Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 4

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 → Archive 10

Recent archive of reference desk discussions

An "Archive 3" has been made where I've placed all the old discussions there. Feel free to restore the active threads if they have been mistakenly place there. --HappyCamper 03:53, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...apparently the page I tried to make yesterday didn't save properly, so I'm still trying to go back into the history of the current talk page and archive it properly. --HappyCamper 02:34, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I got a better idea and moved the page to the correct location. Now, I'm going to put in a request to delete the incorrect redirect, and that should be fixed up. --HappyCamper 03:07, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Time to archive again?

There are now 138 questions in the Reference desk, taking 221 kilobytes. This is a humongous lot. Shouldn't the desk be archived again, to make it faster to load and scan through? — JIP | Talk 05:20, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Archive this now!

I've just had the "Sorry- we have a problem..." page appear eleven times in a row when trying to submit a reply to User:Gdr. I guess the page is now far too long to be edited without problems. Someone should either archive the discussion or tell me the archival guidelines so I can do it myself. — JIP | Talk 14:47, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the number of questions being posted is now getting huuuuge. I think it's time to seriously consider splitting the reference desk in categories (for example, maths/computing, people & places, history, science/nature, sport/entertainment, misc). And although it's nice to have a friendly few sentences,a freiendly few sentences on every response makes the page bloat terribly. Maybe just posting a link to the article would reduce page size. And it wouldn't hurt to have something at the top asking visitors to look for an article first, before posting on the reference desk. Proto t c 15:57, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be nice to implement something like VfD, where each question has its own page, and this page would just be a list of links to those pages. It would make it possible to watchlist threads we're interested in (and therefore notice new posts in ones that are getting older and would otherwise be up at the top of the page among stale threads), and to skip threads we're not interested in. My two cents. But yeah, I get the "problem" page often on this page too; it's annoying. Something should be done. Garrett Albright 06:27, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
You get a little problem with that so far as complexity for inexperienced editors. I think splitting subjects would be a better idea to keep it accessible. --Laura Scudder | Talk 07:14, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

The issue about splitting the reference desk has been brought a least two times (see the sections Create different "reference desks" for every topic and Splitting the reference desk into departments above) but it was rejected for reasons I didn't understand.

The Village pump and the Wikipedia:Request for comments have been split into different categories, so why not the Reference desk?

Anyway I liked the suggestion of User:Ghakko that I'm resubmitting here (a part of it):

Reference desk
The reference desk is a place to ask for specific facts.
Please check back a day or two after posting your question.
Current events Pop culture History Humanities Music Medicine Science Technology Other
File:P literature.png
post post post post post post post post post
To ask questions about news or current events To ask questions about fashion and popular culture To ask questions about history and genealogy To ask questions about arts, literature and the humanities To ask questions about music To ask questions about health and medical topics To ask questions about mathematics, physics, biololgy and the natural sciences To ask questions about electronics, computing and for general technical how-tos To ask questions which don't fit in any of the other categories

CG 08:54, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I like this idea too. Can we also make a page which has the "Best of the Reference Desk" to showcase some of our finest answers? --HappyCamper 10:09, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
This looks cool, but I worry it would make the page unwieldy, and much more difficult to use, without any more real utility - is it really unmanageable right now? Trollderella 23:59, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Would it be possible to still have a version that has all the categories' questions on one page as they are now? ¦ Reisio 01:04, 2005 August 20 (UTC)
Maybe we can try this? Let's keep the number of subjects to a small number, say 2 or 3. One might be "miscellaneous" and the others might be "science" and "humanities". Then, we'd have 3 icons at the top of the page, and people could just click on those, and it would direct them to a subsection of the reference desk (instead of a separate page). Then, questions can be inserted with 3 equal signs instead of 2. The archiving isn't that bad, but I'm finding that during certain weeks the questions come in at a really fast rate, and I have to archive about once or twice a week to keep the number of active questions to around 100. --HappyCamper 03:36, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
I really like the icons :D. If you try this, it should be like the original village pump conglomeration (all the questions are on their categories, and on the main page at the same time). — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:40, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Indeed - I've no problem as long as there is a "view all"...but chronologically would be better than one category after another. ¦ Reisio 04:55, 2005 August 20 (UTC)

Why do you think that choosing the wright category is so difficult for users? It's cooler, and in case of difficulty we put it in the Other section. CG 07:19, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

That's true. I don't think we should worry so much about users posting on the "incorrect" page. After all, what one Wikipedian might think is A, another might think is B. If we move a question, we could just leave a little note saying that. When we archive, we can just get rid of the note. --HappyCamper 13:04, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

editing by section

Does anyone have any idea why editing by section on Wikipedia:Reference desk seems totally screwed up? It's a massive page, and I don't have the connection speed to edit the whole page. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:50, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I haven't had problems editing single sections lately, but maybe it has something to do with the page size? --HappyCamper 00:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
Lately I think Wikipedia has been having problems submitting edits PERIOD, not just with sections. ¦ Reisio 01:05, 2005 August 21 (UTC)
I did have a problem where I went to edit a section quite some time after loading the page, and it took me to edit a completely different section. I assume that the page had been updated in the meantime so that "Edit section # X" didn't refer to the right section anymore. What I did was to reload the full page and then straight away click 'edit' for the appropriate section; that worked. --Zeborah 04:46, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Homework

Is there any policy on what to do about obvious homework questions asking "just solve this", or is it up to individual users' discretion? ~~ N (t/c) 22:27, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not aware of such a policy. If there were such a policy, the problem that might arise is how to define what constitutes "homework". There are far too many different perspectives on this. Personally, I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong to help out with these questions. In cases like this, I usually encourage the user to rephrase the question so that they might learn something in the process. I've noticed that frequent anonymous users of the Reference Desk learn over time that a particular phrasing of a question will impact significantly on how a question is answered.
Granted, the reference desk isn't a free homework answering service, and if the system is being significantly abused by a particular source, I would advocate reverting such questions. But so far, I haven't really seen this happening, so it doesn't seem to be a concern at the moment - at least, this is my take on things. --HappyCamper 22:39, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
We don't need a policy for everything. If someone wants to waste their time giving out answers to homework questions, that's their business. ¦ Reisio 23:03, 2005 August 22 (UTC)
Yes, that's a good heuristic to remember too, however, maybe answer not quite so sharp next time? :-) --HappyCamper 23:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Time to archive this now!

The page is now 120 Kb long! and it became more and more difficult to edit. Please state clearly your objection on splitting the page, and try to work on the number of categories that we should have. CG 08:23, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Concern #1

