User talk:Freshgavin/Sandbox/Reference desk

Layout

On a narrow screen (say 800x600), the two boxes at the top of each Ref Desk don't appear side by side, but the Ref Desk selection box appears below the instruction box, still left justified. It looks pretty bad that way. I think the instruction box needs to be more narrow. StuRat 11:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. I left the width of the navigation box static by mistake.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  11:21, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Instructions

I've shortened the instructions where possible without losing content, and added additional instructions. Rather than have another instruction page for every Ref Desk, can we just clone these instructions everywhere ? Then, I suppose, certain pages might have additional disclaimers added, as well. StuRat 12:17, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I was planning on cloning the instructions from the header, actually, because that's already cloned between each page, which is basically why the rules are a bit better worded there. I thought the health + medical desk might warrant an extra warning somewhere, but for everything else the rules are the same.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Stating the obvious

It's important that the instructions be as short as possible, if we expect anyone to actually read them. Thus, stating the obvious, like that answers will appear on the same page as the question, that to search for Seven Wonders of the World you type that into the search box, and that we are not necessarily from the same part of the world as them, has a real cost in terms of people not reading the instructions at all. StuRat 12:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

My logic is that it seems that a lot of people have difficulty with those two points. They don't search first and they don't come back to get their answers. I agree that we don't want to beat a dead horse, and I'm not one for teaching in drills, but I can't see any other way to get the point across. I have no strong feelings about the second part, mind you.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

How can you state why they shouldn't give their email without saying explicitly "the answer will be given on the same page as the question"?  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

It isn't obvious to newbies that giving out personal info on the Internet is dangerous, but it should be perfectly obvious that answers are added after questions. Or, at least, I think everyone would assume that rather than think the answers would be sent somewhere else. StuRat 13:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I've removed the redudant statement.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  05:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Show us your work

You reverted this comment on homework. It actually applies in many other cases, too, so perhaps should be it's own bullet. For example, anyone with a computer problem should list what they did to cause the problem and how they've tried to fix it. StuRat 12:27, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

??? I'm confused. I didn't revert it, and the wording I used on the header Make an effort to show that you've tried solving it first., includes that point, whereas your shorter version doesn't.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused, too. When I look at it I see this:

Don't expect homework answers. 
We might tell you how to do 
your problem, but we won't 
give you the answer.

Here's the edit in question: [1]

StuRat 13:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I know what happened. Your edit before that gave me an edit conflict, so I forced the page to accept my changes after I pasted them in, but you made a second edit in that time so it was removed and wasn't registered as a conflict. My bad! By the way, by "header" I'm referring to the header used on top of each of the desks. I'm assuming you've already noticed that there is a reiteration of all the rules there too (those aren't just dummy links on the right!).  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  13:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that's better. StuRat 15:47, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

C A P I T A L I Z A T I O N

I'm against capitalizing Reference Desk everywhere. The Main Page was always considered an exceptiong because renaming it to Main page would have created too many redirects, and it allows a convenient disambig opportunity. For the title of the table I don't mind if it's capitalized, but in a sentence "the Ref Desk" it looks totally inappropriate to me. Thoughts? I'm finished for now with the extra links.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe the usual convention is that proper nouns are capitalized. So, if you are talking about a specific thing, you use caps...the President, our Reference Desk, our Sun, our God. However, if you are talking about a general class of things, you don't capitalize, like a president, a reference desk, a sun, a god. This could lead to confusion:

"Does your library have a reference desk ?"

"Yes, the Reference Desk in on the third floor."

13:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't consider that a proper noun at all. The Wikipedia Reference Desk may be a proper noun, or the United States Library of Congress, but I don't think there's any proper establishment named "The Reference Desk". I don't consider it a title more than a "desk for reference", just as most of the other major pages on Wiki, such as the village pump, and the help desk. As far as I know, the only exceptions are the Main Page, Community Portal, and the present Reference Desk, which is an artifact of the CamelCase that used to be used in Nutopia. (Edit: It seems RD was never capitalized and I just didn't notice. I wonder why I thought that...)  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  14:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

