Hello folks, Im proposing we come up with a system by which people can make well-formed topic-based archives of talk pages. This is because some talk pages are fairly busy, and the archives are often hard to read. Date based bot archiving is of no help here.
This would be a redudant archive - not to replace standard ordered archives, and ideally there would be some template that would make it easy to link between the two, particularly in the direction from Topical -> Ordered. The ordered one is to be the "reliable" base archive, and the topical one will permit some level of editing: header renaming, structural reformatting, excising or hiding superfluous comments.
I need help figuring out how to best link Topical and Ordered sections and so on. The process needs to be solid enough that any criticism would be minimal. I think its usefulness will be demonstrated quickly enough.
-SV
On every page, that sounds like an awful lot of work; on the very busy pages, that sounds like it could be useful. I'd agree with the ordered archives being the "archives of record," more or less (less refactoring = more authentic, if perhaps a little less useful).
As far as linking back and forth, I think all you'd need would be a template with two parameters: the section name and archive page to be linked to. Example:
{{X|Arbitrary section|Archive 4}} -- links to [[Talk:Page/Archive 4#Arbitrary section]] {{X|Arbitrary section|Foo discussion}} -- links to [[Talk:Page/Foo discussion#Arbitrary section]]
The template itself would be pretty simple, too:
See this topic in [[{{TALKSPACE}}:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{{2}}}#{{{1}}}|{{{2}}}]].
..or some such. I haven't tested that, but obviously something along those lines should work.
Just slip that template in, directly under each section heading, and you're set. Do something to set it apart from the rest of the text -- I'd say bolded and smaller font should be fine.
It occurs to me that it might make more sense to have the archive name as the first parameter, and the section name as the second -- it's all the same to me, but if anybody cares and this template gets made, speak up quick. ;)
Just a thought. This is feasible. Is it desirable? -Luna
On 2/21/07, Luna lunasantin@gmail.com wrote:
Your comments are quite helpful, Luna.
As far as linking back and forth, I think all you'd need would be a template with two parameters: the section name and archive page to be linked to. Example:
{{X|Arbitrary section|Foo discussion}} -- links to [[Talk:Page/Foo
discussion#Arbitrary section]]
It occurs to me that a bottleneck here is how sections are named. Im thinking that we could use redundant numbered headers just as place links within the ordered archive:
== Header with a really long name == === 5 === or = 5 = == Header with a really long name ==
That way things can be pointed to by number, I'm not skilled at template syntax at all, so Ill leave that to someone else.
To link from talk ordered archive to topical archive: {{ta|5|Archive 4}}
It occurs to me that it might make more sense to have the archive name as
the first parameter, and the section name as the second -- it's all the same to me, but if anybody cares and this template gets made, speak up quick. ;)
May be better to keep the hierarchy of template|archive|section : {{ta|Archive 4|5}} [[{{TALKSPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}/{{{1}}}#{{{2}}}|{{{1}}}]].
and compact the archive, so that archiving is standardized {{ta|4|5}} [[{{TALKSPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}/Archive {{{1}}}#{{{2}}}|{{{1}}}]].
From talk topical archive to ordered archive:
{{oa|4|5}} -- links to [[Talk:Page/Archive 4#5]] [[{{TALKSPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}/Archive {{{1}}}#{{{2}}}|{{{1}}}]].
I think this will work. It keeps the cross linkages abstract rather than literal. They dont have to be too precise anyway - as long as they point to the right general area within the right archive. :)
-Stevertigo
On 2/22/07, stvrtg stvrtg@gmail.com wrote: Whoops! Did something wrong: Templates and talk subpages need some way to distinguish ordered and topical archives: Topic archives are subpages named with a general subject:
{{ta|Subject|5}} -- links to [[Talk:Page/Subject #5]] [[{{TALKSPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}/Topic {{{1}}}#{{{2}}}|{{{1}}}]].
And from talk topical archive to ordered archive is fine, with "archive" as the placeholder.
{{oa|4|5}} -- links to [[Talk:Page/Archive 4#5]] [[{{TALKSPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}/Archive {{{1}}}#{{{2}}}|{{{1}}}]].
-Stevertigo
On 22/02/07, Luna lunasantin@gmail.com wrote:
On every page, that sounds like an awful lot of work; on the very busy pages, that sounds like it could be useful. I'd agree with the ordered archives being the "archives of record," more or less (less refactoring = more authentic, if perhaps a little less useful).
The main problem with any form of archiving is that it's the busiest pages that need it, and the busiest pages tend to be controversial. So picking how to archive them is not so much a technical matter as politics. Date-based archiving is generally tolerable to most.
- d.