Yes, we should mark original research, in order to warn the reader but mainly in order to encourage the reader -- and us -- to participate in research activity on the nLab in an organized way; meaning: in a way that doesn't interfere but cross-fertilizes with the expository parts of the Lab.
At the entry twisted cohomology I added a standout box to indicate original research.
I think we should have more of that kind.
]]>I had in mind something a little more eye-catching. Something maybe 3 or 4 times the size of a standard character. As well as being more obvious, it's size would make it clear that it's something "meta" and not intended as part of the page. I think that there are other situations where such icons are warranted, marking "original research" is another.
]]>I think if an edit is there for 20 minutes or so, it will show up in the history
It's 30 minutes.
]]>Yes, I like explanations much better than rules!
]]>I like the wheel, not the knight.
]]>Of course we have lab elves :)
I like the idea of a special character rather than a page name for the links to Notes on Formatting. If it is unicode, we can create a redirect for it.
We need a (unicode) symbol for the lab elves :)
]]>I like the idea of explanations for potentially minor formatting issues. It's much better than a guidelines page for something that's so much a matter of taste.
However, there is a slight irony in the wording, given who wrote it! All along it refers to a mysterious "we" who go round (presumably at night) cleaning up the n-lab. Does the n-lab now have "house elves"? (Or should these be "lab elves"?).
Two suggestions. Somewhere prominent, there should be a note saying that if you see a minor formatting change of something you wrote then you should scroll back through the history to see if someone left a comment on why it was done, otherwise people new to wikis might not be in the habit of going back through revisions and so would never spot the note or link. I'd put this in the FAQ as it seems like the most likely place someone would go to find out about such matters.
Secondly, how about an obvious icon as the link rather than the page name. That would make it visually clear that this is something a bit different to an ordinary link on the page. Under the influence of "Eats, shoots and leaves", I would go for a big "," [comma].
]]>I have an idea. I might create a page Note on formatting (or something) with a few comments about formatting changes I/we generally make. Anyone is welcome to modify it. When I make a format change to a page, I will provide a link to this page. The link will be there only temporarily. The page itself will keep track of pages pointing to it and I will periodically go back around and delete the links to the note. This will produce a few spurious revisions, but in the scheme of things, I don't think that is a big deal. This could also be a place to explain specific examples of format changes that are made. In this way, when an author sees that his/her content has been changed and sees a link to Note on formatting, in principle, they can go there to see why the format was changed and can either agree and leave the change or disagree and undo the change, but at least they will know "why".
The Note on formatting is not a set of rules, but a set of explanations.
]]>Sounds good to me too.
Sometimes I will leave a note in a query box indicating that I will remove the query box soon. I'm not sure if that is the right thing to do, but I think if an edit is there for 20 minutes or so, it will show up in the history. Once I'm sure the note will appear in the history, I remove the note. That way, if someone traces back through revisions, they will see the note.
I think it is a good idea to leave little query notes explaining a change, especially a format change, so the author will have the option to disagree or to agree and possibly change their style.
]]>I agree with all that Urs has said.
Perhaps I should have opened a query box at Cauchy complete category insted of (or in addition to) explaining on latest changes? Yes, I think that I should have!
]]>I see a general issue becoming relevant, independent of whether we are talking style or content or otherwise:
namely, in general it may happen that new changes made to old material might not appear entirely as an improvement to the former contributors, one way or other.
I can't see how we can find a general rule to deal with such issues. I think we have to fight it out -- of course: discuss it -- on a case by case basis.
Everybody must know that nothing he or she enters into the nLab is guaranteed to remain there permanently unchanged.
On the other hand, everybody should get the impression that everybody else is trying their best to make changes only where they actually lead to an improvement of sorts.
This will be a group process. I wouldn't know how to organize or formalize it. If we run into serious conflicts on how an entry should look like, we need to open a query box there and have a discussion until some kind of compromise is reached.
]]>(Jacques has now seen zero object. It turns out that the cache bug upon removing a redirect would be very difficult to fix. Fortunately one can clear it by hand by editing the page.)
]]>No worries. That again is no biggie.
In my defense, it was not bar, it was Cauchy bar :)
]]>(PS: The redirect cache bug still exists and may be seen at zero object. I suggest that nobody edit that page until Jacques has a chance to verify it.)
]]>The end result is we have broken plural links for Cauchy colimits
Where are there links to Cauchy colimits? I checked and didn't find any; I just checked again and didn't find any. I did leave some wanted links to Cauchy colimit, which I think is what they should be.
In any case, my reversal of that particular redirect was not for any style reason. I explained it at latest changes; you must have missed that. (Incidentally, Google has no hits for "Cauchy colimit" except on the Lab. Perhaps the original writer meant to say ‘absolute colimit’? It might be reasonable to redirect that to Cauchy complete category, at least temporarily.)
If you want a meta-style rule out of this, then it would be that just because somebody writes bar
somewhere doesn't mean that !redirects bar
belongs at foo; one must read foo to see if that's appropriate. However, I don't think that I would call that a matter of style at all. Still, perhaps that was what I was planning to put as (3), since I did revert you on that in this case.
