User talk:Sahab: Difference between revisions

To all new editors; if you need some assistance or guidance, please feel free to leave a message here and I will be more than happy to help.

New section

Core articles and translations

Sad that some of that editor's work had to be removed. I made this change in the 'welcome creation' page[1]. Hopefully now they'll talk to us first before starting any translation work. Tweak as you like. --Axius (talk) 10:27, 13 January 2014 (PST)

Cool, Will do. Yeah, it's too bad. But I don't understand why new translators go straight to the core articles. It's common sense that small paragraph summaries are useless without the full articles. It's also a shame that some of them feel the need to alter the original articles without keeping us informed. That comment he added about the "90%" completely undermines the entire article. --Sahabah (talk) 15:20, 13 January 2014 (PST)

Yea those changes/additions aren't good. Thanks for watching out for that.

What do you think about task 2 [2] (the one about new Overview articles which are all sourced). The last line of that task is about core articles. Some initial thoughts: This could mean that the current Core articles would have the "Articles/Article summaries" sections re-written so they are all referenced/sourced, and then we can still use the {{main|}} template to link those articles. They can then translate these Core articles and the {{main templates can just be removed from the text. What do you think. I'll think more about this. What we want is an sourced overview that is a stand alone article, and thats what people see when they click those links. The next issue is, what do we do with the article summaries. Article summaries could be moved further down on that page. Or they could be merged and we could only have them linked with the "main" template and they wont lose their visibility. This should help prevent more direct translations of these articles. We can leave notes like that for people who edit. We should still think about these overview articles though. They will also be great as first translations. I'll post here if I get any good ideas. --Axius (talk) 17:13, 13 January 2014 (PST)

The core articles were always meant to be an easy-to-read starting point for each topic, guiding readers to more information (basically hub pages with a lot more information). That was always the point, and they work brilliantly for that. They were not meant as stand-alone articles. So the problem is the summaries on the core articles are very brief and many aren't even summaries; they're introductions explaining what the full articles are about. To make them stand-alone articles, most of it would have to be rewritten and expanded. So they would no longer be short or easy-to-read. They would be long, complicated sections that are basically repeating already existing information and making our real articles a little pointless (since the info on those pages will already be on the core pages). --Sahabah (talk) 17:40, 13 January 2014 (PST)

"What we want is an sourced overview that is a stand alone article, and thats what people see when they click those links."

When has this ever been what we wanted? Every other article on the site is a stand-alone article, so why would we want the same for the core articles linked on the side? The whole reason we started those core articles was to provide a single page that would branch out to all the other important articles. Why would we want to put normal stand-alone articles on the side-bar? --Sahabah (talk) 17:47, 13 January 2014 (PST)

Ok well, you're not seeing it the way I'm seeing it. I would explain further but since I dont see myself working on this any time soon I'll just let it pass. If I work on such a sample sourced page I'll talk about this again. --Axius (talk) 18:07, 13 January 2014 (PST)

I don't see any harm in discussing it now. Besides, more core articles are on our tasks page. This means I'll possibly be creating more and it would be nice to know if that would be a waste of my time or not. So, to start, just tell me specifically what benefits do you think we will gain by whatever it is you're suggesting?

Also, answering your original question about task 2, I think we should stick to making it similar to the Wikipedia equivalent (i.e. a long but single page). Splitting topics and spreading it over multiple pages would involve too much work. I doubt any editor would finish a project like that, and even if they did, it would probably turn out less than satisfactory. It would also be repeating a lot of information for no apparent reason. Maybe you're thinking translators would benefit (which is what you seem to be saying). But I don't think that's the case. Translator would probably never finish translating it. Rather than translating a few normal articles, they'll start doing that for a few days then stop; leaving us with a lot of unfinished and useless pages. --Sahabah (talk) 18:26, 13 January 2014 (PST)

It would be too much work for me to try to make my point more clear without showing you an actual example of it. If you dont agree with that task, you can move it to my user page. Its ok with me. I can move it back if I get to it again. You can also save these comments in that task's description (hidden comment). --Axius (talk) 18:49, 13 January 2014 (PST)

