User:The Duke of Waltham/Philosophy

A bit of WikiPhilosophy. As a person who thinks a lot and talks a lot, it had only been a matter of time before I founded this library of my spiritual products. If there is anything in this page that you feel like discussing with me, please do so either by leaving a message in this page's talk page (or my talk page) or by e-mailing me.

Views about Wikipedia
As my experience in this crazy place grows, so will this list.


 * I am simply amazed by the sheer size of the Wikipedia community. An entire world, one of epic proportions, "hiding" behind the (hopefully) polished network of pages, lists, and categories, with few elements linking them (mostly talk pages, article message boxes, and portals). I flatter myself that I have finally understood the true extent of Wikipedia; for newcomers, however, it is just too much to take in; most of them will centre upon some specific features and venues, and tend to discover the rest of it slowly, in time (and lots of it). It is just plain impossible for them to get the bigger picture without some help (like John Broughton's recently published manual). And I certainly don't blame them, even if that means that a lot of messages get to end up in the wrong pages. Hell, I learned about WP:ERRORS in last November.
 * I am disappointed that I have yet to meet a Wikipedian out in the so-called real world. I have run into several readers, most of them somewhat disbelieving (or simply too much into Warcraft II to care about any encyclopaedia, on-line or not). So far, the only Wikipedians I have known are the ones I have converted, and none of them has proven to be much enthusiastic about it (with a possible exception). But, well, this is Greece, and these things always take long to take hold; EuroBillTracker has one of its lowest participation rates in this country, to furnish an example.
 * I feel irritated when I see links in various essays and policy pages and these lead to the shortcuts of other essays and policy pages. Oftentimes, even though the context does not allow the reader to infer which is the policy in question, neither does the link, as hovering over it only shows a cryptic initialism. And, even though I have learned all the basic ones and many others, there are still unknown shortcuts to me that have me guessing without my wanting to. (Maybe my small-scale involvement with the shortcuts directory will help me in this respect.) Not to speak about newbies, who are the real victims of this bureaucratic code. I certainly agree that shortcuts are very helpful for the search box and for links in talk pages; in proper pages, however, my opinion is that one should give the whole article title, so that hovering can actually yield useful information, something especially important for people with slow Internet connections (like me), who cannot afford to click on every link just to see what lies beyond. So, I have made a resolution: only use shortcuts in talk pages (and the search box). It is more useful than it looks, you know. Little things like this can actually make a Wikipedian's life easier, even if only just a bit.
 * My dirty little secret: the Greek Wikipedia bores me. To death, I might add. Its 30,000 articles pale before the mighty two-million-plus of the English Wikipedia, and, even though it grows steadily, it still lacks entries on important concepts. The Greek Uncyclopedia sometimes looks more developed than it, for Unicorn's sake. In general, it cannot serve me in the studies that I need it to, its institutions are not nearly as beautifully complex as the ones here, and the English-Greek confusion in many things is rather annoying (not to mention the awful URLs). My relation with the English Wikipedia is one of mutual contribution: I read about stuff I am interested in, and in my turn I help it improve (I do not see it as barter, however); I could not possibly have this kind of connection with the Greek Wikipedia. And I have neither the time nor the energy necessary to help in the Greek project; only if I had the entire day to myself I would have considered helping there. By the way, I do have an account there (more as an insurance in case unified usernames are approved, however, than in order to actually edit there).
 * I find the "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy" creed laughable. First of all, most editors contribute from desks, many of them actually editing from their offices (instead of working, that is, and they are always caught in the end). Then have a look at the entire system; the Wikipedia community more or less comprises an endless maze of committee rooms. Some of them small, some of them bigger, and there are even a few auditoriums here and there, but the fact remains that decisions are mainly taken separately in thousands of pages by a few tens of people at most in each case (with a small percentage set aside for exceptions). All that said, this must be the most efficient bureaucracy in existence, in virtue of its higher flexibility in all levels. Well, if I really wanted to be precise, I should probably call this a hybrid between bureaucracy, parliament, and local government. But then it just gets too complicated, and any useful metaphors are simply lost along the way.

The Five Pillars of succession box editing
Inspired from the Five Pillars of Wikipedia, these five points are the principal things that one should remember when editing succession boxes (according to my personal viewpoint).

[...]

Simplified rule set
Again, following Wikipedia's precedent (and common sense), I here give my take on the five basic (and condensed) instructions that will allow any editor to produce more or less unproblematic succession boxes. Even though they succinctly cover the most basic elements of the guidelines, keep in mind that there are also exceptions to what is written here, which can be found in a more detailed study of the proper guidelines.


 * 1) Use the templates properly – Use each template and parameter for the purpose it has been made for, write the syntax clearly, put the templates and the parameters within them in the correct order.
 * 2) Use the correct titles – Give formal, standardised, and consistently formatted and linked titles; make sure titles are not too long and do not contain redundant formalities.
 * 3) Use the correct styles – Use the correct styles and prefixes for people, following the guidelines and depending on each individual case; give the styles people were using at the time of each succession.
 * 4) Use links properly – Do not link dates but always link predecessor/successor names; use pipe links where necessary; use as few and relevant to the title links as possible in the title field.
 * 5) Categorise titles properly – Use the appropriate header for each title; use each header once and only one for each line; place headers in the correct order and sort the titles under them following the guidelines.

