Talk:World Cruising and Sailing Wiki

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Revision as of 16:48, 19 February 2016

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Attract more editors to discussions

I'd like to propose to put a link to this discussion page, so the editors could come here and have a discussion about this wiki. How is that? --Vadim 11:24, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

I think this is an excellent idea. --Istioploos 13:02, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

Done. Restylings are welcomed! --Vadim 14:15, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

Blog Posts Related To This Location

• What do you think of having a section at the bottom of the page for "Blog Posts Related To This Location" in which people can post a link to their blog, provided the page referenced is related to the page in question? This would make it very easy for cruisers to get detailed personal impressions, including photos, of the places they are researching? LifePart2 19:10, 5 May 2013 (BST)

Wrong link to Creativecommons.png

There is an img tag on every page here that refers to http://www.cruiserswiki.com/images/f/fe/Creativecommons.png, apparently it should read as http://www.cruiserswiki.org/images/f/fe/Creativecommons.png.

It takes quite a while (c-ca 2.5 min) for this request to time out. Perhaps this is why on page edit a tool bar loads only after such a delay.

--Vadp 11:19, 9 February 2015 (GMT)

The little investigation revealed that the culprit is the MonoBook skin of this wiki: when you switch to some other skin there is no load delay and, for example, google map widgets load up swiftly.

At the very boItom of every page made with this skin there is a link to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ and the icon for this link is hardcoded to http://www.cruiserswiki.com/images/f/fe/Creativecommons.png:

    <div id="f-copyrightico"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/">
            <img src="http://www.cruiserswiki.com/images/f/fe/Creativecommons.png" alt="C.C. 3.0 License" width="88" height="31" />
    </a></div>

Apparently a fix this issue could be:

    <img src="/images/f/fe/Creativecommons.png" alt="C.C. 3.0 License" width="88" height="31" />

--Vadp 17:14, 10 February 2015 (GMT)

A workaround has been implemented -- see MediaWiki:Monobook.js. It seems to work fine in Firefox, Chrome and IE v.11 --Vadim 16:13, 19 April 2015 (BST)

A newer workaround was implemented at MediaWiki:Common.js. Although it is not able fully solve the problem for Safari --Vadim 15:25, 11 February 2016 (GMT)

Template:PartOf as a new "Navbar"

Santa Teresa Gallura test has a new feature which looks similar to the old Navbar at the bottom of a page (see Santa Teresa Gallura). In fact it's more than that, as it introduces a true article hierarchy from, say, a marina to a town, region, country, geographic area, the World. This hierarchy: (1) can explored and analysed by an user or an editor, (2) used by some software application, for example, to built a list of POIs for a whole region to be drawn at a chartlet or to allow user to transfer a set POIs to a chartplotter or some other navigation application.

As to it's visual presentation, then my feeling is that the top of the page could be a better location for it: once you open a page you'd be able to grasp some important information about the article at once, without scrolling a page: it's relation with other article, it's contents, then on the left -- links to a home page, wiki contents, etc. --Vadim 16:58, 10 February 2016 (GMT)

As I mentioned before, I am not sure I like the Navbar at the the top of the page. I think that users are by now used to see it at the bottom. Had we not had this history I would preferred it, like you, at the top. Having said that there were many mistakes in the Navbars of older pages. Many Germany pages in the North Sea also claimed to be in the Baltic, so its automatic creation will alleviate this problem.

As far as the Navbar aesthetics and position I propose that we give both arguments to the rest of the registered editors and go by the consensus. What do you think? --Istioploos 18:44, 10 February 2016 (GMT)

As per Istioploos advice the users are able to discuss it here --Vadim 14:17, 11 February 2016 (GMT)

I quite like the position at the top and it is a more logical position (as other editors have observed in the past), but I'd make two points: 1. It needs better graphical treatment, e.g. tabs as it looks like an editing mistake the way it is at present; and 2. I assume that Vadim is willing to apply this change across all the current Wiki pages for consistency. In the absence of either of these my answer would be no. ----Athene of Lymington 14:36, 11 February 2016 (GMT)

No problems, Gordon, with both of you points. Although #2 looks like a bit of challenge, but I wouldn't suggest this change without thinking of how to implement it. My feeling is that {{NavBar}} conversion could be automated, on the other hand I'm not quite sure about "Cruising Wiki Navigation" in its older, table, form. Perhaps categories creation would need some help, for the moment I don't see how to automate this process.

