, in the articles pertaining to sociology it tends to be individuals who make the biggest difference. Sarge Baldy 19:58, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the support! I have to ask if you know Prof. Mark Edwards at OSU (I think he's still there). We went to grad school together at UW. (sorry, I would have put this on your User talk page, but it's so organized, and I'm so new, that I didn't know where to put it). --JimCollaborator 20:58, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

I haven't actually, although I know his name. I believe he's on sabbatical this year. As for managing people's text pages, use the + button to the right of edit and it'll format everything for you automatically. Sarge Baldy 06:31, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement Drive

Cultural appropriation has just been nominated on WP:IDRIVE. Public education and Flirting as well as Teenage pregnancy are also currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive and may be of interest to you. If you are interested in contributing, please vote or comment here: This week's improvement drive--Fenice 09:23, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Science pearls

Hello, Please notice this project. I hope that the List of publications in sociology will be adopted by the sociology project. Thanks,APH 06:56, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement drive

Meditation is currently nominated on WP:IDRIVE. If you want to see it improved and could help us bring it up to featured standard, please vote for it here! --Fenice 09:00, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Strategies for improvement

I'm ready to sink my teeth into this project. I've been working on our "child" project WikiProject Community for some time now and I've learnt some things that can help. I've started the /Organization subpage for parsing the List of sociology topics. Compare it with the List of community topics and follow the breadcrumbs. CQ 03:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Great job on revitalizing the project, I will be happy to chip in and help a little!-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus  talk}  15:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General user survery

I think some of the members of our project may be interested in studying, well, ourselves - from the sociological perspective :) See meta:General User Survey, which desperatly needs some help to get started - and every day it is not means loss of sociological data for us all :( -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus  talk}  15:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I filled out one of the first drafts of the GUS Questionaire exactly a year ago — m:User:Quinobi/Questionaire. CQ 02:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

PS: Check out Communitas! • 21:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration of the Month - August 2006

Any ideas? CQ 21:01, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anthropology wikiproject?

I just made a proposal for an anthropology wikiproject on the "list of proposed wikiprojects" page. If you're interested, you can sign up at our entry and on the temporary project page. Thanks. Ungovernable Force^{The Wiki Kitchen!} 21:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homelessness

I've added this article to the "articles needing work" because while excellent in many ways it needs a. an outside view, and b. possibly protection from the partisan. Regards, Rich Farmbrough 17:33 26 August 2006 (GMT)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 20:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review request - Gun violence in the United States

Lately, I have been working on criminology topics which is an area that Wikipedia sorely lacks. Last weekend, I discovered there was no article on "Gun violence", so started one. Most of the research literature pertains to the United States, so the article has become Gun violence in the United States. Obviously, people have strong POV on this topic. To try and rise above politics, I have only included the highest quality reliable sources (mainly peer reviewed, scholarly journals). Personally, I really don't have a POV on this topic, and am staying out of the Gun politics in the United States article. With the gun violence article, I have stayed with presenting the current state of research on this topic. I think is close to featured status, though some "gun rights" folks have already come along and place a neutrality tag on the article. I could really use some peer review on the article, at this point. Do you at all agree with the person who placed the neutrality tag? Any suggestions on making in more NPOV. In reality, I feel that the article deals fairly with both POVs, citing strategies advocated by gun-control folks as ineffective, while citing some strategies advocated by the Bush administration as effective. Do you have any suggestions on improving the article? are there aspects of the topic that are missing? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have filed a formal peer request here, though feel free to leave comments on the article talk page if you prefer. Thanks. --Aude (talk) 18:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 03:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Douglas Massey

I was doing some work on Douglas Massey, who seems to be a notable sociology professor at Princeton University, but I'm not very happy with the article. I would appreciate it if other editors could take a look at the article and make whatever changes seem appropriate. --Eastmain 07:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Income reminder

I just spend a lot of time editing the Social class article, espcially the part where people used the term "income" w/o specifying what type of income they're talking about. Take this statement: "the upper middle class... Their average income is $120,000 a year, and they comprise 14% of the population." Personal income or household income. Well the top 15% of persons make $62,500+ while the top 15% of households make $100,000+. So I'm guessing it must be the latter, in which case we are not talking about 14% of the population but 14% of households! So please, please, if you ever see a case like this statement or are writting about private income yourself, make sure it's clear whether or not it's household, personal or per capita. The differences are huge, espcially in American society. Best Regards, Signature^brendel 03:02, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW: It says this project doesn't have a userbox yet, so I took the liberty of creating one; Template:User Sociology. Signature^brendel