I have a very minor objection :-)
I've been doing the archiving for the past few months, and would be quite weary of any complicated schemes for archival. I suspect this would be true for other Wikipedians who might volunteer to help with archival. Any archiving scheme must be simple to do. However, I'm in favor of splitting the reference desk since it has noticibly become more unmanagable. I haven't seen the question count below 50 in a long long time. In May, I think the question count went up to 300 or something!
Could we start a brief discusssion on how the archival might be done? Suppose we split the desk into 3 pages. Would each of these have their own archives?
I think for starters, we would want to keep the number of subpages to a minimum. 3 maximum. What we could do, is label these as "miscellaneous", "humanities" and "science" or something, and perhaps make subpages which are sort of placed into the main page very much like the organizational scheme used in VfD. At the top are a bunch of icons you click on to edit the particular subpage where you add a new topic. Now, there might be some contention with regards to ordering these subpages, but we can shuffle them around say, once every month or so, or even have a fun "reference desk vote" like at BJADON where Wikipedians vote on the particular permutation of ordering. But these are entirely secondary considerations. Right now, the priority is getting organized as to how to split the desk up. I'd be willing to actively help with that. When that occurs, please let me know so that I'll be able to help out.
Does this sound good? At this point, we don't need to worry about subpages covering every single topic. The "miscellanous" page will cover everything that doesn't fit in with the others. We just need a small number of subpages to experiment with and see if it works out okay.
This mentioning of subpages -- does it mean that we are not going to use subsections as a substitute for subpages? I'm asking just to clarify this, as it wasn't really stated explicitly up at the top. But I'm in favour of subpages, since using subsections defeats the purpose of the inclination of splitting up the page to begin with. Sound good? --HappyCamper 11:00, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
I would prefer to create more sections than the 3 you mentioned (see the proposed scheme above). Anyway, I don't think archiving will get harder. I suggest this way: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science/Archive1 for the first archive page of the science section. And don't forget that by splitting the reference desk, questions will remain longer, t it will take more time before you need to archive the page. CG 08:06, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
Hmm...I'm still a bit skeptical of the archival rate, but I think it's definitely worth giving it a try. So, alright I guess it sounds great! Are you able to find all the icons for those pages links you proposed? How can I help out with them? Once you have those, we can prepare the subpages and linking so that the transition to this subpaging method for the RD is smooth. We'll take the topics that you've suggested - they seem okay to me, but I would feel more comfortable about them if we got another opinion on this. I think it would be good to still have the option of viewing all the subpages on one "master" page though, since this is something which makes the RD really interesting. --HappyCamper 16:45, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Reference desk
The reference desk is a place to ask for specific facts.
Please check back a day or two after posting your question.
Current events History Humanities Science Other
File:P literature.png
post post post post post
To ask questions about news or current events To ask questions about history and genealogy To ask questions about arts, literature, linguistics, religion, philosophy, jurisprudence, music, fashion, culture and society To ask questions about mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biololgy, medicine, electronics and computing To ask questions which don't fit in any of the other categories
To browse all categories at once go to Reference desk (all)

Comments about categories

Just need your last comments on the categories. I shrunk the categories to 4 (merged "medecine", "science" and "Technology"; and "Pop culture", "humanities" and "music") to simplify the process of picking a category (eg: a question about biotechnology could fit into these three categories). But there's some topics (economy, education, food and drink, geography, geology, politics, sport...), that I didn't know where to put them. Should politics go to "humanities"? geography to "science"?... Or should they be left to the "Other" page, or create new categories? I need your opinion.

And about the icons, the Current events icon could do just fine for the "news" category, but it should be on the same design as the other icons. For the "Other" icon, I'm open for suggestions. CG 19:42, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, you're doing such a great job with this! I think these categories are great! It might be better to merge "history" with "humanties" though. We'll let the user decide where to place the questions. I think over time the individual subdesks will sort of develop their own "subculture", and users will eventually formulate their questions and get a feel for what each subpage's answering style are. I don't think it matters so much whether the question is placed in the "right" category or the "wrong" category. The "other" section will take care of everything. If not, I'll help with the sorting of questions. However, I really doubt this is necessary - Wikipedians seem to be quite bright in general! :) --> What we'll do is put a friendly message at the top reminding users of the RD that it's okay to put questions in "other" if they are unsure where to put it.
Generally speaking, the questions come in such a variety that I'm not even sure whether making more subpages would be beneficial. At least with the ones you have there, someone could reasonably pick the "right" category to place it in. I think this number of subpages is just about right. We don't want to overwhelm the potentially new Wikipedian who might come here for questions with confusion.
I sort of see the reference desk being used like this:
  1. Most users will come to the RD, and see the entire listing of questions.
  2. Then they decide: "Hey! I'd like to ask a question!"
  3. They click one of the icons you've made (they look really really nice by the way)
  4. They enter their question
  5. They save the question
  6. They come back to the reference desk and see that their question is posed, ready for someone to answer.

Icons, categorization, et cetera

Hmmm...for the "other" category (I actually prefer "miscellaneous", but the word is too long and I think "other" is nice and short anyway) how about just a bunch of black question marks? One big one in the middle, with maybe 2 in the background, somewhat smaller. Does that sound good? Maybe use a clock for current events? Do we have that icon somewhere? --HappyCamper 23:05, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
Black question marks for Other sounds good to me. What about a TV for Current Events?
This is just quibbling about the categories: I thought it might be useful to try and apply the proposed categories to the questions on the reference desk page at present. Doing this very rapidly and therefore roughly I got 15 for current events (including pop culture); 10 for history; 32 for humanities; 31 for science; and 6 for other (and 11 that I didn't classify, since I was going only by titles in the contents section and my recollection of the associated questions). I also noted that about 10 of these questions were for identification of a photo, book title/author, logo, etc; and 8 or so were asking for contact details for a person or organisation.
My suggestions would be:
  • that pop culture be explicitly included in Current Events (to me it fits there better, but the wording at present implies that it should strictly go under Humanities)
  • that "jurisprudence" (under Humanities) be changed to "law" (or eliminated; like medicine that's very tricky to answer at a reference desk);
  • that the two History and Humanities groups be changed to Social Sciences (history, philosophy, religion, cultures etc) and Arts (fiction, art, music etc); OR that they be merged into one group called Arts and Humanities (just because there doesn't seem anything particularly special about history and genealogy as opposed to other humanities subjects)
  • if keeping two groups for the history/humanities/arts area, then I'd suggest splitting Science into Science (pure sciences, including maths) and Technology (including computers and the internet)
I'm also wary of using academic jargon like "humanities" -- this would fit in an academic library context, but this is closer to a public library context, if anything, and I don't think "humanities" is the sort of way users would think of the category. I don't think "social sciences" really is either, so if anyone can come up with anything better... --Zeborah 06:50, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Comments on the suggestions above:
  • Science and technology are two very related categories (questions about physics, biotechnology... could fit in both). So I'm not a fan on splitting the science category. However a question about a software or a computer virus or internet, could be better on a category of its own.
  • Pop culture is really a wide subject that includes music which is on arts and humanities. So Pop culture shouldn't go to the news category.
  • These subjects (history, geography, politics, economy, law, arts, literature, fiction, linguistics, music, religion, philosophy, education, media, sports, fashion, food and drink, society and culture) are the hardest to separate because they are closely related. We should either agree on a certain scheme, or leave them all in one category.
Take a look at WP:RFC. It was separated into categories. I don't think it could be applicable to the reference desk, but you could take some ideas.
I'm glad that someone else is interested in this project, but please don't do any change before we reach a consenus.
One last thing: The table design was a proposal by User:Ghakko, and the icons are taken from Commons. CG 10:50, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Can we remove all the wording under the categories except for the "other" category? This will be better I think to handle the stochastic nature of the questions coming in. The concerns with the categorization stem from how we are implicitly attempting to define what one question type is versus another. The reality is that there are no clear definitions which exist, regardless of what approach is taken to define them. Inherent vagueness for the categories on the RD isn't ideal, but it won't be counterproductive I think. --HappyCamper 12:54, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the number of categories should be limited to four, otherwise it will become difficult to for the people that want to answer questions, to browse them. I suggest
  • Language (including grammar desk?)
  • Humanities/History
  • Science/Math
  • Miscellaneous
--R.Koot 13:20, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
This looks good too. Let's limit it to 4 categories, any more, and I'm not sure if we can control all the chaos which could ensue. When we've got all the categories, I think we should put these icons at the top, and post a message saying that the RD is undergoing some changes...--HappyCamper 13:36, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Grammar desk

A Grammar Desk has just been created, by User:Ground Zero. It would be no bad thing for someone to created a Maths Desk in a similar fashion. Proto t c 11:09, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen that desk. It wouldn't be a bad thing to have a math desk, but I don't think this is the time to do this at the moment. Wikipedia is not designed to be a comprehensive answering service - the splitting was suggested primarily to control the number of questions and rate of archival of them. I'd prefer to see the grammar desk under the RD as well, but I'll address that later. We have those icons to pick up there! :) --HappyCamper 12:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Right now I think it would be a better idea to make the Grammar Desk a subpage of the Reference Desk for the sake of consistency. — mark ✎ 17:56, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I think it will be much better to group all these related pages together. I know there hasn't been much discussion about moving the grammar desk under the RD, but I'll take the plunge and do the move today. I think Ground Zero would understand - I'll leave a message for him/her. If the move is not good, we can just move it back. But admittingly, I'm anxious to make this transition as quick as possible to minimize the disruption to the RD and question posting/answering. --HappyCamper 00:50, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I am a nosy newbie who is extremely impressed with what you doing here & realize this is a work in progress. Perhaps the Grammar desk could use a link back to the start point, like the Humanities and Science have?

