User talk:Sahab

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)

Quran details

This is a related article: Qur'an Only Islam: Why it is Not Possible there. I think it should be linked. Dont we link related articles in See Also? See also doesnt only have to contain the "main" top-level topics. --Axius (talk) 07:01, 1 March 2014 (PST)

Oh wait. Is the [4] mainly about the 5 pillars? It doesnt look like it is. Its about the general difficult of being Quran-only so yes I think it should be linked. --Axius (talk) 07:08, 1 March 2014 (PST)

I wrongly thought it was mostly about the 5 pillar. I still have reservations about linking that article because it's in a terrible state, but I'll put it back if that's what you want. The five pillars section shouldn't be there though. It's at odds with the approach Saggy is taking (quoting the verse then explaining why it is insufficient), and they should each be separate. I think Saggy's actually started putting them in individually (the first section on that page is "Charity"). I also don't think the conclusion is needed. This page is like the Errors/Contradictions pages. The conclusions are a little pointless. --Sahab (talk) 07:26, 1 March 2014 (PST)

Ok. If you think its in bad shape and shouldnt be linked that fine, yea we can leave it not linked. I'll take the conclusion out. --Axius (talk) 08:31, 1 March 2014 (PST)

Cool. Thanks. --Sahab (talk) 08:43, 1 March 2014 (PST)

Forum pages

We really dont have a lot of discussions to have a need for making separate forum pages for Help and Inquiries, Ideas and Suggestions and then a 3rd General discussion page (WikiIslam:Forum, which had not being used in a long time). So we should keep the Translation page, and move all the contents of other two (Help/inquiries and Ideas/suggestions) into General discussions and a third for Announcements (this 3rd is up to you).

The "Discussions" link in MediaWiki:Sidebar was going to WikiIslam:Forum/Ideas and Suggestions which isnt the best because if someone doesnt have an idea or suggestion they'll feel they've landed on the wrong page, so I changed that to the main forum page (WikiIslam:Forum). The General category is where people usually want to post stuff anyway (people dont want to think too hard about where they should post).

Another thing, we can probably delete or move old discussions into 'WikiIslam:Forum/Archives', so nothing too stale is there or it wont look good and encouraging. Thats all I have for now on this. --Axius (talk) 16:15, 5 March 2014 (PST)

Having the Help and Inquiries page makes it easy for new users to find answers to questions that have already been asked. That's why I created it. And I don't agree with the idea that users will feel like they've landed on the wrong page. That discussion page is linked under "Help Needed". It made sense when it linked to the Help and Inquiries page, but not now. --Sahab (talk) 16:30, 5 March 2014 (PST)

H/I isnt being used often [5] (last edit 6 months ago) enough to make it the primary link for Discussions. But ok, valid point that Discussions now doesnt make sense for Help needed. Lets move it below Editing Help. Saggy made a number of sections recently on your talk page that should instead be on some kind of "current discussions' page so everyone can respond and they're not really messages specific to only you. Lawrence made that recent topic [6] on another page (getting to it requires an extra click and eye-scanning). Again we want to make it easy for people to use the Discussion pages and we dont have too many ongoing discussions to need separate pages for these things.

Sorry, forgot to respond to "for new users to find answers to questions that have already been asked". If new users ask a question, we can give them a link to the H/I page. Right now we should see what we can do to make an easily accessible discussions page for current users. We can keep the H/I page if you want, but not link it to discussions. --Axius (talk) 16:41, 5 March 2014 (PST)

Okay. Yeah, I want to still keep that page. I've moved the discussion link up between the site map and recent changes. It's a more prominent position anyhow --Sahab (talk) 16:59, 5 March 2014 (PST)

Ok, even better location then. Wasnt that where it was earlier? lol. I cant remember. I think it was. Anyway. So I'll do that all: move Announcements to a new announcements page (otherwise its like a stick that gets in the way like on forums), move old comments to one single 'archive' page, Ideas/suggestions moved to General discussions (old entries moved to archive). I think that was it. And then I might move Saggy's "Logical errors' section on your page to the General discussions page. --Axius (talk) 17:26, 5 March 2014 (PST)

I thought you just said we could keep the Ideas/suggestions page, so I have no idea what you are saying here. --Sahab (talk) 18:01, 5 March 2014 (PST)

Oh, sorry, I'm getting mixed up with what you're saying. Maybe you should just do it and I can see what it is? --Sahab (talk) 18:03, 5 March 2014 (PST)

Ok I'm done. So the big thing again is that we have one easily accessible Discussions link for active discussions for current editors. --Axius (talk) 18:43, 5 March 2014 (PST)

Still not satisfied but its a better situation than before. I'll check again later to see if anything else should be done. --Axius (talk) 18:54, 5 March 2014 (PST)

You should just go ahead and get rid of the Help & Inquiries page and go ahead with the General discussion/project & task related pages. As long as we still have our Translation Project page it doesn't bother me now. --Sahab (talk) 14:28, 6 March 2014 (PST)

Ok. --Axius (talk) 18:05, 6 March 2014 (PST)

Menu

In the same attempt for making things easier/simpler for editors, I'm investigating this new version of the menu (you can see the comparison in that link easily). All the links useful for editors are in one place.

Currently all of the Editor related links are scattered. 1 link for Discussions at the top | 4 links in Help needed | 2 links in About. These are all links primarily relevant for editors. For starters, the Editing guide should not be in the About section. Its more useful in an area which Editors access. The same goes for policies. Policies are applicable/relevant only if someone is an Editor. The About section then is only 'about us'. The audience type is Reader and Editor and we keep these separate. When a reader is interesting in checking more information about being an editor they look at the Editor section and see all the relevant links, including the Policies link.

