Lady Pablo

Welcome

Hello, Lady Pablo! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already excited about Wikipedia, you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field when making edits to pages. Happy editing! Doug.(talk • contribs) 16:11, 6 August 2011 (UTC) Getting Started The five pillars of Wikipedia • Tutorial • Your first article How to: edit a page • upload an image Getting Help Frequently Asked Questions New contributors' help page Where to: ask questions • make requests Request administrator attention Policies and Guidelines Neutral point of view • Reliable sources Verifiability • Citing sources • No original research What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The Community Community Portal • Adopt-a-user program Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • Resolving disputes Build consensus • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Things to do Be bold in editing • Help develop an article Maintenance • Peer review • Requested articles Join a WikiProject • Translating articles Cleaning up: General • Spam • Vandalism Miscellaneous Categories • Disambiguity • Stubs User pages • Talk pages Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

On the infoboxes...

Hi, Lady Pablo! First of all, thank you for your time and interest in this! It's always good to have another pair of eyes looking at these templates.

As for the re-design itself, I'm really of two minds about it. I do very much like that your version is not as tall as the current one and that it looks a lot cleaner overall (design and visual appeals are not really my fortes :)). On the down side, I've noticed the following:

• your version has no grouping headings, which makes particular groups of data harder to find—it all just flows continuously. Mind you, I'm not saying that the current green blobs are the best way to address this, but some sort of grouping cues would certainly be helpful. I just don't think separators alone do the job well enough.
• the new version is a wrapper around {{Infobox Settlement}}. In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I've never been a fan of that particular infobox. One can do a lot of things with it, sure, but only some of those things would be done well, and there is little flexibility in how things can be done (it's kind of like Apple products :)). What's especially hard to control is where a particular line would go in the overall structure (with your example, for instance, the names in English and Russian really shouldn't be split by the federal subject type descriptor, and the flag and coat of arms should follow the map, not precede it). Of course, with some ingenuity, one can make certain lines appear in certain places, but that same effect can be achieved a lot easier by using generic building blocks instead. Now, don't take me wrong, the current version is not an epitome of flexibility. It is quite the opposite, but that's because it is the last of the templates on my to-do list which I was planning to re-design until you beat me to it :) My idea was to use the same approach as in, for example, {{Infobox Russian district}}, which is built solely on the generic {{Infobox}} template and where re-arranging the building blocks or adding new ones can be done in a snap.
• I haven't looked at the code closely, but I've noticed that while you are passing the 2002 Census parameters to the template, they don't all show up in the output. I understand how showing both the 2002 Census and 2010 Census results seems redundant, but right now it's a necessity, because the 2010 results aren't yet finalized. Once they are, the 2002 Census lines can be taken out completely, including from the template code. The "latest" population, would still be there, of course (right now it is the 2010 Census results which are the latest, so that parameter is never filled out).

This is probably a lot more feedback than you hoped for, but I hope it's constructive. I'll be thrilled to hear your opinion in more detail in return! Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 8, 2011; 14:02 (UTC)

I agree that having group headings would be preferable, even though they would inevitably contribute to the lengthening of the template. This and several other changes don't seem compatible with the infobox settlement, however by not making it a customized wrapper for another template (any similar template, not necessarily settlement) we lose one of the strong points of the new revision, that is ease of editing (as the source code for the current template is an unreadable mess). Another option could be to find another template for which the new one could serve as a wrapper, either 'infobox' or something more specific like 'geobox'.

The position of the name is the easiest to fix, as for the position of flags and CoA, it's just a matter of preference but I like it better this way. Adding the census parameters for 2002 should not be much of a problem.

Overall, I'm thinking of taking two main courses of action to remedy the problems you have noticed with the current draft template: first, create a new template as a wrapper for infobox, like the Infobox Russian district, as you suggested, and second, to substitute the settlement template and rearrange its code to create a customized template that could suit our needs (but in this case the code would end up being even more tangled than it is now). I'll let you know when I have completed either of the two. Bye Ezhiki!--Lady Pablo (talk) 22:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the code is currently an unreadable mess, but using {{Infobox}} takes care of that particular problem just fine (and has the added benefit of greater flexibility). As long as the sections are clearly labeled by the HTML comments, it's not that hard to figure out which part goes where; and the sections themselves are usually short enough to be read easily. It certainly beats parsing the current code or figuring out in the {{Infobox settlement}} documentation which parameter is supposed to do what! :)

Anyway, thank you again for your interest in this. I'm looking forward to seeing another prototype from you, whenever it may be. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 8, 2011; 22:39 (UTC)

I think this should work! It certainly looks much nicer than the current version. Thank you! Just a few minor things:

• the head/governor information should come before legislature, as is customary;