No worries. It sounded like you had more in mind than "]]s" vs "s]]" wrt meta-rules. I thought there was more than that.
Oh! I remember. On additive functor, it was either you or Mike that had a link Cauchy colimits. Since I came across several pages with wanted links for Cauchy colimit AND since someone already thought Cauchy complete category was a good place to land after clicking Cauchy colimit, I added redirects
!redirects Cauchy colimit !redirects Cauchy colimits
to Cauchy complete category. I then went around and did my usual plural Cauchy colimits to Cauchy colimits cleanup routine. Then you (I think) deleted my redirects. This broke all my plural links.
I even used that as the example on redirects hoping someone would remove the redirects from Cauchy complete category and create a page Cauchy colimit. However, you went ahead and removed the redirects (breaking all my plural links), but didn't create Cauchy colimit. Then you deleted any reference to this example from redirect in place of your own example.
The end result is we have broken plural links for Cauchy colimits with no evidence of the work I did. Hopefully, someone creates that page and we can add the plural redirects to fix the links (rather than changing to Caucy colimits).
It's not a huge deal, but when work is undone, I wish there were some explanation given to help avoid wasted effort in the future.
PS: I really don't mind my work being undone if it improves the quality of the nLab, but my only request is that some remark is left somewhere, preferably an MoS giving the reason.
]]>foos
to foos
, so if you change foos
to foos
and nothing else, then I might change it back, particularly if I know that Zoran wrote it. (Although you are probably not changing it anymore if you think that Zoran wrote it.) Do you want to record on a MoS page those stylistic differences that some people prefer so that everybody knows that they're not mistakes?I just told you my meta-rules, which are simply my personal rules for reverting those few edits of yours that I've reverted. It's fine with me if you want to record them somewhere. But there's nothing in them that states that people ought to write things in some particular way, which is what a Manual of Style means to me. (Except for the naming conventions, which are written down already.)
]]>If there are meta-rules, these meta-rules should be enunciated so that everyone knows about them and not just a select few. The MoS does not need to be set in stone (as I've said), but should represent a set of guidelines to help avoid unintentional gendarmes. You obviously have some meta-rules in mind and I'd like to know about them so I do not waste my time making changes that will only be undone. That is what I mean by an MoS.
]]>I've undone a few of Eric's style edits on the basis of these three rules:
Relative to a MoS, these are more meta-rules than rules. The naming conventions have rules, and these are in a sense ‘incorporated by reference’ in (2), but the place to write those down is in a page on naming conventions. And my meta-rule (1) for reversion is to enforce the idea that there are no (non-meta) rules to enforce! (The other one was also meta, I think; I'll try to remember what it was.)
So basically, my attitude is that there is no Manual of Style (although there are Naming Conventions). Maybe that should be written down somewhere!
]]>Hi Zoran,
Thanks for your comments. Having redirects definitely helps with a lot of issues, but trying to retroactively fix things that would have otherwise naturally evolved if redirects had been around since the beginning is a painful process. For example, when you look at a page and see a bunch of links that look like pages, you might be inclined to continue writing links to additional pages to keep things "homogeneous". But the reason things originally appeared as pages was not out of preference, but due to us not having redirects in the beginning. I'm hoping that if I change enough links to pages, then when you look around, the "homogeneous" thing would be to write additional pages. We're not there yet, but getting there.
I'm REALLY happy to see you start to take advantage of redirects. If you add content while taking advantage of redirects from the beginning there will be no reason for me or anyone else to follow behind you making minor changes, creating additional revisions, etc. You're feedback is very valuable. Thanks!
Now I just need to get Urs on board. I still spend a lot of time following behind him. But I'd rather, and this applies to you as well, see people add content freely without worrying too much about formatting and let others (if they care to) follow behind and clean things up.
On the topic of this thread, I actually do continue to think we need a "Matters of Style" page and I would argue that we already do have a de facto MoS that isn't written down yet. Toby, for example, and me to a certain extent are already acting as "moderators of style". I admit that I am frustrated seeing a format change I make changed BACK. From now on, if anyone changes a formatting change that I make, I would like that person to point to the relevant section of the MoS so that I will know WHY my formatting was undone.
I suggest that any format change (and that goes obviously for me as well) that is made should be justified by referring to a relevant section of the MoS. My time is valuable and to see my format changes undone makes me feel as though I wasted time. To minimize the chance that I waste my time, I'd like to see some rules.
Like I said, there are rules already (or else my format changes would not be undone!) so we should write them down.
]]>Just out of interest, is your remark in response to […]
I found my latest download of the Markup export, unzipped it, and ran your grep
script on it. Yes, one might extract just the links and run sort -u
(no need for uniq
separately ^_^), but I'm not sure that this is really what we want. Each individual pipe link is something that we might want to change by editing some page.
Incidentally, I don't think that anybody ever wrote categorys
; that's always been categories
. (On Wikipedia, I would sometimes write categories
, categorial
, etc and create a redirect at categori, but that's borderline for MediaWiki and not wise here, I think.)