User talk:Brick Thrower

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Hello, Brick Thrower, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  --Quiddity·(talk) 20:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation

Just a quick addendum: On Disambiguation pages, we don't link anything except the subject word itself, in order to retain clarity. Thanks, and happy editing :) --Quiddity·(talk) 20:30, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Thanks for pointing that out to me politely. I will move any relevant changes into the article itself, not the brief one-line summary contained within the Disambig page. Brick Thrower 22:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetizing see also and external links

On the Java (programming language) you alphabetized the See also and External links sections and after I reverted the change explaining

"rv alphabetizing of external links and see also--the links were organized in order of relevance, which is more useful than alphabetical order",

you reverted my revert with the explaination

"revert alphabetization rollback; The wiki standard is that lists are alphabetized. Any particular other ordering or scale for "relevance" should be created under normal heading entries".

This was news to me as I thought the choice to alphabetize was on a case-by-case basis and at the discretion of the editors of the page. In looking through the relevant Wikipedia:Embedded list, Wikipedia:List guideline and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) I see absolutely no mention of alphabetizing lists. So I was hoping you could point me to where the preference to alphabetize and using headings to handle the order of relevance for the see also and external links is discussed. Thanks, and thanks for contributing, —Doug Bell talk•contrib 04:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that all article changes are on a case-by-case basis, and therefore I present mine here. (P.S. I stole the LEAVE A MESSAGE code off of your page. Thanks!) I think the alphabetification rule applies here because:
  1. I am acting to improve the article as recommended under the talk page. The lack of common proper presentation of lists is one of the reasons that this article was referenced to review the Good Article Rules.
  2. Your declaration that there is already established an "order of relevance" about the list, without declaring what that relevance is, shows me that this particular section of the article definitely needs alphabetization. We are WP:NPOV, yes?
  3. WP:NPOV does not explicitly state that lists must be ordered alphabetically, yet to maintain the encyclopedic style that is the hallmark of WikiPedia, an alphabetical sort further reinforces this Neutral point of view.
  4. I am a Java programmer, and I understand a lot on this page. However, the definite lack of order on this list makes it not only atrocious to read but unappealing and unworthy of a nominated Feature Article, even to an experienced Java programmer like me. If the list is indeed "organized in order of relevance", then please edit the page to explain what this formula is (something like, "how this list is sorted and how you can add new entries") and how I can compute the article I am looking for from it. With an alphabetized list, I can scan immediately to the location I am interested in. A good test for whatever rule you post is what happened to me: I see that the Eclipse (software) article is good and definitely should be linked to from the Java (programming language) page, but I don't know where to put it. I begin to scan the list, but don't immediately see Eclipse anywhere (The list is ordered in some sort of order, I am sure, but what I don't know). Perhaps others have been randomly adding their entries. It sure does look disordered, I have no idea why they have this list ordered so. While I am in the list adding Eclipse, I maight as well clean it up and place it into alphabetical order so that future editors don't run into this same problem that I did.
  5. "...something of a link farm at the end." by User:Marskell under the commentary on why this article was removed from being under review as a Feature Article.
  6. The list in question is not an especially long list, however it does scroll off the page, thus losing focus on what the list is all about when you are near the bottom.
  7. A newcomer to this article does not know that the list is sorted in any particular order of relevance. An alphabetical listing helps the newcomer.
A good reason posted at the header section on the list would explain it all to me and I will happily rollback my alphabetization. Right now I don't see any reasoning behind the order, and will promote alfabeticazation. Thanks for posting!
// Brick Thrower 08:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Just a short reply (and thanks for your long reply to me). First, I've removed Eclipse (software) (and JCreator) from the See also list as they are already listed under the Java (programming language)#Java Integrated Development Environments (sorry if this was confusing and hard to know where to put it). Second, as with any decision concerning presentation of the information in the article, there is an element of subjectivity in determining the order of relevanve. This subjectivity is part of the editorial process, and not necessarily indicative of a POV. For what it's worth, the relevance formula goes something like this:
These two items relate specifically to the definition of the Java programming language. They are child articles, and thus have the highest relevance.
This is the execution environment for the language. The execution environment is part of the specification of how the Java programming language behaves. (Some issues such as thread scheduling and garbage collection that are integral to the language are defined as part of the virtual machine specification rather than in the language specification.)
The Java programming language is part of a larger body of work that is referred to a the Java platform. This includes the core APIs, some of which are part of the language definition (and directly referred to in the language specification).
The classpath is central to getting Java programs to compile and execute, and thus goes above items that are simply related to the Java programming language.
These are all topics related to the Java programming language, but not central to it's definition. They are therefore the least relevant. The order of the items within this group is subjective, and I have no issue with organizing these items alphabetically.
I'd be interested in your opinion on the rationale behind the previous order.
