Wikipedia:WikiProject Folklore

WikiProject Folklore works to improve Wikipedia's coverage of all genres of folklore (which range from legends to jokes) alongside Wikipedia's coverage of the academic field of folklore studies. To meet its goal of improving folklore coverage quality on Wikipedia, WikiProject Folklore's three core activities are as follows:

• Increase quality: First, built on Wikipedia:Good article criteria, the project aims to raise Wikipedia's folklore article quality to the finest tertiary source for the topic on the internet. This includes rooting out poor sources and pseudoscience, and identifying reliable sources.
• Organize coverage: Second, the project aims to build a highly organized database of categories, templates, and other useful tools to better organize folklore-related articles on Wikipedia.
• Polish core articles: Third, the WikiProject ultimately aims to bring as many articles as possible relevant to the concept of folklore studies to Wikipedia:Good article status and, in time, to Wikipedia:featured article status.

If you'd like to participate in WikiProject Folklore, please add your name below.

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WikiProject Folklore was founded in April 2018, a rare new WikiProject during a time when many others grew inactive. While Wikipedia is often a fantastic tertiary source, the site's coverage of folklore-related topics remains generally poor. It appears that no folklorists were involved during the early stages of the project. In their place, Wikipedia editors often produced articles relevant to folklore studies from an emic perspective, frequently focusing on "sightings", turning to pseudosciences such as cryptozoology or ghost hunting for article source material, or linking to ad-supported internet sites, such as this one.

Many articles relevant to the academic study of folklore remain absent from Wikipedia. Some important articles relevant to folklore studies have only recently gained articles on the site (such as folk belief, written in 2016 and still little more than a stub). Folklore genres are sometimes treated as synonyms in article spaces.

Due to the unique history of folklore studies on Wikipedia, editors who aim to improve Wikipedia's coverage of folklore-related topics may encounter unexpected hostility from well-meaning editors unfamiliar with folklore studies or who hope to use the platform to promote pseudoscience. In these instances, useful policies and guidelines include the following:

• WP:FRIND: "The best sources to use when describing fringe theories, and in determining their notability and prominence, are independent reliable sources."
• WP:FRINGE: Wikipedia's content guidelines on fringe theories
• WP:PROVEIT: "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution."
• WP:PSCI, a summary of Wikipedia's policies on neutrality, fringe theories, and pseudoscience
• WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE, Wikipedia's policies on pseudoscience
• WP:UNDUE, Wikipedia's policy on undue emphasis on fringe theories

Please note that many of the below WikiProjects are semi-active.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthropology, folklore studies is ultimately a field of anthropology
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Linguistics, as a field, folklore studies developed closely in association with linguistics
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Mythology, myth is a genre of folklore