On 4 Apr 2006 at 11:01, David Alexander Russell webmaster@davidarussell.co.uk wrote:
True - but could I add that if everyone put their message ABOVE the quoted text, rather than below, then this issue would be moot anyway (since we wouldn't need to go through the endless footers in order to get to the message)
Digest-mode readers (such as myself) still have to scroll through all of that excrement in order to get to the next message.
It can also be difficult to follow a list with lots of topics going on at once if there isn't any contextual quoting (carefully trimmed) above the response to remind you of what is being replied to. Reading the context *after* the reply is awkwardly backward.
On 4/4/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
It can also be difficult to follow a list with lots of topics going on at once if there isn't any contextual quoting (carefully trimmed) above the response to remind you of what is being replied to. Reading the context *after* the reply is awkwardly backward.
Arguments about top-quoting vs bottom-quoting on a list is almost as bad as mentioning Hitler.
;)
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 4/4/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
It can also be difficult to follow a list with lots of topics going on at once if there isn't any contextual quoting (carefully trimmed) above the response to remind you of what is being replied to. Reading the context *after* the reply is awkwardly backward.
Arguments about top-quoting vs bottom-quoting on a list is almost as bad as mentioning Hitler.
What about digest vs. non-digest? Honestly, I don't see how anyone can continue to use those horrible antiquated things - any message you send invariably starts a new thread because your reply lacks the proper references, which are specified by *multiple* RFCs.
I started off on digest, but after getting around 20 digests about autofellatio in one day, I grew dispirited and went to individual messages.
On 4/4/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Arguments about top-quoting vs bottom-quoting on a list is almost as bad as mentioning Hitler.
Indeed. I suggest that instead of arguing we each individually resolve to make our replies concise, quoting only what is absolutely necessary to convey our meaning and its context.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Perhaps it would be better if there was NO footer at all (rather than stripping out multiple occurences of the footer post-sending). This would solve the display problems you mentioned without screwing PGP signing. Surely the fact that [WikiEN-l] is in the subject line tells someone that the email is from the mailing list, without the need for the footer.
Cynical
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
On 4 Apr 2006 at 11:01, David Alexander Russell webmaster@davidarussell.co.uk wrote:
True - but could I add that if everyone put their message ABOVE the quoted text, rather than below, then this issue would be moot anyway (since we wouldn't need to go through the endless footers in order to get to the message)
Digest-mode readers (such as myself) still have to scroll through all of that excrement in order to get to the next message.
It can also be difficult to follow a list with lots of topics going on at once if there isn't any contextual quoting (carefully trimmed) above the response to remind you of what is being replied to. Reading the context *after* the reply is awkwardly backward.
On 4/4/06, David Alexander Russell webmaster@davidarussell.co.uk wrote:
Perhaps it would be better if there was NO footer at all (rather than stripping out multiple occurences of the footer post-sending). This would solve the display problems you mentioned without screwing PGP signing. Surely the fact that [WikiEN-l] is in the subject line tells someone that the email is from the mailing list, without the need for the footer.
In any case, for me, gmail hides the footer as "quoted text". Perhaps because of the long line above?
I kind of agree with you, but containing the unsubscription link probably saves the mods a lot of administrivia. (Incidentally, I'm still trying to work out why one of my previous messages got filtered out for containing "potential administrivia")
Obwikipedia: Subcategories really, really don't work. Why have we put up with them for so long? I was trying to categorise [[Brownstone]]. First I chose [[Category:building materials]]. Then I realised there was a subcat [[Category:Masonry]]. But why not go the whole hog, [[Category:Stone]]? Because there you end up in a category with 3 other members, none of which were real building materials. I ended up using both Masonry and Stone, violating the rule against using a cat and its subcat together.
Steve
On Tue, 2006-04-04 at 15:46 +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
Obwikipedia: Subcategories really, really don't work. Why have we put up with them for so long? I was trying to categorise [[Brownstone]]. First I chose [[Category:building materials]]. Then I realised there was a subcat [[Category:Masonry]]. But why not go the whole hog, [[Category:Stone]]? Because there you end up in a category with 3 other members, none of which were real building materials. I ended up using both Masonry and Stone, violating the rule against using a cat and its subcat together.
A bit of rearranging on the categories helps. I might look at this one later, but I am trying to fight off a proposal to have Category:German beer and breweries etc. Some people dont understand how to parent categories.
To do it well you need to look at the category system in a whole subject area. It requires a lot of editing to fix. But its worth it when its right.
Justinc
Justin Cormack wrote:
On Tue, 2006-04-04 at 15:46 +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
Obwikipedia: Subcategories really, really don't work. Why have we put up with them for so long? I was trying to categorise [[Brownstone]]. First I chose [[Category:building materials]]. Then I realised there was a subcat [[Category:Masonry]]. But why not go the whole hog, [[Category:Stone]]? Because there you end up in a category with 3 other members, none of which were real building materials. I ended up using both Masonry and Stone, violating the rule against using a cat and its subcat together.
