Talk:List of overviews

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Contents

[edit] Add template?

How about we add "Template:Wikipediacats-flat" here? Although those are a type of categories, they are not category pages and they do link to basic kind of information (such as time, etc.) [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9 (talk)]] 19:45, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻

Done. This page looks much more like Wikipedia:Browse by category now, and should be more easily maintainable because it uses templates. —AlanBarrett 16:55, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Thank you. +sj+

[edit] get rid of "abstraction" category, or rename

The name "abstraction" for a category (and its choice of categories) is awful. Can't we find better categories or invent a new one with a different name to put these in?? Revolver 09:08, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The "Movements" link seems inappropriate

[edit] deleted page?

Am I just confused, or had somebody deleted this page? It links right off the Main Page, so I didn't think it should be deleted. (Gosh, I hope I didn't do it myself, by accident.) Uncle Ed 19:04, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Culture should link to cuisine

Culture should include a link to the cuisine portal. How do I go about doing that? --Rakista 20:37, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Edit it here: Template:WikipediaTOC Use  – to space each link from the next. -- Sitearm | Talk 08:44, 2005 August 22 (UTC)

[edit] Double Systems Theory

Why are there two links to Systems Theory (on under mathmatics, and one under the main box)? I noticed that one goes to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_Theory, and the other to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory (a very minor difference). I'd edit it, but I'm not sure if it's that way for a reason.

I removed the extra systems theory at the bottom. It was added slightly out of place to the template above but I fixed it here. -- Sitearm | Talk 06:51, 2005 August 22 (UTC)

[edit] Rename to "Browse by article"

This browse page doesn't "overview" articles any more than the category or portal browse pages. I propose it be renamed to "Browse by article." — RDF talk 04:31, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it could be "browse by article" or even "browse by defining article" if you want to get technical, since almost all of these articles have a corresponding category. -- Fplay 13:19, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
On the other hand, "overview" or "main article" are the current terminology used in the UI. We should try to make this uniform by choosing one term and settling on it.

[edit] Shortcut name is unfortunate....

WP:BROWSE is the overviews and Wikipedia:Browse is the Categories. We need to make this less confusing. -- Fplay 23:13, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I went ahead and repointed WP:Browse to Wikipedia:Browse . There were no references to it on "What links here". -- Fplay 08:53, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Basic standards for overviews in this list

The things listed here should at least:

  • Be the overview for their category
  • Follow the style described in the Category FAQ (use {{catmore}}, have redirect if names are different by singular/plural). If cat has description, it should closely match that of the overview.
  • Have portal links, if they exist
  • Generally be a well-organized and balanced category (neither too few nor too many non-overview articles or sub-categories) and a well-written and accurate overview, because this browser increases the visibility of those pages. That includes an opening paragraph that describes the nature and scope of the catagory.
-- Fplay 08:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A different approach

I'm fairly new to this project, so I'm not going to make big changes without consulting you guys, but what do you think of something like this version of the overview page? I'm not sure how to fill up the righthand side of the bottom of the page yet, but I'm working on it. Also, I'd like the images to be on the right, but alignment is more important. If we could, we should use <div> tags to correctly align the images to the right of their categories. - ElAmericano | talk 22:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Publishing

I'd like to suggest adding publishing. Most other types of mass media are included. Maurreen 05:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. Rfrisbietalk 17:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section headers

The colored section headers help to break up the page visually. --The Transhumanist 03:01, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phantom TechSpot ad

The icon that displays when an image can't be shrunk down to the size specified in an image link has been replaced by a TechSpot ad. The artic map was triggering the display of the ad, but I increased the size slightly and the ad went away. But the ad still needs to be tracked down, and the original error image restored. --The Transhumanist 23:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rename to...

List your favorite rename candidates here.

  • "List of overview articles" because that's what should be here, short and sweet. Then the navbar links can be renamed to "Overviews," as a parallel construction. Rfrisbietalk 15:40, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
  • But most of the articles are not overview articles. This list has been completely transformed. The list itself is an overview article, while the articles listed are key topics of each major subject. Waitasec, just got a brainstorm. The articles aren't overviews, but the sections are! Just name the sections "Overview of Art and culture", "Overview of Geography", "Overview of history", etc. To fit, you'd just need to drop the "articles" from the end, which would make it List of overviews. --The Transhumanist 17:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
  • But, having just reminded myself by visiting a few of the links, if a topic's so-called "main article" (as in {{main}}) serves as an overview, this list does seem to be a list of (links to) articles that are overviews. Perhaps, therefore, List of overview articles is a more accurate / less ambiguous name...?
    Also, since this list lists items within the encyclopedia, should it reside in the "Wikipedia:" namespace...?  Regards, David Kernow (talk) 13:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Move to Wikipedia:List of overviews

Since my move was reverted I will make it clear why I believe that this ans all the other pages listed on the top of this one should be moved to Wikipedia space rather than Article space.