Y Done

• the head, head name, legislature, and administrative center lines lost their reference tags;

did they? I can only see it missing from the 'administrative center' line, and that's intentional. Most articles don't show any reference for that line, and do we really need a source to prove that Kurgan is the capital of the Kurgan Oblast?

the rest of the infoboxes do have them and yes, we do need a source (which would, among other things, confirm that Kurgan Oblast has no "capital", but it does have an "administrative center"). It is especially needed with the republics—if someone inserts "Nazran" as the capital (and yes, in this case it's a capital) of the Republic of Ingushetia, it's not immediately obvious that it's incorrect, and a quick lazy check is very likely to turn up outdated sources confirming this incorrect information. With the head titles and names it's also important—just because one oblast has a "governor" doesn't mean the rest of them do, and the legislatures are also called differently everywhere. Not to mention that if a non-trivial piece of information isn't backed up by a source, it should either be sourced or flagged as unsourced. People unfortunately tend to copy-paste this kind of info without checking, so sources for it are as important as ever.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2011; 16:09 (UTC)

• the area figure needs to be dated, because borders do occasionally change, and the value is used to calculate the population density (possibly using the population count from a different year when nothing better is available);

when borders have been changed it was because of a merger that required the creation of a new article. Adding a date to the infobox wouldn't solve this question, and besides it doesn't happen that often (last time it was in 2008 I think)

I'm not talking about the mergers, I'm talking about border corrections, land swaps, annexations, and adjustments. While they are not that common, they do happen, and the differences do accumulate over the years.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2011; 16:09 (UTC)

• the density line lost its explanatory note, and since it is bundled with the rest of the census data, one can get an impression that the value of density also comes from the census sheets, which is not true;

isn't that a bit excessive? all the density figures on every infobox on wikipedia are calculated by dividing the population by the area. it's hardly unusual, I don't see why it would be unexpected.

We had editors complaining about this in the past, which is why the note got added. Dividing 2010 population by 2002 area is OK when the area hadn't changed in eight years, but as I pointed out above, such changes do happen. Ignoring this fact in other infoboxes isn't right either, and I don't understand why this is dismissed so easily—we are potentially feeding the readers with numbers which are plain wrong, and don't even have a warning. Also, since you bundled all the data into one segment referenced to one source, the note also makes it obvious that the density is a calculated number, not one taken from the said source.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2011; 16:09 (UTC)

• with "urban" vs. "rural", it's just "rural", not "rural area". The percentage shows the urban/rural population distribution, not the area distribution;

Y Done

• the "website" line probably doesn't need the "website" label. What do you think about just centering it as it is done in the district infobox?

Y Done

• "languages" should really be "official languages", otherwise the label gives an impression that all of the major languages spoken in the federal subject should be listed there;

Y Done

• I'm not sure about the location of the "holiday" line at the very bottom;

Moved it under 'established';

• are you planning to try out wrapping this template around {{Infobox}}, or is this your final version?

I don't see any benefits from using that infobox, the wikicode is as unreadable as ever and it's no easier to edit than an ordinary template.

I disagree (the infobox wrapper looks a lot cleaner to me), but am not going to insist. I have no problem reading either variant, and other editors familiar with wiki markup are likely familiar with the HTML tables as well.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2011; 16:09 (UTC)

Regarding the order of the symbols vs the map, it's not so much about the preference, as it is about addressing the readers' needs. The image at the top of the infobox would often be the only image readers see when they first load the page (especially on smaller resolution screens), and the map immediately answers the question of "where", which is the first question readers looking to familiarize themselves with the topic would ask. The flag/coat look nice, but don't really answer any immediate questions, which is why it makes sense to move them down.

Even on a 1024x768 screen, you can see both the flag and the map at the same time :-)

Even on a 1024x768 screen? I doubt many mobile Internet users have that kind of luxury :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2011; 16:09 (UTC)

Also, I would appreciate your opinion about the charter/constitution line. While each charter/constitution should ideally have their own article, currently none does, so the link on this line is always red. One could also argue that it is not the kind of link that's important in an infobox and is better covered by the text. Do you have an opinion about this?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2011; 13:52 (UTC)

It can't be unlinked through the template, you should edit every article individually and remove the brackets to do that. For now, I'm commenting that part out, so that if we decide to implement it again later, we'll just have to remove the comment marks.--Lady Pablo (talk) 15:41, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I realize that it needs to be removed manually. I was just asking whether having it in the infobox at all makes sense to you, as a reader. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2011; 16:09 (UTC)

