User talk:Gareth Aus/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Hi Gareth Aus,

Thank you for your very valuable contributions to Wikipedia, and a very warm welcome to the community! We're always grateful to have new people joining in and contributing with improvements to the encyclopedia. Here are a few suggestions to work your way around:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Do remember to sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~), which will automatically produce your name and the datestamp. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or feel free to contact me.

Again, welcome! It's great to have you. Happy editing! -Aabha (talk) 05:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

Help portal

I noticed that you've been working on the Help portal. I think it's a good idea to redesign it and make it more user-friendly. Though, I also notice Go for it! has been editing the current Help:Contents page, and working on Portal:Browse and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Usability/Main_Page/Draft. This is just to let you know what else is going on, and suggest the efforts could be coordinated some more. Thanks for your work on the page. —--Aude (talk | contribs) 00:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Trains

Hi, great work on the 3801 article, are you planning to write one on 3112. If you are there are some images with Wikipedia compatible licence available here if you don't have any of your own.--nixie 12:39, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to the Help Project

Thanks for joining the help project. I've been preoccupied with the Main Page Redesign Project lately, as we are rapidly approaching an election to replace the Main Page. But the hardest part is done there, so I have more time on my hands.

What are your views on the help system?

--Go for it! 05:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

What are your views on the help system?

Hi Go for it!.

I started working on the help portal because I couldn't find the help I needed & help contents clearly required a lot of improvement. In short, Wikipedia's help seems to be fairly comprehensive but hard to access (though this has improved with your redesign of help:contents). The main problem is there are just so many links; fitting these all on to one page makes that page long and complex. With the help portal, I created 2 medium length pages. This still requires a lot of "digging" particularly if the link is on the advanced page.

User:Kmf164 said on the help portal talk page: Maybe it would be more *usable* to just list the main help topics and subtopics, with links to more in-depth help pages. Take a look at how Amazon (my pick) does their help page. They have headings (w/links) for "Ordering", "Viewing & Changing Orders", "Shipping & Delivery", etc. Amazon makes it just so easy to find answers on their help pages (though dealing w/ their customer service staff isn't so helpful). Another good example is Ebay, and how they break up their help pages by topic/function (e.g. "New to eBay: Registration | How to buy | How to sell | more...").

I think this is a good idea, though I imagine it will require a similar bureaucratic process to the main page redesign, as many "navigation" pages will have to be created. It is basically a rewrite of the navigation system. Clearly some consensus should be reached before creating a lot of pages an it will need to be discussed further. I also think a "must see" page / section of a page with a small list of the really common / useful pages (but not pages for new users) would be useful for intermediate users (probably the most common type of Wikipedian) and those "graduating" from being new users. Maybe we need some page view statistics?

Another problem (this is common to all Wikipedia not just help) is finding related articles. If using the proposal above, the main help page is the top level page, navigation pages are mid-level pages & the help articles are bottom level pages, then a link to the next level up, at the top of every page might be a good idea. Wikipedia:Links already exists as a mid-level page. One link from the top level page goes to a collection of links on a common topic. So if we look at the first proper page link (not linking to a section), Wikipedia:URLs this should contain a link back to Wikipedia:Links which should then link back to the main help page. This would be much more helpful than the current link to the Category "Wikipedia help" and would be more comprehensive than a "see also" section (though these could be used as well where appropriate).

Finally we come to the issue of meta pages being used here. Some of the meta pages are poor and require work. If Wikipedia wants a good help system, then the meta pages must be improved as well. I have started to rewrite / clean up / add to some meta pages ( check my Contributions on meta to see what I've done) but there are many more that need improvement. This in my opinion should be a top priority, because a help system with good navigation but poor articles is a poor help system.

The way these pages are displayed also need improvement. Using Help:Minor edit as an example, this page includes both meta and Wikipedia specific content. The Wikipedia specific content come from Wikipedia:Minor edit by way of a template. Unfortunately Wikipedia:Minor edit contains no mention that this is intended to be part of a bigger article and that article should be viewed instead. This is a serious source of confusion for new users. Indeed click the "?" next to "This is a minor edit" when editing a page. It links to Wikipedia:Minor edit when it should point to Help:Minor edit - implying this is more widespread problem. Visiting Help:Minor edit also shows that the Wikipedia specific content from Wikipedia:Minor edit repeats much of what has been said higher up the page. If Wikipedia specific content is necessary then it should be just that: Wikipedia specific, and not clash with the page from meta.

