Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Reference works task force

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Shortcut WP:REFWORKSWP:REFWORKS

Welcome to the Reference works task force. Several Wikipedians have formed this collaboration resource and group dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of reference works and the organization of information and articles on this topic. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions and various resources; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians interested in the topic. If you would like to help, please add yourself as a participant in the project, inquire on the talk page, and see the to-do list, below.

Goals

Our goal is to improve Wikipedias' coverage of reference works. In order to do that we intend to:

• Create a central location where interested readers may find information on Wikipedias' coverage of reference works (ergo, this page).
• Bring together Wikipedians who wish to work on improving coverage of reference works, communicate with each other, share experiences, ask for and receive feedback etc.
• Create a system to rate and monitor the progress of articles, categories and other material related to reference works. Somewhat like this.
• Add WikiProject banners to the talk pages of relevant articles, so interested readers may be directed to pertinent information on reference works

What are reference works?

For our purposes reference works include:

• encyclopedias
• dictionaries
• lexicons
• almanacs
• glossaries
• thesauri

and others.

Dictionaries include both narrowly linguistic works (ergo the Oxford English Dictionary) as well as topical works (ergo Oxford Classical Dictionary). Same goes for works labelled thesaurus, lexicon or glossary.

Encyclopedias include both general works (for instance, the Encyclopædia Britannica) and specialized encyclopedias (The Encyclopedia of New York City).

In addition, there are also reference genres which are specialized to particular topics. For instance, florae are reference works which illustrate and describe plant life, usually in specific locations ergo, Flora Novae-Zelandiae. Others include pharmacopoeias, herbals, armorials, atlases, film and music guides.

Open tasks

Participants

Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest.

1. Ringbang (talk · contribs) I'm interested in working on reference works for visual arts, cultural anthropology, queer studies, African studies, and Asian studies. 04:21, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
2. Bellerophon5685 (talk · contribs) My main interest in reference works are encyclopedias, both general and specialized, but am willing to work on other reference genres as well.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 17:03, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
3. Keahapana (talk · contribs) I'm primarily interested in working on Chinese and Japanese reference works, but glad to help with ones in other languages too. 21:18, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
4. John Carter (talk) 15:52, 28 November 2016 (UTC) Primary interests are expanding the Bibliography of encyclopedias and Bibliography of reference works pages and, maybe, finding sources in journals and suchlike to provide a basis for separate articles on works.
5. JarrahTree (talk · contribs) reference works, almanacs, year books, and obscure topic encyclopedias - including australian items JarrahTree 01:50, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
6. 10W40 (talk · contribs) I rewrote Encyclopedism and nominated it as a good article.
7. SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  – style guides, dictionaries, and their editors. I actually rewrote Style guide and associated list articles, then lost them in a system crash before I'd saved them. Whole day's work. Will do it again some day.
8. Asianflavoure (talk · contribs) (I am interested in working on the copyright infringements of reference works) 03:40, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Articles

Alerts

Article alerts

Did you know

• 10 Oct 2026 – The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by Piotrus (t · c); see discussion

Articles for deletion

• 22 Oct 2026 – RationalWiki (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by Koubaki (t · c) was closed as redirect by OwenX (t · c) on 08 Nov 2026; see discussion (34 participants; relisted)

Good article nominees

• 12 Jul 2026 – Les Marges du christianisme (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by PARAKANYAA (t · c); see discussion

Articles to be split

• 23 Jul 2026 – Webster's Dictionary (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Oknazevad (t · c); see discussion
• 03 Aug 2025 – Pharmacopoeia (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by AukusRuckus (t · c); see discussion

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Statistics

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Categories

Resources

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Encyclopedias and/or Reference Works