Daniel Mayer wrote:
On Thursday 08 August 2002 08:20 pm, tarquin wrote:
The reasoning was fairly simple: Wikiprojects are
organized in a
hierarchy. Naming conventions are increasingly hierarchic too.
When I create a page, I seek information about how to name it and how to
present it. It's stupid having to career halfway across the Wikipedia to
find those two pieces of information.
Then just add links.
One word: spaghetti. Just because it's a web, it doesn't mean it can't
be a cleanly organized web.
I'm afraid I can't explain it any more simply than I have on
http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Presentation+Conventions ,
but I shall endeavour to try:
For each subject area, and for each "class" of page (eg chemical element
pages, people, ships etc), there are several different pieces of
meta-information. They are:
* what should be covered in this area? what are the priorities?
* what's the scheme for naming pages in this area, or in this class?
* conventions for presentation: is there, should there be, or what is
the agreed layout style?
* is there a group of Wikipedians who intend to flesh out this area?
* ... we may find the need to other things in the future
It merely seems good refactoring style to bring all those together.
Also keep in mind that the only content policy we have
is NPOV (everything
else is just a 'rule to consider') -- I do not want to have WikiProject
guidelines even to begin to appear as if they are a kind of content policy
I absolutely agree.
This is not about restricting new content.
We don't expect people to produce fully-fledged articles on their first
edit, or the grammar, spelling or typing to be perfect -- I'm not
questioning that at all, and in fact I agree with it.
However, there is a lot of cleaning up work going on, and part of that
involves harmonizing presentation. Articles about people are a good
example: I have seen half a dozen or so ways of presenting a person's
name, dates of birth & death and principal achievements. That doesn't
diminish the value of the content, and consistency in look & feel should
be very low on our priorities. But I am not the only one who takes
random walks through the Wikipedia & tidies up what (s)he finds -- while
I'm fixing typos or rewriting for clarity I might as well take care of
the formatting too -- *if* I knew what the agreed conventions were.
I hope I've not been misunderstood: I am *not* trying to impose or set
out new style rules in these pages on Meta. I'm trying to bring together
existing conventions, and set out a forum where debates about style can
take place.
Also troubling is the term "Presentation
Conventions" which is /far/ too
similar to "naming conventions" and will cause confusion with newbies about
the importance that naming conventions have in relation to any presentation
"conventions".
Agreed. The name "Presentation Conventions" is gone, as far as I'm
concerned. It was a poor choice. I haven't got round to renaming the page on Meta,
that's all.
As a matter of fact, I do not want us to have /any/
content
convention other than NPOV -- anything more will tend to stifle innovation
(consistency is nice, and I do strive for that, but it should /not/ be in any
way confused with policy).
*Being consistent* must not be policy, but *what* the consistency is, should one
choose to be consistent -- there's got to be a consensus, otherwise it's not
consistent!
I get the impression we're looking at this from opposite angles:
You (seem to) think these pages will say:
"here are the presentation rules! obey them!"
I want them to say:
"*if* you wish to be consistent in presentation (and naming, etc), here are the
agreed guidelines *and* the place to debate them"
regards
- tarquin