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Template:WPScouting Navigation This is the page for the agreed upon rules and standards of the Scouting Project and Portal. Please don't discuss issues here, use the talk page.

Hierarchy of Categories

Articles/real-people can be in more than one horizontal subcategory, but should not normally list a subcategory and its parent category.

Encyclopedic categories: "Scouting" is the top parent category, with a hierarchy thereunder. The Scout association in most countries belong to Category:WOSM member organizations and/or Category:WAGGGS member organizations. The article dealing with a countries' Scout organization should be in one or both categories, not directly under the Scouting catgory.

There is a "Scouting by country" category that holds a group of articles pertaining to one country. Each country has its own subcat here. An article can be here and also under WOSM and/or WAGGGS. Using the "Scouting by country" cat/subcats also means we're no longer violating the rule of using a sub and its parent as we're using horizontal categories. Organizations that are not members should be in their appropriate "Scouting in (country)" category.

Real people categories: "Scouting Wikipedians" is the top parent category, with a hierarchy thereunder. Currently, there are only 4 subcategories and those are not further subdivided.

Categories of real people, such Wood Badge Wikipedians, should not be mixed in with encyclopedia article categories.

Note: The "Eagle Scout Wikipedians" subcategory has mostly BSA Eagle Scouts, but at least one Philippine Eagle Scout (their highest rank is also Eagle Scout and the design of the medal and knot are very similar), so it also is an international category.

Non-aligned Scouting organizations

This category is for Scouting organizations that are not recognized by WOSM or WAGGGS, for whatever the reason. This includes Royal Rangers, Traditional Scouting, Primitive Scouting, WFIS, FSE and OWS, which are all Scouting or Scout-like movements. There are only very few known non-WAGGGS (girl) organizations like the American Heritage Girls and some German associations.

Article issues

Scout Movement the first 'M' in Movement should be capitalized.

Article names

Use the Wiki guideline at Naming conventions to name articles. This same guideline says to use the Roman alphabet and standard English spelling (ie, Vienna not Wien). It also says to use the original spelling and alphabet in the first line of the article. Only use the foreign name if it meets this standard: If there is no commonly used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language. Latin-alphabet languages, like Spanish or French, should need no transliteration, but Chinese names can use Pinyin, for example.

There should be redirects from common versions of an association's title to what version is in use for the article title. This applies to English and non-English versions of the title. At a minimum, there should be a redirect to the alternative version used in the lead sentence of an article.

Over a protracted period at the beginning of 2007, there was debate to mediate disagreement about the naming of articles for Scouting organizations in non-English speaking countries. That debate is archived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations mediation. The result was as follows in the three sub-sections below.

Main points

  1. For naming articles on Scout organisations/associations, we use an English name if the organisation itself verifiably uses an unique English name in its own documents (if we can not find such a name, we ask the organisation for a name and a source for its use).
  2. If no official English name becomes available, we seek consensus on whether there is one clear translation to English of the organisation's name and use that. If there are several translations that differ only trivially, we seek consensus on whether one of them can be used. By trivial, we mean different prepositions (e.g. "in" or "of") or word order ("Scout Association" or "Association of Scouts")
  3. If no consensus is reached on point (2), we seek consensus whether the "Scouting in XXX" proposal (see below) can be used to write a complete article on all aspects of Scouting in a particular country to replace the article with a contentious title.
  4. Failing resolution of an English name from points (1) - (3), we use the official non-English name.

Separate from these key proposals we note:

  1. We use the now completed "Scouting in XXX" proposal to give English names for readers to find articles about Scouting in all countries, whether English speaking or not, and without having to know the name of the Scout organisation in the country. These can be redirects, disambiguation pages or articles. In some cases we should also create "Guiding in XXX" or "Scouting and Guiding in XXX" links in the same way as above.
  2. We will be extremely liberal in the use of redirects both to the "Scouting in XXX" articles (e.g. "Scouting in USA") and to the individual articles of organisations (almost any plausible translation - redirects are cheap).

Summary

We try to find whether the organisation uses an official English name. Failing that we see whether there is an obvious translation. If that is not unique, are the different translations trivial in the sense that they translate back to the same name. We use Scouting in XXX, for all countries XXX including English-speaking countries, as a redirect, a disambiguation page or a brief article. If the first two points do not resolve the name, we consider using Scouting in XXX to cover ALL aspects of Scouting in the country. If that is not acceptable, due perhaps to there being many Scout organisations and the argument is only about the name of one of them, we use the non-English name used by the organisation itself. We then use any English translation as a redirect to the non-English title. Note, if this summary conflicts with the points above, it needs to be corrected as the points above are the agreed wording.

Criteria for an organization's article inclusion

As stated on the project main page, our scope is all Scouting articles; but we need to define what constitutes Scouting. We have reached this consensus: If an organization veers too far from the Scout method, and/or becomes overly politicized and/or militarized, it shall not be included in this Project. The organizations identified that fail to meet our criteria are: Hitler Youth and Young Pioneers. See talk page for why.