I'm referring to

Shortcut

Also, on the main page, there is a link to aske a question in that category. Perhaps the others could have a similar link, placed directly above and also at the end of, the instructions for using this page.

Also, I like the format of the Humanities, where side by side up top is

  1. contents of what is here
  2. instructions how to ask a question
AlMac|(talk) 18:26, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Moving questions

First, I'd like to say I think that splitting in four is a good step at this point.

But what I really came here to ask was if may/should move my question (which I sent just before the split) to one of the subcategories or keep it in miscellaneous. -EnSamulili 14:32, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to move it, I'm already moving some of the questions as well, but I could always use a little help. --R.Koot 14:42, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, clearly I missed this discussion and just arrived at my beloved Help Desk page to find it butchered. I loved arriving and not knowing what sort of questions I might find that I could try to help with, now I'm probably much less inclined to bother. Still, I assume there was concensus, so... (shrugs, sulks)... I suppose as WP grows it would have to come eventually. Actually it's not so bad, is it? --bodnotbod 19:42, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
It's not so bad I think. There's a "see all" link where you can still do the same thing as before. What changes this time around is that when you click the edit button it will edit a subpage instead. --HappyCamper 00:46, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Well it was a little quick, less than a weeks discussion and not that many people for it. The last time we had this conversation, about a month ago, it was a pretty strong consensus of no simply for the fact that it will be harder to manage. But if the people that made the move are willing to step/stay in and handle the administration and they don't feel it's too much then I'm all for it. It can't hurt much to try and it can always be undone. And by the way I think the icons and template are pretty slick looking. - Taxman Talk 20:31, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
I agree, it was a little quick. I would have prefered to see more discussion, but hats off to the Wikipedians that were bold to attempt the changeover!! Still trying to get my bearings, but look at the subpages now...all less than 50 questions, loads faster, much easier to manage...
I'll volunteer to look after these pages for the next little bit (say a month or so at least) to make sure everything works well. So, there's at least one Wikipedian babysitting the RD :-) --HappyCamper 00:46, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Icons

Is there a way to link the icons to the appropriate pages? I could definitely see a case where a person clicks on an icon and gets confused as to why they are looking at a page of the picture they clicked on. --CVaneg 16:16, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes there is. I redirected the image pages to their respective RD categories. — mark ✎ 17:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your help with that. --HappyCamper 00:39, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Bad link

The link labeled Reference desk (all) is linking to Reference desk&action=edit. hydnjo talk 16:27, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Lock the page?

As I write, there is a question on the project page. Maybe the page should be locked so that people don't accidentally post the question to the wrong page? -EnSamulili 17:19, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing, since anybody can still edit the page through Template:RD header. --R.Koot 17:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I added a commented out notice for starters. Of course, some will ignore it but let's see how it works out. — mark ✎ 17:55, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I've requested for this page to be protected. --R.Koot 18:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
It looks like it's protected right now. Let me know if you need something changed in it. I modifed it slightly. --HappyCamper 00:39, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

More bad links

The Post links do not link to a new section as might be expected. hydnjo talk 18:21, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Fixed. --R.Koot 18:30, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
OK, thanks. hydnjo talk 18:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Talk page(s)

Is each category supposed to have its own talk or just one for all? hydnjo talk 18:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be best to have only one, except for Language & Grammer, which redirects to Wikipedia:Grammar desk at the moment. --R.Koot 18:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I thought we wanted to put the grammar desk under the reference desk? Or are we just leaving it the way it is? --HappyCamper 00:38, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

By the way, why are talk pages referred to as "Talk" pages, but the tab on the article says "Discussion"? Why aren't these terms consistent? JackofOz 01:14, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

IIRC, the tab said "Talk" once, but this was changed. --R.Koot 02:18, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Refiling

I'm going to propose that we stop refiling questions asked before the departments were created. That's needlessly confusing. Just leave everything where it lies, let it age, and then archive. People will still post new questions to the categories. Superm401 | Talk 00:11, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

The refiling is actually more or less done now. I think we should cease with the sorting now. It's really disruptive, and I was trying to minimize the number of changes. The subpages are all of a reasonable size now, so that's a good thing. --HappyCamper 00:22, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Now, I'm going to work on rewording the categories, and changing the headers so that they are more instructive. --HappyCamper 00:22, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
While you're here, see my issues section below. Superm401 | Talk 00:44, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Unresolved Issues

These are all fairly minor yet important issues that should be dealt with as soon as possible.

  1. If you click post from the main page, you are brought to a page without instructions as to how to post. This results in phantom questions(i.e. only the subject) The post link should be removed, in my view. I would consider other remedies.
Removed the post links for now. We might abuse this by first showing the user the "How to ask a question page" before actually letting them post a question. --R.Koot 01:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  1. There is no easy way to go back to the main reference desk from the subpages. Obviously, there is the automatically generated and miniscule "< Wikipedia:Reference desk", but that doesn't cut it.
I don't really see the problem here. --R.Koot 01:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  1. The main page is permanently protected, but does not appear on Wikipedia:Protected page.
Fixed. --R.Koot 01:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
I tried to cheat by adding the category to the template, but that doesn't work of couse. An admin will need to addd it to this page. --R.Koot 01:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

All of these have to be dealt with. Superm401 | Talk 00:44, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

It should also be in Category:Permanently protected. Superm401 | Talk 00:47, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
Fixed. --R.Koot 01:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
While I'm complaining, Wikipedia:Reference desk/all has serious issues. To start with, it's not protected, which will inevitably result in posts there that are noticed by nearly no one. Secondly, the way the structure is now, the header shows up more than once, which is really annoying. To fix this, there could be a Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities/Questions section where the real questions go, then there could just be a transclude of that for and Wikipedia:Reference_desk/How_to_ask_and_answer for each question. Each "desk" would only have two lines. Those pages could then be protected. On Wikipedia:Reference desk/all, we could transclude all the questions sections. There can still be an easy way to post, even if we keep the existing header. That easy posting method would allow us to make those sub-sub-pages transparent to the user. In fact, it would be easier than it is now, because there is no post link in the existing version as there was before. I'm going to add that link now, in fact. I can adapt it to the new solution when that time comes. Superm401 | Talk 00:53, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
I was thinking about this too, might makes thing overly complex though. --R.Koot 01:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Hey everyone. Thanks for your feedback on the changes...keep the dialogue going! I'm still editing, but I'm keeping a very close eye on these talk pages. Please feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if something disaterous has come up. I'll try addressing this issue right now. --HappyCamper 01:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

==Subject/headline==

This is what happens when a user follows the usual how to edit procedure when entering (==The subject==) into the Subject/headline box that is presented with the Post selection. hydnjo talk 00:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks R.Koot. Post links are gone. hydnjo talk 01:08, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

