User talk:Ian Clark

Talk to me

Bouquets and brickbats here, please. I love a good brick (Amer: brownstone). Especially when I can throw it back. Ian Clark (talk) 07:47, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm checking out for the day, so I will let you catch the bricks for a bit. Any thoughts on the wiki/categories page as way to start identifying the work ahead?--Bob Therriault (talk) 08:00, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm delighted to see Categories brought back into serious use. When this wiki was ported to MediaWiki from MoinMoin, things got lost in the transmigration, Category being one of them. But classification as an activity just gives me a dull ache between the eyes. (As it did Charles Darwin.) RV Jones, head of Scientific Intelligence under Churchill in WWII, said the only classification scheme that ever worked for him was initially to stuff everything in one big box-file labelled: "General". Then when it got too full, break out the biggest subclass into a second box-file labelled "General/DeGaulle" (say)… and go on from there. Ian Clark (talk) 08:14, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Specifically as regards wiki/categories ……… I assume a page can have more than one Category? Ian Clark (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

The Categories: Voc and NuVoc should be (re)defined, and not just left to fester in red font. Not that these categories are a lot of use in themselves. But NuVoc contains a number of valuable lists of definitions, e.g. Vocabulary/Glossary, Vocabulary/AET, Vocabulary/ErrorMessages, which deserve their own category to assist page authors to make more use of them. Ian Clark (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not recommending the extreme position, where every occurrence of the word verb (say) links back to Vocabulary/AET – but such a policy would make the wiki much more noob-friendly even if it became a drudge to maintain. Ian Clark (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2021 (UTC)