As for it's design, then my concern is not to overdo it. See, for example how it's made at the Wikivoyage. It's very simple there. Any suggestions? --Vadim 15:04, 11 February 2016 (GMT)

Take a look at the change I've made to your Santa Teresa Gallura page - I've just moved the navbar to the top. I'd be happy to do that with all the countries and pages for which I've been largely or partly responsible, namely Albania, France, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Italy, Montenegro, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia. Assuming, of course, that Istioploos is of like mind and is prepared to do the same with Greece and Turkey etc. It's time I reviewed all these countries anyway to see if there are any areas I can update or improve. --Athene of Lymington 17:14, 11 February 2016 (GMT)

Thanks, Gordon. There is no need to make any changes at the articles, at least right now: relocation of navbar call can be done automatically, but I need to think a bit more on it. --Vadim 19:10, 11 February 2016 (GMT)

I've made some changes to make PartOf bar and horizontal TOC a bit more distinct. See Porto Santa Teresa Gallura test. How is that?

It looks good but there 3 problems: 1. If I click on "World" on the Navbar I get categories, 2. The "Santa Teresa Galleria" on the Navbar should not be a link but black like it was in the old bar, 3. At the bottom of the page it shows "Santa Teresa Galleria" as a category. --Istioploos 19:33, 14 February 2016 (GMT)

#1 changed as per your suggestion, I think #2 is not needed really as it repeats the title of an article -- it's mere repetition, #3 category at the bottom removed. Looks better? --Vadim 09:42, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

Also could you please have a look at Salerno test? Here a bot has turned Navbar into PartOf.

Yes it does that here and in Porto Santa Teresa... It looks like a nav bar but it is a Part of categories. Here I must say that I personally prefer the mire conventional TOC that is similar to the one in Wikipedia. --Istioploos 19:33, 14 February 2016 (GMT)

Have a look at Category:Articles needing PartOf category -- Salerno test is there!

Now, near the top of Salerno test you'd see "Create category hierarchy to Tyrrhenian Coast". If you follow this link it will create a category for Tyrrhenian Coast. At the edit box you'd need to replace <!-- insert name of next region level up here --> with the name of an upper region, Italy in this case, and so on. --Vadim 13:57, 14 February 2016 (GMT)

OK it seems I've made a bot that makes *all* the job automatically --Vadim 16:23, 14 February 2016 (GMT)

The bot need to create a Navbar. Categories are better be left to human judgement. --Istioploos 19:33, 14 February 2016 (GMT)

Categories that you have noted serve an auxiliary function. You've just caught me in the middle of editing -- now they are hidden --Vadim 11:45, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

I like the new look of Salerno test. Much neater and easier to navigate. In the past I've always had to put a link in the first paragraph back to the island/region/country page as many users want to use the Wiki to 'port hop' along a coastline when planning an itinerary. It's not necessary with this approach. Another challenge might be to try to engineer a neater approach to the tables of ports/islands on the country and region pages? My only other observation is whether removing the text for the chartlet and Panoramio icons may result in less knowledgeable users not clicking on them at all? --Athene of Lymington 10:02, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

* RE text for the chartlet and Panoramio icons. When you hover over an icon at the infobox it shows a tool tip. This gives a reader a hint, but it does not eat screen space. For chartlet hoover over infobox coordinates -- a link there opens a full window chartlet and see article's points there, like here. I reckon this feature is of great value for a casual reader. BTW Template:Chartlet allows to embed a small chartlet right into a page --Vadim 11:40, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

* RE tables of ports/islands on the country and region pages The only thing that I think of at the moment is simply to arrange ports/islands there not alphabetically, but following a coast line. --Vadim 11:50, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

I think I've made a point for some consensus on how TOC looks like. Now it is different in two skins: in monobook it's old style, in vector -- it's horizontal. Have a look at Santa Teresa Gallura test and Salerno test --Vadim 11:20, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

I find this arrangement very good. I tested these 2 pages in both skins. The Navbar now works as I expected it to work, looks good, and I have no problem with it being on the top of the page. I also like very much its TOC behavior in "Vector" where contents below level 3 are shown as a submenu. Bravo! --Istioploos 13:01, 15 February 2016 (GMT)

So, I'm about to apply new TOC and Navbar replacements. Any objections? --Vadim 09:16, 16 February 2016 (GMT)

OK then, implementing this change --Vadim 08:59, 17 February 2016 (GMT)

The change was implemented --Vadim 11:21, 17 February 2016 (GMT)

Looking at Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, etc. I see the following problems: 1. In both "Vector" & "Mono Book" the NavBar has disappeared. 2. While in "Vector" the TOC looks great, in "Mono Book" the {{TOCleft}} has been ignored and the TOC is at the wrong place. i.e. before anything else. I had spent a lot of time to place at a good location in almost every page that I had edited. --Istioploos 14:07, 17 February 2016 (GMT)

You're quite right Indian Ocean doesn't look good. That makes the things complicate --Vadim 15:53, 17 February 2016 (GMT)

