Archive:Weekly Wiki

What's the Weekly Wiki?

It's an informal meeting/workshop/get-together, in which we can (once a week) expect to be able to interact with other Citizens in something closer to real-time. So you can announce your new articles; request help with articles; ask questions about policy or the software; introduce proposals; generally chat; etc.

When?

Wednesdays when there's no Write-a-Thon, at:

• Wednesday UTC 0900 (= 7 PM Sydney)
• Wednesday UTC 1800 (= 7 PM London, 8 PM Paris)
• Thursday UTC 0100 (= Wednesday 6 PM California, 9 PM New York)

We'll say that the Weekly Wiki happens for two hours beginning at each of those times, but anytime Wednesday, you can write on the Weekly Wiki page.

August 22 Weekly Wiki

• So...are we doing this again this week? --Carl Jantzen 09:41, 22 August 2007 (CDT)
• Sure why not? :-) Anton Sweeney 09:43, 22 August 2007 (CDT)
• I'll try to show up, but I just got back from a trip from halfway around the world, with wife and baby. Recovering (and reading mail) will take time! --Larry Sanger 09:59, 22 August 2007 (CDT)
• Meh, its not like I have a real life :-P Denis Cavanagh 10:00, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Subpages

I'm wondering if User:Chris Day could maybe give us a quick update on where the Subpages project is at and what we can expect/will need to do once it goes live? Anton Sweeney 09:45, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

I'm not Chris Day, but I did get an email pointing me to this page today, maybe that information is helpful. --Carl Jantzen 09:47, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

It is important that everyone contributes to that poll (CZ:Subpages/Which_style?). There are instruction on how to use the subpages on both the vertical ({{subpages2}}) and horizontal ({{subpages9}}) templates. They are still in the testing phase. I have tried to help people set up the subpages correctly when I have seen the edits going in that direction but I have not started any sort of mass addition of subpages except for testing puposes.

There is still one issues to resolve; where do we place the metadata page? It is a technical issue vs an aesthetic issue. It is technically easier to have it on a template (i.e. Template:ARTICLENAME/Metadata), but more intuitive to have it on as a subpage (ARTICLENAME/Metadata). So bear in mind any use of subpage templates now may involve tweeking at a later date. Finally, which ever style is chosen as the favored one, it will be transfered to the {{subpages}} template, so neither 2 or 9 will be the final template. So again, more tweeks will be required in the future if either is used now.

Having said this, I think it is good for you all to experiment with the subpages since the more feedback we get now the more user friendly the final product will be in the end. The real final word is that a bot will place the subpages template on all pages in main space when the subpages template is given the real green light. That transition will be very intense since we will have to manually transfer all the talk page checklists to the metadata page (another reason why we need to intentify the real home for this critical page before we start doing this en masse. Chris Day (talk) 10:32, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

By the way, if anyone is interested in the technical side of the metadata page location I have outlined the details here; Test_article/Signed_Articles. Note, I have also offered a partial solution to the problem that would allow the metadata information to reside on a subpage rather than a temaplate. It's not perfect but it works. Chris Day (talk) 10:45, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Article Metadata and Definition

Here is a simple question: Why don't we have a topic's definition on the Metadata subpage instead of its own template page? It would be nicer to have all that info in the same place, and I think it makes sense to keep actual content in the main namespace rather than the template namespace. -- Carl Jantzen 09:46, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Because it's easier to build out Related Articles pages this way. What we need, clearly, are ways to edit particular hard-wired fields within a page. On the other hand, it's too early in the game to hard-wire our fields. --Larry Sanger 10:16, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Related Articles

I'm about to start compiling a list of Related Articles for the article on Nathanael Greene (American Revolution General), but I'm not really sure what the proper "parent topic" would be. I was thinking either American Revolutionary War, or maybe even just military. Suggestions welcome. --Todd Coles 10:03, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

American Revolutionary War sounds pretty good. --Carl Jantzen 10:04, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Agreed - I think just 'Military' is too broad. Anton Sweeney 10:13, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

I agree as well. See CZ:Related Articles for helpful hints. --Larry Sanger 10:16, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Subpage Style Voting

