Editing Incubator escapee wiki:WikiProject Dogs/Dog breeds task force/General (section)

==Article consistency==

Hey, I've been to several of the individual dog breed pages and while most a good they don't follow the same pattern. Shouldn't each page have the same format? For example, the article should start out with a brief intro then a paragraph on appearance, then temperament, then history, trivia, etc. Do you think we should do this? What should the categories be? [[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 20:04, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:Hey, do you want to hear from me again? I'm sure others will chime in to say whether they agree or think I'm full of it.  I like the idea of consistency in article structure. We have a set of suggested topics on the main project page. The challenge is that random people come along and create an article with a couple of paragraphs and go away, and one of us who notices attempts to stick in some reasonable headings, and there it sits.  So--if you'd like to propose a standard outline, do it--this is probably a reasonable place for the proposal and discussion, given how disorganized this project's subpages & talk pages have gotten (e.g., this discussion--most of tthese--should really be on the talk page).  Then, when people have had a few days to comment on it (not everyone logs in every day. Not even me :-) ), anyone who wants to start working their way through the [[List of dog breeds]] existing articles and start applying the standard outline will probably be ''absolutely worshipped'' by the rest of the team. :-)  And all of us would probably try to use the agreed-on outline whenever we went in to clean up an article.  Any volunteers? ;-)  [[User:Elf|Elf]] | [[User talk:Elf|Talk]] 23:04, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:Oh, and a couple more thoughts--(1)it's hard to come up with a complete, all-encompassing list of subheadings; e.g., [[Australian Shepherd]] seemed to call for 2 sections on its history, whereas most breeds are lucky to have a sentence on their origin.  [[Dobermann]] had so much on its appearance that it was broken into sub-subsections on Tail, Ears, and so on.  But if we could come up with just the basic top-level heading organization, that would be helpful.  The other thought is--I've been thinking for a long time that we could really use either an addition to the breed table for basic quantitative info (height, weight, whatever--although that would make a long table even longer), or a standard subtable that we could stick into the appearance section.  What do other people think?

:Also consider, while thinking about that, whether there's any good way to combine the breed standards external links in the same table as the kennel club name & group name--it's too confusing having '''FCI''', e.g., as an active link in 2 places in the table and have it go to different places.  [[User:Elf|Elf]] | [[User talk:Elf|Talk]] 23:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:Ok so here's what I think. The article should start out with a small paragraph summarizing the breed . Then we could have the sub heading, appearance, then tempermant, then history, then trivia/misc. What do you think? Are there other categories we should include? And is this the best order? Tell me what you think. Thanks [[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 22:20, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

::So I've thought a bit more..maybe history should be the last heading?? [[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 00:14, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:Another idea...maybe instead of temperament we could have attributes. Temperament could still fit under that heading. Or instead of attributes we could put characteristics.

::Most of your changes so far I agree with, but some are iffy--that's the problem with rushing out and doing many changes without waiting for feedback. :-)  For example:
::* "Temperament and/or characteristics" is really wishy-washy.  Yeah, I ''know'' that's what it says on the main project page, but what it meant was "choose one heading or both", not all in the same heading. :-)  Some breed articles have a section heading of "Uses" or sometimes "Activities" for things that the dog is skilled at doing.  Some lumped these with temperament and called the section "Characteristics".  I think it's fine to separate temperament out. But what to call the other section--Characteristics, Uses, Activities, or none of the above?  Discussion (there really are people other than me out there--really--) might be helpful in resolving that.  Meanwhile, I'd leave those headings as is rather than resorting to and/or.
:::Ok...you're right, that title is a bit clunky and dumb.[[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 03:12, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
::*Wikipedia convention is leave out headings unless there's actually content for them. However, I think it's fine to insert them and comment them out using standard HTML commenting, as I did in [[Alaskan Malamute]]--I consolidated them up onto one line because otherwise there's a whole lot of odd-looking blank space.
::*I like "Trivia" for the random assortment of facts that didn't fit elsewhere; good choice (IMHO). You'll find some articles have sections like "(breedname) in the arts" or "(breedname) in the media"; those could possibly be turned into Trivia sections.
::*Oh--and most talk/discussion pages proceed chronologicially from top to bottom, so it's confusing to search for new additions in the middle or near the top. Just another convention that most people & pages (not all) use.
::[[User:Elf|Elf]] | [[User talk:Elf|Talk]] 03:05, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) (again)

I feel kind of stupid now for changing so much without waiting. This is supposed to be a collaborative project. 
You Know it would be nice if others commented. It's just you and me discussing this! I know it's only been a few days since I started changing things...I guess not all parts of wikipedia move fast.[[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 03:12, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:It's not stupid--just means you might have to go back and change some of the headings later. If you don't mind that, and you're chomping at the bit (like you said--you've got time and want to do it now!), I don't think you're doing anything terrible and, as I said, you're doing a good job. [[User:64.166.85.254|64.166.85.254]] 05:16, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) (oops--that was me. [[User:Elf|Elf]] | [[User talk:Elf|Talk]])
:::I don't mind changing stuff. Lately it seems I have a lot of time off work to do this.[[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 18:56, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

::I have to say I don't like "trivia", but maybe that's a personal taste thing.  To me, it makes it sounds as though the information is trivial, and not really worth putting in the article.  There have been disputes about the use of "trivia" as a section heading in other areas of Wikipedia as well, with the general view tending to be that it is suitable for a general interest book, but not really an encyclopaedia.  I can't really think of a good alternative though, maybe "general"?  I don't know.  But on the wider issue of introducing more consistency across the section - great! that will make a real difference -- [[User:Sannse|sannse]] [[User talk:Sannse|(talk)]] 12:43, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
:::Yay, someone else is discussing this!!! 18:56, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)that was me [[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 18:57, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

::::Sorry, I've been on wikibreak for a week or two *g* -- [[User:Sannse|sannse]] [[User talk:Sannse|(talk)]] 20:46, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
:::::That's probably good to take a break. It's so addicting and all consuming. I hardly go anywhere else on the net these days. [[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 22:58, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:Would "Miscellaneous" be any better than "General"? Other than being harder to spell; ''general'' to me sounds more like ''overview'' than like a collection of info that doesn't fit elsewhere. [[User:Elf|Elf]] | [[User talk:Elf|Talk]] 15:15, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

::I like miscellaneous better than general and it does sound more fit for an encyclopedia than trivial. [[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 18:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:::miscellaneous sounds ok to me, we can always change it if someone comes up with a better idea some time -- [[User:Sannse|sannse]] [[User talk:Sannse|(talk)]] 20:46, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So I've been going through the list of breeds alphabetically...I came to [[Australian Cattle Dog]] and there is a section on activities such as agility etc. Should this be a separate section? Should it go under miscellaneous? [[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 19:28, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:I'd say such things depend on how large the section is.  If it looks right to have it's own heading then do that, we shouldn't be bound by consistency if it doesn't fit the particular article, I would say just use it as a general outline rather than a rule.  So in this case, it seems to me to be a detailed enough section to have it's own heading rather than being slotted into "miscellaneous" -- [[User:Sannse|sannse]] [[User talk:Sannse|(talk)]] 20:46, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

::Hmm...maybe you're right...what if I put it under history? Would that work...hmmm...maybe I should just leave it the way it is for now. [[User:Bremen|Bremen]] 22:58, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)