User:Grutness/archive10

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This file is an archive - please do not add new discussion here - add it to my Talk page

[edit] Category:British Hills by Height

The had been an on going conversation about creating an ordered list for British Hills, taller mountains, and a couple of use too the time to implements a Category that did 90% of the house keeping, and created a ordered lsit. Now you are kind of suggesting that this Ordered category be deleted.

Nominated for deletion: Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)_and_its_subcategories

I have been building this Category up with the help of a couple of others as these was no comprehensive list of mountains by height (yet). Could someone add feedback to Categories_for_deletion. maybe we can do the same thing automatically with a list, but I dont know how.

¢ NevilleDNZ 13:08, 1 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

Well, it's a very cumbersome way of doing it - a list would be much simpler and much simpler to keep organised. It would also make it possible to have red-links showing which hills haven't yet got articles. Having them as categories is a very strange way of organising things, they are listed backwards (lowest first) are likely to get out of order quickly - there are hills in Cat:British Hills by Height that are listed as being nearly the same height as Mt. Everest, for instance. I honestly don't know why you're making yourself twice as much work to create a system that is less efficient. As to automation, no there isn't a way, but surely it's far easier to add ten hills - in one go - to a list than to add a category to ten different articles on different hills! Grutness...wha?

I disagree strongly. What you say is correct if the list is created AFTER the pages have been added. But (as is the case of British Hills), when a topic is EVOLVING, then typically the list does not even exist. By imbedding the Sorted Category in a InfoBox Template an initial List simply evolves WITHOUT anyone actually having to create it.

Actually you've got that completely backwards. It's just as easy to make a list before any of the articles are created - many lists on wikipedia consist of a large number of redlinks. With categories, the articles have to be made before they can be put into the category. So you can either have a category which only contains those articles already created, and which can itself only be created once the articles are started, or a list which can contain lots of items which do not yet have articles, and which can be started before any articles ar. I could quite happily create "List of mountains on Pluto", even though no mountains are yet known on Pluto and no articles exist on them. If I were to create it as a category, it would remain empty.

MAYBE later with the Sorted Category has settled a list can be created. But even then and auitomatic Category, that requires little house keeping is a nice xref to see of the manual list is actually compete.

...and if the list was created before the articles, as it should be, no category would be needed. it would simply be doubling the information, and in a very messy way.

BTW: You are right, the order should be reversed. I could fix that, but that requires chanqing the PHP source code. If I did that I have a few other hacks I would like to see added too.

I will fix the NZ later. After all any new topic is defacto "proof of concept" and unlikely to be perfect 1st time.

¢ NevilleDNZ 13:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

It's definitely proof that the concept is unnecessary and unwieldy, and does not work as well as existing methods. You might like to have a look at List of New Zealand mountains by height. It contains five times as many mountains as you have in your category, and took me about 20 minutes to make. Lists are easy. Far easier than categories for this sort of job. Grutness...wha? 14:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the list. NZ needed one.

I think the issue is that you start with a list of knowns borrowed from somewhere else. Copy it into wikipedia and anoint it. This leaves entising red items to encourage further adding. This seems useful.

I start with a list of unknowns that grows itself automatically into a sorted catelog automatically. Once a Category has been added into an InfoBox Template, then the elevation sorted Category "grows itself" each time someon else uses that InfoBox.

I agree that a single digit index elevation does not look so good. This is a problem with Catagory index, and there are several proposed ways of fixing this, all better solutions require changes in the source code.

BTW: at least 4 of your elevations in the list disagree with the actual wiki page for the same mountain. This raises the issue of "normalising" the database. Ideally - where possible - there would be only one source for a height.

As an example of the power of Category in a Template, by adding 1 line in the mtnstart Infobox I can create a sorted elevation index page of every country on the earth, and indeed known in our universe. And without the need for a robot. I would like to see you do that in 20 minutes with a list. The only reason I have not done this is because this is a community I wanted to see how the idea develped, and what problem there are before imposing my ideas on everyone else. Hence the various discussion in the wiki mountain groups.