News

We could get rid of the news section (Main_Page) or get the old RSS stuff back in but I dont know if it will be good since we dont control the auto generation. I tried to find the code we had before but I cant find it. --Axius (talk) 17:44, 16 January 2014 (PST)

Al-Q has some issues that he's dealing with at the mo, but will be back soon to regularly update the news. He should also be creating news pages for the few months he missed.--Sahabah (talk) 06:01, 17 January 2014 (PST)

Oh ok, cool. Good to know. --Axius (talk) 06:07, 17 January 2014 (PST)

Translating in italian

Hi Sahabah, I've finished to translate an article in italian: "the timeline of Muhammad".

I've also noted that you have translated "Women are deficient in intelligence and religion". With some little (very little) errors =) =). Can I help?

Hi Hood4. Of course. Your help would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to correct any errors you see. And thank you for the new translation. I will add it now to the front page. --Sahabah (talk) 14:42, 26 January 2014 (PST)

what happened this time

thats a strange legend- lightning and resurection . what was wrong in adding it? Saggy (talk) 03:09, 9 February 2014 (PST)

It's already a stretch having a section on miracles in an errors page. I think that new addition was weak and the page is better without it. --Sahabah (talk) 03:18, 9 February 2014 (PST)

How about dis- Pharoh doing crucifixion(anachronism)? or the sun or earth being the cause of shadows (i have details on this one because this eror depend on translations but error is there). which of the two do u like?Saggy (talk) 04:28, 9 February 2014 (PST)

Both of those sound great. Please make sure that they're not already on there somewhere (it's a long page so it is easy to accidentally add duplicates). --Sahabah (talk) 04:32, 9 February 2014 (PST)

I wanto start a logical errors article (diferent from contradictions and sc errors). How to put put sections in it?chapterwise?Saggy (talk) 01:25, 12 February 2014 (PST)

You can work on articles in a sandbox (e.g. User:Saggy/Sandbox, User:Saggy/Sandbox 2, User:Saggy/Sandbox 3). For chapters and other formatting, you can press the edit button at the top of any page and see it. For the main chapter headings it would be: ==chapter heading here== For a sub-heading it would be ===sub-heading here=== And so on. You should also take a look through the help pages. --Sahabah (talk) 03:58, 12 February 2014 (PST)

Theres a very common error ; rain brings trees of a dead land to life therefore people will be also brought back to life. Is it scintific or logical? Looking for more errors whcih are only logical. U have any? I listed some in my sandbox.--Saggy (talk) 03:47, 16 February 2014 (PST)

What verse is that? If I think of any I'll let you know. --Sahabah (talk) 05:39, 16 February 2014 (PST)

Here 7:57, 35:9,43:11,50:11,30:19 30:50.--Saggy (talk) 08:33, 16 February 2014 (PST)

okey its non-sequitur logical fallacy.--Saggy (talk) 09:17, 17 February 2014 (PST)

I have good numbers of verses. Shall I still make the article in sandbox or I make it as an article and use undercontruction template?--Saggy (talk) 11:59, 18 February 2014 (PST)

Hi. It's probably best to keep working on it in your sandbox. --Sahabah (talk) 13:59, 18 February 2014 (PST)

On second thoughts, a better idea would probably be to move your article to the main Sandbox URL like: WikiIslam:Sandbox/Name of your article here (e.g. WikiIslam:Sandbox/All about Islam. --Sahabah (talk) 15:57, 18 February 2014 (PST)

What after that?--Saggy (talk) 07:48, 20 February 2014 (PST)

Obviously it will stay there until it is completed. If it meets our quality standards and we think it is suitable for this site, then it will be moved to the mainspace. If it doesn't meet quality standards and/or is not suitable for this site, then it will stay there until it does or be deleted (depending on whether it shows potential). --Sahabah (talk) 08:27, 20 February 2014 (PST)

whats your opinion on this thing?[3] Cleanup and lead still left.--Saggy (talk) 01:25, 21 February 2014 (PST)