Oh, and I had already looked at your history to see if you had borrowed the LEAVE A MESSAGE code from my page. Template:Emot —Doug Bell talk•contrib 09:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, okay, I agree that it's some form of organization, but it looks a little complicated to me. The presentation of the categories seem like you are trying to tutor the reader, the way an instructor teaches a class, instead of providing information to Him, and He can follow the links of his interest, like an encyclopedia would provide. I think that alphabetification is a simpler solution than having to read categorization instructions for a list, just to understand the list elements themselves. Your reference example is alphabetized; why change strategies in mid-article? Why not add sub-categories to the SEE ALSO section, just like you did here? All you have to do is name the subcats and give a one-liner blurb for each. I can work with that! I stand by my assertion: If you work these subcats into the header section then we don't need my alphabetized version. // Brick Thrower 11:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand (a) why this is complicated, (b) why this would be other than providing information, or (c) why alphabetizing makes everything alright. The assumption is that the user does not have a particular item in mind while reading the See also list, but is instead reading it to discover topics that might be of further interest. The point of organizing the items by relevance is so that as they read the list, they discover the most relevant items first. The other list you refer to is titled for a narrow subject (IDEs), and (a) there is no order of relevance, and (b) the user might be looking for something in particular. If you agree that there was some rational reasoning behind the organization, why isn't it better than organizing in a manner that imparts no information whatsoever? I just guess I'm confused by why not having the list alphabetized is so vexing to you.
P.S. Would you mind reverting the change you made to Doug Bell? The link to my user page is already on the talk page where it belongs—it definitely doesn't belong as part of the encyclopedic article, which has nothing to do with my contributions on Wikipedia. I would revert it myself, but I try to refrain from editing the page about me because that's considered bad form around here. Thanks, —Doug Bell talk•contrib 12:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I posted my reasons for alphabetization just a few paragraphs up (qq.v.). Please address them individually by the number I assigned. I have a good case for alphabetizing as I found direct references from past reviewers who say this part of the article is a link-farm and needs work. You yourself have provided me an additional reason: You say that The assumption is that..., which is definitely a POV stance that is NOT neutral. I came to this list and did NOT have this assumption, therefore that argument is flawed. For myself, I don't understand your insistence and enforcement of some complex artificial ordering which is not even declared to the Reader! Alphabetization is a natural ordering; It is quite common to use dictionaries, encyclopedias, address books, etc. in an orderly alphabetic fashion. Nobody has to think when looking at an alphabetized list; I couldn't figure out your categorized-but-not-declared list, and believe that it does not promote a NPOV. Are you saying that an alphabetized list does not support WikiPedia's Neutral Point Of View? // Brick Thrower 18:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
You say that The assumption is that..., which is definitely a POV stance that is NOT neutral.
OK, time out. I'm making an assumption about the reader in order to exercise editorial judgement in order to make the article as useful as possible. By arguing for alphabetization, you are doing exactly the same thing. The WP:NPOV policy is about the content of the article...I'm not promoting any point of view on the subject, and I'm not organizing the links to promote a point of view, I'm simply trying to organize the article in the manner that I believe would be most useful to the reader. We may differ on what is most efficient to the reader, but your continued reference to Wikipedia's NPOV policy in regard to this is off base—unless you are making the claim that the order of the See also links is intended to promote a POV (in which case it would help if you identified what that POV is), then there is no POV issue here. Can we get off that subject and just discuss this without finger pointing? I'm not saying you have any motivation other than what you've stated (trying to improve the article), so can you please assume the same good faith with me?
Also, if I was insisting on my approach I'd be back at the article changing it to what I insist on. I'm not, because I'm trying to have a dialog with you about it. I'm not insisting on anything. You may even convince me that your solution is better, but so far you haven't and aren't likely to if you continue with the unnecessary dramatics.
I'll address your previous points:
  1. We're both just trying to improve the article. Wikipedia:What is a good article? doesn't say anything about lists being alphabetized. In fact, despite your numerous links to Wikipedia policy pages, not a single one of them has talked about alphabetizing—not even a passing mention.
  2. I think I've addressed this pretty completely.
  3. Maybe it would help if instead of continually linking to WP:NPOV you tell me what part of the policy you think I'm violating.
  4. As I pointed out, the item you were searching for was referenced under an appropriately named section heading. I can appreciate your issue with trying to decide where in the list to place a new item. I certainly agree with adding some of the rationale I gave above for the ordering by precedence as editor comments; maybe even separate the see also list into Java language and Related topics sections to help the reader more quickly find what they are looking for. Does this work for you?
  5. The "link farm" comment is directed at the external links section, not the See also section. The external links are already organized into subsections and there is no clear way to alphabetize them, so I haven't been discussing them.
  6. Breaking into Java language and Related topics sections in the See also should address this concern, such as it is.
  7. I just simply disagree with your opinion on this one.
One policy page I'd like to point you at that I think supports my reasoning behind using an order of relevance is Wikipedia:Embedded list#"Related topics" (navigational lists) which says:
When deciding what articles and lists of articles to append to any given entry, it is useful to try to put yourself inside the mind of readers: Ask yourself where would a reader likely want to go after reading the article.
—Doug Bell talk•contrib 18:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
OK, if you don't have anything else to say on the subject I'm going to go ahead and refactor the See also and maybe the External links sections. The See also won't be alphabetic, but I will try to address the points you made to make it better than it was before you alphabetized it. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 18:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of section on Russian dolmens

May be I am doing something wrong here as I could not work out how to provide the reply on:(cur) (last) 19:50, 6 January 2007 Brick Thrower (Talk | contribs) (// revert unexplained massive deletion of Russian dolmens. Please provide explanation)

This too long section was deleted and separate entry on Russian Dolmens was created because relooking few days later at expanded article it was noted that the general flow of text was not as good as it was before and because specific section on Eurasia being much longer and with separate subheadings if compared against other paragraphs on Europe and Asia, for example.

If you think that there is no case for separate entry, please let me know. Irena Veldre —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.188.21.101 (talk) 14:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC).

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