Template talk:sightingslist
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[edit] Splitting Larger Pages
I think it's time the larger Sightings pages got split up as they're getting rather large. Websites in particular encompass a large number of sightings. Guybrush20X6 22:37, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
- Moved from main page talk, where I posted simultaneous to this post being raised:
- A recent series of edits was made to a couple of rather long sightings pages without (as far as I can tell) discussion or consensus, with the purpose of breaking them up into smaller pages. These pages were broken up by seemingly arbitrary segments of the alphabet, rather than by anything that objectively makes sense. I reverted those changes, as such broad changes should not be made without consensus, so I'm raising the issue here. First of all, I personally don't see the problem with long pages. You can still navigate by table of contents, and despite this version of MediaWiki's dire warnings, browsers that have trouble editing long pages have not been in use for quite some time. Splitting the pages up doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Secondly, even if there is some argument for breaking up pages, perhaps a more refined way of breaking them up than "some random letters" should be discussed? Perhaps by filtering the entries into smaller sub-categories? So with that, I pose the two questions to everyone else:
- Is there really a need to break up long pages at all
- If so, is there a better way to break up long pages than by arbitrary segments of the alphabet?
- — Defender1031*Talk 22:42, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
- I was basing it off an old discussion from year ago that seemed to lean in the direction of splitting. The letter were mostly from me scrolling down the sub-heading list and finding the half-way point. Now that I've explained myself, I'd say splitting pages makes sense, at least from from the editing side of things. Makes it easier to look through pages for the place to make the change. There's probably a much better way to divide pages though. Guybrush20X6 22:48, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
- Hmm, I don't recall such a discussion, would you mind providing a link to it? As for making editing easier, I don't really see how. If you're adding an entry to an existing section, you can just edit that section. If you're adding a new section, you can either edit the section before it's supposed to go in and add the new section at the end, or else scroll through the edit page to the right place. The == headings stand out pretty well in the editor so as to make it relatively simple to do that. By contrast, having the pages split up gives two different pages that may need editing, and could lead to confusion, duplicated data (such as if a source could be listed under one of two possible names), and things of that nature. It also just becomes more messy to navigate and link to (if that's ever relevant), since you then need to remember (or look up) which page a certain reference is on. — Defender1031*Talk 22:58, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
- Here's the link to the discussion I was referencing [1] and I apologise for making such a large change without a fresh discussion. Guybrush20X6 23:07, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah, that conversation has nothing close to consensus, it's one person suggesting several options, many of which might be better than splitting by alphabetic segment, and another person saying "yeah, let's do alphabetic segment". However, as culling entries was one of the suggestions, I'd like to also suggest that you direct your attention to Talk:Sightings#Organization and criteria for inclusion which I just raised (without realizing that I had done so four sections up eight years ago) where I attempt to suggest a way to cut down on the amount of garbage on these pages. — Defender1031*Talk 23:23, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
- I'm neither for or against splitting alphabetically, but I'm leaning slightly toward no (for the reason DeFender said), unless there is a more organized way to do it— for example, if there are two main types of websites, we could seperate them by type. But once we delete all the not-well-known references, like DeFender suggested, there will probably be no need to seperate, since the page will be shorter.
Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 05:49, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
- I'm neither for or against splitting alphabetically, but I'm leaning slightly toward no (for the reason DeFender said), unless there is a more organized way to do it— for example, if there are two main types of websites, we could seperate them by type. But once we delete all the not-well-known references, like DeFender suggested, there will probably be no need to seperate, since the page will be shorter.
- Yeah, that conversation has nothing close to consensus, it's one person suggesting several options, many of which might be better than splitting by alphabetic segment, and another person saying "yeah, let's do alphabetic segment". However, as culling entries was one of the suggestions, I'd like to also suggest that you direct your attention to Talk:Sightings#Organization and criteria for inclusion which I just raised (without realizing that I had done so four sections up eight years ago) where I attempt to suggest a way to cut down on the amount of garbage on these pages. — Defender1031*Talk 23:23, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
- I was basing it off an old discussion from year ago that seemed to lean in the direction of splitting. The letter were mostly from me scrolling down the sub-heading list and finding the half-way point. Now that I've explained myself, I'd say splitting pages makes sense, at least from from the editing side of things. Makes it easier to look through pages for the place to make the change. There's probably a much better way to divide pages though. Guybrush20X6 22:48, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
