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Compost Heap
    Keywords: SL description

This wiki contains text deleted in other pages, if there is a chance that it may still have some use.

Typical situations:

  • You're pruning or Master Editing a wiki that contains discussions, although it is not a ...Discussion wiki. Often, these discussions end in a clarification which you could easily include in the body text. Out of respect you do not want to simply throw away all the contributions. After all, they may contain an aspect that you overlooked. In most of these cases there is no corresponding Discussion wiki, where you could move it.
  • You wrote something stupid. Someone caught you. You feel your text and the reply only distract from the topic. But the reply may contain points that the writer would want to keep. You may want to add:
 Moved because XYZ convinced me, and I changed the text accordingly.

In these cases, please proceed as follows:

  1. Cut these texts from the original page.
  2. Replace them with a reference such as ''(Moved "Beginning of Text ..." to [Compost Heap])''
  3. Paste text at the bottom of this page, preceded with a link to the source and expiration date (suggested: 1 month).
  4. If there is expired text on this page: Delete it and
  5. delete the expired references to [Compost Heap] in the original pages.

Q&A

Q: We already keep the deleted files in the page history. Why do we need yet another page?

A: It is not trivial to retrieve part of a previous page and it may be rude to simply delete possibly valuable contributions.

Q: Why not use a Discussion page for this?

A: If this discussion merits to be kept for posteriority - by all means, put it there. But if you want it to be deleted after a grace period, put it on this page.

Sprouting

When you keep a compost heap, it sometimes happens that seeds sprout from the material you deposited. If you see this happening here, take them out carefully and plant them on a page where they can grow, before they get deleted on this page.


From KGSFirstTimeUserExperience

Expires: 2003-11-12. Moved because this was a request for a feature that is already implemented

    • be able to right click on a game to get info about or chat with the players. All I knew was to scroll down the list on the right, which was tedious.

mgoetze: While playing a game is probably the time most players least want to be chatted with. ;) You can get info on players offering a game by clicking on it and then the little question mark beside their name. Anyhow, welcome to KGS!

S: You're right about ongoing games. I had the bold games in mind, where someone is waiting to play.

Dave: Right click on the game list and click on "Open games first".

Sebastian: This is good advice, and I'm adding it to KGS User's Guide. Maybe it should be the default (and maybe that is already in the Wishlist). But this is not what I meant. Assume, e.g. I see an entry like

 R foo [?]              19x19

Assume I want to ask foo a couple of questions before I sign up. Currently I have to scroll through the list of all players in this room until I find "foo", then right click and so on, which is a long procedure till I get to speak the first word to him. Or is there an easier way?

wms: Yes, easier way. Just click on the game. When you click on a game, this does nothing except show you more information. Here you can click on the "?" button to find out all details on the person offering the game, or press "OK" to actually send your challenge to the server.

(I will copy this last part to KGSUserSGuide)



From WikiOrphans

Expires: 2003-11-16. Copied whole page as backup before editing it according to discussion.

Discussion

Sebastian: What's the purpose of this Aliases list? By definition, an alias page [A] is only an alternative name for another page [B]. The term "A" is (supposedly) inferior to "B" (because it is used less frequently or for other good reasons). If "A" is just a stupid typo it should be deleted (and probably not be an alias page in the first place, as I infer from unkx80's edit of PGP Scoring?). If, OTOH, "A" is a valid name then why on earth should anyone be encourage to insert links to inferior names?

Arno: The difference is made when I do a database scan for orphans. I agree that orphaned aliases should be deleted more readily. OTOH some of these aliases (even if not linked) serve a purpose, e.g. when there are two popular terms for the same subject (for example: ladder - shicho). Categorizing pages into aliases and normal pages is not essential, but it does no harm either.

Sebastian: Sorry, I still don't get it. I did not mean to say anything about the speed of deletion, nor was I questioning the distinction between aliases and other pages. My problem is: I don't see why aliases appear at all on this page. What am I (or anyone else) supposed to do with the link Kiebitz, for instance? This is a possible spelling of Kibitz (for German speakers, at least). It may not be the preferred spelling, and it may not occur as a link on any page just yet, but it is clearly possible that it may some day. So of course it shouldn't be deleted. At the same time, of course it would be absurd to add a link to some page using this spelling (or to change the existing occurrence on the Kibitz page to a link, which would create a circular self-reference) just to "find a family" for it. What am I missing?