When you are talking about the Wikipedia Ref Desk or "the Ref Desk", that is a specific reference desk, which makes it a proper noun, just like when you talk about President G.W. Bush or "the President" you are talking about a specific president, which makes it a proper noun (albeit one that can't speak properly). :-) StuRat 15:39, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, if it's official name was the Wikipedia Desk of Reference, then you would capitalize that, too. StuRat 15:39, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Then why does English have a definite article? By your logic, "the" isn't needed because everything specific should be capitalized! : (  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  16:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't follow, please give an example. StuRat 03:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's go to the store. What did you do with the computer? I was in the shower when a giant-face hugger jumped out of the ceiling fan! Go and get me the Hawaiian-Urdu dictionary. Honestly, I'm kind of against wide-spread capitalization in the first place. I really shouldn't push my opinion, but since the article name is "Reference desk" and not "Reference Desk", I can at least claim that the software treats it as a normal noun.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  05:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

The Brits do indeed omit "the" in many places: "She's gone to hospital directly from university". StuRat 11:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I think you mean 'ospital.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  13:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Archives

I've made a link box for the archives now that will be able to handle the new divisions, and since it's vertically organized instead of horizontal it should be able to handle any additional desks in the future as well. My priority for now is the get the archives linked up as clearly as possible now (if only in part to get that anonymous guy to shut up) even though I know I'll probably have to rewrite every link if somebody wants to change the name of a desk, and again when and if we ever go real-time with this. I'm going to put up a warning on the front page about handling the red links. I also plan on merging the rules on the front page with the rules on the desk header; I'll just make that into another template I guess... though I'm starting to think that we shouldn't use a two-level template on each reference desk. Anyways, won't be hard.

I should also have time to transfer my HTML code to Wikicode (for the main page and the desk header) sometime this week. I really hate Wikicode for tables, but I guess I should assume that people will want to edit this in Wikicode in the future, so I should be at least that accomodating.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  08:11, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Use of AND

One thing that I'm worried will bite my ass a few weeks later is what I have done with the desks with rather long names.

Computing             --> Computing / IT
Physics and astronomy --> Physics and astronomy desk
Health and medicine   --> Health and medicine desk
Sports and hobbies    --> Sports and hobbies desk
Sex                   --> Sex and relationships desk

Where the left side is the actual name of the subpage, and the right side is the name I'm writing on the Wikilinks, i.e. the official desk name. My logic for keeping the "Sex and relationships desk"'s subpage name short is debatable, but I just felt that the "relationships" was more of a way to let users know that we're not just talking about masterbating and cybering, and didn't want to clutter the subpage with it. Then the original Computing / IT desk is an anomoly, and I think I should create some more consistency here. What should I do? I'd rather clear this up now before I write any more code for the archives. Maybe this would make more sense.

Computing
Physics
Health
Sports
Sex

Hmmm?  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  08:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the "ands" serve an important purpose. Without them, people will be unsure where to post astronomy, medicine, hobby, and relationship questions. I don't care for the "IT" label, however, as most readers likely have no idea that stands for Information Technology or even what that is. I suggest "Computers and Technology", so people know it includes things like iPods. StuRat 11:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Computers and technology sounds OK by me. I wasn't actually implying that I would get rid of the ands, not in the desk name, but just in the name of the actual subpage (the way the computers desk is currently called Computing but the actual name is a bit more informative Computing / IT).  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  11:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Im not sure where Engineering questions should go. Its not science.--Light current 15:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Isn't science good enough? That's where everyone posts them now. Civil engineering goes along with architecture, which is obviously science. Computer /software engineering questions would probably mostly head to the Comp IT desk, mechanical and electrical are the anomolies but many of those also go under physics or IT again, so I think it all works out. I haven't seen many engineering-specific questions lately, anyway. Or maybe you're talking about train driving?  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  03:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Well how about having and engineering section to cover electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil, electronic, bio etc?--Light current 03:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone else think we'll need those? I just see way too much overlap in electrical (tech), mechanical (phys), chemical (chem), electronic (tech), and bio (biological science).  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  03:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

OK put electrical and mechanical as subs of science. Would that be confusing? Alternatively, we could split Computing &Technology into 2 and all the engineering would neatly fall under technology 8-)--Light current 03:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Well then doesn't that put all the Engineerings neatly under the Technology half of Computers and Technology in the first place? By the way, what's with the way you indent your comments? Are you attempting to reform chat style like you do with your talk page?  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  04:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Doesnt incremental indenting ensure that coverastaions quickly scroll off the page?--Light current 23:50, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

In extreme cases, yes, though I wouldn't say "quickly". There's no problem with less than 7 or 8 indents though, and it is much easier to tell how deep a discussion has gotten when indented correctly. For a conversation between only two people that goes over 5 indents, I usually break back to zero every once in a while but that's because it's easy to figure out.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  03:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

'Religion' ref. desk under 'Humanities'?