Good work in starting that article but I think it needs many more errors than just 5 or 6, before we can call it "logical errors in the Quran". The Skeptics Quran may be of help. They have categories like Absurdities, Contradictions (these should be checked against our list of contradictions, by the way). --Axius (talk) 05:09, 21 February 2014 (PST)

Yeah, I would say it's not very substantial ATM. I also think not all of them are very solid logical errors. The first error doesn't conclusively show Allah had to be "reminded by Jesus". To me that's clearly the author trying to make a point (i.e. Allah knows everything), and Allah's questioning is just theatrics. It doesn't necessarily indicate that Allah has bad memory.

Concerning the SAQ, I'd say it's a decent place to get a few ideas, but even critics have commented on how crappy that site is, taking things out of context etc. I'm not saying I agree with them, but our Science Errors page is in such a mess because an editor simply lifted everything from another site (i.e. AnsweringIslam). The last thing we want is to have history repeat itself and open us up to more criticism. --Sahabah (talk) 06:11, 21 February 2014 (PST)

Yes everything from other sites would have to be verified/evaluated carefully instead of being copy pasted straight away. We cant trust other sites and they're only additional sources of information to check.

Saggy, please make sure the claims are strong and cannot be questioned or interpreted in any other way (see Sahab's response). This isnt easy but it will be very worth it in the end if you work hard on every claim and get it right. So take your time, there's no hurry. These error pages are often linked from outside so its important to get them as strong as possible. Sahab is giving you advice here but if you need my help also in any way let me know. --Axius (talk) 09:51, 21 February 2014 (PST)

Yes d site is crappy. The translations thingo, most errors i got are mistranslated to try and hide them. For my article, can u both think of a better name so that we will not sit around wondering whether they are logical?--Saggy (talk) 13:27, 21 February 2014 (PST)

Oh, I forgot another q. Where to explain why a claim is strong? In my single article itself?--Saggy (talk) 13:31, 21 February 2014 (PST)

Yeah, a quick few lines or a paragraph should be fine in the page itself. About mistranslations; only those 3 main translations are to be used in our Errors pages. If the errors are not apparent in any of them, then that's too bad. Do not include those verses as errors. --Sahab (talk) 16:16, 21 February 2014 (PST)

1 more I started. Theres lots u can put here Im busy.--Saggy (talk) 08:09, 24 February 2014 (PST)

I echo Axius' reply to the same message when I say that I too am busy. We all have our own things to do already. --Sahab (talk) 11:50, 24 February 2014 (PST)

Edit toolbar

The new 'emoticons' dropdown next to Help is just a test (also, the new Info tab). I'm checking it out to see whats possible. The examples worked so thats good. I'll be back here after I find out more - lots of possibilities. I'd like to try to move all the stuff at the bottom to the top (so its in one place) and see if thats better than what we have right now. Although there's so much that can fit in this new toolbar, the bad side in my opinion is the extra clicks it takes to get to the item we want, but I guess there's no alternative. We just have to make sure the most often accessed stuff is reachable in the easiest/shortest way (the buttons for example, we can change those). I'll think about it. We can also make new icons for existing text stuff at the bottom. I'll have to look into this more and see.

Also noticed that around 1 out of 10 or 15 times, the new buttons wont show up in the toolbar. Good thing it doesnt happen often and we just need to click the 'edit' links again to reload the toolbar and then the new buttons usually show up. --Axius (talk) 19:17, 25 February 2014 (PST)

Nice. Looks good. The new edit toolbar you made yesterday is also cool. Much neater than the last one. --Sahab (talk) 08:16, 26 February 2014 (PST)

Boko Haram

this is militia groups, which kills student and infidel. can i build an article (english) for this group?--Mudul (talk) 10:44, 26 February 2014 (PST)

Yes, you can work on articles in a user sandbox (e.g. User:Mudul/Sandbox, User:Mudul/Sandbox 2, User:Mudul/Sandbox 3), or in a WikiIslam sandbox like: WikiIslam:Sandbox/Name of your article here (e.g. WikiIslam:Sandbox/Boko Haram). --Sahab (talk) 14:49, 26 February 2014 (PST)