About the Grammar Desk (moved from that page)

Archived here from Village pump (proposals)

Wikipedia:Grammar desk

What do people think about creating a third desk called "Wikipedia:Grammar desk". I think that there are enough grammar queens on Wikipedia to monitor and answer questions. I think that such a desk would be useful, and would help improve the quality of writing here. I propose that a FAQ page be attached. Any comments? Ground Zero 19:04, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Ground Zero) wikipedia:WikiProject Grammar was designed for that purpose, but appears to have sadly gone unused. (That brings up another question: where should the adjective have gone in the previous sentence?) Anyway, I think it would be good to revive that project, and maybe set up a wikipedia:English style FAQ, where we highlight the most frequent spelling and grammar problems on wikipedia pages, and talk about why they are incorrect. For example, the commas, its/it's and which/that, and common spelling mistakes like noticable/noticeable and inital/initial (I've spent the last few days fixing those!) Graham 01:59, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Ground Zero and Graham: firstly, excuse me if this makes little sense: I have just arisen. Secondly, I agree totally with what you both propose. I think that it is rather detrimental to Wikipedia that there is not much in the way of grammar discussion. As you both know, fixing spelling and grammar is a very silent job; we often just find mistakes and fix them, but this does not stop the same mistakes from being made repeatedly. It would be far more productive to discuss failings of grammar, spelling, punctuation and general style on one easily accessible page. It would be great to have our deliberations on one page, rather than on thousands of unique pages. Furthermore, I find that nearly all the errors that I correct are on pages that no one has ever tagged for copyediting. I should bet that many Wikipedians have qualms over style when they read articles, but do not wish to engage in a wasteful fight with the original article writer. I think that people would be more enthusiastic if they could refer their opinion for general debate. Templates could be added onto pages with a message like ‘some of this article’s grammatical accuracy is disputed’, with a link to the discussion on the grammar desk. The petitioner could explain why they find something wrong, and we could all give our opinions. This zone would not be solely reserved for debates about particular pages, but about grammar questions in general. (I can think of many, such as: why should there be an apostrophe s after numbers?) The discussions could help to formulate a more comprehensive style and grammar FAQ. I think that any centralised system has to be better than the current adhocracy. Sometimes, we have to be vigilantes, but it is more constructive to have consensus.

(By the way, as for the question about the adjective, I do not particularly see why split infinitives are such a crime. I think that language should be both as clear and as precise as possible; unlike the use of commas, I feel that unnaturally convoluting a sentence to ensure that there is no split infinitive does not enhance a sentence’s clarity. However, that is just my opinion.) IINAG 10:27, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

  • I took a look at wikipedia:WikiProject Grammar as Graham noted. I think that part of the problem is that no-one knows that it's there. Before posting my original proposal, I tried twice to find a page that would do what I was proposing. In neither extensive search did I find that project. In my proposal, a link to the Grammar desk would appear on the Wikipedia:Community portal along with Wikipedia:Reference desk and Wikipedia:Help desk. That would make it easy for people with grammar questions to find a place to post them. I think that this page could serve the function that IINAG is identifying: if there is a dispute over grammar, the disputants can seek the views of others. The Grammar desk FAQ could also point people in the direction of the Grammar project, so that its list of articles with grammatical problems could become more active. It could also have links to outside sources of information like Get it write on-line Ground Zero 15:37, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree with IINAG that grammar rules should be flexible. We should only correct things that are obviously wrong (like "that dogs IS hungry"). Subtle rules, which most people ignore, should not be enforced here, either. To do so would discourage contributors who provide input which is useful, if not always grammatically ideal. StuRat 03:44, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, our grammar standards should be flexible, perhaps, but not that much and not for that reason. To encourage contributors, we should say, "FACTUALLY CORRECT, but ungrammatical (or otherwise poorly written) contributions are very welcome. Errors will be fixed. Poor style will be improved." Then when someone writes something that isn't perfect, we should make it better. I say let Wikipedia strive for stunningly excellent prose, which generally requires good grammar. The main reason we do want to be flexible about grammar rules is that we have contributors from different countries. It is well known, for example, that standard U.S. usage differs significantly from standard U.K. usage. So there is no standard of "correct grammar" that applies worldwide. Another reason is that grammar standards evolve. For example, getting back to IINAG's example, hardly anyone has a problem with split infinitives any more. — Nowhither 14:33, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I do a fair bit of copyediting on Canadian politics and history pages, and some elsewhere. I always work to improve the quality of the writing since no-one "owns" the articles. If someone reverts one of my improvements, I don't worry about it unless it is a reversion to something that is unambiguously wrong. I might fix a split infinitive because I think it is poor style, but I'm not going to spend any time arguing with someone who changes it back. There is so much poor writing here that it is beeter to spend time fixing things on which I won't get arguments.

And this is where my proposal comes from. An editor created hundreds of articles about Canadian electoral districts using the phrase "xxxx was a former electoral district". I fixed that mistake (xxxx is still a former district), amongst others, in dozens of articles before the original writer intervene to tell me that there was nothing wrong with the way s/he had written it originally. I ended up at the Wikipedia:Reference desk, for want of anywhere else to go, to get other editors to help resolve the disagreement. That worked, and convinced me that a specialized desk would be a useful tool for resolving grammatical disputes, and would contribute to improving the writing on Wikipedia by giving people an obvious place to go to ask questions.

So I wanted to canvass other views before I go ahead and create this page as a branch from Wikipedia:Ask a question. Ground Zero 15:47, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Hello, everyone. I am glad to see unanimous support so far for these proposals. As you have pointed out, we would not strive to form a sort of homogenous style, discarding all regional differences; this would be rather counterproductive. I know that it would make me slightly consternated if people should pick on my British spelling, or how I learnt semi-colons, for example. Instead of being autocratic, I could see such a desk as a forum for maintaining a high level of clarity in Wikipedia’s articles; as a way to reduce grammatical confusion. The ‘excellent prose’ to which we aspire has to be prose that transmits information both sparingly and accurately. Many bad pieces of grammar, such as Ground Zero’s example, fly under the radar; at the minute, an error can only be remedied if someone reads the page, and notices the error. A new, consolidated system would establish an accord over what is imprecise and what is just simply doctrinaire. Having had such discussions, we will be able to remedy repeated errors more quickly in the future.

(In my opinion, incidentally, when I read the sentences 'X was a former district,' I think that it X was abolished, or in a state of abeyance, and then someone brought it back. In fact, the preterite and the word 'former' usually suggest to me a thing that was disposed of, until being reinstated. There are some exceptions to this. 'Persona Xsapat was a former pupil at Idiot College, Swindon' is clear, despite being a tad ungrammatical, because not many people on Wikipedia can be said to have attended school and then returned to it. 'Al Gore was a former Vice President' or 'John Major was a former prime minister' seem definite past to me, due to context: I cannot think of many Vice Presidents of America who lost the job and then regained it; I can only think of four Prime Ministers who lost the job and regained it since the days of Gladstone and Disræli. Of course, the sentence 'previously, Al Gore was Vice President', or 'Al Gore is a former Vice President' is far clearer to me than using the word former. This could be one of the many things that we could debate and resolve on the grammar desk. I think that it could be not only a useful tool for disambiguation, but also a rather interesting insight into how contributors see the language. IINAG 20:06, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Fresh to page discussion

I have created this page after consulting with other editors and after posting a proposal at the Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) (see above) for a suitable period of time. I received no negative responses to my proposal, and several positive ones.

