User talk:Erik hammerstrom

Revision as of 09:45, 2 March 2011

Message Board

I've written a basic template for article editors. You can use the template to give a particular article a particular editor, as is the case with 戴季陶, or you can set the editor to the default for an entire section, for example as on the 月霞 page. We would need add the template manually to every page though, I don't think there's any way around that.

The template automatically includes the page into a category of articles edited by that person, whether they are specified or just referenced by section. This can have a link to the editor's user page, something that doesn't seem possible yet within the template itself.

Clearly it needs a lot of work, and I would like the line stating the article editor to be part of a standardized table of article information, but I think for now it works quite well.

--Greg 06:38, 20 November 2009 (CST)

I've looked through all the periodical entries, many of them still need work but it's not material that I can access from home at the moment.

Re: the section I changed on your user page, that covers photographs for both the PRC and the ROC - and since photographs are primarily what we're reproducing here I thought it would be handy to have.

--Greg 10:33, 17 June 2009 (CST)

Great ideas on both accounts. Any outside sources for more information on institutions? It might be worthwhile to search the MFQ(B) and see if there are any announcements regarding them that might offer some more information.

--Greg 00:02, 19 June 2009 (CST)

I'll run through the institution articles today, then I'll help with looking through the biographical ones. The guidelines you've written up look great, I'll keep those in mind as I look through them.

If you find that Haichaoyin might have a photograph of someone for whom we need an image, I can scan from the original 2003 reprint, which is very good quality. The DDM index does indicate whether a piece is a written article or a photo, so a quick search for the person's name might turn up a photograph or two.

Also, we should think about making up redirect pages for each person's alternative names, at least the more popular ones. Although the search engine does a great job of producing the main article when you input a style or dharma name.

--Greg 22:48, 20 June 2009 (CST)

I installed the GoogleMaps extension - check it out on the 南京 page. It's really versatile, could be really useful for geographical and institutional articles.

Note that the "make a map" function doesn't work in this version of Mediawiki.

--Greg 23:13, 20 June 2009 (CST)

Working through the biography articles. I made up a template for a resource that I cite quite often: Template:ZJFRZ. I could make up similar templates for other sources too, if you think they'd be useful.

--Greg 09:11, 22 June 2009 (CST)

That's precisely how it works. I'll make up templates for the other major source we use, including Welch.

I'm trying to finish my article draft by the 1st though, and working part-time now, so my contributions may come at a slower pace than before. I think we're still in a great position to open by August though!

--Greg 20:44, 24 June 2009 (CST)

I haven't been able to find a listing for a multi-volume ZJFRZ. If we do have a multi-volume bibliographic template though, we can always use X:YYY in the citation, where X is the volume number. I think you've already done this for other citations.

For the ones that have 續編 and even 再續編, they should definitely have separate templates, because the year will probably be different, and the publication info may be as well.

--Greg 03:35, 26 June 2009 (CST)

Draft Announcement

I think the announcement is good to go. The two paragraphs regarding content are important, I think, and will help to put the idea of CC-licensed content in the minds of the readers. I edited the main URL slightly to be shorter, it still works and automagically redirects to the main page.

--Greg 20:24, 13 July 2009 (CST)

Ah yes - sorry about that. It's been some time!

I've drafted a sample table for displaying biographical information. It's on the 楊文會 page for now. It can't really been extend to other pages until we get thumbnails working, or unless we resize all the portrait images to a standard size. Any thoughts on the Yang infobox as it stands right now?

--Greg 00:36, 22 November 2009 (CST)

Heh - how about "Notable Associates"? I think that the most pertinent information can be displayed in the box, while extra info can be put into a section in the article. At least if there is a name by which they're commonly known (as is the case with Yang, also Ouyang Jingwu and Zhang Binglin) then it should appear at the top of the box so there's no confusion as to the identity of the person. Putting the important colleagues in the infobox allows for quick navigating of social networks, but you're right that if we put too many then the boxes will just get too big.

I think we should figure out the basic form for the infoboxes before we start adding Editor templates everywhere, if they are indeed to appear in the infobox. I can make up some guidelines for maximum number of items included in each section (e.g. no more than 4 notable associates).

