Category talk:MEpedia user interface explanation

Move interface explanations from talk page to subpage?

I just realized that when we install StructuredDiscussions, the talk pages may be archived. I don't know how that might impact the interface explanations. To be safe, maybe we should start putting interface explanations on subpages instead, such as moving the contents of MediaWiki talk:Abbreviations to MediaWiki:Abbreviations/explanation? Just food for thought. User:Notjusttired
Pyrrhus (talk) 15:54, November 3, 2019 (EST)

Oh no, I hadn't realised that. It should really be a /doc subpage though since that's the mediawiki standard. Would it be possible to bulk export talk subpages containing interface explanations, eg Special:Export, then edit the file to be subpages instead, and use Special:Import to create them? ~Njt (talk) 17:47, November 3, 2019 (EST)

That's a great idea Njt! Of course we can do a bulk export/import. The only problem I can see with naming the subpages "/doc" is that it looks like a language code, so it might cause a little confusion.

Pyrrhus (talk) 18:04, November 3, 2019 (EST)

The main thing will be the change of namespace, from Talk to (main), I suggest you add any old main page to the export then the namespace info for it will be added. It should be simple to see name space numbers that need changing. Lots of online text replace tools will do it for you without adding extra characters. Eg this or [this https://textmechanic.com/text-tools/basic-text-tools/find-and-replace-text/]. It will be wrapped in an xml eg <tag>6</tag> so just replace the entire tag to change the number. ~Njt (talk) 18:57, November 3, 2019 (EST)

Sounds good, Njt. I'll wait to do it until just before we install the StructuredDiscussions. This way, we can continue to adjust the interface explanations as we see fit in the "Talk:" namespace. Once the interface explanations are all in the "MediaWiki:" namespace, it's harder to adjust them.

Pyrrhus (talk) 19:55, November 3, 2019 (EST)

The export should be done before the pages are archived, although thinking about it a MediaWiki_talk:Copyright-used-with-permission/doc path would be better than a subpage in a MediaWiki (or main) content space. We don't want these pages indexing for example. ~Njt (talk) 09:57, November 4, 2019 (EST)

Hierarchical category structure? -- Pyrrhus (talk) 21:37, October 21, 2019 (EDT)

Since this category, Category:Interface explanation, is already a subcategory of Category:MEpedia documentation, pages in this category probably do not need to also be in Category:MEpedia documentation as well. Therefore, I have removed pages in this category from the higher category of Category:MEpedia documentation, so that pages are only in Category:Interface explanation, not in both categories. But I realize that this raises a question about our use of categories:

Question: We have generally had a "free-form" approach to categories, where pages can be placed in any applicable category, without regard for the hierarchical structure of our category tree. Should we implement a practice of not putting a page in a category if it already exists in a subcategory? This practice would recognize the hierarchical structure of our category tree, and would make it easier to browse the category tree.

Example 1: For a concrete example, consider pages in the category Category:MEpedia help, which is a subcategory of Category:MEpedia documentation. Since the higher category is very large and hard to browse, should we remove help pages from the higher category of Category:MEpedia documentation, since people can easily navigate from Category:MEpedia documentation to Category:MEpedia help? (This would NOT affect any other categories that these pages may belong to.)

Example 2: For a different example, consider pages in the category Category:American clinicians, which is a subcategory of Category:Clinicians by country, which is itself a subcategory of Category:Clinicians. The category Category:American clinicians contains pages about American clinicians, but American clinician pages are also in the higher category of Category:Clinicians. Since the higher category is very large and hard to browse, should we remove American clinician pages from the higher category of Category:Clinicians, since people can easily navigate from Category:Clinicians to Category:American clinicians? Or would it be helpful to keep pages in both categories, since some people may want to browse by country, but other people may want to browse by all clinicians?

I am mainly thinking of how we might make it easier for users to browse the category hierarchy. This is especially important when someone is creating a new page and trying to figure out which categories the new page should be put in. Thoughts? User:Kmdenmark User:Notjusttired
Pyrrhus (talk) 21:37, October 21, 2019 (EDT)