Organizations that are covered by our project include, but are not limited to:

Dialects

For spelling variations, such as American vs British spelling, use the standard form of the language of the country the article is about. In generic articles, such as Scouting, use American.

Male-Female issues

As stated elsewhere, the Scouting WikiProject's scope includes male, female, and coed Scouting units. Articles about the WOSM and other primarily male affiliated Scout organisations in a particular country should not mention, other than a "See also" link, the equivalent WAGGGS or other primarily female organisation in that country. Material about the WAGGGS organisation should be put into a new article, even if only a stub, and vice versa for WAGGGS/female articles and their mentioning of WOSM/male organizations. This is meant to assist in providing equal weight to female Guiding and Scouting as the project has mostly male editors.

Language of Scouting

The guidelines in Language of Scouting should normally be followed, especially for BSA articles as this is a BSA guide; though much of it would apply to other organizations.

Scouting - Capitalization

Scout, Scouter, and Scouting are proper nouns and should have the 'S' capitalized in all cases where it refers to the Scouting program or organization in any way. This includes ranks (see below).

BSA references

If the BSA is used in a title, spell it out. EX: History of merit badges (Boy Scouts of America)

Upon the BSA being first referred to in the article, put the abbreviation immediately after the spelling out, EX: ....the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), and then use BSA in the article. There is hence no need to spell it out.

In most all instances, "the" is needs to precede BSA, EX: "The BSA requires...", NOT "BSA requires...".

Ranks

The 'S' in Scout should be capitalized when used to refer to a rank, as in "Eagle Scout", "Tenderfoot Scout", etc. This includes articles with "Scout" in the title, such as "Eagle Scout rank (Boy Scouts of America).

The rank articles on First Class and Second Class should have the 'C' capitalized as "Class" is part of the rank title.

Latter-day Saints

Use one of these to refer to this church:

Note the punctuation and capitalization of "Latter-day."

Do not use any other forms or abbreviations.

Divisions of national organizations

Cub Scouts (Boy Scouts of America) is the proper name for American Cub Scouting, not "Cub Scouts" or "Cub Scouts of America" or the abbreviation "CSA"; though they are common phrases, they are not the name of the organization. Use the correct name.

BSA (spelled out, see above) should be part of article titles, not the section of BSA, EX: Skipper (Sea Scouting) to Skipper (Boy Scouts of America), Skipper is not the name used in all Scout organizations. This pattern should be used for other countries like "... (Boy Scouts of the Philippines)", vice "....(BSP)".

National level entities

National level organizations, such as the honor societies (ex, Order of the Arrow), and national level camps warrant their own article. To use the United States' BSA as an example, these are the Order of the Arrow, Philmont, Florida Sea Base, Mortimer L. Schiff Scout Reservation, etc.

Note: This section was written specifically with the BSA in mind, but its basic principles apply to other countries and major Scouting organizations.

Local articles (Councils and smaller entities)

Since council boundaries change and councils merge and get divided, articles on regional Scouting shall be structured by State, such as Scouting in Virginia. The councils, districts, lodges, and smaller Scouting units in that state should be covered within that article. Generally, an entity smaller than a Council (such as a troop, pack, or district) should not have its own article, unless it has done something truly exceptional or unique, or is historically exceptionally significant.

A Council, council camp/reservation, or OA Lodge may have its own article if it meets standard wikipedia criteria for having its own article. Factors include length, notability, comprehensiveness, and overall quality. In such as case, a summary and "main article" link should be created in the state article in line with standard Wiki practice, such as the Tidewater Council article and link in the Scouting in Virginia article. Articles covering more than one state, such as Tidewater Council, should be mentioned in both state articles (here, NC and VA). A camp/reservation run and supported by a district is a district level camp and should be covered in the council article.

Note: This section was written specifically with the BSA in mind, but its basic principles apply to other countries and major Scouting organizations.

Lists of famous Scouts

For articles that are lists of famous Scouts, such as List of notable Eagle Scouts, place this notice at the top of the talk page, below the Scouting WikiProject notice:

Criteria for inclusion

This is a guideline that has been accepted by consensus.

  • If the Scout or Scouter meets the criteria per Notability to rate an article, then he/she is notable enough for this list.
  • If it is believed that the article does not meet the criteria, then the article and/or list entry should be recommended for deletion per Articles for deletion. If the article is deleted, then the Scout/Scouter in question should be removed from the list.
  • A notable Scout or Scouter who does not have an article can be added to the list using the same criteria. Development of a biography for such persons is encouraged.
    • If the entry fails the notability test, the entry should be tagged with {{fact}} and the editor should be requested to add a citation. If a request for cite is not met in a reasonable time, then the entry shall be removed.