[edit] Assessment question

I noticed that this project's assessment department wasn't yet completed, so I took the liberty of finishing it. My question is whether or not some of articles relating to socio-economics such Household income in the United States or Affluence in the United States are part of this project's focus. Regards, Signature^brendel 03:58, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I think articles on demographics and socio-economic patterns are within the scope of sociology, hence this project. While important as instances of knowledge about class and such, these detailed articles could be evaluated as of "low" importance, according to the current rating scheme. --Reswik 17:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Today, I added a number of WikiProject Sociology evaluations to individual sociology and sociology-related articles. I reviewed some articles currently in the good articles subsection "Social sciences and society/Culture and society", some listed on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sociology/Organization page, some listed on the Subfields of sociology page, and some listed as sub-articles in main sociology articles. --Reswik 17:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sociology article

Hi, based on comments on the sociology article talk page and the recent de-listing from good articles, I have created a revised sociology article outline and will start editing the article soon. My comment about this is here: new structure of article, continued. Feel free to dive in... --Reswik 14:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Social Darwinism to Social darwinism?

"Social Darwinism" has recently been moved to "Social darwinism". This seems unusual usage to me (and my spellchecker) so I've raised the question at User talk:Piotrus#Social Darwinism ([1]) – any comments? ... dave souza, talk 10:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be a problem with changing the name back, and the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines and their adherents section concludes that "Philosophies, theories, doctrines, and systems of thought do not begin with a capital letter, unless the name derives from a proper noun:", so Darwinism as deriving from the proper noun "Darwin" properly begins with a capital letter, even when preceded by "social". Anyone feel otherwise? , .. dave souza, talk 20:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Potential article of interest

Hi, don't know if this article is of interest to the good people of the Sociology Project... Trafficking in human beings

Chwyatt 13:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for pointing out this article. I put it in our list of articles. It is ranked mid-level due to being on a specific topic. Top-ranked articles would be the most general topics, such as Social structure. --Reswik 17:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing topics about social customs.

I'm not quite sure where to ask, but I have a list of missing topics related to social customs and the like. I have checked for any equivalent articles but I'd appreciate if other could have a look at the list. Thank you. - Skysmith 12:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, by your user page, I see you've done a lot of work on WP and that you have a list of many types of missing articles across various topics. (Note: I'm partly thinking out loud in replying to you... about priorities for this wikiproject.) There are many missing sociology articles, at least thousands. Indeed, I just got an email notice from an international encyclopedia of sociology for which writers are developing several thousand articles. (The WP sociology list of rated articles has just over 600 articles, though we could list thousands of existing WP articles as sociologists study most aspects of society.)

The social customs and other topics which you list would seem to fit more in focus of anthropology, though cultural anthropology and sociology increasingly overlap in some areas in this regard. If you haven't already, you might ask for input on an anthropology-related Wikipedia page. A number of the topics you list are quite specific. We need good specific articles. It would be an interesting task to develop a list of thousands of such to write. Also, as I'm sure you know, many very general and key articles in the social sciences, including those specifically on family and life stage articles such as you list, are very much in need of extensive editing work. --Reswik 15:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. My main problem is that I don't think I'm qualified to write good articles about many of the subjects. - Skysmith 12:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if it is possible somehow to recruit someone(s) with expertise and co-write various articles -- Reswik 01:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The term 'race'

I have just been reading the page Social Darwinism, in which the term 'race' is introduced as a concept used by various 'thinkers' and others, mainly from the 19th Century. The article later uses the term as if it is an accepted scientific term. It is not. This is made clear in the lead section. The term is in itself bigoted and there is no evidence, and almost no support in the scientific community, for a concept of race (in humans). I believe that this article has been altered to support racist positions in other articles. Tacit support for racist concepts are given by citing an aviator and other people whose opinions are not worthy of inclusion. The banner on the talk page is from this project, it is given a high importance rating, which is questionable and a B class rating, which is laughable. Would someone in the project mind giving it a fix up? This poisonous notion needs close attention and careful handling. Thanks. - Fred 02:30, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I agree that concepts of race should be critiqued. Various articles on race in Wikipedia need attention, starting with Race and related articles. There are various racist claims/positions in such articles. Volunteer efforts in editing social science/studies articles really needs to increase in Wikipedia. Feel free to dive in on this topic, perhaps by starting with a comment on the article's talk page, if you haven't made one already.

