Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Service Portal

The following discussion is an archived proposal of the WikiProject below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.

The proposed WikiProject was not created; only one interested editor (who then left Wikipedia)

UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:14, 6 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Description

A proposal for a group of SMEs in the Service Space (Business Services, Service Governance, Service Management, Enterprise Service Management, Service Definition, Service Models, Service Support, Service Delivery... and others) to work to integrate the many pages that involve these subjects, as well as to improve the quality and breadth of the coverage of the subject and its allied fields. Some pages are out of date, some fairly good, but isolated, others mainly marketing material, there is much repetition of some things, and some containing fundamental misunderstandings of the field. The idea is that the group will work together to produce a structure for the field, along with an indication of where existing pages, with modification, will fit. This work would take place on another scratchpad wiki, so as not to have half-baked work making things worse. Ideally, there would be a template to mark articles that the team is considering to be be part of the project, so other interested parties can make suggestions, or join the group. I am new to this (as you'll probably have guessed already!), and I don't want us, as group, to make a nuisance of ourselves for editors - so any advice will be gratefully received. I am already studying the relevant documentation here.

talk) 16:36, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply

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Identify the subject:

The subject involves the use of the service metaphor in business. The service metaphor is used in governance, management, and operations. It is used in Computing as part of IT Service Management

Related projects:

Category:Business models (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (8 subcategories 127 pages )
Category:Services management and marketing (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (47 pages )
Category:Technology articles needing attention to coverage and accuracy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (1,163 pages )
Category:C-Class Computing articles (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (2,310 pages )
Category:Supply chain management (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) ( 9 subcategories 210 pages )
Category:Design (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (47 categories 200 pages )
Category:Information Science (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (23 subcategories 200 pages )
Category:Enterprise Architecture (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (8 subcategories 73 pages )

Please invite these and any other similar groups to join the discussion about this proposal. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory to find similar WikiProjects.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Example (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Example (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Example (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Why do you want to start a new group, instead of joining one of these existing groups?: We would be keen to work with other groups.; Most of the references to the above groups, on the small selection of subjects I've chosen as examples, are to the subject being of 'low importance' and, often, previously marked for deletion.; Services cut across many of these disciplines, which is, partly, why there is such a fragmented view here.; The group would certainly only be working with a small subset of the pages listed in the categories above, but these would be, for that category, and for the WikiProjects mentioned, mainly minor and not seen as important for that category or group.; The aim would not be to disrupt, or contradict work done by these other projects, but, rather, to highlight how they link with quite different areas through the service metaphor.

Support

I would be joining the project, along with a team of SMEs from the field (currently 12 volunteers).

talk) 16:36, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply
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User link:

talk · contribs

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Discussion

I find it harder to think of a more certain way to get yourself sitebanned en masse than The group will work together … This work would take place on another scratchpad wiki, and very strongly advise you to drop that idea, since a tag-team turning up at multiple articles making changes on the basis of off-wiki discussion violates multiple core Wikipedia policies. That aside, without an idea of what you're planning to do, it's hard to offer any kind of input; "Services" is a near-meaningless term which could be taken to cover anything from shoe repair to the Apollo Program. (There does appear to be a fundamental misunderstanding of Wikipedia in your initial statement that there is much repetition of some things; Wikipedia articles are supposed to stand alone, which inevitably means background sections are going to be repeated across related topics.) What do you see the remit of this project as being, what improvements do you feel it will make, and why would it not work better within the existing
Iridescent 21:55, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply
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Good questions. I'm happy to drop the idea - and work with whatever is the best method. Yes, it's true that 'service' can, and does, cover everything from shoe repair to the Apollo programme. That doesn't mean that it is meaningless, far from it. It is an important way of arranging business interactions, both between businesses and between businesses and their suppliers. A very large body of work exists using the idea of a service to add value to businesses. It's a bit like saying that the General Ledger in a business is meaningless as it covers every business from a one-man band to Apple. In fact the service idea is a bit like a general ledger, but a much more modern take on it... but I'm digressing into the subject itself.

The problem with attaching it to one particular group, such as the one you mention, Wikipedia:WikiProject Business, is that that group, along with many others that intersect, see this as only one small part of the overall business picture. From the services perspective, many different fields are relevant because, as I said in the introduction, it crosses many areas - such as Business, IT, Supply Chain, Value Chains, Management and Governance.

The remit of the project is to make this clear, so that it is easy for somebody who is, say, working in Marketing, or Coal Mining, or IT, or Corporate Governance, who comes across the idea of using services to improve the operation of the business, to find the information required to understand how services are used and, then look into the various aspects.

At the moment, there are many articles that cover various aspects - they intersect, and are not really stand-alone, but have been created by people who didn't find the other articles relating to services. The quality of these articles varies enormously. It's as if, in the field of maths, there were articles that covered a bit of integration, others that covered differentiation, many different pages on methods of solving differential equations, and yet more discussing div, curl and grad - but with no maths portal, and no article on calculus to show how these are related.

This project would work to improve the quality and coherence of these existing articles, as well as providing a portal that gives a picture of what the different areas are, and how they fit together.

talk) 12:50, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or at the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.