I guess the assumption of subpages is that we have to standardize on just one type of navigation aid. Personally I think that maybe (at least for now) we should allow principal authors to choose which type of navigation to use for their articles, but since there is already a vote going on you might as well cast yours here: CZ:Subpages/Which style? Carl Jantzen 10:10, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

No, let's definitely prescribe one set style--even if it's one that you and I, Carl, dislike as benighted, messy, bad design, etc. The question actually allows me to say annoyingly once again that this project is created not to indulge the idiosyncratic choices of our contributors, but to aid the end user in finding reliable information as efficiently as possible. --Larry Sanger 10:19, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Given the way the poll is going i wonder if people understand your full reasoning behind the vertical version being superior to the horizontal for navigation. While the voting is still in progress I wonder if such a discussion should be started at CZ_Talk:Subpages/Which_style?. We have a lot of votes but no real debate. i suspect votes are going with aesthetics over function? Who knows for sure. Chris Day (talk) 10:37, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Well, the reasoning is stated clearly enough, just very briefly, in the summary. If people aren't impressed by the reasoning, that's all right. In the long run, we'll redesign the whole thing anyway. Most important in cases like this is that it be clear that I am not simply personally legislating how things must be. It's very healthy, even necessary, for the leader to be overruled from time to time. --Larry Sanger 10:44, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

So you must be feeling very healthy right now :). But you make a good point, the look of the subpages being discussed in that poll is only going to last a long as it takes to get a good CSS skin. This is very much a precursor for the furture, so it's OK to look like Win95 (reference to the comment from Morton) for now. Chris Day (talk) 10:51, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

:-) Actually, I would say that we can easily fix various cosmetic problems with the horizontal template. I was assuming that we would be doing so. It's ridiculous that, for example, the tabs themselves are unnecessarily two rows high; the "PUMA" icons are cut off at the bottom, and the original items you had there were superior; if we must use letters, they should not spell out "PUMA"; the color should probably be changed from, what is that, lavender? (I really like the green on {{subpages2}}.)

There are some errors in the horizontal template. Also why not PUMA? I think it gives us more of a "bite". Rawr. --Robert W King 12:18, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

As always the cosmetic stuff is the easy bit to change. The icons are cut off at the bottom? The tabs are two rows high? These might be more examples of brower incompatability. Colour wise, the two tempaltes are the same. Possibly you are referring to the experiment of having the base color be different for approved (green) vs not approved (blue)? Chris Day (talk) 12:24, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Non-Approved Articles as Draft Articles

I noticed that the Japan article is actually a redirect to Japan/Draft. This makes sense, because Japan hasn't been approved yet, so it is actually a draft. It seems to me that this might have an additional advantage, namely that of preserving a continuous history of edits to an article (at the draft page), and then a continuous history of the approved state of the article at the main page. Or, to be more clear, this way the History of the draft page will show all edits ever, and the History of the main page will show only different approved versions. I believe this makes a lot more sense than the current procedure outlined at CZ:Approval Process, which creates a new draft page when the article is approved, effectively splitting the history of the article into pre-approval and post-approval sections. I think this procedure should perhaps be changed so that the article is MOVED to the draft page, then the main page (now a redirect to the draft) is made into a copy of the correct draft version. Any thoughts?

I set that redirect page up as an experiment. This has been discussed on and off for a few months now. See my recent comments on Matt_Innis' talk page. With respect to the current proceedure, i think the article IS moved to the Draft page as standard practice (thus preserving the history in one place), ask Matt, he has done quite a few approvals now. I suspect we just need to rewrite the whole approval procedure now that we have learned a bit more about the process by actually doing it. Chris Day (talk) 11:53, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

I'm glad to see that you like the idea (even had it first) of starting all articles as drafts (Matt_Innis'). I think this is something we should try to get adopted as a CZ policy. Do es something like this need to be an Editorial Resolution or can it just be discussed and written up on the Approval Process page? --Carl Jantzen 12:01, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Catherine Woodgold first floated the idea, that I am aware of, in the following forum thread. Aleta Curry picked up the ball a month later. This should defintitely go through the editorial council, even if there is a strong community consensus, it would be a huge change to our current practice. Chris Day (talk) 12:11, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Previous Events

August 15, 2007

See also

• Monthly Write-a-Thon
• Article of the Week
• New Article of the Week