User talk:John Stephenson/Archive 6
Redirects
Way to go (at Ju-on)! Thanks! J. Noel Chiappa 13:40, 27 May 2008 (CDT)
Culture
Do drop in John (at culture that is). Aladin 08:50, 9 July 2008 (CDT)
Thanks
Hi John! Thanks for having corrected my English prose.--Domergue Sumien 15:06, 18 August 2008 (CDT)
- No problem, and welcome to Citizendium. It is a relief to have some more linguists on the wiki! John Stephenson 15:29, 18 August 2008 (CDT)
I saw him standin' there.... (told you guys I could keep this up)
I noticed! here he is! Aleta Curry 22:01, 2 September 2008 (CDT)
- Travel(l)ing through North America at the moment and it's wall-to-wall Sarah Palin on CNN, so... John Stephenson 22:04, 3 September 2008 (CDT)
subpages template
John,
Sometimes I deliberately do not put {{subpages}} on a page. Most commonly, this is a situation when the title is in flux and I don't want to create metadata that is likely to change. In other cases, it's a relatively short article undergoing active writing, and I'd just rather not have half a page of metadata reminders cluttering the screen.
There is a discussion about topics that really aren't more than a definition. Chris Day has some complex ways about making these work with R-templates, which have complex interactions with definitions and metadata. I'm still trying to understand his logic, which I think will make sense but is clearly not trivial.
Anyway, it's one thing if you plan to fill in the metadata, definition, and so forth. If not, may I ask why you are just putting {{subpages}} but not doing anything else on them? Is it meant to be a reminder of some sort? You may have a very good reason, but it isn't obvious. Do note that you can create a talk page without metadata.
Howard C. Berkowitz 19:30, 4 September 2008 (CDT)
- It's because I intend to create the metadata templates in a batch (today!). I would suggest that if you are going to create pages without the subpage template, then add workgroup categories from the outset - otherwise, the pages are practically invisible to other users. John Stephenson 20:30, 4 September 2008 (CDT)
- I suppose it's not always the intention to make pages immediately visible. There are times, when an article is going to be extensively linked, where it's not practical to test it in userspace. That is one reason for not necessarily trying to make the article visible, or at least through categories. There are a number of Forum discussions on dealing with some of the more obscure issues, such as how naming interacts with R-templates.
- I was certainly puzzled to be finding subpages added with nothing else, and no explanation either in an edit summary or talk page. There well might be a good reason, but this was confusing.
- If you want to work on these articles, great! I might suggest, though, that if you find no metadata, create a talk page, which doesn't require a metapage, and discuss what you want to do with the article. When I know others are working on articles, I try to discuss, on the talk page, how we might split up a first draft. When I haven't done this, I've had the sad experience of being in mid-flow, stopping for dinner or other biological breaks, and finding work minutes, or hours, old being redone while I still had material to type.
- I'm pleased to find someone with wide interests, as are my own. It did seem a little ambitious to deal with angiography, the Battle of the Beams, Baghdad, etc., on the first day. Again, it's useful to discuss plans to avoid conflict with others. Angiography is not too critical, but the Battle of the Beams, in my mind, links heavily with other articles in electronic warfare, signals intelligence, etc. Again, a little discussion beforehand can save much aggravation. It might make sense for either one of us not to make changes for a short time, just so the other can get their material written without getting into micro-level conflicting changes. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:55, 4 September 2008 (CDT)
- It is troubling to find your work torn up - though that's the nature of a wiki, I suppose. I wasn't doing that, though - merely adding templates. I still think *categories* are necessary from the outset (not necessarily the subpages template), to get people onto the Talk page or into the article itself. In the case of Baghdad, no-one had edited that for over two weeks, probably because there were few links across the wiki to it. See also the forum. John Stephenson 21:22, 4 September 2008 (CDT)
- Seriously, we can agree that you can take responsibility for articles. That's not an issue. There is, however, an ongoing discussion if categories are indeed useful, especially if the particular topic is going to be little more than a definition. Baghdad and angiography were put there as stubs because there were a distracting number of magenta links.
- Battle of the Beams was in limbo while I'm working on some more general things about air campaign planning. What were you thinking of doing with it?
- I've also responded to your forum comment. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:36, 4 September 2008 (CDT)
New Manga Sandbox Pages
Hi, John. Thanks again for your encouragement. I've created a set of Sandboxes for revising the manga articles. They're listed at User:Timothy Perper/SDBXIndex with links and brief descriptions. Please feel free to come by and comment! Timothy Perper 10:42, 27 September 2008 (CDT)
Editing and Rewriting the Manga Article
Hi, John. I've got material on manga at User:Timothy Perper/SandboxHistManga and I'd like you to come and look at it and comment. Matt Thorn and I will be working on the material a good deal more -- a good deal! -- so your comments are most welcome.
Second, can I ask your permission to make a change in the present manga article? I'd like to create new articles (stubs) for the manga you mention: Astro Boy, Black Jack, Sazae-san, and Doraemon, simply by taking what you have already in the manga article and moving each one to its own individual page. Then the sections can be deleted from the manga article without losing anything. Is this OK with you?
Thanks.
Timothy Perper 06:19, 30 September 2008 (CDT)
- No problem - in fact, I'll do that myself. I will leave the {{subpages}} tag off for now in case we need to change the article title (if you start an article with subpages and then decide to move it to a new title, it's a pain because /Metadata and other subpages have to be moved separately, and of course /Metadata's content must be changed too). John Stephenson 03:35, 1 October 2008 (CDT)
- Just so you know I made a template to allow you to move things a lot more easily. See talk page navigation bar at the top-left and look for the Move Cluster link. Its not perfect by any means but it does simplify the process. Chris Day 03:54, 1 October 2008 (CDT)
- Thanks, John and Chris! (I just had an edit conflict, so I'm putting this in again.)
- I'm still making extensive changes in the User:Timothy Perper/SandboxHistManga draft. The article was originally on Wikipedia (I wrote most of it, laboring under the usual Wikipedia handicaps) and it needs some serious reworking. I'm planning on taking the material from the existing article on manga and weaving it into the introduction of the new one and then putting all the new material into the manga article. Any suggestions would be a great help. Matt Thorn told me he's working separately on the history of manga in Japan -- or I assume that's what he's doing, since it's his area of expertise. Do you have any objections to my taking the introduction and using it with what I have already?
- I don't know how to handle /Metadata (yet), so I won't touch any of that. I'll leave it to you experts for now.
- Thanks for your help! Timothy Perper 03:58, 1 October 2008 (CDT)
OK, what I have done is move the manga article (but not its Talk page or subpages) to History of manga. I cut almost everything except the introduction - you can use this on the page or in your sandbox as necessary. John Stephenson 04:09, 1 October 2008 (CDT)
- Thanks. But I want to make sure that we're all on the same page (pun intended) here. I'm rewriting the material in my sandbox User:Timothy Perper/SandboxHistManga to replace the manga article, not to create a "History of Manga" article. There's a good deal of non-historical material in the TP sandbox piece, and the history isn't complete. I'd rather hope that Matt Thorn, who is an expert in the history part, can add a good deal from his knowledge of Japanese sources to the history article, but I see the sandbox material as less specialized than being purely or even primarily a "history." Which is why it's in a sandbox -- to add new topics.
- I hope that's clearer -- my apologies if there's been any confusion. Timothy Perper 04:28, 1 October 2008 (CDT)