Talk:Saint (disambiguation)

TOC

In response to Abtract's recent edit summary — I agree that Table of Contents for disambiguation pages usually feel a bit out of place or awkward .. not sure why. What if one were to try something like this:

Places • Schools • Fiction • Music • Other • "The Saints": Sports teams • See also

I'm wondering if there isn't a template that will create a horizontal TOC like this....

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:36, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting idea, you ought to pursue it. Abtract (talk) 18:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Long-range proposal

• I agree: someone with the interest ought to pursue it.
  That may be me -- in order to provide a testbed. Bcz i presume there's no existing way of having the section names automatically generated, tho it can work like the {{compactTOC}}, and use the __NOTOC__ magic word IIRC to suppress the MediaWiki-gen'd ToC. As a new MW feature, the auto-generated version presumably could be piggybacked on existing support for either TOC-tags, or the <ref> and {{Reflist}} / <references/> ones.
  Part of the appeal i see for it is not that ToCs are out of place or awkward, but that articles are usually designed to read best sequentially, and the normal format has suffered from our building up the reaction "that's not for me, that's for someone who's in too much of a hurry."
  (Some users go so far as to suppress display of ToCs in their Prefs. I mention that bcz it speaks of the reaction. But it also means that if implemented in MW, the feature should default to horizontal if the page has any sort of Dab tag, and the Prefs should have two check boxes:

Suppress ToC on Articles
Suppress ToC on Dabs, Lists and other-than-Main namespaces

(both default to display))
Outside of articles, what "flow" exists is usually within sections rather than across their boundaries, and the horizontal format helps break up that presumption of irrelevance just by looking different. One of the two formats may be more suitable to one of the two groups, tho i don't trust my perceptions of which. Perhaps also, in a block of radio buttons, we should offer

Horizontal ToC for Articles only
Vertical ToC for Articles only
Horizontal ToC for all
Vertical ToC for all

Finally, i'd like not one horiz ToC, but one horiz ToC per section, so the end of each section offers means to skip the next one or two. (IMO, with Dabs, the user is more likely than in an article, to come in not knowing enough (from the context that gave them the title of the Dab) to be sure which section is the right one.) And in that case, each horiz ToC should suppress the lk to the section immediately below itself into bolded text. If i work on a template testbed implementation, i'll play with using non-section anchors, and generating a substitute for the heading within the ToC.
--Jerzy•t 06:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Currently practical version

The following signed contribution has been forged upon (at least once), and annotated by me to reflect the now struck-thru forged change (that some colleagues may have relied upon), and its now bolded original content.
--Jerzy•t 19:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• I've added a small-scale demonstration on this page, using Saint (disambiguation)/HorToc template:Saint (disambiguation)/HorToc (once for each horizontal ToC to be displayed) which in turn uses Template:HorTocSecn (once for each section to be addressed via the horizontal ToC. Not all promptly upcoming features are in effect, as i discuss at Template talk:HorTocSecn.
  This design (unlike what could be done with MediaWiki enhancements) requires a sub-page where editors specify the names and intended order of the sections. As i have coded the one for the accompanying Dab, the same markup for creating a horiz ToC on the Dab page also works on its accompanying talk page, which may still be convenient when changes to production horiz-ToCs are discussed, and permit me to demonstate here with only very transparent changes to the markup. (The Dem=Y parameters permit the conventional ToC of this page to be maintained, even tho the horiz-ToC is intended to suppress the conventional ToC in production use.) I've also created, with the usual markup, two dummy sections on this talk page, tho i intend for each templates to generate an anchor on its corresponding horizontal ToC line, in production.
  The drudgery still required is that in coding the sub-page, the first entry on the horiz ToC has to be coded with a corresponding flag parameter set, and each transclusion of the subpage (for one section) has to include coding of the section name in question. On the other hand, the coding of the Dab and of its subpage require no change when the Dab is renamed, tho the moving editor will break the horizontal ToCs if they fail to rename the subpage correspondingly.
  I'd be grateful for comments on the Demo before taking the horizontal ToC live on the accompanying Dab, as a pilot for potentially mentioning this scheme at WP:MoSDab and using it more widely.
  --Jerzy•t 07:25, 21 & 19:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
  

