Help talk:Resources by type

Available project boxes

How might we make this section into a sortable table? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 02:41, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

table

The table on this page may create a horizontal scroll for some users. Emesee 17:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Sub-categories?

So… these project boxes force pages to be in generic categories! What this means is that any page with a History userbox immediately gets thrown into the History supercategory. With hundreds of history pages, this could quickly make the History category completely unmanageable! Can you please make it so the Category: inclusion here is a subst: inclusion, instead, so that conscientious categorizers can leave the templates up but move them to relevant subcategories? Please? The Jade Knight 10:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Better yet would be to create a subst: category that puts them in Category:Unsorted Pages in History or something like that, so the rest of us know and can then go and sort them. The Jade Knight 11:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Give me a moment - I'm thinking! :) --McCormack 11:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes - I thought about this one. There are a number of ways to deal with this. It depends on the complexity with which an editor is editing, and your editing requirements are higher than the average ;-) It should be possible, if I have done these templates right, and have them on the latest version, to override the category with something more specific. --McCormack 11:02, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

OK - I've checked the history template, and no, I haven't updated that one yet to the latest project box version. So you can't yet override the category. I can update on request. --McCormack 11:04, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Explanation

The bigger picture

The main thing about using templates for categorisation is that they can be retrospectively updated and the updates then spread to all the pages where the templates are used. Suppose that on day 1, WV has 2 history pages. We categorise them as "history". On day 1000, WV has 2000 history pages (let's hope), and then we find it is no longer good to categorise them just as history. So we change the category to Category:Unsorted Pages in History (or something like that), insert a parser function into the template which divides them automatically depending on various criteria such as date, size, title keywords, etc, which then helps us to create a better category system for them. The problem with categories is that as the whole system evolves, the categories must get more complex, and try as you might, you can never predict the most sensible category system. Using templates rather than analogue manual text for categories allows us to get a step deeper into efficient category management because of the possibility of retrospective updating. Am I making sense? --McCormack 11:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Other approaches

Suppose an expert historian comes to WV and wishes to create a better history category system. The historian is free to clone many derivatives of the history template - e.g. for history by country, continent, century, topic, etc. The historian can then apply these templates to pages instead. Put it in other words, my initial attempt at subject-related project boxes was not intended to be exhaustive - quite the contrary, just a start. --McCormack 11:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Using subst:

Using subst: would defeat the main point, which is to enable retrospective changes to the category system to be applied site-wide. But discuss... --McCormack 11:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

My dilemma

I think I understand what you're saying, but I don't see a solution to my problem. Let me be more specific: I'm going around totally restructuring the History category system right now to a) make it more user-friendly, and b) make it more powerful (functional). We currently have literally hundreds of History categories right now (I think), and I'm going around and trying to put pages where they go in these categories. Sometimes pages go in only one, sometimes they go in several categories. When I see a page with a Project Box: History on it, I see only one category. I want to change this category, but I do not know how without removing the project box, which someone may not like. What should I do? The Jade Knight 11:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Here are some options about what to do. (1) Replace the box with a "bare category" (i.e. manual, not template) - which is not a preferred solution. (2) Create 100 history templates each with a different built-in category - possibly not an ideal solution - little too much work and organisation there! (3) Update history template with a "cat" parameter for overriding the built-in category. --McCormack 04:11, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I'd really prefer making the cat element a subst: within the template itself (though the template itself wouldn't be subst:ed in, is it possible to have a normal template with a piece which is subst:? Or is that impossible with the software?) Next to that, my preference would be option 3; least work for greatest utility… though I'm not opposed to option 1, it would kind of kick History out of the resource template club, and some editors might not like that. The Jade Knight 05:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

One more issue: If the project box vanishes, so does the category. So if someone doesn't end up liking the box, then the page has to be recategorized all over again (assuming they even notice the category is gone). The Jade Knight 11:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct. Two points: (1) People tend not to remove these boxes unless they know what they're doing, so the problem may not be that large. (2) If worried, surround the template with <!-- Don't remove this code! --> messages in the source. --McCormack 04:11, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

An infrequent minor headache is still a minor headache, even if it's an infrequent minor one. The Jade Knight 05:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Further Ideas

• {{reflection}} - pause for reflection ....(The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ktucker (talk • contribs) )

Difference between an article and a paper?

Can someone clarify the difference between {{article}} and {{paper}} for me? I'm assuming the latter is more formal and traditionally academic? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 08:02, 7 July 2011 (UTC)