User talk:Nexus Seven/Archive

Excel file for the Concise
As it is really tough to maintain and not ready yet, I will send it to you at a point but it will probably not the most updated version there is. And also, it is freaking tough to bring an output of it with the | in it so I better maintain it, and will add whatever you want me to add to it. Lincher 22:31, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Browse box
Just fyi, I suggested it at the pump. --Quiddity· (talk) 06:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Very cool. Good luck. --Nexus Seven 02:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Like I said elsewhere though, I really dont have much time for this, outside of suggesting it, and offering basic input. If you'd like to put notices at CBB etc, or make it into a project, go ahead. --Quiddity· (talk) 02:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm contacting a few programmers to shed light on the doability of this. What would really help though, since you are adept at mock ups is a mock up of the latest design concept of the sidebar. --Nexus Seven 03:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Response to Programming Question
Hi Nexus Seven,

I am a programmer, but unfortunately I'm probably not the right person to answer your question since I know very little about MediaWiki. However, I do think your idea is a good one and I'm almost sure that the work involved to implement it would be minimal. Probably the biggest difficulty would be getting the right people to agree to it, since it is a change that would effect all of wikipedia. I'd suggest talking about it on the IRC channel #wikipedia on freenode. Someone there should at least be able to point you in the right direction. GabrielF 13:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I just took a brief look at some of the documentation for MediaWiki and it seems to me that this would require no code changes at all, just a change to the template wikipedia uses. GabrielF 17:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

programming
I don't do a lot of Wikipedia programming, but if you want I can try it on my wiki. I don't think that's necessary though. I think the others answered your question. I moved the page and revised it a bit. Thanks for letting me in on this. --gatoatigrado 21:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

sidebar
why did you feel the need to revert my better organized proposal page?
 * By mixing up the messages from the original discussion, you inadvertantly changed the context. Also, since this is a preliminary discussion, a poll is premature at this time.  --Nexus Seven 23:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * okay. --gatoatigrado 01:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

If you're going back to your old version of the sidebar, please state justification. I told you why I wanted some things changed. --gatoatigrado 22:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Going back? I never left.  I just created a mock-up of the design recommendations I presented to see what they would look like, and posted it for everyone to see, for their convenience.  (A picture is worth a thousand words).  I also made a few further modifications, which I pointed out.  Though I'm not sure I understand your objection to my posting the mock-up.  --Nexus Seven 23:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * no matter, I changed some things in version 3 you didn't carry over in version 4, but that's long past now. --gatoatigrado 01:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

why don't you ask some other programmers about what permissions we have to modify wikipedia? I'm sure dragon was speaking in good faith, but there's no way the Italian wikipedia is using the same monobook and looks the way it does. --gatoatigrado 01:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Topics
See Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)/topics redesign before you get too carried away... --Quiddity· (talk) 20:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Topic Lists
Please stop making these. They are redundant copies of their categories. (|--  UlT i MuS  09:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * If you find that your articles are being nominated before they are finished, you may find inuse useful. (|--   UlT i MuS  09:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * They are intended to be structured lists, for the basic topic lists collection. Though I haven't gotten to the structuring yet.  Still building.  Please wait a few days.  Thanks for the tip on "inuse" --Nexus Seven 09:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Why not make categories for this instead, though? That I really don't understand. (|--   UlT i MuS  09:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Lists have more uses than categories. They're cut & pasteable.  They show disappearing articles through redlinks (cats don't).  Structured lists can map out a whole field or curriculum in a single article, while cats are all chopped up and may take many clicks and backtracking to navigate -- sometimes it's easier to just read down a page.  As an example see List of fields of study.  Lists are centralized and offer greater control over the contents, and allow the use of editing tools (such as search and replace), outlining, etc.  Cats are decentralized and can't be edited directly.  Redlinks can be used to track topics that don't have articles yet - cats can't.  Cats are suseptible to page owner POV - and you won't even know the topics are missing unless you specifically check; this can cause further holes in a subject's coverage.  Lists can be better maintained because they have histories, while cats don't -- and who has the time to make inventory checklists for categories.  Lists are faster to build and faster to edit, and are thus much more efficient.  The Lists of basic topics is intended to be a high-quality summary of subjects on Wikipedia.  To be maintained properly, we need the greater efficiency, monitoring capabilities, and centralized editing and control which lists offer.  --Nexus Seven 10:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

re: Please reconsider the merge and remove those ugly merge tags
I changed the merge tags to something less graphical. I responded to your opinions. Please let this proposal have time, as everyone has done with your sidebar proposal. Things may change significantly, although I guess it's true it's not happening fast. --gatoatigrado 15:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Style
You wrote: "Instead I've added the cool formatting of this page to the List of reference tables."
 * Perhaps you could make this formatting into a template, like Portal:Box-header, so that we can keep them consistently sized/designed across all the places you've added them. Thanks.
 * (Also, that philosophy icon needs to be smaller. It's too tall for its box (we really need a new, square dimensioned icon)). --Quiddity· (talk) 19:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll look into it. But it'll have to wait a few days.  I barely have enough time to respond to "G"  on the merge proposal.  He reminds me of me 9 months ago.  :-)  --Nexus Seven 21:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