The aim of this page is to fill a gap in Wikipedia's "Ask a question" pages. I had tried several times to find a suitable place to ask a grammar question, and found only the Wikipedia:Reference desk. I got answers to my question at the RD (which I have posted to get the ball rolling on GD), but that desk is quickly being overloaded with questions about a wide range of topics.

My hope in creating the Grammar desk is that it can help, at least in a small way, to improve the quality of writing on Wikipedia by creating a place for editors to ask questions and get answers about English grammar and usage.

Please note that Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia/encyclopaedia that does not give preference to any national or regional variant of the English language. In other words, British English and American English have equal standing with each other, and with other variants such as Canadian English, Australian English, South Efrican English, New Zealand English and others.

Thank you, and enjoy. Ground Zero 21:48, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference desk/all

This page needs to have its own TOC. Navigating without one is near impossible. hydnjo talk 01:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. How might this be done? --HappyCamper 01:20, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
It's done now. I'll tell you a (riveting?) story to explain. First of all, no offense, but if you'd looked a little closer before that note you would have noticed that there were four TOCs on that page, but all were actually correct for the page as the whole. Of course, that was difficult to tell with the headers for the page at the same depth as the questions. However, there being four was a problem, and one that I didn't know how to solve. The way I figured, the individual pages' TOCs needed to be on the actual pages, but couldn't be on the all page. That was impossible, unless...well, let's do an experiment(look at the history to see it) what if I put __NOTOC__(see Wikipedia:Section for background) on the individual pages? Could I still force a TOC on the main page with __TOC__? I checked, and while I was there changed the == in the page headers to =, so they would be above the questions. The answer to whether I could still force a TOC turned out to be yes, and the nested all page now looked great. All the questions were easily accessible and you could see where they were from. However, the individual pages now looked horrible, So I hurried and replaced the TOCs by removing __NOTOC__ from them. I went back to all and refreshed. I was planning to watch the beautiful all page shatter. However, to my amazement, it still had only one toc. It was a miracle. The individual pages had vanished. How could it have happened. There was no trace of any change, besides me putting in __NOTOC__ and taking it out. Wait a minute...no trace! Except the history! Da-da--da-dan. While I had been pondering whether to go ahead with my risky experiment as well as how to solve the problem long-term CesarB went to all the subpages at 1:47 UTC and removed {{TOCleft}} with this note: "TOCleft is a bad idea, since the section titles can be arbitrarily long" In fact, I had just went to TOCleft from the section page purely out of curiousity. I noticed that they had __TOC__ as part of them. It turns out that the only reason the individual departments were causing extra TOCs on all was because of the __TOC__. Normal pages don't get TOC's transcluded, even if it's there. However, __TOC__ can cause an unlimited number of TOCs to show up, it seems. Unknowingly(I think), by removing __TOC__ for an unrelated reason, he fixed the all page, allowing it to have a perfect TOC. It was even automatic. In a weird way, it's a lesson about how wiki cooperation is more than the sum of the parts. Anyway, congrats if you read that whole ramble. Either way, the all page works now. Superm401 | Talk 02:19, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
That's awesome Superm401! I assure you, I read the whole thing. Why do I have a feeling that some edits in Wikipedia:Sandbox/Word Association had something to do with this too? :-) - Anyway, it's really great to see this work out. Great sleuthing and problem solving!! --HappyCamper 02:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Excellent. Now shouldn't the page be protected (read only) to prevent edits there? hydnjo talk 02:32, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Don't know. I made four sections but no TOC came up. Anybody? hydnjo talk 01:28, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
No TOC came up? I currently have 5 (five) TOCs, maybe something related to {{TOCleft}}. Well the solution as suggested above would be to put the actual questions onto another subpage (e.g. Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science/Questions), possible with a __NOTOC. --R.Koot 01:31, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
The {{TOCleft}} made it worse. Shouldn't its own TOC come up automatically when there are more than three sections? hydnjo talk 01:39, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Protect supages of RD to ensure all talk is centralized?

Do you think it would be a good idea to protect supages of RD to ensure all the talk is centralized? --HappyCamper 01:19, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean protecting the talk pages? I don't think that would be necessary, as it is impossible to edit (remove the redirect) those accidentally. --R.Koot 01:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Good point. We'll leave them free and liberated then! (I don't want to protect them anyway, but was worth asking). --HappyCamper 01:30, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Asking questions on Wikipedia:Reference desk/all

Do you think it would be better to redirect this to editing the miscellaneous page instead? --HappyCamper 01:32, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think I understand you? I think the all page will be use by people that are interested in answering questions. --R.Koot 01:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. But if they add a question, where will it end up? Certainly in one of the subpages? If so, I think it should be in the "miscellaneous" section. --HappyCamper
No it will only appear on the all page, may be that needs protection too once it works, since it will only contain a few templates. --R.Koot 01:52, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Hmm...is this what we really want? If this is the case, we'd implicitly have 5 categories instead of 4. I'm not sure this sounds like a good idea. We have to think this through. Maybe explain this to me further? Is the idea that these questions in the "all" category will be sorted? Is there a way to force the user to go to the icons to choose the correct desk to add the question? --HappyCamper 01:56, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Look at the source of the 'Browse all categories...' page, it simply includes the other four pages as templates. If anyone edit the source to add a question the will most likely type it below the templates and it can only be seen on the 'Browse all categories...' page. You can only force them to use one of the categories by protecting that page. If someone adds a question by editing another question and typing it below, it will end up on the same page as the question the edited. --R.Koot 02:02, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
It works, now can it be protected (read only)? hydnjo talk 02:25, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Done. Note that you can still go to the "all" page to edit the individual questions. You just can't edit the entire page at once, and that's probably a good thing. --HappyCamper 13:24, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Protect the "All" page of the referencde desk?

btw, could you add a Category:Permanently protected to this page? --R.Koot 01:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Sure, but want to wait a little bit before I do this; you might need to edit that page to get rid of this TOC problem. I still haven't figured out how to do that yet. --HappyCamper 01:49, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Hey Superm401, thanks for the TOC. Not exactly what I had in mind but a nice solution anyway. ;-) hydnjo talk 02:02, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
It's all looking pretty good now. --R.Koot 02:10, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
I concur. This is awesome! :-) --HappyCamper 02:13, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Sure is! Can we protect it? hydnjo talk 02:15, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Doing it right now. Stay tuned...gimme a minute. --HappyCamper 02:24, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
You'd be surprised at how little I actually did to solve that problem. I can't take credit for it, but if you appreciate the results, please see #Wikipedia:Reference_desk.2Fall for an explanation and engrossing tale. Superm401 | Talk 02:34, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • hush* -> I've removed the page protection...seems like if it's protected some edits to subpages don't work. See the note from Mgm on my talk page for details...I'm putting this on my watchlist. --HappyCamper 00:09, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Layout woes (from one of the reference desk subpages recently created)

I don't know how long this page has been up, but it does look really terrible. Would I be right in thinking the layout is unfinished ? Robmods 19:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I think/hope so - a couple hours ago it was much worse. Hopefully it will end up like Wikipedia:Village pump (all). ¦ Reisio 22:40, 2005 August 25 (UTC)
It's still work in progress...should be okay in a little bit. --HappyCamper 23:38, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
How about now, how does it look? Everything okay? --HappyCamper 13:25, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Not quite done...still some odds and ends

Hi everyone! Thanks to all your efforts, were finally getting somewhere with these changes! There are just a few things left to do I think, and I thought it would be best to keep track of them here.

I'm trying to figure out all the new subpages that have been created so I can put them all on my watchlist and monitor them. Could you help me out with this by listing them out?

