User talk:Hayford Peirce

Hayford Peirce

Current talk page

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Threading

Moving this discussion from ID talk page. Do you remember if there was already a discussion in the forum. If so I think I missed it and i don't want to rehash old news. Chris Day 17:04, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there was one several months ago, in which I *thought* some sort of consensus was arrived at. Milton, I believe, was writing the text for this blue Etiquette box that we see at the top of the screen, and we were discussing what exactly to put into it. I thought that it was *you* who was doing the actual writing of the template and also, maybe, participating in the discussion. But, I guess, you were just putting in what Milton asked you to. Having gone through that one discussion, this is why I get annoyed, sometimes, when people seem to arbitrarily decide not to play by the rules/guidelines/suggestions/whatever that were talked about. (I think that as a result of the discussion, someone *also* went in the CZ:HowToDo things and rewrote it to say that the use of indents in threading *was* the way to do it, not merely a "suggestion".) Hayford Peirce 17:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)"

May I point out, Hayford, that threading refers specifically to the system which you are deprecating? :-p

Also, re. "people seem to arbitrarily decide not to play by the rules" - I've never actually come across such rules, and until you mentioned them the other day I had no idea that discussions were supposed to be linear.

Anyhow, I am very much in favour of a new discussion or a vote. I believe the form software allows them to be set up very easily.

Caesar Schinas 17:30, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for a new discussion, just as long as it gives a definitive, permanent answer. I don't care one way or another, except I do have my own personal opinion, of course. Lemme look for where what I call "the rules" spell it out -- I know it's there somewhere. (I myself didn't just arbitrarily decide one day that we were going to use colons for indents come hell or high water!) Hayford Peirce 17:38, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Here, Caesar, take a look at this: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=CZ:How_to_use_talk_pages&action=edit&section=4 There's probably some wriggle room in there, but maybe not. The intent seems clear, however. I know that *you* weren't here at the time of the discussion (which apparently was back in January), but some of the other people who disagree with the indentation system *were* here and, I think, didn't raise their voices very strongly in opposition. (In their defense, I *will* say that we were struggling with two different issues at the same time. We had just gone through some problems with, shall I say, a "difficult" contributor, who insisted first on putting all new comments at the top of the page, and using/or not using the indent or anything-other system except in his own totally arbitrary manner. It was in a reaction to him that we rewrote the rules.) Hayford Peirce 17:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I have not read your link yet, but here's the interesting thing. I did write the text in the blue box, but my interpretation of that text seems to be different to your own. Obviously this is more subjective than we had realised. This makes me suspect I missed the discussion since I think I would have brought this up at the time, if I had noticed it. Anyway, I'll now go back and read the original discussion. Chris Day 17:52, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Great! And if, after you find it, you would put a link to it here, I would be very grateful! Hayford Peirce 17:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

So I did participate on the talk page but not on the CZ page. As far as i can tell, the scenario where two people reply to the same person is not discussed. OK it is. I guess I disagree with that example. I should read the talk page more carefully to see what the rationale was. For your information, I would have thought the example in that link should look like the following since both lisa and george are replying to Bob. In the current example it looks like George is replying to Lisa. Chris Day 18:01, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Example:

How's the soup? --[[Bob]] :It's great!! --[[Lisa]] :Not too bad.. --[[George]] ::I made it myself! --[[Bob]] I think the soup discussion should be moved to [[Talk:Soup]].. --[[Lisa]] :I tend to disagree. --[[George]]

The above will produce this:

How's the soup? --Bob It's great!! --Lisa Not too bad.. --George I made it myself! --Bob I think the soup discussion should be moved to Talk:Soup.. --Lisa I tend to disagree. --George

Yes, I can see that. Geez, what a can of worms! Hayford Peirce 18:07, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

It depends what is valued most. An effort to maintain the chronology of replies by indenting or an effort to match the replies in the correct context. Obviously this is only an issue when multiple people are involved in a discussion. I prefer the example where the two replies are on the same level since it is then obvious that Lisa and George are both replying to Bob. In our current example:

How's the soup? --Bob It's great!! --Lisa Not too bad.. --George I made it myself! --Bob I think the soup discussion should be moved to Talk:Soup.. --Lisa I tend to disagree. --George

I had to read for context to determine who George was addressing. The chronology, for me, is less of an issue since you can untie complex pages by stepping through the edit history or looking at the time stamp. For me, reading for context is more time consuming on a busy talk page. Obviously neither solution is near perfect. Chris Day 18:18, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, the example seems pretty clear to me; it shows threading.

Bob asks how the soup is. Lisa and George people answer him, each indented one level. He then replies to George of them, indenting a further one level.

Below, a separate discussion is taking place. Lisa suggest moving the soup discussion, and George replies - indenting one level - to say that he disagrees.

The only complaint I have about the example is that the spacing is a little weird. I think we should allways leave a blanbk line between one comment and the next, with the possible exception of if they are both by the same person.

Caesar Schinas 06:03, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

"Lisa and George people answer him, each indented one level." The problem is that our current example does not do this. I agree about the blank line. it makes it much easier to find the relevant text when in edit mode. Chris Day 17:18, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes; I see that now. I had thought the first example was a copy-paste from the instructions, because I just skimmed the posts above... never a good idea! Caesar Schinas 21:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Let's start a new one, to clear the air

Oh, I thought you meant you were going to find a Forums discussion. Am I misremembering and *all* of the discussion was on a talk page (or more than one talk page). If you will recall, because of Dr. Cohen, this was a contentious subject at the time. Hayford Peirce 18:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh I see, sorry for the confusion. Your original link went to an edit page for me. I actually don't remember any of this discussion, my mind must have been on other things, even though I participated. Chris Day 18:11, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

It's confusing because I think we had *two* ongoing discussions, one (or more) in the talk pages, and another in the Forum. I think I can say without fear of contradictions, however, that any *new* discussion will probably bring up the same arguments. I think that what I *may* have said at the time, in one place or another, was that it didn't so much matter as to *which* system we chose, but that we should only have one, to prevent confusion and acrimony. Which, of course, has again arisen. Hayford Peirce 18:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Unifying concepts

It's...it's...(Monty Python) the Soup [threading] Nazi (extended Seinfeld). Howard C. Berkowitz 18:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)