A bit of rearranging on the categories helps. I might look at this one later, but I am trying to fight off a proposal to have Category:German beer and breweries etc. Some people dont understand how to parent categories.
To do it well you need to look at the category system in a whole subject area. It requires a lot of editing to fix. But its worth it when its right.
I don't supposed you've seen the wonders that can be achieved with http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php by any chance?
On Tue, 2006-04-04 at 23:33 +0930, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
I don't supposed you've seen the wonders that can be achieved with http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php by any chance?
Ooh no. I will have a play later. Looks useful.
Justinc
On 4/4/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
I don't supposed you've seen the wonders that can be achieved with http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php by any chance?
I have. It is wonderful. But it's not integrated into MediaWiki. Perhaps all I really want is that if you add some subcategory to an article, all the parent categories are added automatically (perhaps in smaller text or something).
Or perhaps I want a really tight definition of "subcategory", which doesn't seem to exist. There are at least two distinct meanings (and uses) of the relationship A = subcategory(B) (fictitious examples)
- Definitive subcategories. Every item that could be tagged B could by definition be tagged A. For example, famous German artists/famous Germans - Fuzzy subsets: B itself is a kind of subdomain of A. e.g. Opera is a subdomain of Singing, but "Sydney Opera House" is not a kind of singing (but could well be categorised "Opera")
The problem may be that categories sometimes mean "is a" and sometimes mean "is related to". This is weakly hinted at in the category guidelines, which distinguish between "Operas" as an "is a" category, and "Opera" as a "related to" category. Intriguingly, "Operas" has three subcategories, subcategories of which are used to tag actual operas several times. For example, Don Giovanni falls into Italian Operas, Operas by Mozart, and Operas, as well as the "related to" category Melodrama). And this is a *well-organised* categorisation system.
Lastly, for some comic relief, check out the categories on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brokeback_Mountain
Can you work out which categories are misapplied? :)
Steve
On 4/4/06, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
To do it well you need to look at the category system in a whole subject area. It requires a lot of editing to fix. But its worth it when its right.
I have an immature little fantasy that "tagging" would be better than "categorising" our articles. Would it work better in this case? Brownstone could be +"building material" and +mineral and why not even +architecture.
We could perhaps define parent tags, that worked like templates. Say, tagging an article +"German beer" would automatically (and transparently, that is, visibly) add the tags +German and +beer.
Of course, this would require a major change to MediaWiki and massive amounts of work to correctly implement, so I'm more than happy to be convinced that "categories" work better than "tags".
Steve
On Apr 4, 2006, at 7:10 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
I have an immature little fantasy that "tagging" would be better than "categorising" our articles. Would it work better in this case? Brownstone could be +"building material" and +mineral and why not even +architecture.
We could perhaps define parent tags, that worked like templates. Say, tagging an article +"German beer" would automatically (and transparently, that is, visibly) add the tags +German and +beer.
Of course, this would require a major change to MediaWiki and massive amounts of work to correctly implement, so I'm more than happy to be convinced that "categories" work better than "tags".
I say we all boycott categories until tagging is implemented.
G'day David,
(You just top-quoted a reply to Dan Tobias. Nice knowing you ... quoting fixed, by the way)
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
It can also be difficult to follow a list with lots of topics going on at once if there isn't any contextual quoting (carefully trimmed) above the response to remind you of what is being replied to. Reading the context *after* the reply is awkwardly backward.
Perhaps it would be better if there was NO footer at all (rather than stripping out multiple occurences of the footer post-sending). This would solve the display problems you mentioned without screwing PGP signing. Surely the fact that [WikiEN-l] is in the subject line tells someone that the email is from the mailing list, without the need for the footer.
Naw. People suddenly jack up and decide to leave mailing lists (particularly one of such, erm, "variable" quality as this one) all the time, and often they forget exactly how. A nice little footer is *very* helpful.
Cheers,
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day David,
(You just top-quoted a reply to Dan Tobias. Nice knowing you ... quoting fixed, by the way)
Hate to say it mate, but Gmail broke it for you :) See http://www.lemis.com/email/email-format.html for some potentially useful info...
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
It can also be difficult to follow a list with lots of topics going on at once if there isn't any contextual quoting (carefully trimmed) above the response to remind you of what is being replied to. Reading the context *after* the reply is awkwardly backward.
Perhaps it would be better if there was NO footer at all (rather than stripping out multiple occurences of the footer post-sending). This would solve the display problems you mentioned without screwing PGP signing. Surely the fact that [WikiEN-l] is in the subject line tells someone that the email is from the mailing list, without the need for the footer.
Naw. People suddenly jack up and decide to leave mailing lists (particularly one of such, erm, "variable" quality as this one) all the time, and often they forget exactly how. A nice little footer is *very* helpful.
Yes.
G'day Alphax,
Hate to say it mate, but Gmail broke it for you :) See http://www.lemis.com/email/email-format.html for some potentially useful info...
Thunderbird (appropriately enhanced, of course), broke it too! Evidently I wasn't paying attention :-(