Seriously, if was can change the way a category is handled from just [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|3000m]] to [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|Name={{{PAGENAME}}}|elevation=150m|country=NZ|type=volcano|First Ascent=2005/07/31]] then this could easiliy be incorperated int wiki to generate a category that looks list a list/table: eg

Name	Elevation	Country	Type	First Ascent
Mount Victoria	150m	New Zealand	Volcano	2005/07/30
Mount Wellington	151m	New Zealand	Volcano	2005/07/31
Mount Albert	152m	New Zealand	Volcano	2005/07/32

AND better still would be to imbedd some java script so that this table can be sorted ANYWAY that a user desired by clicking on anyone of:

Name	Elevation	Country	Type	First Ascent

I am just a yellow belt in Wikipedia. Such a change in Wikipedia would need the help of a black belt such as your self to recommend it to the developers. Do U want to help me out?

BTW: This conversation started in on you talk page, no need to zigzag it from me to you. Append a "." to your sig on my talk_page and I will come here. Cheers.

¢ NevilleDNZ 15:34, 1 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

One or two of your points:

• BTW: at least 4 of your elevations in the list disagree with the actual wiki page for the same mountain. - that's odd, because - with the exception of the redlinks - I got them all from the Wikipedia pages on the mountaisn. The only ones that came from outside are the red-linked ones.

• My point is, according to murphies law, data that needs to be maintained will become inconsistent. The problem with mountain heights being inconsistent in the new list page is just one example. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢
  • But any inconsistencies are likely to be picked up quickly there by other editors, and can all be fixed in one edit. Any inconsistencies in a category organised in this way would be harder topick up and harder to correct, since it would need an individual edit for each error. A list is far easier and better for this task.

• Not true, now you will have the original errors AND the errors introduced in the list page. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢

So correct them. That's how Wikipedia works. if the errors were in a category list, it would be much harder to tell, because all you can see is the first digit of the height.

• Seriously, if was can change the way a category is handled from just [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|3000m]] to [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|Name={{{PAGENAME}}}|elevation=150m|country=NZ|type=volcano|First Ascent=2005/07/31]] then this could easiliy be incorperated int wiki to generate a category that looks list a list/table - yes, but doing that might render the category system unusable for normal categorisation alphabetically. Which is why lists are always used for things like heights, speeds, and distances.

• I cannot see the logic here. The change does not effect the original category formating rules. [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|3000m]], why do you say "might". Is there some other yet to be explained problem with Categorys? ¢NevilleDNZ¢
  • I say might because what you're suggesting is to change the way categories work. neither you nor I can say whether that could have detrimental effects on the way categories currently work.

• This is pure speculation, there are well over 100 pages link in already, and nothing has fallen apart. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢

Yes, but done manually, not by some automatic method.

• AND better still would be to imbedd some javascript so that this table can be sorted ANYWAY that a user desired by clicking on anyone of: - well, all that information is already in the linked mountain pages, so it's not really needed on the list. Having them in table form wouldn't necessarily be a good idea anyway, as it would take an age for the pages to load (which is why I didn't use {{prettytable}} for it in the first place. Pages like List of volcanoes by nation or whatever its called are horrible to load and could definitely do with having the tables removed from them. And clicking on tables to change the order of items in a list is simply not the way wikipedia works.

• There is a flaw in this kind of argument. eg. nobody has ever climbed Everest, hence you should not try.
  • Well, if that's the sort of argument I was making, it would be a flaw. It's more a case of "we regularly climb Mount Everest- perhaps we could try swimming it next time. With current wiki technology, changing tables are not used - there is no need for them, either.

• It is ironic that you say that the pages are not needed, and then manually recreate them as lists. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢

I never said the pages weren't needed. I said that using categories as lists wasn't needed when lists can do the job far better, and I also said there was no need to add loads of detail to the lists when all you need is the name of the peak and the height. And that's what I've put on the pages.