The preceding signed contribution has been forged upon (at least once), and annotated by me to reflect the now struck-thru forged change (that some colleagues may have relied upon), and its now bolded original content.
--Jerzy•t 19:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• I think the standard vertical TOC looks fine and the hor-TOC is hor-rible. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 13:29, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Jerzy, Well done and thanks. RHaworth, I see your point but I believe it is worth continuing the experiment for a while. Bearing in mind that both left (intrusive on content) and right (easy to miss and can look messy) toc have disadvantages, there is a big prize to be gained if a centre toc can be made to work. My specific comments are: I can't quite see when we would need to use the bolding facility (ie the "garbage" one looks best); the normal TOC needs to be replaced by this new one (atm they both appear); it works quite wll immediately after the line that says "Saint(s) may also refer to" (without the addition of the header "CONTENT") so dab pages may be an excellent place to trial it; on articles it would probably need the title "CONTENT" to avoid confusion. When it eliminates the normal toc Jerzy, I would be in favour of at least trialling it, thanks again for your work. Abtract (talk) 14:19, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• Many thanks, colleagues, for bringing me beyond the Gyro Gearloose stage, i.e. giving me some feedback to supplement my flights of fancy.
  Ab is right: whatever happens only one Dab can get horrified, and only temporarily.
  As to your specifics, i'll just say that
  1. the multiple ToCs on this talk page were primarily a single simulation of what i have in mind for a single page, and some of the variations among the headings are just demonstrations of how markup errors will manifest themselves. Hopefully applying it on the accompanying Dab page will be a clearer demonstration, and some of your misgivings may disappear, with the rest being clearer to me in light of what you'll say further.
  2. the failure of the "normal" ToC to disappear is a result of the "Dem=Y" parameter, and its purpose is just to facilitate this (and conceivably future, post-development, discussions), where it helps to be able to see the ToC's appearance, without having the ToC of the talk page disrupted by the inconvenience of having to the search thru the 8 or 23 talk page sections "by hand".
  3. A fundamental point in my mind is that on a "Saint" Dab page, some users didn't see "Saint" in context that makes it immediately clear what sense they are after: e.g. if a Web pg or magazine article or even sometimes a book (The f'g Baroque Cycle has a few hundred examples) quotes a passage from some other work, or makes a side reference, our user may want to hunt down whether "the Saint" refers to the patron saint of someone who's been mentioned or a tarot card or the saintly potential in each person or something else they've never imagined, which may turn out to be Simon Templar. Such a user deserves a copy of the ToC, IMO, at the top of each section, so that when the most likely-sounding section doesn't pan out, they can go as quickly as imaginable to the most likely-sounding of the remaining sections.
  4. I'm confused about what you mean when you say "CONTENT", and i hope you'll amplify on that in the context of the "live demo" i'm about to install on the accompanying Dab.

--Jerzy•t 17:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

First as to "CONTENT" apologies I meant "Contents" in other words I think that for an article it needs to be clear that the horizontal list they are looking at is in fact a table of contents. However for a dab page I think it could work quite well without the header "Contents" provided the horiz list appears immediately after the introline "Saint may also refer to:" (or whatever); it would then read almost like prose. Sadly I do not like the repetition of the horiz concept for each of the headers - personally I would leave everything as it is (with normal headers) and just change the toc itself ... make the toc horiz and put it where I said and I think you have a winner. I tried fiddling to achieve it but failed, I may have another go now. Abtract (talk) 18:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I had another go but sadly the old toc returned. However, that's how I see it (without the old toc of course) revert it whenever you like. Abtract (talk) 18:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• While i never lose touch with the fact that my conceptual designs are always the best, i'm also aware that it's more productive to work up the technical tricks that implement more popular ones, than do the voice in the wilderness gig.
  I'm going to ignore this suite of pages for at least long enuf to get a solid rest and a decent chunk of woods-and-crags time, then study what you're saying, and at least glance at your relevant edits, to be sure i grasp the details. Then let's see what i can do by way of implementing your approach. We've got rough agreement, let's see what some more running code will elicit.
  --Jerzy•t 04:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
  
• I lost my resolve, and took a peek at your ToC edits on the Dab page. In a line, the two transcluded pages have enuf bells and whistles to be confusing, but none intended to do what you wanted. I just stuffed in a tag right on the page to suppress the default ToC. For user friendliness it should be included, but for that matter several other things can be done entirely differently: i'm picturing using one transclusion instead of nested transclusion, which would mean the possible reasons for the subpage presumably go away. It won't be hard to code, and doing it will give a better sense of what level of burden on editors is implied.
  --Jerzy•t 04:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
  

Demonstration

* x
* x
* x
* x
{{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|Places|Dem=Y}}
: (The above is generated by this markup:  {{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|Places|Dem=Y}}

* x
* x
* x
* x
{{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|Schools}}
: (The above is generated by this markup:  {{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|Schools}}

* x
* x
* x
* x
* x
* x
{{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|See also}}
: (The above is generated by this markup:  {{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|See also}}
: Notice that if you change the order of the sections, you really should change the order of their respective HorTocSecn calls on the subpage that's used as a template.

{{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|Garbage}}
: (The above is generated by this markup:  {{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|Garbage}}
: Garbage in, Garbage out. You do get an anchor for the error, but there's no lk to point to it.