Zook: You may be missing the following - just a thought:

No page currently refers to Etiquette which is an alias for Go Etiquette. Some day someone makes a page using the word etiquette and thinks, hey, that's a nice item. He turns it into a link and aha it already exists. OK, you say, why list such a page under orphan aliases at all ?

Because I may also create pheeuwpheeuw? as an alias to thickness but not refer to it. Thanks to this list, you're able to spot it and remove the ridiculous suggestion.

Why both kinds in one list ? Because Arno is democratic/lazy enough to let us make the judgment/do the work.

Sebastian: OK, this shifts the focus of this page. In this case I think this page needs to clarify the following:

  • The Alias list is filled automatically (or at least indiscriminately) with any orphaned pages.
  • Most entries in the Alias list are probably perfect as they are. Mark them as "keep".[1]
  • Some entries, such as DeadShapes2, oGoG, B44W63B36W42B83? or pheeuwpheeuw? may appear to you as if there should be no link to them. In this case, write "delete" and your name next to them. Arno will delete them if appropriate (see below).
  • I still don't see any reason to "find a family" for a link. Can we just scrap this sentence, cute as it may be? Or else we need a clarification when this makes sense.

Appropriate

Sebastian: By "if appropriate", I mean: Before Arno deletes them, he (or someone else) checks that they do not fall into one of the following categories:

  • Not an orphan, such as B44W63B36W42B83?.
    • Arno: look closely. It is an orphan. The references you see are the ones from the aliased page.[2]
  • Links that are explained on the page they link to, such as Kiebitz, CercidiphyllumJaponicum and oGoG

Purpose

Arno: I think the purpose of the page is quite simple. It says:

 The pages below are orphans.

It does not say: useful orphans, or useless orphans, just orphans (any orphans in your words). Yes, I create the entries by doing a database search, you didn't think I do this manually?

Re: Finding a family for alias pages

 Please help these find a family (i.e. a link), if they deserve one.

Arno: What's wrong with that? Many pages got created not by following a "dead link", but by typing the name into the URL bar. Useful pages should be linked from somewhere, e.g. Secondant should be linked from GoHumour. Note the phrase "if they deserve one" - if they don't deserve a link, alright don't link them.

(Sebastian:) Of course I agree with you about Secondant. Secondant is a page with real content, and it is desirable that no content is orphaned. However, my question was about Alias pages, which, by definition, have no content. I agree that a page like CercidiphyllumJaponicum was probably created by entering the name in the URL bar. But what does that say about the validity of this name? Neither do I see why that means that this alias should be linked from anywhere. Show me an example of an Alias page that needs to be linked, and I'll gladly agree that there's nothing wrong with this heartwarming plea.

Arno: I'm not going to split hairs. The page lists orphans. It also gets used for marking pages that should be deleted. That usage evolved over time. It's part of one of SL's unwritten inner workflows. It is part of the SL experienced deshi exam?. I have nothing more to add. If you like reword the intro.

(Sebastian:) With all due respect, this is not splitting hairs. "Finding a family" is the primary request of this page. Aliases are listed first on this page, and they are in the majority. If there is no alias that deserves a family then this request is misleading. I think we should at least move it to the "Other orphans" section.

Arno: I still find it hard to understand what your problem is. This is a wiki. Reword the sentence by putting "deleting" before "finding a family" if that scratches your itch. I spot at least 5 aliases in the above list which should be scrapped without second thought. After you have changed the wording you can delete the whole discussion here, as the problem is solved then.

(Sebastian:) Sounds good. Will first write the change down here and only change the top part when nobody objects.

Re the word "delete"

 Mark pages which should be deleted with the word delete.

And of course, one could add: "mark others with the word keep". But as my current policy is to keep all pages not marked delete (well, most of time) this is redundant.

(Sebastian:) Yes, it is redundant for you. But it is very helpful for the rest of us, because it saves each of us from examining pages that are simply in this list because they should be kept.

