LGBT History UK:Community portal

Welcome to the community portal. This is the place to find out what is happening on the LGBT History Project Wiki. Learn what tasks need to be done, and share news about recent events or current activities taking place on this project.

Please start entering any articles you feel able you can write or start, or go to WantedPages where there are links to articles that need writing. Please report any problems to [mailto:jonathan@lgbthistoryuk.org jonathan@lgbthistoryuk.org] or [mailto:ross@foxearth.net ross@foxearth.net].

This wiki was created in June 2011. It was upgraded to mediawiki-1.17.0 on 5 November 2011, and to mediawiki-1.21.2 on 30 October 2013.

New features
Two templates were added during August 2012:
 * Template:Stub adds a stub message and also puts the article into Category:Stubs, which has been introduced to list articles that have been started, but have scope for considerably more work.
 * Template:Disambig adds a disambiguation message and logo and puts the article into the Category:Disambiguation pages.

Some additional templates were added during September 2012, to facilitate the clickable maps of the various countries of the UK. These templates are based on templates used on Wikipedia.

Statistics
We added our thousandth article on 25 September 2012, our 1500th article on 3 April 2013 and our 2000th article on 7 August 2013. For the current number of articles see Special:Statistics.

In October 2012 we joined WikiIndex - see our page there at http://wikiindex.org/LGBT_History_UK. You'll see we've got a wikiFactor of 8, in other words there are at least 8 articles (as shown on Special:PopularPages) that have been viewed at least 8,000 times, and our status has been independently upgraded to "vibrant" (the top category). We also now have a WikiNode - a way of linking to other "neighbour" Wikis. We've also joined the LGBT Free Media Collective, and have started contributing photographs and other images to Wikimedia Commons as part of that project - see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_the_LGBT_UK_History_Project.

On 17 July 2013 we passed a million page views and on 29 March 2014 we passed two million page views. For the current total see Special:Statistics.

Geographical coverage
We now have articles for:


 * all 71 cities in the UK (including 2 former cities)
 * every town with a population over 100,000
 * every town that had a CHE group
 * England:
 * all nine English Regions, each with a map showing counties and districts
 * every county (shire counties, ceremonial counties, metropolitan counties, plus some former counties); every ceremonial county containing more than one local government district or unitary authority now has a map (completed 25 March 2013).
 * every London Borough
 * every unitary authority (completed 10 March 2013)
 * every metropolitan borough (completed 12 March 2013)
 * every local government district (completed 30 December 2013)
 * a selection of localities, towns, villages, etc
 * Scotland:
 * all 33 historic counties
 * all 12 former regions
 * all 32 current council areas
 * Wales:
 * all 8 preserved counties
 * all 22 current local government areas
 * Northern Ireland:
 * every historic county (the "six counties")
 * all 26 current local government districts
 * all 11 new districts to be introduced in 2015.
 * the Isle of Man
 * the Bailiwick of Jersey
 * the Bailiwick of Guernsey (including Alderney and Sark)

Wherever possible, the article about each place includes at least some information about LGBT connections. However there are a small number of Districts with no LGBT history. Assistance with finding information about these would be very welcome.

Archiving
This project has been selected for archiving by the UK Web Archive - see http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/66158869 - the first snapshot dated 22 October 2012 has now appeared on the UKWA site and further snapshots will appear from time to time. We're also getting picked up by the Internet Archive which has captured snapshots at odd times since November 2011.

Current projects

 * Create articles for all Consortium members where they don't exist, and add Category:Consortium members to all the members. Complete as of 5 August 2013.


 * Create articles for people listed in previous Pink etc lists (and ensure that the appropriate category (with number) is added to the article:
 * 1995 list of 40: complete.
 * 50 most powerful 2009: complete.
 * Category:Pink List 2000: complete.
 * Category:Pink List 2010: complete.
 * Category:Pink List 2011: complete.
 * Category:Pink List 2012: complete.
 * Talk:Pink List 2013
 * Pride Power List 2011: complete.
 * Category:World Pride Power List 2012 (UK people only): complete.
 * Category:World Pride Power List 2013 (UK people only): complete.


 * Create articles for all notable speakers in the List of speakers at SLG meetings. Ongoing; note that there are questions about the notability of a number of the speakers.


 * Add images for all articles (or mark as Category:Articles with no pictures). Thought to be complete.


 * Categorise all people by date of birth and death (or Category:People with missing dates / Category:Living people). Thought to be complete.


 * Create articles for the subjects listed in LGBT History UK:Articles needed.

Ongoing tasks
The following things need to be checked on a regular basis:


 * Uncategorised pages: every article should belong to at least one category; in turn, each category (except Category:Main categories) should belong to at least one other category.
 * Dead-end pages and Orphaned pages: these can never be eliminated altogether, but should be kept to a minimum – for instance to under 50 pages each so they can all be viewed on the first page of the listing
 * language expressing a particular point of view: "we", "us", "sadly", "fortunately", ... Articles containing such expressions are likely to need more thorough reviewing, not just removing the words in question.
 * language that will date: "this year", "last year", "recently", "currently", ...
 * articles lacking illustrations (there are lots of these) – see LGBT History UK:Photographs.

Extensions
Cite Extension: the extension for adding refences (footnotes/citations) has been added. See example of use on the page "Capital Gay". TitleBlackList: to help combat spam and vandalism, the extension for blocking titles has not been added. CheckUser: I installed this – but don’t think this has taken.

Please email me to let me know what extensions you would like installed. And also any ideas to prevent spam.

Timeline
The Timeline of UK LGBT History was added in October 2011. The aim is to have entries for all the most significant events in UK LGBT History from the earliest times. Each entry should include a link to the article which deals with the event or person in more detail. For earlier centuries, each article should ideally have an entry in the Timeline, but we may have to be a bit more selective from say 1960 onwards.

Publicity
The Wiki had its official launch at the LGBT History Month pre-launch at The Oval, 21 November 2011, and a stall at the London Metropolitan Archives Conference, 16 February 2013.

Our own article about the project, listing references in external sources, is at LGBT History Project. Our Wiki now has an article on Wikipedia,, and is included in Wikipedia's List of Wikis.

Backups
The MySQL database is being backed up regularly.