User talk:Fabartus/TUP

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(Hope this works... email HTML cut into wiki, which doesn't allow a preview!) (Alas, I haven't the time to make it any prettier. I tried! email me direct at fabartus-AT-comcast.net and I'll zap a more legible version back to you ASAP.)

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On 15/07/06, Brianna Laugher <<A href="mailto:brianna.laugher-AT-gmail.com">brianna.laugher-AT-gmail.com</A>> wrote:
> -Commons attitudes favour minimal bureacracy. Therefore: don't
> over-develop methods beyond your situation requirements. As a general
> principle, don't create a category if there's nothing to put in

it.
> Don't create a template unless you can help it.

 

Sorry, just realised that was quite a stupid

thing to say. What I
should have said: don't create a template unless you're sure the
benefits of not having to repeatedly type its contents will outweigh
the costs of having to remember its name and sytnax + possible
confusion to other editors (again remembering our users

don't
necessarily speak English).

 

For those joining in the middle... 'here' means

on Wikimedia Commons 'there' means en.wikipedia, aka 'wikiP' aka 'wp'.

• I'm adding a few folks to a discussion we just began the last two days on world wide

time (Brianna's in Australia, I'm in Boston... that pretty much spans two hemispheres <g>)

• At issue is need for guidance and brainstorming on

scope of what was an unofficial project to re-categorize maps on the commons into a systematic well organized heirarchy of predictable names. This was under taken about 2-3 months back by Dave Kernow and User:Flamarande, and joined by myself one month ago now.

• I started cross-connecting wp categories to commons

categories, normalizing both, including pertinent images, articles updates, et al and tagging so the category was either listed on a 'Done' list of categories or 'Work still needed' list when cross-linked. Note one half of each is possible to be complete when the other sister project is not complete.
Flammerude has diminished his assistance (Health? Other real life needs?), Dave Kernow has asked me to write an official project (are there even interwiki projects?) and since my inter-wiki template 'names' drew attention, admins like Brianna on the commons have been looking in.

• Two weeks or so ago, Dave Kernow and I agreed

in principle that there is a need for some sort of project.

• The last two days

talks with Brianna have afirmed same conclusion.

• I'm CCing sundry category

savvy people to brainstorm... this will be cut and pasted into a few wiki-emails as well, so I'll try and put together a 'retrospective'.

• I don't see a lot of

distance, despite Brianna's concerns on creating 'new cats' on the commons.

 

I wouldn't call it 'Stupid'... Have to deal with real life today (I'm 'just' having my second Cup) so I'll see what I can do in 'your' tomarrow for the longer email. It appears we need to interwiki category strategies overall before progressing much further. That is a proto-WikiProject guidline User:Flamarande and Kernow and Company put off--perhaps because of such 'clashes' as this minor matter? 

 

My POV on categories is you have to have an overall heirarchial structure (Years, Centuries, History, Science, Maps, etc.) and the galleries should go into those as other categories do. (The skelaton is best developed on en.wp, but much of it is from META, so is totally compatible and NOT creating anything on the commons. (excepting the total overhaul of Maps category names, and the few odds and ends around the project tracking and template tracking the commons didn't have.

 

One word 'template names' requiring 'no arguments' are hardly complicated... however injudicious the original name choice. And when I'm talking about templates ported into the commons, I'm mainly talking about one's in wide use on en.wp that already include translation names.

 

So save for this double handful of 'This Unofficial Psuedo-Project' templates, the translations are already 'there on most other language projects, including various glyphs and idiographs based 'alphabets' (sic). If they're not, that project either hasn't caught up with the articles such are used on, or the language is using a work around already.

 

Examples:

[[bn:Template:মূল নিবন্ধ]]
[[eo:Ŝablono:Ĉefa]]
[[fr:Modèle:Détails]]
[[pl:Szablon:Main]]

My underlying point there is if the tools are the same, some of that talent that wanders in will tend to become more comfortable 'culturally' and do more in the commons and diminish the long term load on the commons regulars.
Ya'll really need to greet people immediately though... not after some threshold of activity says "OK, you've fumbled around enough and gotten discouraged, now we'll give you a welcome template with some information." YOUR current practice is cutting your talent search off at the knees. Even Dave Kernow didn't know how to find your admin list forsooth!
Synching and linking the commons and en-wp cats will have similar benefit--comfort level increases and productivity across sister-projects rises. IMHO, Things will get filed properly initially far more often. All the party needs do is follow the article categorization at en-wp as a guide when uploading. I also intuit that uploading by more experienced editors to en.wp will diminish and more will take the plunge to upload legal images to the commons, instead of the now bedamned system where one group of image focused editors is porting things to the commons that others should have uploaded there in the first place.
We need a talk page to discuss this intercategorization matter your group and the xx-wp group can all get together at the table to put together a quicky guideline of do's and don'ts of interconnection. The attractiveness to me is that the Maps category on the commons and various other categories on en-wp have been well structured, and those ought to be the models, not the confusing 'obsolescent' and somewhat confusing category names like 'Historical maps of _____' (Is it a map showing history or a really old map? That's where Flammerude and Kernow and others began two months back, if I have it straight.)
I'll take the blame for the interconnection scheme. The Commons map project hadn't progressed that far, but it makes much sense to me to do such concurrently to create the same Navigation links skelaton on both sisters, and make adjustments in each as images are relocated, old cats are obsoleted and emptied, and such detail work.
The templates, however they're named make cross-checking sub and parent categories 'one click easy' and will concurrently draw talent into the commons or at least knowledge of a parallel category structure. The major nodes or skelaton-frame, I do believe (can't cite where I read it, tho') have been pretty much developed at Meta for all the wikis... hence I don't believe we're looking at much new category creation overall. Just working off and inteconnecting what's already extant.
That's my experience so far as the (probably) sole emplacer of the interwiki templates.

(Usage of Commonscat4 deliniates the wp templates,  Template:W2c deliniates the commons templates... both are works in progress, and the later name set has been criticized politerly  by Dave Kernow and Brianna.  They're debugged and effective. See the embedded category and navigate to a few cats pages to see effects. (Suggest [ Category:Middle Ages ] and daughter cats

is a better way to get feel soonest.)

 

So where is best talk page to be located? 

Anyone have experience putting together a project page, and can you be a expert

resource to me for same? General thoughts?

 

Thanks all,

 

Frank