Adding

Ok its fine. i also shall checkSaggy (talk) 09:47, 27 February 2014 (PST)

Shall we make logical errors into "logical errors and absurdities" or put any word like "absurdities"? Then there will be a lot more to add.--Saggy (talk) 09:50, 27 February 2014 (PST)

No, I think absurdities is too wide in scope. For example, most of the scientific errors could be seen as absurdities. --Sahab (talk) 15:24, 27 February 2014 (PST)

How about something temporary and general like WikiIslam:Sandbox/Issues in the Quran and gather all the relevant verses and make whatever kinds of internal headings we like. The first main step is to gather the verses and some rough sorting and then later refinement to make sure the claim is correct and refining the sorting/headings also. --Axius (talk) 16:01, 27 February 2014 (PST)

I don't think the issue is a temporary one that can be sorted by refining sub-heading. If that was the case, then the present heading, "Logical Errors in the Qur'an", is fine for now. The issue is about the entire direction of the article i.e. the author hasn't decided on the topic of the article yet. Clearly that's an odd place to be when an article has already been started. The original topic (logical errors) does not seem to create enough content to warrant an article, so the new title, "logical errors and absurdities" was suggested to allow widening its scope. However, including "absurdities" widens the scope too far. To me, the reasonable conclusion is that there is no article here, or it should at least be put on hold until there are enough logical errors found, and efforts should be concentrated on the "Qur'anic Claim of Having Details" article which has more potential, but that's probably not what everyone wants to hear, so we come back the same problem. What is this article about? If it's about "Issues in the Quran", then that completely obliterates the scope. There are hundreds of issues with the Qur'an and we have hundreds of articles dealing with them. I doubt Saggy or anyone will be willing to create an article that would encompass them all, but readers who land on a page named "Issues in the Quran" would expect nothing less. --Sahab (talk) 16:48, 27 February 2014 (PST)

If its in a Sandbox article space it doesnt matter what the article title is or if it doesnt have any structure and so on. Its not indexed and its under construction.

The first step of these articles is to choose from the 6000 verses by scanning them. We dont want any restrictions at this stage which could slow that down. The next is some kind of sorting or making sense of it. When its time to move the article to the main space only then we have to worry about applying the rules you mentioned and I agree with those rules (correct titles whether its one title or many, scope, how it fits in with everything else, whether its a valid claim or not, etc). It has to be ok in every way. Saggy is doing the first core task, bringing out those verses so that can go on in a Sandbox article. In the end we can come back to your comments and see what to do next. --Axius (talk) 04:41, 28 February 2014 (PST)

Well, if you, Saggy or whoever want to do it that way then it doesn't bother me in the slightest, because it's up to each individual how they spend their time and it's being done in a sandbox. But scanning 6000 verses then deciding on what to do with them is not the optimal way good articles are written. That sounds quite absurd in itself. It's common sense that when you write an article that you have a general idea of what the article is about, and only then do you do the research for it. Take the "Qur'an detail" article. We know we want verses that lack detail, so we scan the Qur'an for verses that fit the description. We do not scan the Qur'an for an unidentified purpose, collect anything that looks interesting and then decide that "there are some verses here that lack detail. Let's make an article about it". --Sahab (talk) 05:14, 28 February 2014 (PST)

Actually I've always wanted to scan the Quran for all the interesting things but Skeptics Quran has done a lot of it (I remember your comment about SAQ). In any case yes, as long as its done in a Sandbox people can do what they like (good practice for articles under construction in any case). In the end we can see if it makes sense or not, or how to fix it. If you had to scan the Quran for an identified purpose, you would to scan it again every time you had a new purpse. If scanning is done one time but we have a "filter" on it (like an email filter), it saves time. Anyway. Yea its up to Saggy on what he wants to write in the Sandbox. I need to take a closer look at these articles some time. --Axius (talk) 05:21, 28 February 2014 (PST)