Template talk:Tensors

Created to summarize all things tensors, integrating the articles together. F = q(E+v×B) ⇄ ∑_ic_i 00:52, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I added more links to spinor articles. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 09:46, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Navboxes should be at the bottom

A navbox at the top of the article uses precious screen space that should be used for pictures. It also makes the article less readable by "pulling" the reader's eyes away from the head section. It also impies that the article belongs to only one subject area (and, therefore, to one group of editors). Finally it seems to assume that a reader who gets to an article may want to immediately jump to some other article in that area, before reading the article itself
So, please change this navbox into a bottom-of-article navbar. (Indeed, please consider whether the navbox is worth the trouble of maintaining it. Can't its intended function be better provided by a few lists or tables in the tensor article?) Thank you, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 23:02, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I largely disagree with what you’re saying, then I'm usually proven wrong in discussions nevertheless... Response anyway is:...

• Placing it in the top corner doesn't make it any "less readable" than without.
• The readers can think for themselves on where to click and read. You think people are "hypnotized" into reading the template before the article? It's not hard to read the text around the template...
• If anything, the whole point is to attract the attention of the reader to the other articles for more information/awareness of certain topics. It doesn't "imply the article belongs to only one subject area/group of editors", it is simply a router to other related articles.
• No - simply listing/tabulating articles in only the tensor article will not suffice.
  • For example, the notation will be unfamiliar to lots of people, so how could a reader navigate the tensor notation articles from one article to another? (The articles I mean are listed in the "notation" heading of the template).
  • Yes - linking in the "see also" sections should work, but that could result in very long lists, which are not immediately apparent until you reach the end; the template is more compact.
  • Yes - the article should include relevant links in the text of the article, but they can be (very?) easy to miss... Given that you think so much of the reader have you forgot that readers are not likely to read articles line for line all the way through, rather they just scan through for whatever they look for then possibly read the text in detail?
  • A simple, efficient, and less labour-intensive solution to awareness/navigation is to just link a collection of connected articles which the reader can skip between at will. Which the template does. It's not hard to go back and forth between articles using that template.
• Not against transforming this into a navbox footer, except that the links are less obvious and the reader has to reach the end of the page before seeing the links, but this will affect lots of articles so consensus will be needed.
• In all - the template as it stands is like a portable glossary; summarizing and leading to the main articles with definitions and explanations, with many more topics the reader may not be familiar with (hence increasing awareness), and can effortlessly be placed anywhere (less easier if the navbox form is used, but could be placed at the beginning/end of a section). It seems very successful (at least IMO).

Thank you for becoming involved and for feedback, I know you're a far more knowledgeable/experienced/capable editor than myself so no intension to fight you on this... Let's notify the WikiProjects Physics and Mathematics and see what can be done. Best, M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 09:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I don't like this kind of navboxes at all. They provide a huge list of cross links - most of which are uninteresting in the moment of reading the article - and the few links that could actually be useful are hidden between the others without any description. Therefore I mostly try to ignore them (however most of the time I'm actually searching for a nice image summarizing the content of the article in the upper right). The important articles on the topic should be linked directly in the text anyway.
One example were I actually use navboxes is for movies (e.g. something like "other movies by this director"). But then I need them after reading the article at the bottom. That's also where I'd intuitively search for cross links (near the "see also" section). Patrick87 (talk) 14:36, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Very well... Thanks for your feedback also. Seems like my points are already redundant above. If people think the template/navbox should not be used, be sure to replace with something better... M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 18:19, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the statement "Navboxes should be at the bottom" is obvious nonsense, and anyway this is not the place for such sweeping generalities. The fact is that many articles have navboxes at the top, and so these articles are improved by them in the opinions of a large number of editors. However, I think that the current template would be better at the very bottom (after the necessary formatting adjustments are made) on most articles in its scope. I think there could be some exceptions, like the main tensor article and the glossary, but it doesn't really deserve that level of attention in other articles deeper in the hierarchy. Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:02, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Navbox version

Although there seem to be conflicting opinions, here is a navbox version:

Any better? Feel free to edit it. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 08:18, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks very good to me. It's much cleaner than the sidebar version. You've got everything at a glance (without all the collapsed sections) and still it's much more compact. -- Patrick87 (talk) 09:49, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Now I realize it does look better and is still compact, and it does make sense to place at the end of an article next/near to the "see also" section so that all further reading links are in one place, as you say. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 09:58, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Article integration is not a good idea

"Integrating" a group of articles generally does more harm than good.
Think of how readers get to an article and what they expect to find there. Wikipedia articles should not be written as chapters in a textbook. Each article should be written and organized under the assumption that it is the first article that reader will read from its area.
When articles are "integrated" they inevitably become unreadable, because editors have them all in their head and no longer see them as the reader will see. And they also become uneditable, because any editor must look at all of them before figuring out what to edit. (This, by the way, is the worst of all the bad things that navboxes have brought to Wikipedia.) --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 23:12, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

See above. Thanks, M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 09:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that this is very true in practice. Do you have examples of what "integration" means, and why it is a destructive influence? Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:09, 26 February 2013 (UTC)