I hope this isn't too long and provides some constructive help. Let me know what you think.
P.S. I like Image:Main Page Usability.png. Maybe it could be used as the basis for some kind of graphic navigation system? Gareth Aus 23:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to answer each of your points in order.

Concerning the length and complexity of the help page, perhaps this will help:

Contents

Getting Started
Browsing Wikipedia
Account Settings and Maintenance
The Wikipedia community
More about Wikipedia
Policies, conventions and guidelines
Communication
 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Editing Wikipedia - The Basics
Contributing to Wikipedia
Advanced Editing
Tracking changes
Technical information

I've placed it on the help page - it seems to work pretty good. Let me know what you think.

Concerning Kmf's point, I wonder if the above solution provides the same structure he was referring to without the need for chopping it up into seperate pages?

The bureaucratic process is great for fine-tuning, but tends to bog down development. Let's just point out problems with the system to each other, and dive in and fix them. Others will follow and adjust what we've done. There's no need to get approval for creating a page, though blasting an already existing fine-tuned page would likely get resistance.

Setting up a help tree (tiered structure of pages with backlinks) would be relatively simple to implement using subpages (which have backlinks automatically provided). Wikibooks are created using this system (take a look). On Wikipedia, subpages are discouraged in the main namespace, since encyclopedic content does not lend itself to easy hierarchical classification. However, subpages are quite alright to use in the Wikipedia namespace. And "help" does break down hierarchically quite well. Such a system could be built without disrupting the current system. There is a caveat, however:

  • Subpages should be developed under the page they intend to be used under, even if that page isn't ready yet. This is because, if you develop a tree under a temporary name, each page will have to be renamed one-by-one to be a subpage of the intended page. And this would be very tedious if there were more than a couple subpages.

I agree on meta-pages. Since they are part of Wikipedia's help system, we need to treat them just like any other Wikipedia page. But, this kind of puts a crimp on using back links, so perhaps the metapages could be replaced entirely with pages in the Wikipedia namespace.

The metapage system is cludgy, and we'll have to decide whether to work around the problems caused by them being external links, or replace those pages entirely. But if we do keep them, then I agree that the merging of meta and Wikipedia information should be seamless (and not repetitious).

Okay,

Let's get started.

--Go for it! 04:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Sydney Meetup

Hi there!

Just to let you know, there will be a meetup of Sydney Wikipedians on 5 February 2006. If you can make it, that'll be great because there'll be quite a few interesting developments to discuss, as well as just getting to know each other.

Please add yourself to the list at Wikipedia:Meetup/Sydney if you are able to come, as well as provide suggestions as to the time and location of the event.

Thanks, and I hope to see you there.

Cheers, enochlau (talk) 13:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Help subpage transclusion glitch

Hi, it's been awhile. How are you doing? I noticed you did some work on the help page subpages. It has caused a little glitch I thought you might want to take a look at...

All the subpages of the Help page are transcluded into the Help:Contents/Site map, for those who would like to view it all on one page. The TOC tags you placed in Help:Contents/Communication and Help:Contents/Editing Wikipedia - the basics are therefore being passed through, but they are being interpreted on the site map as TOCs of the entire Site Map, affecting those sections and the whole page (imagine what the site map looked like when TOC tags were used on all of the subpages). --Go for it! 16:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia specific help

Hi. I noticed that you add {{Wikipedia-specific help}} in places, referring to the meta version of these pages, like here. With due respect, as I am sure you mean well and that is a lot of work, I don't think such an addition makes for a better page usability, rather the other way around.

The introduction to that article is already cluttered enough with partially unrelated things, and it already has a link to meta:Help:Redirect, which has the same information as the link you provided. I would suggest instead of putting {{Wikipedia-specific help}} on top, you actually integrate that link where it belongs, say replacing the existing meta:Help:Redirect, or otherwise in a "see also" section at the bottom.

