Talk:Politics (Aristotle)

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[edit] Diagram

Hello, I made a diagram to illustrate the classification of constitutions done by Aristotle and his philosophical school. I post it here for discussion in hope of improving it before including it in this article.

-- Mathieugp 20:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea. Some quick feedback. There are at least these typos: "tyran" for "tyrant," "Locres" for "Locris," "de Corinthe" for "of Corinth." I think the placement of "is a perversion of" is awkward—the problem is that a reader naturally reads downward and gets "Royalty is a perversion of tyranny." A formatting issue worth considering is that many people will find the lettering illegibly small, even if the table occupies the full width of the article space. Perhaps, then, it needs to be stacked higher vertically, if it is to retain all the information. But less could be more, since the highly condensed descriptions of constitutions may come across as fairly cryptic to the intended audience of people who have not read the Politics. Another issue is with presenting text in the form of a graphic image in the first place. The two obvious defects are (1) it can't easily be edited by your fellow Wikipedians; (2) legibility again (the user cannot use browser and style settings to make the text larger). Now, I do realize that the diagrammatic possibilities of a text-based table—at least one that I'd be capable of making, like the one I've just added to Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers—are significantly narrower than what you are trying. But I thought it worth laying out all of the potential issues you'd want to give careful thought to. Let me end by saying, it's good work on a good idea, and I look forward to seeing what comes of it. Wareh 22:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback!

1. I will of course fix the typos, which are all related to mistranslations from French to English.

2. I will change the direction of the arrow and replace "is a perversion of" with "when perverted becomes a".

3. I don't believe I understand what you mean by "Perhaps, then, it needs to be stacked higher vertically, if it is to retain all the information." I do acknowledge that the text is illegible until the user has clicked 1) on the thumbnail and 2) on the image to have it displayed full screen. It is possible that on displays set at a lower resolution than the image itself (1198 x 1172 pixels), the user will have to scroll, which sucks.

4. I agree that text in a png image is not optimal at all. Since the diagram actually contains three parts, one block for the constitutions that were examined, one for the full 2-dimensional classification and one trying to illustrate the relation between the true forms and their perversions, maybe it is possible to make three separate tables using wiki syntax. Can you do this? These tables would have all the advantages you have described and could very well exist alongside a more "colorfull" png image. The png diagram really looks best when printed and put on a wall and is not convenient at all when displayed on screen set to a low resolution. -- Mathieugp 00:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"Stacked higher vertically" was an admittedly unclear way of saying the following. The design as it is now requires eight columns at its widest part. I believe that you could redesign that section so that only two columns need to be used. In other words, instead of 8x1, 2x4. Present each pair of columns on its own, and use some other graphic means to indicate the larger groupings. The advantage of this would be that the text might actually be legible in the article. Which is important, because a table that can't be read in the article is likely to be used and appreciated a lot less.

I barely managed that one table, copying it directly from French Wikipedia. So I can't really give good advice about table design, though you can look at that one & others for the basic format. Wareh 02:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I have updated the image. The mistranslations are fixed. I also removed the (1) (2) (3) order for the true forms of government as upon my re-reading of the text I cannot find any explicit mention of this. I must have wrongly deduced it from possibly the order of the perverted constitutions. In any case, I also added definitions for the first of each true forms as well as the three combinations of constitutional governments given (as examples?) in the text.

I have started the table work here. It's poorly done but the basics are there. -- Mathieugp 15:24, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Good on the fixes. I would say, try to address the legibility issues by rearranging the image a bit, rather than working in parallel on text tables (which you've only just begun and which, as you say, is tricky to do well). I'm really not sure there's room in this article for several tables plus a chart image! I appreciate that you're trying to address my legibility and alterability concerns, but it seems you are just so much closer to having a quality addition to the article in image form than in table form. In short, I'd hate to see you waste a lot of your effort pursuing a different path (which may not work out as well) just because of my comments. Wareh 16:39, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I will make a second diagram so we can compare the two side-by-side. I am not worried about running out of space in the article. We could have the table in the body of the article and a thumbnail of the best image of the two. I think we can have both. -- Mathieugp 02:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Here is the second diagram:

--Mathieugp 03:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I like it, I think it is plenty ready for inclusion in the article, and I think it will (by comparison) make it plain how much improvement the text of the article could stand! Wareh 16:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the second one is better too. Where should we put it in the article? Under a "Aristotle's classification" heading maybe? (Along with some accompanying text). -- Mathieugp 00:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)