{{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|Music}}
: (The above is generated by this markup: {{{{PAGENAME}}/HorToc|Music}}

EdConf

I guess i should be pleased that i was not a minute or two faster installing the HorToc on the accompanying Dab: if i had been, they'd have gotten an Edit Conflict on their routine edit, and that one would surely have been mystifying to them for a significant interval, while i was already fully engaged with the unfamiliar aspects of my own edit and i faced a routine Edit Conflict. I overrode, and i've now applied the changes they had made (with an exception or two that, shortly, i'll refresh myself on and explain).
--Jerzy•t 17:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

You didn't reinclude all of my edits. Care to explain the changes in the see also section? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Sess I have a couple of queries on your recent edit (most of which was good housekeeping). First, you changed (my edit) the intro "Saint(s)" to "Saint or saints" - imho the former way is neater and more elegant, there are quite a few articles looking like that (precedent), and it isn't actually wrong in that mos:dab doesn't prohibit it; I hope you might reconsider. Second, you removed (my edit) "The Saints" from the sports club section header - imho that qualifier added something that would have assisted readers and again isn't actually wrong; I hope you might reconsider. In general, I have the view that it isn't worth making an edit unless the new position is definitely better (more accurate, more elegant or more user friendly) than the old. I am trying not to be nitpicking in my edits. Abtract (talk) 19:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Neither am I. If Jerzy doesn't respond by tomorrow then I'll undo his good faith effort. He's the one who took off those entries you placed, not me. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:28, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

OK I will return those two points to the way I had them, thanks. Abtract (talk) 07:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

_ _ In recounting the un-restored changes, i am omitting mention of changes where i combined a change i made when i overrode, with one the EdConf editor made.
_ _ I see i did not restore the removal of two blanks (whose presence BTW enhances, during editing, both readability and editability), tho i don't recall thinking about it, in entries for French Places.
_ _ I made no consideration of whether the change from Sports teams "The Saints" to Sports teams would normally be desirable. My reason for deferring that change is that when i compiled, within Saint (disambiguation)/HorToc, the list of section names, i relied on what i found on the talk page in the 00:36, 17 April 2008 contrib. (As the edit summaries probably imply, i was surprised enuf by the discrepancies that i assumed i'd missed an edit made since i joined the "TOC" discussion, and that that explained the changes. In any case... ) The discrepancies required that i change either Saint (disambiguation) or Saint (disambiguation)/HorToc. I decided that the process of revising the transcluded page would be instructive: part of understanding the HorToc scheme is understanding what it takes to compensate for the inevitable occasions of changes to section structure. In contrast, two successive changes would complicate the example, and do more harm than forgoing minor changes would. Consequently, in the EdConf, i left it as i had planned to, and i ask that colleagues forbear for up to a few weeks while we work out where we're going with the Horizontal Toc, rather than further complicate our test case.
_ _ I see i did not restore the relocation of three schools from "Schools" to "Other"; i'm pretty sure i didn't give it any thot, since i should have recalled the apparently illogical selection criteria if i had. I don't propose to do it at this point, bcz i consider clarification of that logic in order.
--Jerzy•t 03:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand a word you just said. Jerzy, I'm referring to the deletion of a few of these items. Have you read WP:D#Links to disambiguation pages? This is the logic I'm talking about: using dab redirects in the place of their desired target. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Editor behavior issues

I have edited #Currently practical version (above) to remedy the most egregious of a series of edits by the same editor. I am placing this message bcz i know that i'm pissed as hell about it (now that i've finally noticed that forgery), and that i'm not situated to make reasonable judgments about the response called for, even if WP practices didn't deprecate such involvement.
On the other hand, i be may the only one who is aware (as i think i'm aware) of all the lesser problematic acts connected with the HorToc discussion, to wit:

1. 13:20, 22 July 2008 move of Saint (disambiguation)/HorToc to Template:Saint (disambiguation)/HorToc, without summary
2. 13:21, 22 July 2008 deletion of the move-tool edit at Saint (disambiguation)/HorToc,

   _ _ which arguably violates the intention of (the implictly invoked) WP:CSD#G7,

   _ _ especially light of the spirit of WP:CSD#R2, since it hides the move from all but admins

3. 13:25, 22 July 2008 edit to Talk:Saint (disambiguation), including

   _ _ the forgery, and

   _ _ editing, with no indication other than an obliquely relevant edit-summary comment, each transclusion markup in the #Demonstration section in both the "live markup" and the explanatory text displayed via use of NoWiki tags , thereby

   _ _ leaving the "(The above is generated by this markup: ..." text unchanged, in spite of having made it false by the editing i just described.