Wonder what you think, you can reply here, thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

May I direct your attention to Template talk:Wikipedia-specific help. re. length of articles - I think consolidation of the articles themselves would make more of a difference than a (IMO useful) template; but some articles just have to be long. As for usability, I'm afraid I simply don't agree with you.
The help articles need improvement and I see the template as the first step in that endeavour, by helping to define the role of the pages on which it appears. Gareth Aus 02:09, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
But since you added that {{Wikipedia-specific help}}, which now looks nicer as earlier in the day, you need to delete the second paragraph at Wikipedia:Redirect, as we are getting repetition of the same message. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:27, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Done. But my point is that the template is a first step, more serious consolidation needs to be done next (and the template explains the situation, in order for that to happen). Gareth Aus 02:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Great. However, I disagree that your recent edits at Wikipedia:Edit summary made it a better page. You removed the picture, and the brief explanation of what an edit summary is about. Instead, you put another framebox on the top of the already existing one.
That may make things more efficient, but now, when somebody comes to that page, that person will first need to read both frameboxes (and they are ugly), then go visit Help:Edit summary, read that page to familiarize himself/herself with the concept, then come back to read the guidline. I believe that is efficiency gone wrong, and the original page was much more helpful. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:43, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand, you seem to be having a different experience to me! Help:Edit summary displays *both* pages (Help:Edit summary & Wikipedia:Edit summary) on the one page (Help:Edit summary). Please read Help:Edit summary to see what I mean. If this is different for you, please explain the differences (screenshot perhaps). The {{Wikipedia-specific help}} template simply directs people to Help:Edit summary (but does not appear on that page). This means that users read the template, click the link to Help:Edit summary, read that page, and get *all* the information. They do *not* have to come back to Wikipedia:Edit summary. If you would prefer the contents of Wikipedia:Edit summary to be on Template:Ph:Edit summary (which links the two articles together), either copy the text yourself and make Wikipedia:Edit summary a redirect or ask me to do it! If the contents of Wikipedia:Edit summary does not display on the bottom of Help:Edit summary, please explain, because it certainly does for me!
Here are some screenshots:


Image:Help-edit summary top.png

This shows the edit summary box (more on that later).

Image:Help-edit summary, 2 pages join.png

This shows the join between the 2 pages.

You mention "you need to delete the second paragraph at Wikipedia:Redirect, as we are getting repetition of the same message.", but you also say "However, I disagree that your recent edits at Wikipedia:Edit summary made it a better page. You removed the picture, and the brief explanation of what an edit summary is about.". Well, the picture and the explanation were already on Help:Edit summary and then appeared someway down the page *again* (in the Wikipedia specific section). So is unnecessary duplication okay on Help:Edit summary, but not on Wikipedia:Edit summary?
You continue with "That may make things more efficient, but now, when somebody comes to that page, that person will first need to read both frameboxes (and they are ugly), then go visit Help:Edit summary, read that page to familiarize himself/herself with the concept, then come back to read the guidline. I believe that is efficiency gone wrong, and the original page was much more helpful.". As already explained, the "process" you mention is wrong, and as for efficiency, you have misunderstood what I am doing - the aim being to effectivly combine two pages into one (the way the help system was designed) thereby increasing efficiency *and* usability. I strongly disagree that this is "efficiency gone wrong".
As stated above, if Help:Edit summary is different for you, please explain. I don't know how else to explain myself. Gareth Aus 10:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the work you did with those screenshots, I see now that indeed Help:Edit summary contains Wikipedia:Edit summary at the bottom.

But that does not make any sense. Wikipedia:Edit summary is about the guideline, it is meant to be a very short description of why a person should use an edit summary. It does not make any sense to have it transcluded under Help:Edit summary. People are forced to read huge pagefuls of stuff, first about the general mediawiki concept, then about the particular Wikipedia concept, all for the sake of learning what is an edit summary box and why one should fill it.

Do you know where it was decided to do such a thing? I would like to visit there and have some community discussion. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

"Do you know where it was decided to do such a thing?"
I don't know where or when it was decided (before my time), but given there are a whole range of source help pages on meta, I would assume it must have been fairly high up the bureaurocracy. I have, though, found the "policy" (see below).

This explanation appears at the very bottom of Help: namespace pages (even those which link to a blank template!):

"This page is a copy of the master help page at Meta, with project-specific templates inserted. To change it, either edit the master help page for all projects at m:Help:Reverting, or edit the project-specific text at Template:Phh:Reverting (the extra text at the top of this help page) and Template:Ph:Reverting (the extra text at the bottom, before the links to other help pages). You are welcome to copy the exact wikitext from the master page at Meta and paste it into this page at any time."