Have a look at Indian Ocean now -- a page cannot contain two TOCs -- I think that's the best could be done in this situation --Vadim 16:08, 17 February 2016 (GMT)

Indian Ocean now looks fine in both "Vector" and "MonoBook"., thanks. But still NO NavBars unlike in Santa Teresa Gallura test, I guess these will come latter. By the way, if I restore {{Navbar| [[Indian Ocean]] }} on Indian Ocean it works fine in both skins and so does {{IsPartOf|Indian Ocean}}. --Istioploos 19:33, 17 February 2016 (GMT)

Do we want the NavBar to show the current page (in black) in addition to like of its ancestors? I think this is clearer. --Istioploos 19:57, 17 February 2016 (GMT)

Personally, I don't think that it's worth repeating a page name at the new "Navbar" as it's located now right below the page's title and simply duplicates it. I don't mind though if you'd like to stay it there. I've mended the template, so have a look.

Thank you, I do like this because it graphically shows the hierarchy. --Istioploos 14:34, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

By the way, have a look at Adriatic Sea. "Navbar" there is not hierarchical. In this case it lists the counties that *inside* the region. But as I wrote, there is no problem if you like it this way --Vadim 09:27, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

Looking in this page's history I see that I had added the countries. I agree that we should just stick to the hierarchy, so I changed it. --Istioploos 14:34, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

Good, as you could see from the that page code I was trying to implement in Template:IsPartOf a workaround for this practice --Vadim 14:49, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

Aegean Sea

It looks rather distracting for me that lump of history there. Would not be it better to put a link to Wikipedia instead? --Vadim 09:38, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

Maybe you are right. But it has much more relevant information than what is given in Wikipedia. Do you think we can just put the history in a separate page? --Istioploos 14:43, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

A separate history page would be just fine! --Vadim 14:50, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

BTW perhaps you've noticed that I've already put an imagemap from this article to a separate page. I think (a) that way it's safer for an imagemap to survive this article future edits (b) the article's become a bit more readable. I've done this actually because the edit page was whimpering about the article could be too long as some browsers allow max. 32 Kb of text to be edited. --Vadim 15:06, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

I did notice the change in image map. That is good. We can protect Aegean_Sea/imagemap and unprotect Aegean Sea. I also transcluded Aegean Sea history. Not sure if that makes the page shorter. If it does not we can just make See page. --Istioploos 16:25, 19 February 2016 (GMT)

Personal Notes

Following our recent exchange, take a look at what I've done to Santa Teresa Gallura and the link to a separate 'Comments' page. I think this might help encourage more contributions to the Wiki from less confident subscribers. On occasion the admins would be able to pick up updates from here and use them to edit the main page where the contributor hasn't had the confidence to do so. I've done this in the past for several subscribers and it does show that the admins are willing to undertake active mentoring.

I'd agree that "Discussion" pages associated with each article look like a good place for posing personal notes. Perhaps a (html) form to fill in would be useful, like they do at Wikivoyage to add and update their listings (aka POI) (look for a small 'edit' piece after each listing at https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Alghero#See) --Vadim 14:44, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

This exactly what I was thinking. But I would still leave the bullets for any one that want to add their brief comments there. --Istioploos 14:52, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

The Wiki already has an 'edit' after each section. My concern (based on mentoring experience!) is that subscribers are often reluctant to use it because they see all these unfamiliar symbols on the edit page and discover that if they inadvertently move or delete one during the editing it wrecks the page format. Believe me I've had numerous such discussions with new subscribers and wound up being asked to edit the page myself using the information they supplied. What I want to see is an easy 'information drop' where subscribers can input such information under a clear set of headings. The admins can then use it (when they get time!) to update the page and in the meantime the information is there for all other Wiki users to see. I mentioned the Cruising Association app, CAptain's Mate (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeJAWb-ULLI for basic(!) info), which has been hugely successful in the three or so years since it was launched simply because it's so easy to use. I wish we had even a tenth of their regular contributors for the Wiki! --Athene of Lymington 17:06, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

I understand your concerns quite well. While you implementation idea is not so clear for me. Do you want to create a separate 'Comments' page for each article? That's why me, and think Vasilis, to use "Discussion" pages as they are already there, so why not to let the users to dump their stuff there. Perhaps you'd need to setup some prototype for this. I'll have a look at demo you posted -- promise! --Vadim 17:32, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

Yes to a separate 'Comments' page. I have no objection to the Discussion page but it's simply not used for page updating and I'm not sure it was ever intended for that. I think we have to make it EXTREMELY simple if we want more subscribers to start contributing and a form directly linked to each page would enable people to do that. Take a look at the prototype and CAptain's Mate video to see what I have in mind. None of us is immortal and I fear if we don't encourage more subscribers to contribute the Wiki will wither on the vine. --Athene of Lymington 17:59, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

I had a look at the demo and I think that "Discussion" page could do the thing. For me it would be absolutely fine if users would post their personal experience, comments on the page's theme and discuss it.