I gave Social Darwinism a high rating because the topic has been significant in the history of social thought and other social theory historical topics have high ratings (and this is all going to be very approximate; top/high/mid/low is not a very flexible scale and what is high will differ by what criteria one uses to evaluate importance; over time perhaps things will sort out; the current ratings are a start...); the B rating is not a stamp of approval but relates to the amount of development of the writing. Ideological positions will flux in an article. --Reswik 01:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Like the very term 'race', I avoid it. The term racist often implies a view based on race. I think of it as a believer in the very idea. The only advantage in attending an article on 'Social Darwinism' is to be had by the adherents of this pseudo-theory in keeping it a 'live issue'. I simply removed the reference in the article with greater notability. But thanks for your reply. - Fred 14:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I hear you. Yet, the article Race has a prominent location in WP (such as a top core topic rating in the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team release version (1.0 CD) project. To quote, "This article has been identified by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team as a Core Topic, one of the 150 most important articles for any encyclopedia to have. Please help improve this article as we push to 1.0. If you'd like help with this article, you may nominate it for the core topics collaboration."

The race article does include critical views. And, Social Darwinism has links from various directions. Hence, these articles, and many others, are sites of cultural struggle... which WP and WP editors can't avoid, we and WP being embedded in various social structures and ongoing struggles. So, it seems necessary for critical perspectives to be included and refined in those articles and ongoing reviews engaged. --Reswik 13:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I am now sufficiently alarmed. I will pay more attention to this area. I believe that the concerns you have raised with me, can easily be contested on NPOV and WP:CSB. Thanks for bringing my attention to the extent of this issue. Bye for now, - Fred 14:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC) Ta for link. The project is up to 0.5 now. I coud not find race, racism was there. It was in the top 1000 topics - under social issues. - Fred 15:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Start class rating for scientific method

I am questioning some of the ratings awarded by members of the wikiproject. What is the criterion by which they are judged? When scientific method is rated start class and scientific management is rated mid class, what is the criterion? The article with which I am familiar has existed since 2001 and has been worked on by hundreds of editors, with thousands of edits. So why might it be labelled 'start'. --Ancheta Wis 07:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Might you consider simply withdrawing the rating until some of you have time to spend on the article? Ancheta Wis

The sociology of science is an active subfield which includes a number of perspectives about the nature of science. The sociology content of the scientific method article is at an incomplete start level, even as a summary, (as is the case for many articles in WP in regards to sociology, hence you will find some other start ratings on articles that have had a lot of work). On revisiting the scientific method talk page now, I noticed that the philosophy project also gives the article a start rating. I think the rating should remain until the article is revised; it serves as both a work-to-do notice and a notice to the inquiring reader. Here is something I have been pondering: Perhaps some focused comment to the effect that a start rating relates to sociology content could be a suboption of the rating template. But this is not the case for all start ratings, so perhaps someone could edit the template so that it could include comments with dates (perhaps in a sub-box that can be collapsed) -- or perhaps there is a template function already that could be used.

Scientific management is a relatively important topic in the sociology of labor and work. I would rate it as of middle importance, given the rough scale we are using. If I rated it as of top importance, that was a mistake. The top rating doesn't seem merited, so I'll revise that rating. Thanks for the input. --Reswik 13:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Professor Burns has posted here

Hey all, You may be interested that Tom R. Burns has added a couple articles here at WP, Meta-power and Sociology of human consciousness as User:Tomburns. The articles are afd, so I just want to encourage you all to stop by his user page and welcome him, as having your first articles (and a major part of your lifes research) face AfD right away can be very discouraging. Best, Smmurphy^(Talk) 19:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about tagging subcultures

Aloha. I recently tagged Hippie and Gothic subculture with the soc. assessment tag. If this is not appropriate, could someone contact me? Thanks in advance. —Viriditas | Talk 07:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Obesity

I'm one of the medical editors working on obesity. Judging from the enormous amounts of vandalism it receives, this is a very popular article. Moreover, medical authorities are almost unanimous that there is an epidemic of obesity.

While the medical content of the article is quite reasonable, it has been felt for some time that it needs more input from the social sciences angle:

• Portrayals in culture and indicators of social acception/exclusion - what is the evidence that obesity is or has been socially (un)acceptable in historical context.
• Social and cultural factors interacting with pure medical causes in increasing obesity prevalence; the article presently lists a whole load of things, mostly unsourced.

I was wondering if any of this WikiProject's contributors would be interested in taking a peek at the obesity article & offer recommendations. JFW | T@lk 15:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Does this article belong?

Hello WP Sociology, I'm wondering if the article Harry Potter fandom would be appropriate to include within the scope of your WikiProject. It's tagged as, appropriately, under the HP project, but I figured there must be something for fandom, and I think human interaction is the best. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 05:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)