Here is the "policy" message that used to be at the bottom of Help:Contents. Wikipedia_talk:Help_Project#Help_namespace_versus_help_pages_in_Wikipedia_namespace. Indeed, that page is probably the place for discussion on the subject. The system is not the best, and the project is deciding which way to go re help pages, so input is appreciated. My view is that we need a coherent help system and the current one should be improved until something better comes along. The Village Pump might be the place if you wish to raise you opinions at a higher level. Gareth Aus 05:57, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your patience, it is very appreciated.  :)

I decided that a better approach might be actually merging Wikipedia:Edit summary and Help:Edit summary, as they do actually share more than seen with the first eye. You can comment if you wish at Wikipedia talk:Edit summary. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Edit summary again

Hi Gareth. I would argue that the text you put at Help:Edit summary is too verbose and distracts from more important things, like actually using an edit summary. I would think one sentence about the text beyond the 200 characters being ignoreed is more than enough. Wonder what you think. Thanks, and you can reply here. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:06, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I was puting some text from WP:ES into the templates. Notice that the first paragraph doesn't flow into the second. I put a link to the header template on meta and copied the wikitext over. This resulted in the template being called twice. Another template on WP calls the header template - but this appears across all pages from meta and I didn't want to change it. (If you don't understand this, don't worry.) In short, I updated the page from meta and this caused the change. Looking at the page now, it seems a bit out of order so I'll have a fiddle on meta. Gareth Aus 05:32, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Finished on meta & copied here Gareth Aus 06:23, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Help pages are good, but helpful people are even better. :) Thanks a lot. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:59, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Help backlink

I noticed the backlink template you made for Help:Contents subpages, and used the Template:click to linkify the icon. I keep coming across your edits and enhancements to the help pages, and therefore I think it's about time I let you know exactly what I think of what you have done...

The Barnstar of Diligence
Is hereby awarded to Gareth Aus for going beyond the call of duty in developing and maintaining the help system of Wikipedia for the benefit of those who would otherwise not have a clue what to do or how to do it. Go for it! 20:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Gareth Aus 07:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Sydney

Wikipedia's coverage of Sydney is too sparce to warrant an individual portal. It is thus covered by Portal:Australia. Thanks, --cj | talk 08:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Renaming Wikipedia:Categorization

I'm wondering about this rename. It seems that calling it a guideline is a little like saying "the department of redundancy department". Also, I think you should have discussed this first on the talk page, as is customary before renaming popular pages. I'm putting it back. Start a discussion. -- Samuel Wantman 07:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Quick guide

Thanks for the quick guide table. Windows 95 can't see the editing buttons.--Chuck Marean 17:51, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Help:Edit summary

You must be careful with the removal of interwiki links before saving this page, when you copied the content from Meta. I've restored them again. Please refer to my talk page regarding this. -- ADNghiem501 23:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Template talk:H:f Help

Pointer FYI because it's a somewhat obscure page. -- Omniplex 01:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Writing guides navbox

I moved your writing guides navbox to the bottom of the articles in which it appears. Navboxes do not belong at the top of articles.--Srleffler 04:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Using "Writing guides" as example

Just fyi, i'm using template:Writing guides as a (good!) example in this thread: Wikipedia_talk:Simplified_Ruleset#Merge_suggestions.3F. (plus you might be interested in the thread). -Quiddity 02:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Template:H:h Help

Hi, I had to revert it, without align="right" anything is lost for browsers not supporting CSS. After that I reinserted the rest of your CSS replacing the old style, but for obvious reasons I've no idea if that still really does what you want. It should if I understood the "inheritence" rules of CSS, but better check it on an arbitrary help page. -- Omniplex 05:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I thought it might cause trouble, as I semi-reverted to the first edit. I don't know if <div align="right" style=...> (as opposed to float:right) would work. The problem is, a table creates whitespace to the right and on the bottom. Here is a screenshot of 2 affected boxes:

Image:H-h-help.png

The problem affects Firefox 1.5, IE6 and Opera 9 (and no doubt others) - Gareth Aus 06:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I'd opt for the right solution on your image. Because browsers not supporting CSS simply don't see it at all anything you do with CSS is fine from my POV. The stuff required for other browsers is essentially align=, cellpadding=, valign=, and width= where applicable (mostly align + width), anything else is at best prettier, not essential. So if you find a solution working for you (without touching the legacy crap) it should work with "any" browser - minus Lynx, that's probably a hopeless case wrt floating sidebars. -- Omniplex 03:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

"The Lottery"

Okay, controversy explained. Pepso 20:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)