Arno: ok.


[1] Question: If we just delete them from this list, how can we make sure that Arno won't put them back later? They still fulfil Arno's criterium, don't they?

Arno: if you just delete them, they will be put back here later on, if they still satisfy the orphan criterium.

[2] (Sebastian:) OK, I overlooked this. But the following scenario still can occur:

  1. Bill writes an alias page on X
  2. You do the search and put it as orphan into this list
  3. John links to X from his homepage
  4. Matthew marks the entry for delete
  5. You delete it

=> John's link points to nowhere

Arno: it could occur. But I make sure that it is still an orphan when I delete a page listed here. Usually I even look at the page history if I'm unsure that a page should be deleted.

(Sebastian:) That's great - thanks a lot for all the work that you're doing here!


From KGSWishlist

Expires: 2003-11-22. Moved discussion because it is implemented now.

A casual remark: some people add their propositions in the beginning of the list, others in the end. Any idea why?

Neil: Some people see it as a stack, and others see it as a queue?

MK: True, there is no convention on this site regarding whether discussions should be 'stack-type' or 'queue-type', is there? I've seen pages of both types. My favourite depends on whether a page is commentary-type or discussion-type. For a commentary queue-type is much preferred, since getting comments for moves backwards is very confusing to me. Discussion-type should probably be queue-type too: argument1, argument2 and so on, so that one can follow the logic. Anyway this page is brainstorm-type, so one doesn't need to bother about setting a convention. I was at first worried that my remarks, humbly added in the end, would be unnoticed, that's why I asked.

Sebastian: This page has become so full that it would make sense to structure it better. Instead of the distinction between major wishes and minor stuff, we might consider a functional outline. E.g. by menu for anything that's accessible through a menu and one chapter for issues that aren't.

I'm not sure about the distinction between normal wishes and controversial suggestions, though. Who makes that distinction? Someone with a new idea usually writes it into major wishes or minor stuff. So will someone move it when it becomes controversial? When is an issue controversial? Is this distinction really so helpful? I think we can recognize most controversial issue by the length of the thread they generate. If we want to be more explicit we could add black or white Go stones in front, like this

 W1 some statement
 B2 controversial opinion

MK One could structure discussion along something like this (please edit and expand on this):

Server

Client

  • Chats
  • Playing games
  • Statistics
  • Personal settings
  • Getting help

General suggestions (other stuff)

It could also help to remove double suggestions about the same thing.

Sebastian: This would work, as well. This is certainly better in terms of the underlying program structure and thus more immune to UI changes. But for newbies such at me it might be a little harder to decide where to put a wish. Where shoult I e.g. put a wish like "Have user info show where a player is, for example watching a game"?

MK Beginner puts it anywhere, a more knowledgeble person moves it in a more proper place :)

TJ: I took the liberty of putting some categories and sub-categories down and moving discussion chunks into them. I hope it's a step ahead! If I moved things to the wrong category, could have put them in better order, should have had a category for FOO with a BAR sub-category (all of which is likely), don't have a cow...tweak it.:) In any case, NOTHING was left out, just moved around. I also didn't touch the foot-note area at all. Anyways, I hope this is a good start at cleaning things up.-TJ

(Sebastian:) Thank you for your effort. Just one question: Why do the RecentChanges display a diff of -30 in spite of your added headlines? I am sure that you did not intend to leave anything out, but maybe something got lost by accident?
TJ: Almost certain nothing was left out...probably the -30 is because I used cut and paste...this left many blank lines from where the lines were cut, which I then deleted. If anything is missing, one could grab the relevant bits from previous versions of the page listed in diff lists, though I did try to be very careful to paste after every cut except the last one (removing the empty lines), so it should all be there. The diff amount seems to do odd things at times, in my limited experience.
p.s. After worrying about the above, I did a totally unscientific and inaccurate check by copying the pre-reorganized and post-reorganized pages into Word in a pure text paste. Post-reorganized came out 2 pages longer. For whatever that's worth; it seems the diff of -30 is inaccurate, in any case.




This is a copy of the living page "Compost Heap" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.