I have updated the old template so we can see how it shows up in mainspace and fix any issue that may come up. As for the reference for the administrative centre/capital, it is already included in the new version, as you can see below (it's the "adm_ctr_ref" part):
{{#if: {{{adm_ctr_type|}}} | <tr class="mergedtoprow"> <th>{{{adm_ctr_type}}}</th> <td>{{{adm_ctr_name}}}{{#if: {{{adm_ctr_ref|}}} | {{{adm_ctr_ref}}} }}</td> </tr> }}
The only difference compared to the old template is that now it doesn't automatically embed that pointless "citation needed" tag whenever it doesn't find a reference. I think that similar tags are best added individually and in the proper context of each article, as they might be more useful in some articles such as Ingushetia (as you pointed out in your example above) than for most 'oblasts'. Cheers, Lady Pablo (talk) 23:45, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see them as "pointless" at all. As per WP:CITE, any material that can be challenged must be sourced, and the administrative center of any federal subject is certainly something that can be challenged. Most readers would have no idea that most (but not all!) oblasts are named after their administrative centers, or that the republics and the autonomous okrugs are not, or that the krais are a mixed bag, so the information should always be sourced. When it isn't, it should be marked as such. What is pointless is cherry-picking which ones to mark and which ones to leave unmarked (and unsourced). If one feels strongly about the citation request tag being ugly, the most productive way to deal with it is by adding a source, not by suppressing the tag! Indeed, one could say it is ugly by design, so there is an incentive to find a source.

Another thing you haven't addressed is my remark about the resolutions. On my phone, for example, with its not-too-shabby resolution of 800x600, the flag and the coat take up most of the screen. That certainly doesn't answer the question of "where" :)

Other than these, I think you did a fabulous job. I'll keep an eye for any bugs, but all in all yours is certainly an improvement over the prior version. Lest you think I sounded grumpy above, please accept my sincere thank you for your work!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 10, 2011; 13:38 (UTC)

Yes of course I understand your position but still I think that transcluding those citation needed tags is a bad idea. As for the resolution, I tried to see how the article displays on a mobile browser and it shows both flags and maps in the same part of the screen just fine. As a way to solve this issue we could shorten the template a bit further, you can see a few examples in my sandbox, but you probably won't like them :-)--Lady Pablo (talk) 09:32, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the kitten :) As for understanding yet not agreeing, this is exactly the kind of thing that will drive me mad one day :) Of course you are entitled to an opinion, as am I, and of course it is normal that our opinions will not always align, but shouldn't you be able to justify it with something better that "I don't like it; let's not do it"? Look at it from my point of view: we have fields which are supposed to contain specific information, and that specific information must be sourced just like anything else. With the article text, there is of course no way to automatically pinpoint what needs referencing and what doesn't, but with the infobox it's exactly the opposite—we know exactly what it will contain, and we have means to determine exactly whether it's referenced or not. And if it's unreferenced, it's supposed to be tagged (because it "can be challenged"). So why not tag it automatically, saving everyone maintenance efforts? That's the only question I have, really, one which you still haven't answered: why should we not mark uncited information as such?

You answered your own question: it can be challenged, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. If someone doubts the accuracy of an information, let them add the proper reference tag, but the blanketing of large portions of a template with transcluded tags means asking for references even where none might be required (as in my example, to prove that Kurgan is the capital of the Kurgan oblast, which seems pretty obvious to me). I hope you don't mind if I answer the rest some time tomorrow, I don't have much time right now and it takes me a while to write in somewhat proper English :P--Lady Pablo (talk) 11:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

As for the resolutions, I've checked three mobile devices (two phones and a tablet). One phone shows only the flag/coat, another shows the top of the page in a very tiny font (with the flag/coat/map all visible), but only the flag and the coat can be seen when the page is zoomed in, and on the tablet everything fits quite well. So maybe the problem isn't as serious as I thought, but some users will undoubtedly will be affected. Plus, I don't like it :))) see, it is an annoying "argument"!

Regarding the shorter versions, the second one is only shorter because the headings have been removed, right? To me, it takes an extra effort to parse the box with no headers to serve as visual clues. And the third one is even shorter because the 2002 Census lines have been removed? That's not good. The 2002 Census data are the most recent complete data we have. Once the final 2010 Census are released, the 2002 lines will be taken out anyway. In the meanwhile, both should be reported (and the 2010 line should definitely be marked as "preliminary", because that's what it is).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 12, 2011; 14:27 (UTC)

Dagong credit ratings

Hello! Perhaps it makes sense to add Dagong Global Credit Rating to the List of countries by credit rating. GreyHood ^Talk 15:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

OK Grey, I'll do it.--Lady Pablo (talk) 05:08, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a good job. GreyHood ^Talk 11:50, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:N/GEO

Hi, I accidentally noticed you have a disposition to systematic thinking, so I would like to invite you to join Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(geography)#Let_us_start_to_work_it_into_a_policy_proposal. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:01, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

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