User talk:Urthogie/Naming conventions/Urthogie's rewrite

ok, so what dont you like about it?--Urthogie 20:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The only thing I like about it is that you use the {{main|...}} type of templates. But then you made errors in these, e.g. you replaced:

Rationale and specifics: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) and Wikipedia:Canonicalization.

by (two links replaced by one piped link!):

Main pages: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) and Wikipedia:Canonicalization

Which is totally wrong:

{{main|Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization)|Wikipedia:Canonicalization}}

So all in all I prefer the other version with its faults. And not this hillbillie rewrite.

So, my suggestion, let's work on this at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, with incremental improvements to the old version, as I already proposed. --Francis Schonken 09:33, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

So why don't you like the other edits?--Urthogie 09:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Why? I still don't know why you think your rewrite better?... maybe start explaining that.

In general I think your version messier. It conforms less to the sentence that starts the policy page ("Naming conventions is a list of guidelines..."). We'd have to change that to "Naming conventions is a badly structured list of guidelines..." Don't know whether I make myself clear, but please start making yourself clear, I really don't see what you think better about your proposal. --Francis Schonken 10:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

All you're doing is calling it "badly structured", which is a value judgement. Please explain what leads you to this conclusion.--Urthogie 10:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, we can play this game as long as you want, but unless you can make clear why you think your rewrite "an improvement" it's not going to happen. Maybe also think about trying to convince some others: I'm far from the ultimate authority on naming conventions. I'm just a wikipedian like anybody else. For policy change "consensus" means something more than two persons. So I repeat my proposal: "let's work on this at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, with incremental improvements to the old version." --Francis Schonken 10:32, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

This isnt a "game." My edits were better than the current version because they gave the same amount of information with less content.--Urthogie 10:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, I suggest you re-read WP:Consensus. Disagreeing isn't enough to prevent an edit. You have to have a reason.--Urthogie 10:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, you have to have a reason. You didn't give any.

I gave a reason why I don't think your rewrite better: "deterioration of the structure ot the policy page". You'll have to live with that, or try to convince me otherwise. Making me repeat the same reason over and over again, is not anything near to something that's going to convince me otherwise (indeed, making me repeat the same reason over and over again only strengthens my point of criticism). --Francis Schonken 10:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Oops, just saw you gave a reason two edits higher: "because they gave the same amount of information with less content.": didn't convince me: you forgot "multiple entrances" to finding the guideline you need when trying to solve a naming issue. --Francis Schonken 10:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Its a change to the structure, yes. How is removing headings with no content, and creating a list out of them(as the manual of style suggests) "deterioration"?--Urthogie 10:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Because you forget "multiple entrances" take "people", is a header. Most of the tricky issues of naming pages on people is the Royalty & Nobility-related people. Wikipedians aren't helped with your structure. They're not lead to the "names and titles" guideline when looking for naming conventions info on noble people. And the same for all your other simplifications. --Francis Schonken 10:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Multiple entrances? You're saying the Table of contents, is actually a useful navigation tool on that page? It is so long, it could be its own damn article!--Urthogie 10:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, so are telephone directories. Doesn't prevent you from finding the name you're looking for. Anyway, the wikipedia:naming conventions page should do something more than what category:Wikipedia naming conventions does, isn't it? That's what I mean by "multiple entrances": from the guideline name alone one can only surmise that the "names & titles" NC is actually about people. --Francis Schonken 10:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you it should do more and thats why my edits didn't reduce it to a list; I kept the headings that had content.--Urthogie 10:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, how subjective can you be? Take for instance "literary works": for years that has been a separate heading on the policy page. Then, not so long ago I wrote the "books" NC, incorporating what was said about "literary works". But people might still come to the page, looking for the NC on "literary works" (which includes, for instance poems) - then they should be led to the books NC, that effectively mentions poems. --Francis Schonken 11:01, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Basically, this is an argument of tradition against reason, then?--Urthogie 11:08, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

No, just an argument for reason. --Francis Schonken 11:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok. You're reasoning that people are used to doing this in a way that requires more space, so therefore the page should have extra headings to accomodate the past settings?--Urthogie 11:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly - my call is for usability. I'm convinced your motive is the same. The NC policy page is problematic from that point of view. I once tried to have wikipedia:naming conventions (names and titles) renamed to wikipedia:naming conventions (Western nobility), which is a much more adequate name for that page. Appears that in the eyes of some "nobility" doesn't include "royalty". Anyway, one of the arguments used was: "but we're used to the name of that guideline being names & titles". Well, I didn't agree there, that name just isn't adequate. And "tradition" in that sense is of no meaning to me. So, I'd rather cooperate with you to have the "names & titles" NC renamed to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Western royalty and nobility), than having this fruitless debate over a "big bang" type of rewrite of the general policy page.

And really, other usability improvements should better be discussed at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, incrementally: the big issue is also that such rewrites depend from the naming conventions incidentally wrought by wikipedians. For instance, I think it stupid to write a separate NC guideline about schools in Ohio. But some wikipedian does that. I'm not really into schools, and other states/countries' dealing with school names to write a more general guideline. So, I just wait, try to have the discussions about these developing NC's at the appropriate places, and when it turns out to be an accepted guideline: fit it in the policy page.