We've tried the "Help needed, Join our team" and it didnt help in a huge way, so lets try this Editors/Readers audience separation. I could have moved 'Recent changes' to the editors section too but we've always wanted that link in that area. Although it wouldnt be too bad if we moved it down. In any case, for now the big thing is this new section 'Links for Editors'. Other section names: Editors, Editing, Contributing to WikiIslam, Contributing, Contribute, etc. 'Editing' is good. We are making it easy for Editors to find the links that would be of interest to them and I think it brings editors together closer. Do you have any points that support the current version being superior over all as compared to the one I'm suggesting? --Axius (talk) 19:29, 5 March 2014 (PST)

Nope. Sounds good to me. I would also go with "Editing" as the section heading. What about the Core Principles when the are completed? Maybe that can go in the About section? It's policies I know but I think pages like Wikipedia's Five Pillars are of interest to everyone. We could always move it to somewhere else if we think it looks wrong. --Sahab (talk) 13:52, 6 March 2014 (PST)

Ok. Yea that could go in the About but I'll have a better idea when the page is ready. --Axius (talk) 18:05, 6 March 2014 (PST)

Core Principles

I hadnt even looked at that page WikiIslam:Core Principles (I was waiting for myself to finish that other community guidelines). Looks pretty good. I should try to create and finish that other page. --Axius (talk) 19:22, 7 March 2014 (PST)

Thanks. Yeah, I'm very pleased with how it's shaping up. It was really good luck for us that the Core Principles ended up as ten shared equally between the two sides (5 for content and 5 for community). It would have looked odd if it was not. As it is, that page should make a very positive impression on people and will allow them to get a good feel of what type of site we are with the minimal amount of text. Because this is about the core, there is no need to be in-depth/off-putting like how some of the other pages may be. It doesn't deal with anything in detail, just the bare necessities. --Sahab (talk) 19:40, 7 March 2014 (PST)

Yea that 5/5 looks good. Do you think the icon should be something else other than the atom because thats similar to the atheism symbol [7] (though I am one myself as you know but the site is neutral to other views). It could be a simple triangular bullet or anything else. --Axius (talk) 07:57, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

I never realized that. Yeah. I like that symbol a lot, but I have no objection to changing it. I'll try to come up with something different. --Sahab (talk) 08:07, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

Other options, it could be a little hammer icon [8], scroll icon, hand, justice, book etc. or some kind of bullet or shape. --Axius (talk) 10:06, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

Yea that looks good now. --Axius (talk) 10:09, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

Common messages

How about making some templates for common messages e.g. content move [9]. The message would be left for the person who was working on the page. Inputs would be old and new page.

"I thought I would let you know that a page or section which you created or were involved in has been moved from [[---]] to [[---]]. Please note the new location of this page. Thank you."

The template name can be "talkmessage-moved". Any other messages that are commonly left for users should be templated (subst'd, actually, like the 'unsigned' template ) so we dont have to write them every time and its easy to leave the message. It might be that he choose the user page because it was an easy click on the top left. This software should have an easy click link for Sandboxes too.--Axius (talk) 17:27, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

[10] Long list of similiar messages at wikipedia to look at as examples. --Axius (talk) 17:39, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

Yeah, definitely. That would make life so much easier for us on the wiki. If they are not too technical for me, I will try to create some. --Sahab (talk) 17:43, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

They look easy so far. Use the format of un- (user-notice) as names of the templates instead of uw- (which is user warning; notice is more inclusive). They have these view pages also which allow us to see the templates: multi level, single level. Doesnt look like we should have a lot so thats good and we can make more as we see the need. We can link these in the Edit toolbar/sections for easy access. --Axius (talk) 18:28, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

Easiest to first make a list of the kind of messages that would be used: content or page moved (same template?). Your article has been finalized and linked. Article was moved to the Sandbox namespace. Article deleted. Edit reverted (used only for existing users), uses 3 parameters: target article, username and reason for revert. Obvious vandalism (no messages needed for that). User renamed (may not be useful since they wont know what the new username is, but ok).

Thats all I can think of for now that could be useful for us. Most of what they have wouldnt be used here. --Axius (talk) 19:23, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Oh. Those messages look very serious. I was thinking more in the line of the example you gave and integrating similar messages into our own.

For example, say a new user make a decent edit, but doesn't format it properly. We could leave a message like (I have no idea how the real template would be formatted so I've taken liberties):

{{talkpage-welcome|username}}((talkpage-issues|article|formatting|~~~~))

Which would produce something like:

Hi Ahmad and welcome to WikiIslam, the online resource on Islam. Our policies and guidelines can be viewed here. If you need any further clarification on an issue, let me or one of the administrators know. I noticed your additions to Islam were not formatted correctly. Please read WikiIslam:Formatting for help with how to format wiki pages. Thanks --Sahab (talk) 20:17, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

This way, it would ensure that everyone is greeted with a short but polite and to the point message. We could mix and match these templates for common messages to new users. What do you think? --Sahab (talk) 20:17, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

Yea thats fine, for new users and also for existing (a page was moved, etc) . --Axius (talk) 20:39, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

Cool. Thanks. --Sahab (talk) 22:02, 9 March 2014 (PDT)

Created a template as a test, Un-content-moved entered by: {{subst:Un-content-moved|old page|new page}}. Tested at: User:Axius/Sandbox48. It also addressed the username successfully. --Axius (talk) 11:25, 10 March 2014 (PDT)