• Besides, javascript is builtin to all browsers (eg mozilla, firefox, opera) except the text browsers. And in the text browsers it would appear as a list, and download just as fast. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢
  • Have you actually tried loading table-heavy pages? Quite a number of them have been or are being changed over to less table-oriented pages, since they cause such a hassle for browsers.

• This wasn't part of your original argument which focused on grammar errors and abbreviation usage. I have no problems with tables.

My original argument still stands - that using categories in this way is wrong, since what you're trying to create is lists. The grammar points were a very minor consideration, and mentioned clearly as such at the time. Tables - which you brought up - are unnecessary.

• Such a change in Wikipedia would need the help of a black belt such as your self to recommend it to the developers. - not really. Just post a request at Wikipedia: Village Pump (proposals).

• ThanX considering it anyhow. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢

Grutness...wha? 00:54, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I would be grateful if you were to remove the "delete-me stub" from the Mountain Elevation Category pages, and invite you to join in at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mountains. There are some good ideas being put forward there on how to manage effectively the growing mountain of Mountian data. ¢ NevilleDNZ 03:12, 2 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

Well, firstly it's not a "delete me" stub - it simply indicates that there's debate going on about potential deletion. It stays there as long as the debate goes on - i.e., at least a week - by wikipedia policy. Secondly, if I removed it (against policy), it might indicate that i didn't want them deleted, but they very clearly should be deleted, since they don't work, are of no use to anyone, cannot be kept in a sensible order, and attempt to do work that categories are not designed to do. By the way, List of mountains on the Moon by height is now in done. Took about five minutes. Grutness...wha? 06:47, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

The term "delete me" stub accurately describes what you added to that and about a dozen other pages. At first I was even thinking that the pages had be vandalised.

I never added anything to any of the pages. I added a template to several categories, indicating that I thought their possible deletion should be debated. The debate has started, and as such it is wrong to remove the templates.

ThanX for the moon heights, that list has been missing for some time. Would it be unreasonable to say you managed to introduce another 4 errors? Trying to mirror the same data entered in several different pages is like asking for a $10 parking fine for violating Murphies Law, now "someone" needs to maintain cross references between about 20 pages for the moon.

Actually, all the data I entered was already on a wikipedia page, so perhaps you need to correct List of mountains on the Moon, since that's where I got the data from. Note how easy it was for you to spot errors - it wouldn't have been very easy at all if it was done by category.

Do you have any plans of doing the British Hills by Height also? The Himalayas and Andes need one also. It would seems to me that an Automatically sorted Category would save you a lot of time. :-)

• Well, no it wouldn't save me any time at all, since that category only lists the first digit, and gets it wrong quite often. It would be vey quick to check the height listed in each article and make the list. As it happens I have no real interest in hill or mountain articles, and only did those two lists because they were so incredibly easy and it seemed like you were making a pig's ear of the process of making them. In any case, the highest few are already listed by country and by height at Mountains of the United Kingdom. Since you're so all fired up about me doing it, though, and since it's not a lot of work, I've made a start on List of mountains and hills of the United Kingdom by height, adding in the first 350 or so. I'll leave the rest, and the other lists, for you to do as a small exercise, to show just how easy it is. Grutness...wha? 12:59, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Please remove the "delete me" stubs from those pages. It was unreasonable to add them in the first place when the pages were actively being edited, and you did even contact the contributors involved. To say it is against policy is silly as you were the one that added the "delete me subs" in the first place. Don't we need to take this to dispute resolution just now. ¢ NevilleDNZ 11:33, 2 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