Another suggestion is to extract "convention in a nutshell" statements from several NC's that are established, but not summarized on the policy page. That is sometimes not so easy: some NC guidelines are rather about how to deal with a long list of "exceptional situations" than about slapping a simple principle on the table. But I'd appreciate your collaboration on that. --Francis Schonken 11:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you're mistaken in saying my changes were huge. All I did was take out cruft-- noninformation. Aesthetically it looks different; for once its navigable. How about you help me edit this rewrite directly?--Urthogie 11:55, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, IMHO your rewrite just isn't promising enough in that sense. I work on what's presently at wikipedia:naming conventions, incrementally (i.e. "step by step"). You didn't convince me to proceed otherwise, although I appreciate your efforts. Your understanding of words like "cruft" and "navigability" seems too limited to me: e.g., a title with just a link is also "navigability", if the link is helpful. --Francis Schonken 12:14, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you're on the one who reverted me completely. If you want a dialogue on the talk page here it is, but don't push it off as "unconvincing" before the discussion is complete. The problem with the so called usability of the page right now is the enormous amount of headings. How do you plan to address it? Will you let it keep growing?--Urthogie 12:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

proposal

How 'bout merging the "specific conventions" and "conventions under consideration" in a format like this:

---

...

Books

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)

<NC in a nutshell description of the "books" NC>

...

Broadcasting

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (radio stations) and [proposed] Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television)

<short general description of "broadcasting" issues>

...

Literary works

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)

<NC in a nutshell description of the aspect "literary works" as enclosed in the "books" NC>

...

Radio (stations)

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (radio stations)

<NC in a nutshell description of the "radio stations" NC>

...

School districts

See: [proposed] Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ohio school districts)

<[proposed] NC in a nutshell description of the "Ohio school districts" NC>

Schools

See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools)

<NC in a nutshell description of the "schools" NC>

...

Television

See: [proposed] Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television)

<[proposed] NC in a nutshell description of the "Television" NC>

...

---

Anyway, that would also avoid that the TOC doubles the list. --Francis Schonken 12:51, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

My new additions suppose that the "radio stations" info now elaborated on the policy page are pushed to a new NC guideline, named Wikipedia:Naming conventions (radio stations) --Francis Schonken 13:03, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The conventions under consideration havent been accepted fully yet, so they cant be listed with them. How about this: I add "books" and "literary works", and we keep the rest of my work. That is...unless you have any other things you want to fix?--Urthogie 13:20, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, you might have seen I used "books" and "literary works" only as an example. I have as many (but similar) remarks to all yr other re-arrangements. And don't attempt to compromise me over QUALITY. I've explained long and broad, with several examples, what I think doesn't work very well in your approach. So don't say this is only a "start" of a discussion. I see no future for your hybrid approach. Sorry. Wished it had been otherwise.

(added the word "hybrid" in my comment above: by this I mean: mixture of a "list" idea with the idea of a "traditionally structured" page. --Francis Schonken 13:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC))

Re. "conventions under consideration havent been accepted fully yet, so they cant be listed with them" - who says that? the {{proposed}} template only says you shouldn't list such proposals "as if" they were already accepted (quote from the "proposed" template: References or links to this page should not describe it as "policy."). adding the "[proposed]" qualifier wherever applicable handles that satisfactorily IMHO. --Francis Schonken 13:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that template isn't supposed to show(its only because its on a subpage that it shows it, I think...formatting issue). On the actual WP:Naming conventions, there's a policy template. By the way, hybrid is what I was going for, and I'm glad to work with you on achieving that.--Urthogie 13:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I have no clue what you mean by: "I think that template isn't supposed to show(its only because its on a subpage that it shows it, I think...formatting issue)." See for example Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Ohio school districts) where the template is used (containing the text quoted by me); see also intro on the Category:Wikipedia proposals page.

See also Wikipedia:Template messages/Project namespace#Policies and guidelines

Also I don't know what was not clear about:

I (= "I") see (= "see", as in "I see") no (= negation, inverts the meaning of the previous) future (= "future") for (= "for") your (= "your", meaning "urthogie's") hybrid (explained above) approach (aka what is now on User:Urthogie/Naming conventions/Urthogie's rewrite)

So, I'm no fool, I don't put my energy in something for which my intuition says it will ultimately run against a wall. And I put enough energy in trying to clarify why the future of this hybrid approach looks so bleak in my eyes. --Francis Schonken 14:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The whole idea of wikipedia is a hybrid approach. People work together. Like you said, you're just one wikipedian. And by the way, insulting my work won't help your case; all it does is show your inability to work in collaboration.--Urthogie 15:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, the present structure of wikipedia:naming conventions is a *hybrid* approach. I invite you now maybe for the 5th or 6th time to collaborate on that (as I've been doing with several others now for months). You've rejected to collaborate each time again. No problem to me. Please, finally you seem to understand that I suggested you to collaborate with others (than me) over your idea of an optimised structure of the page. I proposed you what I'd consider an optimised structure of the policy page. You don't want to collaborate on that. No problem. Maybe I'll find some other people to collaborate on that in that fashion, and who knows, either you or me find a broad consensus for our respective ideas. No hard feelings (I hope). --Francis Schonken 16:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Incremental changes. How about I do one each day, and the second you raise an issue on the talk page I'll discuss before continuing. And no hard feelings of course(just soft ones, like minor stress). --Urthogie 17:13, 21 February 2006 (UTC)