Succession box principles
and as much as possible
 * Content
 * Give whole, official titles unless too well known otherwise or too long
 * Only omit important information from a cell/line that can be deduced from the rest of the box
 * Add nothing to the "years" parameter but years (and dates)
 * Differentiate the type of information given in the boxes from that available in the articles, to maximise the boxes' usefulness
 * (see "Links to lists of holders" lower in the list)
 * Layout and headers
 * Place offices in layers and use the elimination of overlapping titles under each header as a criterion for choosing what header to place a title under (esp. for s-ppo and s-hon)
 * Always leave two empty lines between the box and the text above it (if there is any), for a better aesthetic result
 * Links
 * Always use links in the title cell, but as few and descriptive as possible
 * Red links are generally undesirable in the title (but not in the dates)
 * Use no more or less than one link for each predecessor/successor, even if it is red
 * Never link to disambiguation pages
 * Links to lists of holders are preferred to links to articles, as they reveal the entire succession chain and the articles are linked to from the article itself anyway
 * Syntax
 * Limit the usage of
 * Use parameters to spare the editors the confusion of HTML and to aid standardisation
 * Avoid using redundant spaces excessively, as the templates need not be perfectly aligned in the edit box

The 10 essential qualities of succession boxes

 * 1) Suitability: The box must describe a clear succession (of people) and not other chains or structures
 * 2) Importance: The box must concern a title of a certain status and notability
 * 3) Relevance: The box must have a clear connection to the article and the person it concerns
 * 4) Accuracy: The information in the box must be correct and unequivocal
 * 5) Clarity: Information in the box must be given in a way easily comprehensible
 * 6) Precision: The information in the box must not be dubious or misleading to the reader
 * 7) Simplicity: The box must be simple enough to be useful to anyone without exception
 * 8) Autonomy: The information in the box must be understandable without further explanations
 * 9) Uniformity: Succession boxes must all follow the same simple standards in appearance and content
 * 10) Presentability: The box must be aesthetically pleasing both in its own right and as part of the article

I have tried to give simple names to these ten qualities so that I may be able to refer to them without the lack of specific concepts necessitating long analyses of what I mean with each word. Semantics can be a real problem sometimes, especially in Wikipedia, where there is many a conversation in which the debaters are too impatient to understand what the other person is saying before they answer back.

I have put some thought in this catalogue and I think it is an exhaustive one. Some of the concepts seem to be overlapping, but there are distinct differences, and they can be discerned with a careful reading. The order of importance, of course, is a matter of debate. Even I am not completely sure about this one. I have based it on each item's importance for the article, which is why uniformity comes second to last. It is, of course, much more important when one looks at the greater picture, and that is why it is actually in SBS's title ("standardisation").

These ten criteria are all, each for its own reason, markers of the success of a succession box because each poses an issue concerning the use of the box by the casual reader of the encyclopaedia and is either connected to its informational side or to its navigational side (even including, to an extend, the last criterion). Each reader has different needs, and so a successful succession box (no pun intended) is one that can fulfil them all to the extend allowed by its very nature as a succession box (now that I think of it, we really need a good definiton for what exactly a succession box is...).

Succession box pet peeves

 * The missing definite articles in peers' titles in academic offices' succession lines. Obviously, only courtesy peers can become university rectors.
 * The senseless use of s-herald for offices in knighthood orders. The fact that the Great Master of the Order of the Bath has a coat of arms does not automatically make him a heraldic officer.
 * The insistence of some people on the validity of s-off for parliament seats, and sometimes for entire succession boxes. I do not know if it is the first header created, but even if it is this does not grant it exclusive inclusion in any box.
 * The addition of notes in the title cells' "years" fields. The "years" field is for years and dates and for nothing else. This really is one of the main reasons why it is called "years".
 * The wild disparity between the ways Template:Succession box is used, namely the order of the parameters in it. Every different combination is used, and I have found many boxes featuring up to three different configurations. Not helpful to the template's replacement, I can tell you. Actually, one could say that this has happened on purpose, as a measure against the replacement.

Quotes
Lost time is never found again.

–Benjamin Franklin

Doubt grows with knowledge.

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Although it is generally known, I think it's about time to announce that I was born at a very early age.

–Groucho Marx

There are two kinds of beauty in a person; while one's outer beauty decorates the world, it is one's inner beauty that actually makes the world more beautiful, because it improves it.

–The Duke of Waltham

Family is a number of people one has to live with despite the fact that they have nothing in common but their worst character traits.

–The Duke of Waltham

For seven years, Wikipedia has provided the world with free knowledge. As a by-product, it has also generously offered loads of free stupidity. Contrary to Wikipedia spirit, however, the latter's generation is rarely ever controversial.

–The Duke of Waltham