can I help
I saw someone mentioned you redlinked pages in Lists of basic topics, and I'll be happy to help develop those lists, if you tell me how. Do I look for links inside the overview articles? --gatoatigrado 23:45, 15 August 2006 (UTC) Cool. Sure, jump right in:
 * 1) We need to avoid the list killers.  Many editors go around nominating for deletion any list they consider merely a duplicate of a category.  Therefore, lists must have added value.  (Actually, the category system doesn't do the basic/full thing, and so we've added value already by being basic for beginners).  But, listkillers will sometimes nom a basic list that is under construction before you've even had a chance to add 10 items!  Therefore, it's a good idea to build it up a ways on a subpage of your user page first, then move it to the final page name after it has some meat on its bones.
 * 2) The basic lists are intended to be structured lists.  Thas is, they need to present an overview of the subject by presenting the topics by their major subdivisions and features.  Think of it as a knowledge map.  Most of the lists need work in this regard, but see these as examples:  List of basic geography topics, List of basic philosophy topics, List of basic earth science topics, and List of basic history topics.
 * 3) There are many ways to gather topics.  One of my favorites is to look for glossaries on the world wide web, combine them, strip everything out except the terms (using search/replace and macros), sort them in the command shell of Windows, remove the duplicates, and linkify the terms.  You'd be amazed at how many of these links turn blue.  This works best for comprehensive lists, but then I copy the list again and strip out the advanced words, and presto, a basic list!  Another way is to cut and paste categories, stripping out the advanced terms.  The slowest method is picking terms out of article text, but many articles have embedded lists (which are useful for building basic/topic lists), and the see also sections are often a treasure trove of links - so I like to navigate between articles using the see also links, grabbing each see also list as I go.  Portals often have lists, and you can convert link types.  For instance lists of category links can be converted to article links very easily with search/replace (cut and paste to Wordpad, as it is quick and easy).

I've not tried any browser plug-in text editors, but I've been thinking about it. Let me know if you know of any good ones.

The one list that needs the most work right away is List of basic management topics. It doesn't matter if you know anything about the subject. Just go there right now and help. ;-) --Nexus Seven 01:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Portal and Categories
Hey. I just wanted to let you know, that i still very strongly believe that the 2 new pages should be merged/not-forked: and I might get around to tagging and discussing that sometime after tomorrow, if you don't before. --Quiddity· (talk) 12:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * List of portals with Portal:Browse
 * Categorical index with Browse (though i did see that you've already redirected this successfully for 2 days)


 * There have been no objections to the redirect, so my inclination is to let it ride. That's one successful merge down, and one to go.  As an admin, can you combine page histories?  For example combining the histories of these two cat pages under the name Categorical index.  Can you do that?


 * Merging the other 2 pages is premature. We should wait until the development of the graphic design of the matching ref page set is complete.  They just don't quite have the Wikipedia feel yet.  Is gray too drab?  Or is the shade just too dark?  Should each of the pages have its own color to make telling them apart easier?  Besides, we need the new page in place to be able to develop its format in conjunction with the other pages on the ref header bar.  We haven't even templatized them yet.  Once we're done with the design of the set, the merge should go very smoothly, because they'll look their best.  In this situation, the best way to reach consensus is to present the page (and the set it belongs to) when they are ready.  --Nexus Seven 14:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It is possible to merge page histories, but I don't know how easy it is. (I'm not an admin...) You'll need to do the process at Proposed mergers (or possibly How to fix cut and paste moves).
 * Yeah, waiting makes sense, I guess.
 * The page titlebox is too tall, imo, but that and the color, etc, is all more easily dealt with once it's templatised. --Quiddity· (talk) 18:45, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Talk Main page Template
Hi, I've removed your "announcement" from Template:Main Page discussion header The header is intended to help new users find the correct places to post. If you add a huge box at the top like you did it shifts all the help information down (and off some people's browsers). I've added it to the general discussion, however. --Monotonehell 13:36, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that should be sufficient. --Nexus Seven 14:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

List of geniuses
See Talk:List of geniuses - that the AfD just ended today (and was deleted today) is why I was so quick and without explanation. -- Trödel 03:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

List of your new list pages
I was wondering if you could (or already have) make a list of all the new basic topic lists you've created (and similar). I'm concerned that there'll be so many new pages, that are ostensibly very high-level, but that will only have a single person watchlisting/aware of them (hence more susceptible to unnoticed vandalism). Thanks :) --Quiddity· (talk) 05:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been watching the collection as a whole - page itself is the list, and all the pages are being revamped from the ground up, so they are all new. But I wouldn't worry, Wikipedia is pretty robust. Anyone using the pages can revert vandalism. So there are as many "watchers" as there are readers of the lists. And the more exposure it gets by being "top level" the more readers there will be. The "related changes" tool is effective for monitoring page collections a lot larger than this. Editing activity should drop off to next to nothing once the flurry of clean up is completed, which will make vandalism much easier to spot with that tool. I'm about half done. The help system is a good example that we don't need to be overly worried about vandalism. While Help is a tool to navigate WP's help pages, Basic Topics is a similar tool for navigating Wikipedia. No worries. --Nexus Seven 06:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Glossary of alternative medicine terms
I just wanted to let you know that you have unanimous support, thus far, for the move you suggested in Talk:List of terms and concepts used in alternative medicine. Cheers! -AED 06:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

change is good
Hey thanks...I think it looks pretty cool. I was ready for a change. Cheers, Kukini 06:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Sidebar breaks
Could you take a screenshot of the problem you're trying to fix with the pagebreaks at the sidebar drafts page? I cant seem to see/replicate the error you're describing, in my browsers. --Quiddity· (talk) 07:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)