"Discussion" page is simply a feature of Mediawiki engine and how to use this feature is completely up to agreement between the members of a community which uses this engine. Currently the feature is virtually not used. But if the users are able to discuss the matter they reading/writing about, then it would form I reckon a real community around this wiki.

"Discussion" page has a useful "add topic" feature which would allow to make a new section (aka post) easily. You just need to make sure each post goes into a separate section and has a Subject/headline filled in. You wouldn't need to worry too much about formatting though.

BTW do you see at the edit toolbar a whitish POI icon? Did you try it? A similar technique could be used at a talk page as well to ease filling in some input there. --Vadim 12:25, 19 February 2016 (GMT)

I think that the "Discussion" page is a good place for adding lengthy descriptions of user experiences in a port or island. The bullet under "Personal Notes" should be for short notes. It could easily made to point to "Discussion", as in Santa Teresa Gallura. --Istioploos 13:17, 19 February 2016 (GMT)

Can I make a suggestion to resolve this one? I propose that we take a country - let's say Croatia, since I now spend most of my time there - and modify all the pages as I've recommended to include this new easy 'Comment' feature. I'm prepared to put in the time to do this, unless Vadim can write a script. Let's then review it after a decent period (say six to nine months) to see whether this approach has encouraged more active contributors to these pages or not. Because the clear evidence is that neither the existing page edit function nor (even less) the 'Discussion' feature is encouraging Wiki subscribers to get involved. We're not having too much difficulty signing people up; it's getting them to contribute that's the problem. --Athene of Lymington 15:26, 19 February 2016 (GMT)

Can you make one page by yourself to have an idea? Then I'll see what could be done to deploy it. Perhaps also some explanatory note needs to be put somewhere --Vadim 15:48, 19 February 2016 (GMT)

Sorry, Vadim - maybe I'm being a little obtuse here. The Santa Teresa Gallura page is basically how I would see this working. I don't envisage much more elaboration than that as the mission as I see it is to keep things as simple as possible. As regards the content I anticipate people adding, it's basically the kind of brief 'information drop' that CA members use in CAptain's Mate if you have viewed that (although slightly more structured by the headings and bullet points). As for an explanatory note, yes indeed - I would envisage that, assuming this approach is seen to work, then we would put some explanatory text on the home page and also include it in the welcome email that all new subscribers receive. However, that's for the future once this approach proves its worth. --Athene of Lymington 16:44, 19 February 2016 (GMT)

Leros Anchorages

I have reverted two changes here from "Poi" back to "Poi3" because Poi is a level 4 and these anchorages should be level3. --Istioploos 15:05, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

Yet another chartlet

I've made yet another prototype for yet another chartlet: MediaWiki:Ol3-test. This is quite different implementation from the current one.

The major difference that it's supposed to show POIs on Safari as well. It's far from being finished, but please have a look --Vadim 17:02, 18 February 2016 (GMT)

TOC block location

I'd suggest that as a rule {{TOC block}} should stay at the top of a page, like it was done with the latest change.

While, as it was pointed out, some pages with big imagemaps like Indian Ocean do require it to be put after them. The majority of the pages with {{infobox}} look ugly under vector skin if {{TOC block}} is located after {{infobox}}. See, for example, Diaporos vector vs monobook, while if {{TOC block}} as at the top then the both skins look better: vector and monobook. In the later case it shopuldn't be anything between {{TOC block}} and {{infobox}} --Vadim 09:50, 19 February 2016 (GMT)

You are right. The problem is with pages that retain a level 2 top header. I changed Diaporos by moving the {{TOC block}} under the header but before the {{infobox}}. It looks better in vector but still not perfect. Please take a look.

The only other solution is to get rid of the headers. Gordon and I have been removing most of those. The ones that are left are either with a different spelling (usually an accent), a clarification (island in the Diapers case), or explicitly adding "(Port of Entry)".--Istioploos 13:06, 19 February 2016 (GMT)

Thanks, Vasilis. BTW Perhaps it's better to rename the page to "Diaporos Island" so the 1st heading will be right as you wanted. For Port of Entry we could make some sort of {{Port of Entry}} banner and put it right below {{IsPartOf}}. Different spellings simply could start the 1st sentence of an article like it was done at Diaporos or at wikipedia wikipedia:Alghero --Vadim 14:24, 19 February 2016 (GMT)

Special:ReplaceText

Just in case you did not find it already: Some simple mass replacements can be done via Special:ReplaceText --Vadim 16:48, 19 February 2016 (GMT)