Also, I'm trying to remove old redirect links...I think I'm forgetting some, so some help with this would be great too. Any volunteers? --HappyCamper 02:26, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

A list of the subpages: [1]. Anfortunatly it's 3:30 AM over here so I'm off to bed. --R.Koot 02:30, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for letting me know. I'll still hang around for a bit and do some cleanup. See you tomorrow! You did a tremendous amount of work today related to this. --HappyCamper 02:39, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Things that still need to be done are below:
  1. There is still no back-link from the sub-pages to the main reference desk. I think there should be, for ease of navigation. Done --HappyCamper 04:31, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  2. I also still think that we need to somehow deal with the multiple headers on the all page. I proposed one solution for that above.
    1. Fixed. We need to have a purge server cache link on the all page, or move the RD subpages in template space, though. --R.Koot 12:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
      1. I'm afraid that despite looking at the wikisource, I don't understand how this was accomplished. I was thinking of suggesting <noinclude>, but I don't see that being used. How did you do it? Superm401 | Talk 23:08, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
  3. Put a introduction header on the all page to explain what that page is and why you can't edit it. Also provide a link to the main reference desk(see above) as well as an easy way to post to miscellaneous(hey it beats the help desk as a place to spit out your question) Superm401 | Talk 02:59, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Fix "edit this page" links

Agreed, still working on this. Trying to fix up the "edit this page" link. Need to fix the links related to each subsection.

I'm sorry. Who was that and could you explain what you mean in a little more depth? Superm401 | Talk 03:10, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
Just go through all the possible pages of the RD, and see if the "edit this page" link works properly for all of them. I think I fixed everything, could you double check to make sure when you get a chance? I made a whole bunch of changes, and I want to make sure that I haven't created some new problems. --HappyCamper 03:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Why did you move the ask a question link out of the header. Now it's redundant and harder to edit. I'm moving it back. Superm401 | Talk 03:26, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
No, please don't do that. I took it out so that editing on the "All" page which is protected would also work. --HappyCamper 03:27, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
What happens with those server generated links is that if you go to Wikipedia:Reference desk/all, those links fail. So, I had to add those links to reference the absolute address of the subpages so that it works. It's not very elegant, but it's be best I can do, unless you have another suggestion we can try out? --HappyCamper 03:34, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
I understand, and removed the link in the header. However, the all page is still ugly and something needs to be done. I still think it would be best to implement the plan devised above. It isn't nearly as complex as it seems. Superm401 | Talk 03:38, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Fix display of these "edit this page link"

Still something weird going on with these links...I'm sort of stumped. It seems like the links in that header page only show up on the first subpage. Here, check this out:

Hmm...guess more detective work needed. Any guesses as to how to fix it? I'll try out a few things and see what happens. --HappyCamper 03:42, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

You forgot to purge the cache. To do that type http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=(Full_page_name_here)&action=purge. That will reload all the included templates. Superm401 | Talk 03:46, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
I think if you purge "all" all the subpages will get purged, so that's a shortuct. Superm401 | Talk 03:48, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
I pressed Ctrl-R in my browser, but it didn't seem to fix it. Now everything seems to look okay...Still checking... --HappyCamper 03:53, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, refreshing your browser doesn't cut it. Purging the cache actually tells the servers to re-parse the wikicode from the ground up. It goes beyond your browser downloading the page again. Superm401 | Talk 03:56, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
Oh, okay. Thanks for explaining that to me. --HappyCamper 04:30, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

To do list

(Please add to the list, and cross them out once checked. Thanks for helping out!)

  1. Check unneeded redirects
    What exactly are you thinking of? The only redirect I see in the Reference desk(at first glance) is history, which redirects to humanities. I think that can stay. Superm401 | Talk 03:51, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
    I'm thinking of things dangling from the Grammar desk [[WP:GD]] and stuff like that. I haven't checked all of the yet. --HappyCamper 04:29, 26 August 2005 (UTC) Checked and done. Deleted all the obsolete links, pages and templates. Content was moved, so page history still preserved. Looks okay to me. Still need to check other links, but I can't think of any at the moment. --HappyCamper 14:22, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  2. Check "edit this page" links to make sure they work all over the RD
    I haven't checked every page, but the structure seems intact, so I can't imagine problems. Superm401 | Talk 03:43, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
    Right now, it seems that you cannot edit on the "all" page...This might need some fixing. --HappyCamper 04:29, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
    Seems fixed now. --HappyCamper 13:38, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  3. Add extra links to edit entire subpages in the "see all" subpage
    Why would anyone need to do this? If they have to post a question, they can use the post link. If they want to comment, they can edit a section. There's no reason they would need to edit the whole page. If they do, they can do an extra click to the reference desk first. Superm401 | Talk 03:43, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
    I have no idea. In this case, it seems that there isn't any good reason to enable this feature - unless it becomes extremely problematic, we'll consider this a "feature" of the new Reference Desk and ignore this idiosyncracy. :) --HappyCamper 03:52, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  4. Add headings to explain the idosyncracies of each subpage. That is, the miscellaneous page is for X, Y, Z, the language page is for A, B, C, etc...some explantory notes and stuff. --HappyCamper 04:29, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  5. Preemptively add archiving links in the RD so Wikipedians understand the new archiving pattern to be used.
    What is the new archiving pattern? Don't hurry to answer. I'm going to bed. I'll check this later. Superm401 | Talk 03:54, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
    I'm not sure myself. I have a few suggestions on the Wikipedia:Reference desk archive but other than that I think just keeping it simple would be okay. --HappyCamper 04:27, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Diary - thoughts on tomorrow

Hmm...looks like there are still a few loose ends to tie up, but most of the major changes seem to have been completed okay. I hope we've left enough notes here so other Wikipedians coming by tomorrow will have some idea of how they can help out if they want to. I'm going to sleep. Goodnight! --HappyCamper 04:34, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions for new RD usage:

Since we have 4 subpages now, probably best to put all these pages in your watchlist (or just put the ones you are interested in it)

There's also a page which lists all these pages (takes a while to load)

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language/FAQs

User:Ground Zero has put in a tremendous effort in getting this page set up: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language/FAQs. I wonder what is the best way to incorporate this into the reference desk? Presumably a link in the languages subpage, but how to add it so that it's prominent enough that people will see it? --HappyCamper 05:13, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Old header for the grammar desk

There is an old header for the grammar desk here at [[Template:GD header]]. No pages link to it, but there are some important points in it which should be ported over, for example:

Please recognize that English grammar varies widely between English-speaking countries: what is standard grammar in the United Kingdom can be very different from that in the United States, for example. Wikipedia does not give preference to any national or regional variant of English.

