Oberwiki talk:Conventions
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Department names
What should departments be named? Computer Science, Department of Computer Science, Computer Science Program? --Xander
In reference to what academic areas should be called: There is a difference between a "Department" and a "Program" at Oberlin College. There is no Department of Computer Science. There is a Computer Science Program. There is no East Asian Studies department. There is an East Asian Studies Program (I think). Name things based on their official names. The OC web site and Fussers should help with that. --Arioch
The Oberlin College Directory lists things with only the focus, i.e. "Computer Science" and "East Asian Studies". Individual web sites say "Computer Science Program", "Chemistry and Biochemistry Department", "Department of Russian Language, Literature and Culture", "Oberlin Geology", "Oberlin Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies"...should we use each department/program's own web site as the authority on the name? I'd rather have a more uniform system... --Xander 12:55, 29 Dec 2004 (CST)
I think the official, printed directory gives the actual official names or something. --Arioch 16:35, 29 Dec 2004 (CST)
Since the online directories call everything a "department" (i.e. offices & departments), I think we should adopt the same standard. We can still use the "official" name, such as Computer Science Program, but each page should be placed into the Departments category. We can simply make redirects to cover all the bases. --Nhorn 23:40, 1 Apr 2005 (CST)
Department pages
Is it worth having a list of the courses offered on the department page? The course pages should be collected in the category for each department, but having them listed by number might be useful. Might encourage people to write about any classes without content already, too... --Xander 16:51, 12 Mar 2005 (CST)
Might it be better to include the individual department categories as sub-categories in the category "Departments" and then include the department pages as articles in those categories? Rahnle 19:19, 2 Apr 2005 (CST)
that sounds reasonable, shall we try it? --Nhorn 20:28, 2 Apr 2005 (CST)
People
Also, about people's names: I think we should have first and last names, but the first name should also be what that person wants to be called, if what they are called is their first name or some variant. Bob Geitz is never Robert anywhere I've seen, it's always Bob, even when he signs official documents. --Arioch
The Fussers lists Bob Geitz as "Robert F Geitz (Bob)", but I agree and am inclined to use "Bob Geitz" as the article title. --Xander 12:55, 29 Dec 2004 (CST)
Names?
I prefer Last, First, but the convention so far has been to use First Last. This is mainly a problem in the Categories, where all names are sorted by first name, which is unconventional and a bit confusing. Perhaps we could use Last, First and make First Last be a redirect. --Nhorn 11:14, 13 Mar 2005 (CST)
I'm inclined to keep First Last just so article titles are more natural, and let categories be a little confusing. It might not be too bad to have articles themselves remain First Last but have Last, First be redirect pages that are in categories (if redirects can be; they might not)...except then there'd be no category link at the bottom of a person's actual page... --Xander 20:55, 13 Mar 2005 (CST)
Yeah; the natural look is nice for the actual titles. Redirects can't be in categories; I tried putting my name as a redirect and category:students on the old wiki, and it didn't work.
Heh, I figured out a nice solution by looking at Wikipedia. --Nhorn 23:15, 13 Mar 2005 (CST)
"Nice solution" is right; MediaWiki surprises me once again with unusual ways of doing things. Thanks, Noah. --Xander 08:55, 14 Mar 2005 (CST)
(The solution is thus: [[Category:People|Last, First]] puts the article into the category, but lists it alphabetically by "Last, First" instead of by the article title.)
Course article contents
Should we have a standard way of presenting the basic information about each course? Check out the top of Computer Organization, for example, but I'm imagining it also telling you the CRN and credit hours and writing proficiency and all the other stuff that each class has... --Xander 05:08, 17 Mar 2005 (CST)
Categories and Articles
So I think we've been pretty much doing this but I just wanted to clear it up. Category pages themselves should have little actual content besides a list of articles; the content should really just be a link to the article with the same name as the title. Having a separate article for the category's content is a little annoying, but for ease of use it's good to have no weird "Category:" namespacing before an article. So yeah, that's that; if there are no other comments I guess I'll put a new section into Conventions about it. --Xander 12:23, 5 Apr 2005 (CDT)
Article titles and in/definite articles
re Harris's comment:
- we do have to discuss whether A.) articles ("the") should be included in full names and B.) whether "Oberlin" needs to be included in full names.
I'm not so sure about "the" in article titles. It doesn't seem very necessary, but then again the Arb is always referred to as the Arb.
Generally, I don't think "Oberlin" needs to be in article titles.
—alxndr (talk) 15:05, 6 June 2007 (EDT)
- I agree with Xander on omitting Oberlin — it's the Oberlin wiki; putting Oberlin in most titles would be kind of absurd, methinks. --Tevi 15:15, 6 June 2007 (EDT)
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