--Greg 21:55, 23 November 2009 (CST)

Not sure if you've noticed, but I've started to create redirect pages for the common romanized spellings of article titles. I don't think it's really something we need to commit too much energy to doing, but it helps with directing searches to the appropriate page. It doesn't take too long to do either.

--Greg 03:07, 28 November 2009 (CST)

Hey - I made some additions to the Article Editors page, under editing policies. I'm trying to head off potential conflicts here, without getting too autocratic in terms of laying down the law. Any thoughts now that you're back from across the pond? I defend my prospectus on Friday and should regularly have time to contribute after then!

PS - just read over the Policy Statement again. I'm honestly really proud to be a part of a project that upholds these ideals.

--Greg 22:28, 8 December 2009 (CST)

I kind of like the way it appears at the bottom of the biography infobox right now, but if you think it would be best for it to appear at the bottom of the article then let's do that. Be sure to change the infobox template though, and feel free to make up a new template for the editor information if you think we need one.

Sorry about not contributing the past few days but I just arrived back in NYC after an interesting journey from Toronto. Hoping to get back to it later today!

--Greg 02:07, 7 January 2010 (CST)

Considering that our application will hopefully be reviewed soon, what do you think about both of us going through the articles and trying to fix any typos and other small errors? I was planning on continuing with the chronology articles but this might be a worthwhile project that shouldn't take too much time.

--Greg 02:20, 22 January 2010 (CST)

I need your advice on the Chronology pages. I was going to make a separate article for each era name, but just as with the year articles I think they might work better as sections within a single article. Do you think I should make an article titled something like "Era Names" and have sections within it for each era name? Each section can then point to the year/decade articles that match up with the era names.

--Greg 01:02, 3 February 2010 (CST)

Agreed - although I think the chronology pages are a fascinating way to see what was happening at around the same time, and might prove a useful tool to people navigating the various dating systems used in primary texts.

--Greg 01:28, 3 February 2010 (CST)

I think there's an issue with the article and section editor templates. Right now the basic templates (for example Template:Periodical Editor) include the text "Article editor" with a link to the article editor explanation page, and the name of the editor. But if this template gets included somewhere where text already exists, for example "Editor:" it gets a little confusing. Ideally I would like the editor information to be included in the infobox templates for each type of article.

So what I would propose is this:

• One template per section, that returns just the name of the section editor.
• This template would then get included into the infobox template
• The infobox would also have a line for article editor, which would default to the section editor but which could be changed
• And the infobox template would be included into each article

I think this would simplify matters, and give the overall site more uniformity in the way that information is presented. I can make these changes fairly easily, since with templates we would only have to change the template code, not each individual article.

This would still leave open the possibility of having an article editor, meaning somebody who's responsible for that particular article, while somebody else is responsible for the category as a whole. This way we can have experts handle articles related to their field while still having an overall editor handle an entire category.

--Greg 00:07, 15 February 2010 (CST)

Ok I made some of the edits, but I need to do some more work. My goal is to have a section editor listing for all the articles, but only to display the article editor if there is one. For this I'll need to install a new extension, which should give us some expanded functionality. After that the display of the editor information should be much more uniform and clear.

One result of my edits is that other articles now need an infobox template (as the biographical and geography articles have now). The templates can be really simple and straightforward, and can follow the example set by the bio and geo ones. I'll make one up for the bibliography or periodical section tonight to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

On another topic, do you think the Edit Status template is as useful as we had thought? Do you want to continue to use it, or phase it out?

