Wikipedia:WikiProject Fashion/WikiProject Hats and Headgear

First, an important note for everyone to remember:

A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in articles about kinds of hats and other headgear (caps, bonnets, hoods, veils, etc.). These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!

Title

WikiProject Hats and Headgear

Scope

This WikiProject aims primarily to:

• add as many different kinds of hats and other headgear to list of hats and headgear as have been worn at any time (through history to the present day) in any culture, and to organise this list into a logical structure which will be easy for all potential users to browse (looking for hats they have heard of, and hats they haven't)
• write an article about every item of headgear on the above list; encompassing what it looks like, is made of, who wore it, why, where, when and how, linking it to similar contemporaneous headgear, and/or linking it into a timeline/evolution of headgear, explaining what it represented (i.e. class or religion), etc.
• find or produce photographs or drawings for every article
• create overarching articles, for example:
  • general overview of a garment (e.g. overview of veils)
  • articles like "hats in 20th Century America"
  • timelines, evolutions - either for a large category or a particular item like an evolution of nun's headdresses
• add a method of navigating through this vast project to each page (see suggestion below for a small "this article is part of..." box)
• encorporate existing relevant articles (like the very thorough Papal Tiara) without damaging them (i.e. only changing them if we can think of improvements; not forcing them to fit to a rigid structure)

Participants

• fabiform
• Skylark
• Isomorphic (won't be very active, but I have some knowledge about military headgear - berets, helmets, etc.)
• Snafflekid
• Rozafaaa (Well, I don't know how active I will be yet. I've just started on wikipedia... but I'm much interested in the fashion and cultural aspects of hijab.. and would like to start some articles.)

Structure

Discuss the format for each article based on the WikiProject. Include various categories applicable to the topic.

Hierarchy Definition

The "mother article" is headgear. Articles about kinds of headgear can be placed in one (or more, as appropriate) of the basic subdivisions (i.e. hat, bonnet, wig...) and into one or more of the subdivisions which are evolving on list of hats and headgear. Note that different items of headgear which each deserve their own articles may share the same name (e.g. turban might naturally lead to an article on the Sikh turban or a kind of cap/hat worn by older ladies in Regency England). See below for naming conventions.

Running parallel to the articles on individual items of clothing will be all the history/evolution/timeline/social importance/etiquette etc. articles.

Naming articles

Since articles may share a natural title with unrelated subjects, and may also share natural titles with other items within the project, the following conventions are a good idea:

Start with the common name for the headgear. E.g. "bowler hat" rather than "bowler", but "boater" rather than "boater hat". If this article already exists (and is about something else) consider moving the existing article to a new name if it will lessen confusion, i.e. it is logical to have the article about the film Top Hat at "Top Hat (movie)" and to use "Top Hat" for the article of headgear (provide disambiguation links where appropriate, though).

If you are unsure of the common name of a hat (i.e. you don't know if it was more commonly known as a "bearskin" or a "bearskin hat", consider creating both articles and making one a redirect to the other, or adding a disambiguation link to an existing unrelated article which might be accidentally linked to.

When the common name of an article is ambiguous, e.g. "crown" might mean the headgear or the monarchy, add the appropriate subdivision of headgear in brackets to the title.

• crown => crown (headgear)
• boater => boater (hat)
• mitre => mitre (cap); mitre (headdress)

Template

This article is part of the Hats and Headgear series:

Overview of Headgear

History of Headgear

Fashions in Headgear

Headgear and Religion

Military and Police

National Dress

Etiquette and Language

Hats; Bonnets; Caps

Hoods; Helmets; Wigs

Masks; Veils; Scarves

Tiaras; Crowns

List of hats and headgear

A number of other series and wikiprojects have used a table on the right hand side of the page to help users navigate a large cluster of connected articles.

Something like this (with better thought-out links that actually point to articles) for example would "brand" each page without having to impose a rigid structure which would not be suitable for many of the pages, and greatly aid navigation.

A suitable table for all pages could be made into a {{msg...}} which is then added to the top (or under the first image?) of each article with the minimum of effort, and can be centrally edited as the project evolves. The new feature which turns a self-link (i.e. a link which points to the page it is already on) automatically into bold text will be especially useful.

{{headgear}}

I've created a small Table of contents to start us off. To add it to a page type {{msg:headgear}} at the top, or under the first image. To edit the message go here: Template:Headgear. We can add links to the table as we go along and the project gets off the ground.

Category:WikiProject Fashion