Where would be a good place to put this? Ideas? --HappyCamper 05:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Feedback

Could we get some feedback on the new reference desk pages? I think the pages look good. What do you think? --HappyCamper 13:36, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Very nice. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 15:46, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Much easier to navigate. What would really be extra wonderful would be to click a subject "edit" link on the All page and be magically beamed over to an edit dialog window in the correct category. :-) hydnjo talk 16:01, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
    • There are some buttons at the very top of the page. What other buttons do you think would be good to add? One to edit the entire page of the subcategories? --HappyCamper 16:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
      • Section edit buttons, they also dissapear if the page is protected. --R.Koot 16:09, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
        • Well, I have to go now...I'll come back in a bit. I left a message for Michael Snow. Maybe some mention of the changes made to the RD will be mentioned in the Signpost, so that Wikipedians know that the RD is back in order. --HappyCamper 16:19, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
          • What happens when a question is asked in the wrong category? I just want us to think about it before it happens so we'll all know how to respond. hydnjo talk 16:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
            • We could copy the question (and any accumulated responses) to the appropriate desk and leave a note under the original question with a pointer to where it's been copied. In other words, just the same as what usually happens when someone posts on the wrong talk page and the discussion is continued at the more appropriate place. That way both the original poster and those well-equipped to answer the question can find it. — Laura Scudder | Talk 17:11, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Pretty, but difficult to use

Well, it's very pretty, but I for one find it much more difficult to use. Trollderella 17:46, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that it had to be broken up, but at least now I don't get an edit conflict every single time I try to answer a question. — Laura Scudder | Talk 18:09, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but it's really difficult to see all the most recent questions - I used to love coming to the bottom of the page to find something interesting and surprising. Trollderella 18:28, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


You just made it 5 times harder to browse the questions and I stopped answering. I strongly prefer scanning a single place and like to read the variety of questions. Put each question into a topic archive only after 5 days of no further answers or discussion and you will (1) achieve the goal of making the ref desk much shorter and (2) still make the answered questions retrievable by topic. My opinion only of course. alteripse 18:33, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Archiving every 5 days was not enough to keep up with the number of questions being added to the desk. Look at the August archives for example. Archiving on the 2nd, 8th, 9th, 11th, 13th, 16th, 17th, 20th, 21st, 22nd and still this wasn't enough to keep the question count small! So I respectfully disagree with the first point - archival every 5 days is not enough. It was adequate maybe 2 months ago, but ah! Those beautiful days are long gone! Archiving has definitely become more difficult of late. --HappyCamper 00:00, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
That's what I was trying to say! Trollderella 18:42, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
If you want to recreate a long form, just create a new page, Wikipedia:Reference desk (complete list), say, by transcluding all the new subpages into it. Add a link to the Wikipedia:Reference desk project page to let everyone else who may prefer it to use it. This is what happened when I shortened WP:VfD by changing it from week-at-a-view to day-at-a-view, and it seemed to go down well, jguk 18:41, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
? This sounds easy when you say it... Trollderella 18:42, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
How is this different from WP:RD/ALL? See below. If you've helped change the VfD page, it would be great if you could help out. --HappyCamper 23:41, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Considering alternatives

Of all the alternatives so far, alteripse's makes the most sense in my opinion. Another benefit of the common-active RD is that it would eliminate the "wrong category" problem. hydnjo talk 19:39, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Trollderella 19:52, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
As I understand that proposal the categories would contain stale but not yet ready for the tombs Q&A's. The RD page woud be common (include all cats) and active (by some definition). Is that how others see alteripse's proposal? hydnjo talk 20:48, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
That sounds like what he's saying. I think it'll be confusing if we rely on sorting after the fact. — Laura Scudder | Talk 22:02, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

That sounds ok, and better than the current one, but frankly, I don't see the advantage of either one over the old system. Trollderella 21:48, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Everyone, there is still a page which lists all the questions! It's at Wikipedia:Reference desk/all, with the shortcut WP:RD/A or WP:RD/ALL. Yes, it's a bit more difficult to see all the new questions, but at least the entire listing is still there. You can also get to this "all listing page" by clicking on the bottom right hand corner of the reference desk page here at Wikipedia:Reference desk. --HappyCamper 23:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
This is a inept attempt at analogy but here goes. The old way was like my meeting with four mutual friends at a bar, listening and conversing at will and paying more or less attention depending on my interest at the moment. Very noisy perhaps but kind of fun knowing what's going on all around. In contrast, the alternative is to distribute the four friends in separate booths at the same bar and move from booth to booth and conversing at will. Much quieter and more efficient but less energy it seems. I'm sure that there some barroom analogy to the /All page but I think I'll leave it at that. hydnjo talk 00:57, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Considerations for "undoing" the transition...

From my perspective, and judging from the feedback I've received so far, it seems that the result of splitting the desk has had more of a lukewarm to negative impact rather than the intended positive one. We have to admit - it was a pretty brave move on the part of some Wikipedians to take the plunge and be bold with these changes! So, here is credit to those people - duly noted and very well deserved. (I will write more on this later, so stay tuned on your talk pages...you know who you are! :-) )

I'm reluctant to say this, but I think it will be for the better of the reference desk moving forward. I have noticed that the enthusiasm and rate of question asking and answering has diminished somewhat (even after the first day), and this does not seem to be the result that everyone was hoping for. Why don't we try this? Let's keep it split for say, 2 weeks. It's entering day 2 at the moment. If the split reference desk really doesn't work out the way we want, we'll undo the changes, and keep with the nice old single-page version as we had before. As much as I was for splitting the desk, I'm somewhat disappointed that the reception for the changes has not been as enthusiastic as I was hoping for.

Anyway, at least we tried the new changes - and I think that's a really, really good thing. It was fund making the changes too! It's not often that such an extensive change could be made on Wikipedia. So, what do you Wikipedians think? Give the new a Reference Desk 2 weeks and undo the changes if it's not as great as we all wanted it to be? *If* we do reverse the changes, I think we need to take a very very very good look at how we are archiving and answering questions and try to focus our energies on making that process better. I'll help out with the undoing of the changes - it should take about 24 hours at most, taking into account the amount of time it took to make the new changes, and also taking into account the stuff that we've learned from doing them. If you look at the August archives for example, it's quite apparent that we need more than one Wikipedian to help out during the busier times of the year. Some feedback on these comments would be really really nice... :D Also, list your name if you're willing to be part of the "RD reversal brigades" should the necessity of reversing the changes needs to take place. Thanks! --HappyCamper 01:51, 27 August 2005 (UTC)


I think the changes are fine. The desk was too large with too many questions being added every day. A split sooner or later would have had been inevitable. So why wait? I say keep it split, and dont even think about changing it back. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 02:12, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm more than willing to give this a couple of weeks. Retrain my brain. :-) hydnjo talk 02:22, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Yippie!!!! --HappyCamper 02:37, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
I like the changes, and intend to spend a bit more time at the Refdesk now since it'll be easier to find something I know about. I honestly can't see a good reason to change it back. Loganberry (Talk) 03:29, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm willing to help reverse it if this turns out to be a failure. Superm401 | Talk 22:53, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Superm401, but I think things are starting to settle in now that we are approaching day 5...I think I might create a graph of edits. Currently, the RD is supporting about twice the number of active questions compared to last month... --HappyCamper 00:50, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Wow!

I started the discussions about splitting the Reference Desk, then I was on a vacation for 2 days, then I returned to see that all the work has been done. Great work guys! Just one thing, What's the icon for the Miscellaneous page? CG 08:12, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Right now, it's the "medical" icon that's being used. If you have a better idea, go right ahead and change it. I suspect that we just needed a placeholder during the changeover. --HappyCamper 14:11, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Someone had suggested a ? sign to be the icon. But someone should create this icon on the same design than the others. CG 17:50, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
How would one do this? I don't really know how to make them... --HappyCamper 23:12, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Language vs. Humanities

Just few questions:

  • Is there a difference between language and linguistics? According to the reference desk, linguistics questions are post in the Humanities category, and language questions in the Language category. Doesn't that lead to a confusion? --CG 09:20, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
I agree. That division is odd. To me, language/linguistics are both under Humanities. That's how they're classified in univeristy (as the School or Faculty of Arts). --Menchi 18:55, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
The distinction here has to do with some idosyncracies in the History of the Reference Desk. There used to be a "Grammar Desk" created by another Wikipedian - just before the splitting. During the splitting, I decided to move the grammar desk back as a subpage of the reference desk. For a while, the Grammar desk actually helped reduce the number of questions showing up on the RD. The Grammar desk was then renamed to a "language" desk so that it would cover more topics. That way, it was hoped that the 4 subpages of the RD would have about the same number of questions. At this point, nothing is really set in stone, so if we need to rename it we should start a little discussion here. --HappyCamper 23:05, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
The split was pragmatic, trying to divide the questions 25%/25%/25%/25%, instead of ideologicaly correct categories. I moved linguistics to language, as I think it is more likely to be answered there. --R.Koot 20:10, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
A funny side note: liguistics actually is a science. --R.Koot 20:13, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
So is history and social science. CG 08:09, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Protection