Good idea? Bad idea? There seems to be a lot of religion-related questions on the current Humanities desk, enough for them to deserve their own heading IMO. --Kurt Shaped Box 12:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure myself about "pop culture".  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

At least you've called it 'popular culture' - 'pop culture' would probably lead to loads of questions about Ashlee Simpson. ;) So, how about an 'ornithology' desk for us gull fanboys. Heh. --Kurt Shaped Box 12:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggested it but Stu wouldn't have it!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  13:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

LOL, we need an entirely new wiki for them...WikiGulls ? As for a Religion Ref Desk, that's sounds good to me, but it will attract lots of people on their respective soapboxes. I suppose without a desk they would just infect all the other desks, though. StuRat 10:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll go add a religion desk and rename Computing to Computers and technology. After that I'm going to copy the code for the archive browsing template, but I'm going to have to borrow some Wikipedia name space to do that.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  11:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, should we call it "Theology"?  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

No, "Religion" is better, since more people know what that means. StuRat 12:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Done and done. I've copied the code from the archive header to here, and it looks like we'll be going for a file structure that looks like this:

Reference desk
   Desk header
   ... desk
   Ornithology desk
   ... desk
   Archives
      Archive header

That should make everything easier to access without long addresses, and it's just an issue of merely touching up the links in the archive header code so that it automatically creates the links to the correct subpage.

On the other hand, I can't say I've been doing much archiving. You can't see any other problems coming out if I do that? The actual archive pages have the same name (i.e. December 2006 etc.) although they will be in ../Archives/December 2006 instead of ../Reference desk archive/December 2006, which obviously means that the old archive template will link to the old archives in the ../Reference desk archives folder, whereas the new, longer one will link to all of the archives (to be created by this godly bot that we're all gonna start waiting on soon) at ../Archives.

There's not much left to do now, so I'm going to start looking at that bot request.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  13:00, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Preamble to opinion tally

This is the layout I've been working on with input from a few other RD users over the last few weeks. The code for the layout itself, and all the templates and headers is essentially complete. Martinp23 has even made a bot for us, and the code is apparently pretty much finished; he is just testing it out and looking for bugs while he waits for it to be approved. I would like to make a few things clear:

Nothing without consensus

Not that I actually think I could even try to force anything without consensus, I understand that some people don't think there's a need to change at all, and opinions will differ on many things, so thats why I created this page in as close to "whole" form as I could get it outside of Wikipedia namespace. I hope everyone will contribute their opinion to the tally below.

Number of desks

Here is the design for the front page, and for the header for each desk.

Between a handful of users we have thought up a current total of 15 desks right now. That's almost 300% more than the current desk, and definitely an extremely bold and possibly troublesome change to the reference desk. Me and a number of other users believe that it is a necessary change, and there have been numerous discussions in the recent months, most of which are included on Wikipedia talk:Reference desk or are in the text above. If you feel that we could do without a couple of the desks that we have suggested (i.e. Religion or Popular Culture), please state so when you sign your name on the tally. If you think that there is need to add another desk to handle the increased number of posts and users (for example Legal or Homework), please explain why.

Archives

The previous archives haven't been touched, and a new table has been created (here) that includes all of the desks. There is also a new blue Template:Archive header and Template:Archive header monthly (please don't edit those without discussion in talk, as they are being used frequently while the bot is being tested).

Why?

I, as well as a handful of others, have explained at length our reasons to update the RD format on it's talk page in the previous months. The basic gist of it is that the desks are now too big for users with mid-range internet connections to browse conveniently, and there are various benefits to clearly specifying question range, the main one being that we get more focused questions. I think I can speak for all of us that RD was better off as a single page, or just a few pages, because we could browse all questions easily, and we didn't have to limit ourselves to a certain subject area. We haven't been able to think of any other way to lower the page sizes though (other than reducing the 10 day archiving period to something like 5 days, which is only a temporary solution and would cause more complaints in the end anyway), and this is the solution that we stuck to.

I hope that consensus can be reached on this matter and that everyone is satisfied with the results.

General opinion

Results and discussion moved to subpage User_talk:Freshgavin/Sandbox/Reference_desk/Tally