  1. This is more of a table of contents than an actual article. Usually, tables of contents aren't considered articles, and something like that should be put in to the Wikipedia space.
  2. This article does not meet anything in the Manual of Style at all. I know those are just guidelines, but ususally, lists in the main space actually have descriptions next to each of the items. This doesn't, so putting it in the article namespace, along with the other lists that this links to, Only exaggerates our article count.

THose were the main two reasons and I am willing to talk to others in order to Iron out the situation so that we can reach an agreement. The Placebo Effect 13:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


Here are some reasons you might not have considered:

  1. Most lists do not have annotations (descriptions next to each item). Nor are they required to.
  2. List of overviews is a structured list, as per WP:L.
  3. The List of overviews lists topics which are overviews of the subjects they are named for. The topic philosophy is the "top" or "root" topic in the subject of philosophy, thus being a gateway to the entire subject. This isn't any more abstract nor arbitrary than a great many other lists, such as List of films that most frequently use the word "fuck". Other examples of lists of arbitrary or abstract things include List of unusual deaths, List of faux pas, List of paradoxes, and Prizes named after people. Thus, listing topics which are overviews of their respective subjects is totally acceptable under Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.
  4. Wikipedia has quirks you might not be taking into account. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is mirrored all over the Web. For example, in Answers.com. Pages in the Wikipedia namespace don't show up on it. Among other uses, mirrors serve as alternates when Wikipedia is down (or for when you mistakenly get blocked). But Wikipedia mirrors aren't as useful without the tables of contents!
  5. Migration just adds another maintenance chore to our already huge maintenance burden. We're not keeping up as it is.
  6. More than merely lists of articles, the lists in question are expanded lists of topics. What's an "expanded list"? Well, when an artcle, including a list, grows too large, part of it is split off and a link is provided to the new page. For this reason, many articles have links to a History of page, for example. The same principle applies to lists, with links to various "List of" pages, thus becoming lists of lists. Some lists retain their "list" name even when they are broken up into parts, others get the new name, with over 130 "Lists of" lists on Wikipedia so far. For example, under this system, List of animal species would become Lists of animal species. The set of lists is the same list, just split up into multiple pages. To remove part of the list to the Wikipedia namespace and not the whole list would be counter-intuitive.
  7. Pages in the Wikipedia namespace are not included in the Wikipedia article index. If a user wanted to get a list of all the lists on Wikipedia, they'd go to All pages and start from List of. If the Lists of were removed to the Wikipedia namespace, such users might not think of looking there, assuming that all the lists would be kept in the same place.
  8. Almost all lists on Wikipedia are defacto tables of contents. As Wikipedia's coverage expands, redlinks are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, so lists become lists of articles rather than merely lists of topics. Technically, that makes most stand-alone lists in violation of the "no self-references" rule, which is why we have the stand-alone list exception. Many stand-alone lists started out as embedded lists in articles, which were split off from articles when they grew large enough. It wouldn't make any sense to migrate them or their expansions to non-article space.
  9. Links to the Wikipedia namespace are generally not allowed in the main namespace. So when List of animal species becomes Wikipedia:Lists of animal species, editors would no longer be able to provide links to it, such as in the See also sections of articles. Instead, they would be forced to include the entire list of lists in each article. List of mammal species, List of reptile species, List of insect species, etc. This defeats the purpose of having lists of lists in the first place! Similarly, at the end of the article Mathematics, we wouldn't be able to include a link to Lists of mathematics topics, even though that page is entirely relevant, because a link to Wikipedia:Lists of mathematics topics would not be allowed. Instead, a link to each individual list would need to be included. That would make the See also section HUGE.
  10. Even if Wikipedia namespace links were allowed in the main namespace, those links would be dead in Wikipedia mirrors that don't include Wikipedia namespace pages.

Therefore, forcing lists of lists to the Wikipedia namespace cripples the list system. The Transhumanist   17:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

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