NOTE: similar notices should be used for any page that requires guidelines. Customize the first line if need be; for example, on the List of Distinguished Eagle Scout Award recipients it says "...IF they are in fact a Distinguished Eagle Scout".

Image standards

Background

This standard is designed to improve the quality of the images used in the Scouting project and to ensure they meet the Wikipedia standards of fair use. In the past, images have had no common format as to name, size or quality. They have suffered from background artifacts, skewing, licensing and other problems that detract from the overall article quality.

Image team

These editors are available to aid in image issues:

Quality

  • Size:
    • Normally, non-free images being used under a claim of fair use should be 140px or 280px wide - this fits with the default image size of {{Infobox WorldScouting}}; note that large scans may violate the low resolution requirement of the fair use policy
    • Freely licensed image files can and should be as large as possible or stored as SVG files - MediaWiki can convert the image to be any size and having large images facilitates reuse
    • If the image is a group of multiple images, then the largest image should be 140px wide with the other images sized proportionally
    • When a series of multiple images are to be used together, the sizes should vary from this standard so that the images are proportional
    • Small images should be a proportional size not exceeding 140px wide
  • Backgrounds should be white- any background artifacts from a scan should be removed
  • Images should be straight- the most horizontal or vertical line should be parallel to the image window
  • The preferred formats are PNG and SVG with a transparent background; logo type images are preferred in SVG

Names

  • The name should be a plain name that matches the image to the event, organization or award; abbreviations not commonly known should be avoided
    • Example: Instead of "Ccb.jpg", the name should be "Cole Canoe Base.jpg"
  • Images in a series should use a common name format with an extender
    • Example: "Eagle Scout badge (type 1).png", "Eagle Scout badge (type 2).png", "Eagle Scout badge (type 3).png"
  • BSA council shoulder patches (sometimes called council strips) should use the full council name, then CSP and then the version if known
    • Example: "Stonewall Jackson Area Council CSP T3a.png"

Image use

  • Images should normally illustrate the current version of an emblem. Older versions should be used only where needed to illustrate a section on the subject history; when so used, the name should reflect the date or other version

Licensing

Non-free / fair use Scouting logos

Fair use should be claimed only when the image is non-replaceable. This generally applies to logos, badges, emblems, awards and similar that are copyrighted and any derivative thereof would still be copyrighted

  • When uploading, use the {{Scoutlogo}} tag- this places the image in the proper category
    • BSA images should use the proper tag extension to place them in the proper sub-category
  • All non-replaceable free use images must have a fair use rationale
Non-free / fair use other
  • For images other than logos, see Category:Non-free image copyright tags for a list of templates that may be used
    • Example: An image of a handbook cover would use the {{bookcover}} template.
  • Since templates other than Scoutlogo will not place the image in a category, the proper category must be added to the image description
Free / public domain
  • Photos and similar images should be uploaded to Commons with the appropriate tags
Policies and guidelines

Fair use rationale

All non-free images require a rationale stating why they can be used under the fair use rules.

  • The preference is to use the {{Non-free media rationale}} template to provide the rationale
    • Example: Image:1993 National Scout Jamboree.png; please do not simply copy this rationale as each image must be customized
    • The Purpose field of this template should include the link for each articles where the image is used
Policies and guidelines

Information for free images

Free images do not need a rationale, but should include information on the media.

  • The preference is to use the {{Information}} template. This template has fields that will help the editor add the information needed to ensure this is a free image

Updating images

If an image is superseded by an improved version, the old image should be obsoleted:

  • If the new image uses the same name as the old, simply open the old image and select "Upload a new version of this file". The image will retain the description and licensing information of the original- update as needed. All use of the image will be automatically updated.
  • If the new image uses a different filename, obsolete the old:
    • Upload the new image
    • Replace all instances of the old image with the new
    • Tag the old image with {{Obsolete}}- see the template for use
    • Also tag fair use images with with {{Orphaned}}- see the template for use

See also

Manual of Style

Subpages

Note: this is BSA-specific, we need a separate international version. Use this talk page for discussion.

End of Articles

Use this pattern:

See also appears first after the text of the article
the portal tag should be the top line the See also section, unless it's in an infobox
References appears next, uses refs (footnotes) from the text and also refs not directly connected to the text, but support it
External links appears fourth, lists refs that amplify the article, but were not needed to write it.
Stubs appear next
Regional templates appear next
persondata box -- for biographical articles, see B-P article for a sample
Categories appear last

Note: for an example of this, see Arthur Rose Eldred and History of merit badges (Boy Scouts of America).

Merge, move delete proposals

When proposing a change such as merge or move, do add the tag, but also start a section on the article's talk page; explaining your reasoning. What may be obvious to you may not be immediately clear to others. If there are no dissents or no discussion for a few days, then make the changes. If you wish to propose or discuss one of this actions without going through the formal process, use our Todo's talk page.

See also

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