• They are not "delete me" templates. they are templates indicating that debate is in process. To remove them while the debate is in progress would be a violation of Wikipedia policy. And considering that I feel they should definitely be deleted, I could not justify removing them. Once the debate is over, it will be clear whether the categories should stay or go. if they stay, the templates will then be removed. If you want to take this to disputes resolution, feel free. I have gone out of my way to help by creating three of the lists for you, and am following wikipedia policy. Grutness...wha? 11:56, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

re: "I have gone out of my way to help by creating three of the lists for you", LOL, Now I know you are not serious. You duplicated something done automatically by wiki and wasn't necesasary, you propogate and then manually multiply other contributors errors, and then tell me I should be grateful. Its Friday... Cheers ¢ NevilleDNZ 14:26, 2 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

Duplicated? Hardly. You had about a dozen New Zealand mountains seemingly randomly arranged in a category, with an individual number next to each one. I created the list which you were clearly trying to create, and put over 50 mountains on it. You also had a haphazardly arranged group of about 30 British peaks in a category, all with either a digit or a curly bracket next to it. it indicated that a fairly low hill in England was slightly higher than Mount Everest, and was several times higher than Ben Nevis. I created a lost with over 300 British peaks, arranged in order by height. There may have been errors, but they were clearly very easy for you to spot and correct, whereas with the categories it would have been very difficult to spot any except the gross errors (of which there are plenty), and much more awkwad to fix several errors at one time. And I never told you you should be grateful - I don't necessarily expect thanks for trying to clean up the mess you made. Grutness...wha? 14:55, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Although I got the feeling that I will burn my fingers, when interfereng in this conversation. I guess the problem is sitting a little deeper - see talk on Village pump.

You might consider that the problem is buried in the way properties may be cast to categories. For me both of your solutions look like a workaround to a common problem. Don't you think it would make sense to have properties for categories combined with a decent template system to perform database lookups and generate tables "on the fly". These tables could also serve as navigation bars and could keep the number of adatabase lookups low. Concerning the discussion if it makes more sense to generate a lemma for each entry on a list, or have "dead" lists spread over documents I would personally favor dynamic lists (with category lokup, sorting and range limitation), property editing with an explicit editor and dynamic navigation bars (all done by user overridable templates). This would resolve not only your dispute, but also many others and might help wikipedia become lean and easy to edit again. --BoP 09:57:28, 2005-09-03 (UTC)

Dynamic lists would probably be a good thing. Failing that, static lists are a passable, iof less than perfect, option. Trying to manhandle categories to do something they're not intended for, though, and ending up with unreadable "lists" by doing so is a far inferior solution. Grutness...wha?

I partly agree - I am stronger in favor of getting rid of the "nonsense" categories, however this is a wikipedia-political question. there has been much effort put into the "abuse" of categories and there is some positive energy behind this movement as is with yours. That's why I suggest to go one step further to get rid of the problems by finding a solution where neither is pushed aside. Additionally these discussions can be found in several places with this "workaround" as the closest to the properties problem. This seems to be the appropriate time to push this issue forward. --BoP 20:24:06, 2005-09-04 (UTC)

[edit] CFD

Hello. Do you think we should add Category:Oceanic trenches by depth (km) to WP:CFD? It is the same case like "Mountains by Elevation (km)". All categories were created by User:NevilleDNZ. - Darwinek 09:16, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Yep - if it's the same format as the others, it should almost certainly be there. A warning, though - NevilleDNZ gets quite vociferous (as you can spot further up this page). Grutness...wha? 09:20, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you will be interested to vote on the CFD for this category. Just go here. - Darwinek 14:01, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I have already voted keep, (he says while chewing through his arm)

Please, don't feel disobliged, if you feel that this award is appropriate and deserved then you can put this on your user page. ¢ NevilleDNZ 14:39, 6 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

Manually sorting and tabulating? Don't be silly. I used a computer. One copy and paste into a spreadsheet, one sort by command, one copy and paste into an article. It worked, and it cleared up an astonishingly large number of inaccuracies in the version you were using, as well as presenting the data in a way that could be easily read and compared. If anyone was wasting effort it wasn't me! Grutness...wha?