I would not want my silence beyond the forgery-fix to suggest it was an isolated event -- nor suggest i think all problems have been dealt with, which is something i have no pertinent opinion on.
--Jerzy•t 20:46 & 21:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• I erred in saying

  leaving the "(The above is generated by this markup: ..." text unchanged, in spite of having made it false by the editing i just described.

and i have retracted it by strike thru & double-dating above. I had a lot of windows open, and tho i can't imagine who it happened, obviously i somehow confused myself. I regret this error, and hope i'm early enuf in detecting it to have avoided harm.
--Jerzy•t 21:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, have I done something wrong? Why did the move of Saint (disambiguation)/HorToc to Template:Saint (disambiguation)/HorToc need any explanation? Given that I promptly changed all usages, what does it matter which namespace it is in? I just felt that the template namespace was tidier - keeping housekeeping stuff out of the article namespace. I am satisfied that all my actions were transparent to any user.

Please explain why it is apparently absolutely vital that the template must be in the article namespace and not in the template one. (And incidentally I did this repeat of the move before a) I saw how incredibly angry you seem to be and b) before I had checked that you were an admin. Had I realised either of these, I might have acted differently.) — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 00:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Saint's Row

I don't think this one needs to be listed here. It doesn't appear in any context to be a search term that someone would likely need this dab page to find. However, although I haven't been following it in detail there appears to be some pretty active work going on with this dab page so I didn't want to delete it willy-nilly. I think it should go but if consensus says different it's no biggie. 23skidoo (talk) 18:54, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:DISAMBIG#Partial title matches is the reason why I left it in "See also". But you're right, none of the Saint's Row media should be here. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:57, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• For the record, 23's edit summary 2 minutes earlier,

  The video game series should go under Fiction, not See Also which is reserved for other dab pages/portals

finds no support whatever at WP:MoSDab#"See also" section, which i quote in full since it is so succinct:

There may be a "See also" section which can include:

• Terms which can be confused with Title, for example New Market and Newmarket
• Likely misspellings of Title, for example Belmont, Belmonte and Bellmont
• Different forms of Title, for example Splitting, Split (disambiguation), and Splitter

When appropriate, easily confused terms can be placed in a hatnote.

It is true that the overwhelming majority of Dabs linked from other Dabs are in the corresponding See also secns (which reflects the three criteria in the box happening to embrace many Dabs); that is entirely unrelated any exclusion, or even any degree of restriction, of pages other than Dabs from being within them.
In contrast, the inclusion of Portal pages is in fact explicitly outside what the box contemplates, in light of any reasonable interpretation of what either "term" or "confused" means; the placement of lks to them is probably nothing more than another variation on the widespread abuse of Dab pages by those who want their favorite things mentioned in as many places as possible (never mind whether those mentions are useful to WP users) or who want lists, as big as feasible, of uses of some specific words (never mind that a static list in effect compiled from the Google search for, say,

site:en.wikipedia.org allintitle:Saint -user -talk

is of less value than that search, freshly done, and that extra entries obstruct access to the ones corresponding to articles that were contenders for the title being dab'ed)
If i cited Partial title matches in explaining putting something into See also, it would be bcz IMO it is in the spirit of "can be confused with" to put lks that are on the borderline of "merely contain[ing] part of the page title" and i think it's important to say what would make them borderline:

According to Partial title matches, Saint's Row and the rest of the franchise should not be on the Dab page at all unless "Saint" or "Saint's" is sometimes used to refer to the game, and some such contexts would give readers encountering it there no hint, that it is just a short name for "Saint's Row": such readers would profit from having it on the list bcz they would not be in a position to put "Saint's Row" in the Go box, and would be likely to put "Saint" or "Saint's" instead, for quite logical reasons. (It helps for several reasons, in such cases, for the entry to be like

* Saint, video game Saint's Row

or

* Saint's, video game Saint's Row

-- depending on which of the two is the nickname.) If that is the case, whether the entry goes in the See also secn, or above it, depends IMO on whether the nickname is a common and widely used one. If it's instead a rare one,

users are unlikely to seek it as if it might be the title of the article, and
those who do so are confusing the rare nickname with a plausible title,

to my way of thinking, similarly enough to those confusing "hart" and "heart" or

Open Office XML

with

Office Open XML

that it deserves mention (as do most misspellings) only as an afterthot.

(In the event, review of the articles Saints Row, Saints Row 2, and List of characters in Saints Row shows them most consistent with neither nickname existing; for me, unless someone were to offer on this talk page a reliable source that shows such a nickname, in a context where a reasonably careful reader would not already realize the game is intended, that's why Saint's Row and its kin should not appear on the page at all.)
--Jerzy•t 21:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Merge tag

The discussion, such as it is, is here. Swanny18 (talk) 21:35, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Closed, tag removed. Swanny18 (talk) 19:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)