I see that you've protected the Reference desk page, but I don't understand why, since you didn't protect the Template:RD header. CG 09:20, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

We've tried to protect the minimum number of pages. The WP:RD is protected to discourage direct vandalism to the page and to preserve the integrity of the template layouts. The template itself is not protected to allow Wikipedians who know what they are doing to make any changes necessary. Generally speaking, I think the idea of a Wiki is that pages should not be unnecessarily protected. Originally the WP:RD/ALL was protected too, but has since been removed. I guess it isn't necessary to protect WP:RD either, and I'll remove the protection if that is what everyone would like. It took about a day to make the changes, and in some ways, we're still experimenting to see what is best for the new RD. --HappyCamper 14:22, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Huh? This page is protected to prevent accidental posting of questions here (I wouldn't call that vandalism). --R.Koot 19:07, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Oh yes. That too. Primarily that I think. --HappyCamper 22:07, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
HC, are you trying to sound like Bilbo Baggins? ;-) hydnjo talk 02:34, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Dear Diary - Here's what I learned today: you know you've got a pretty trustworthy set of WikiFriends when they start referring to you with initials and joke about Bilbo Baggins! :-) It warms up everything around here, sort of like a nice cup of tea...diary entry continues and ends a bit later...
Now what in the world is HC talking about?? My friends, stay tuned, stay tuned... --HappyCamper 01:32, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Inconvenience

Day three report: When the WP servers are slow (What!) it takes a while to go across categories. That's more of an annoyance than a serious problem. I'm adjusting to the new format just fine. hydnjo talk 02:28, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

But before categories it took hell to ask or answer a question ;). CG 16:04, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
And with my slow typing edit conflicts were quite frequent. hydnjo talk 19:33, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Navigation

We need to take care to ensure it is still easy to navigate through the desk. To me, that requires prominent links from each of the departments to the main reference desk? Does anyone mind if I put those back in? Superm401 | Talk 20:01, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean in addition to the link at the top of each category page? Also, could you give some thought to going sideways from category to category instead of having to go up to the main RD and then down to the next category of interest. hydnjo talk 20:24, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Like I said earlier, the little dinky >>Reference desk isn't sufficient. Haven't we all realized how inattentive the average reference desk reader is by now? I don't think side-ways linking is necessary. Superm401 | Talk 21:01, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
Well why in the world would someone want to go back to the RD main page at all unless they wanted to go to another category? hydnjo talk 21:28, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree, sideways linking would be a better idea. --R.Koot 21:44, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
The only reason that I go back up to RD main page is to drop down to another category. So now I've had to go through the servers twice, up and then down again, now that's frustrating when things are going slow. hydnjo talk 21:50, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough, but the size of the navigation section should be minimized. It should certainly be smaller than the main WP:RD. Superm401 | Talk 22:25, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
No, I don't understand Superm401's position. Why would anyone want to go back up to the RD main? Unless I'm missing something here, it's to go back down to another category, it's the only thing you can do from there. Going sideways should be prominent. Going up to the RD main page should be an option but of equal or less prominence than going over to another category. hydnjo talk 23:23, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
I told you. I agree with you now. It's just that I thought it might take too much space to have a link to every other department. I no longer believe that to be the case. Superm401 | Talk 23:44, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
I don't know how to do it or I would have done it by now. Superm401? R.Koot? HappyCamper? Help! hydnjo talk 23:58, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
I'll cook something up, I was just pondering how it can be both instructive and not invasive at the same time. --R.Koot 00:04, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I bow to your creativity. ;-) hydnjo talk 00:20, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
We could steal the Village pump navbar idea. After all, stealing is what wikis are all about(kidding). Superm401 | Talk 00:43, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

The perfect solution

R.Koot - you're so good at this! Your idea is perfect. It's subtle, but extremely useful, and it doesn't clutter up anything. Excellent work! --HappyCamper 02:07, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Navigation across categories

Very nice R.Koot. Why would you tag that as a minor edit? It definitely is not minor as it resolves a significant issue. hydnjo talk 00:32, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Because I always forget to tick the box, so I changed my preferences to have it ticked automatically and now always forget to untick it. --R.Koot 00:38, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I for one love the new header. Minor glitch at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language (new header isn't there). And please change your preferences; you're too humble. hydnjo talk 00:40, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I like it. It's sort of like WP:VP, but it's less bulky and that's a good thing. :) Superm401 | Talk 00:45, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
Wheee! this is sooooo nice! Back and forth and so on without restriction! Freedom! Thanks all. I only wish that I knew enough to actually implement a solution instead of just talking about it. hydnjo talk 00:54, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
By the way, I feel and possibly am stupid but I still don't understand how Wikipedia:Reference desk/How to ask and answer doesn't show up on the "all" page despite apparently being transcluded; nor do I understand how the right page is bolded automatically now. I have a feeling I'm missing something glaringly obvious, but help, because, well...I'm missing it. Superm401 | Talk 00:49, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
If you read the source of Wikipedia:Reference desk/all/How to ask and answer you should probably understand. The bolding is done by the MediaWiki software, as it also it on Category:Mathematics and Category:Science. --R.Koot 00:56, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I looked at the source before, but couldn't "figure it out". I get it all now. Very shady. :) You redirect the normal pages' templates to Wikipedia:Reference desk/How to ask and answer but for Wikipedia:Reference desk/all the page isn't redirected but blank. Part of this is because I didn't know you could redirect template lookups. As for the bolding, that's obviously just the old feature(which I knew of) that self-links are bolded. I am so stupid; like I said, it was glaringly obvious. Superm401 | Talk 01:12, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Link to Ask a Question?

Also, someone who ends up at WP:RD should probably get some direction to WP:AQ and Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. hydnjo talk 01:07, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia is at the bottom of the page. I'm interested in putting WP:AQ in, of course, but can't think of an appropriate way to do it. Can you? Superm401 | Talk 01:12, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
I think links on the subpage are not necessary. I haven't noted any people asking questions that belong on Wikipedia:Help desk, and if someone want to know how to cite wikipedia, they are going to ask anyway, and we can just give them a link to Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. --R.Koot 01:19, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't think sub-page links are needed either. As far as I can tell, neither does hydnjo. However, I think the citing link should stay on the main page even if most ignore it. Superm401 | Talk 01:25, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
I agree but they're not there. Differentiating between Wiki help, Wiki reference and Wiki citing needs clarification I think. hydnjo talk 01:42, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
The Citing link is on the main page? Do you think it should be on the subpages? As for WP:AQ, I just need an appropriate way to place it. Superm401 | Talk 01:45, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
I still believe that WP:AQ should be on the Main Page. That's the first place that a new user ckecks us out. Some direction there would be useful. The Main Page should be kept as pristine as possible but giving some direction would, I think, be helpful. hydnjo talk 01:57, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I suppose we can expand the list somewhat, and even include some links to Wikiprojects. For example the Wikiproject Tree of Life is known for answering questions about insects and identifying photos. Why not give them a link here? --HappyCamper 02:10, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
I get your point. hydnjo talk 03:08, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Archive link

Please add archive links in the 4 sub-category pages. I went to Humanities and found that questions had been moved. I had to come back to main reference page to go to the archives page. Jay 05:59, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay, will work on that right now. Done. Looks good? --HappyCamper 00:34, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
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