--Greg 23:02, 15 February 2010 (CST)

Suggestion

Hey Erik;

I have a suggestion for a re-formatting of the article titles. I have noticed that for a non-reader of Chinese, the links on the site may be a little difficult to navigate. Also we have the ongoing problem whereby we use a section title as the main title for the article, so that if we end up adding more sections further down, the table of contents that gets generated includes the article title as a section, which doesn't make organizational sense. (the section titles are the ones formatted like this: ==Section Title==)

So I'm going to suggest that we reformat the standard for article titles and sections along the line of the new article for Dài Jìtáo 戴季陶. You'll see that the article title itself contains the Romanized version of his name. I think that just to maintain compatibility with Google searches that do not include the tone marks, the article titles should be just straight Roman letters without diacritics, but we can produce redirects that will allow us to link to "Dài Jìtáo 戴季陶" and have it end up on the page for "Dai Jitao 戴季陶". That way the inline text maintains the tone marks, and the article itself maximizes compatibility.

If you check out the article, now we can have the Wikipedia style of having a short intro paragraph, followed by table of contents for long articles, and then the sections with proper headings. And as I said this will make all the links and articles much more accessible to those who do not read Chinese, whereas before the meaning of a link or article title may have been a mystery.

Now there would be a bit of work involved, but we could do this as we edit the articles, once we have agreed on a standard for linking, tone marks, and sections. But overall I think it would be worth it to move to this format. Any thoughts?

--Greg 22:57, 21 March 2010 (CST)

Page Titles

1) I think that for non-Chinese persons, we should use the hanzi in their names, if only to help with searches for their Chinese name. For institutions, I think we should follow the model of Minnan foxueyuan 閩南佛學院.

2) I like the sub-headings a lot, especially when you have multiple people with the same name. It's fine if these pages don't follow the standard to biography pages, they are basically multiple pages under a single title. We can also make pages with slightly different names, for example with parentheses after the title to distinguish it: Zhengxin (qikan).

I'd add characters but Chinese input is not working right now for some reason... Does the above sound ok?

Wiki Links

I've noticed that with the new style of page titles, it's very difficult to create wiki links. For example, let's say I want to link to Dài Jitáo's page. I have to create a link that looks like this:

[[Dai Jitao 戴季陶|Dài Jìtáo 戴季陶]]

Because we want the inline text link to have tone marks, but we also want the article title to be free of tone marks, to maximize compatibility for search engines and the like finding the article titles.

So what I'd propose is that we allow one redirect per link. So I have my article on something that links to Dài Jìtáo's biography page. The inline link looks like this:

[[Dài Jìtáo 戴季陶]]

which is simple: it's just the inline text with the wiki link brackets around it. This links to a page with the title "Dài Jìtáo 戴季陶" and the following content:

#REDIRECT[[Dai Jitao 戴季陶]]

so the user clicks on a link with tone marks, and one which is easy for us to make, and ends up on the article with the simple, compatible title. I think this would save us a lot of typing, but still maintain the usability of the site.

So short version: Keep moving to the new standard of "pinyin + 漢字" for article titles, but have inline text links point to a redirect article that maintains the tone marks.

Temple project

Re: the project to add pages on temples, some ideas on items to include in the infobox template:

• date of founding, major renovations, status today
• location: city, province, mountain, etc.
  • might be good to include more a detailed location as well. The CHGIS dataset for temples has as their location the nearest large town, but knowing the precise location of temples (especially the remotes ones, but even city ones as well) might be handy
• former / original names
• associated lineages
• public / private status
• famous abbots or residents (long-term, short-term visitors can be listed in the article body)
• important halls, pagodas, graves, shrines, images, etc.

Actually this info could be added to the Inst_infobox template, as seminaries and the like could also use this. I can set it up so that if nothing is supplied in the template, that category will be skipped. Please edit as you see fit and I will tinker with it to clean it up.

Page Titles

1. I think that non-Chinese persons should have their Chinese names as part of the page title. If nothing else it will help direct searches for their Chinese name to the article, but I don't think there's a need to include the pinyin of their Chinese name in the title. Institutions as well should have the appropriate 漢字 following the English title. I think that only if an institution does not have a commonly-used or straight-forward English translation for the title should we use pinyin for the title.

2. I like the current format for pages with multiple entries a lot. Like I posted earlier, the redirects for particular individuals with that name can point directly to the appropriate section. If necessary, we should include that format in the biographical article guidelines.

--Greg 01:53, 4 June 2010 (CST)

Amazing start to the project, looks really great!

