Talk:David Sirota

Article ported

I fact-checked and hunted sources for this article and revamped it in autumn 2009 on WP, so I think it's solid. I don't think it's changed much since then. There's one thing I notice with multiple references. Both WP and CZ enable the use of a single reference to be used multiple times. But on WP, it doesn't matter if the first use of a shared reference appears first -- that is, on WP, as long as the full reference appears anywhere in the code, it's okay -- but here on CZ, the code insists that the FIRST use of a reference appear physically first in the article, while other times the reference is used such as <ref name=tws102/> -- well these shared name-only references must appear AFTER the initial full reference. What happens in the references when they appear below in the reference section, is to only have numbers. This can be fixed by switching it back. Will CZ develop code which can be used to solve this problem?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 16:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It's a known problem, Tom, but right now, we really don't have a mechanism for requesting and prioritizing changes. Dan Nessett has started the mechanics for change requests, but, until the Charter is presented and passed, the Management Committee (or whatever it's finally called) exists, there isn't a real mechanism (or resources) for getting things prioritized.

If it's any consolation -- probably not -- this was common in early compilers, and called the inability to forward reference. At least in compilers, the solution is that the software has to make two, not one, passes over the language: one to collect all references (i.e., names in a programming language) and then a second to use them. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. What I've found is that in porting WP articles, this takes me a lot of time -- to figure out which is the first "full" reference, and move it to the top. But I'm wondering whether it's possible to write a quickie program that solves this problem -- the input would be the text (with the "full" references scattered throughout the text); what the code would do would be to: figure out which references are multiples, and find the full reference and move it forward -- I used to know BASIC and (25 years ago) I could have written the program to do this myself -- but wondering whether this is something that's easy to do somehow, or whether it's worth it.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

What would be even cooler would be some kind of automatic program which sucks in (good) WP articles, formats them for CZ, and expedites the process. I think there are many good neutral articles on WP which could be ported, and serve as starting points for us to improve them.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Flow

What about moving the Political Orientation section close to the lede? It seems to duplicate some of the points in the intro. --Howard C. Berkowitz 01:12, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Howard you have excellent judgment so please fix this as you see fit. Is it okay if I import articles? I have trouble learning about how to do subpages and metadata and such. I don't want to be causing extra work for people. Also wondering if CZ has any readership statistics? If WP has a tool (Henrik) to measure readership, and if WP has free stuff, is there a way we can import Henrik's tool?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 03:16, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry about the metadata; your articles are sufficiently valuable that I enjoy doing it. Keep looking at what I do in edit mode, and you'll pick it up.

There are no readership statistics of which I'm aware. Someone who knows MediaWiki better would have to judge if the tool can be imported -- there are variations between the CZ and WP implementation. --Howard C. Berkowitz 03:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)