Anniversary

Hey Erik;

We're approaching the one-year anniversary of the formal announcement for the site, which happened on July 27, 2009. Any ideas for short-term projects to help clean up the site before then? I'm thinking maybe some editing reviews of articles, just to fix typos and other inconsistencies before the big date. I'm currently working on a couple articles relating to publishing in preparation for my dissertation research, but I can look over the sections for which I'm listed as editor over the next two weeks as well.

--Greg 22:48, 12 July 2010 (CST)

Geography Portal

What do you think ought to be done with the map in the Geography Portal? A lot of entries need to be added, so this might be a good opportunity to change the design of it. Any changes you think should be made? Should we just do away with the clickable map altogether and stick with a categorized list of geographical articles?

--Greg 22:17, 15 July 2010 (CST)

PS: Don't forget about the new format for articles when creating new pages. The article subject should appear in the intro text in bold, and then headers are used further down as section headings. I like what's been added, though!

I can definitely make up a larger map. I will also keep a copy of the image that can be edited to add items in the future as well.

I think the new(er) style for articles ought to be used across the board. I can't think of a style of article that it wouldn't fit, but of course it doesn't have to be an iron-clad rule.

Completely agree with you re: disambiguation at the top of the article. Might be a good idea to make up a template for this sort of notice as well.

--Greg 09:59, 20 July 2010 (CST)

Print Bibliography

I'm trying to figure out how to foreground the print bibliography and related resources a little better. Now that the bibliography and publication section is being fleshed out a bit more, these resources don't seem to fit any more. Can you think of a good place to put them? Maybe in a new "Research Sources" section?

Also I finally have access to the MFQ/B again, hope to add more details about individual periodical titles soon.

--Greg 11:57, 20 September 2010 (CST)

New Users and Spam

There's been quite an uptick in spam accounts recently. I wonder if the increased exposure of the site in search engines is causing this. What do you think about moving to a system where someone who wants an account needs to first email one of us? That why we could try to prevent spam accounts from being made. There wouldn't be any real restrictions on who can join, just a confirmation that they are a human and not looking to spam the site.

--Greg 09:13, 4 November 2010 (CST)

Ok sounds good, let's leave it for now. But I do think it is possible to have the registration system automatically email us without exposing the address to the public. If the spam account ever become a real problem, I'll look into it.

--Greg 09:20, 5 November 2010 (CST)

First and Subsequent References to Publication Titles

I don't know if we ever discussed this, but I think we need a standard format for first and subsequent references to publication titles in articles. As far as I can see, there are these elements to consider:

• First (full) reference
  • Pinyin title
  • Hanzi title
  • English translation of title
• Subsequent (shortened) reference
  • Which elements from the full reference to use?

I'll use Hǎicháoyīn as an example of what I propose:

• First (full) reference: Hǎicháoyīn 海潮音 (Voice of the Sea Tide)
  • If the first reference is part of the article title, then the first two elements are in bold but the hanzi is not linked: Hǎicháoyīn 海潮音 (Voice of the Sea Tide)
• Subsequent (shortened) reference: Hǎicháoyīn
• The hanzi should never be italicized, but book and periodical titles should always be

I think using the pinyin for the shortened reference is more accurate than the English translation, of which there could be several variants anyway. Any thoughts/suggestions?

I do see what you mean. It's not a huge deal but, I think the reason why I want to leave the English translations outside the bold formatting is because they are so tentative. There are a few possibilities for each titles, and usually no standard way of translating any of them. So the bold part represents the reliable term for the item, while the English translation is only meant as a help for those without Chinese ability.

--Greg 11:10, 23 January 2011 (CST)

Good point - let's stick to bolding the entire term. And thanks for the spam-spotting! --Greg 08:23, 26 January 2011 (CST)

Portals

If you're wondering why I moved the portals around, having them in the DMCB_Wiki namespace was leaving them out of search results. I consulted with Simon and I think this is the way to go. Not a big change, but should improve search results for stuff that's listed in the portals but may not yet have an article of its own. --Greg 09:45, 2 March 2011 (CST)