Talk:Japanese/Vocabulary/Archive 2005

Ordering of lists
Should the vocabulary lists be alphabetized or otherwise ordered?

Templates for table?

 * Summary: A proposal to use two or three templates to display a table so that we can easily change the order of words of a row (the order of Kanji, Kana, Romaji, and English).

I found the appearance of the tables on Animals seems good and I'd like to use this. However, I noticed that there're several ways of ordering(in a row). In Animals, the order is "Kanji - Kana - Romaji - English" but in other pages, other orders...

Thus, I propose to use templates like the one here(or here).
 * Pros: By applying the template first, changing of the order is quite easy. You don't have to edit all of the Vocab pages again, instead, all you need to do is just edit a few templates. The changes might occur more than once. If you don't use template, you've got to edit all of the pages every time you change the order.
 * Additionaly, you can easily change the appearance of all the table at once by editing the CSS code on a template. Or, even the format can be changed. When you'd like to say good-bye to table format, you can use list format or text-style format (For example, list format can be achieved by using pipe character (|) as: * Kanji | Kana | Romaji | English)
 * Cons: You've got to apply template formnat for each table. Some might hate this task. Template is a bit complicated than table (but not much. Please see the followings what it's like). If it's certain that the change would never occur, applying the templates is worthless tasks.

How to use
Write and fill followings on the page:

... (repeat "Template:Japanese vocab") ...

The order of the parameters is not important. It's arbitrary. I mean, you can also use

or whatever you like. The order of parameters here do not affect the real order anyway. When you would like to change the order, edit the templates instead. Once apply the template format to a page, just leave it.


 * Sample
 * A sample is available: User:Marsian/Vocabulary Aviation

Templates
I think just two or three templates are needed. Each of them is a part of wiki-style table. The following examples are in the case when we chose to use the order "Kanji - Kana - Romaji - English".

(temporary name) is:


 * Note
 * One might think that this third template is useless and simply put " |} " directly to the page is enough. Perhaps it's correct. Because there's little possibility to convert the table into list or text-style format (if there's a possiblity and when conversion is neede, edit the footer template and replace " |} " with &amp;nbsp; (space)).


 * Sample
 * Samples are available:
 * User:Marsian/Japanese vocab header
 * User:Marsian/Japanese vocab
 * User:Marsian/Japanese vocab footer

How to change the order?
When you need to change the order, edit these templates. For instance, to get the "English - Romaji - Kana - Kanji" order, just rearrange the templates as:

{| ! English ! R&#333;maji ! Kana ! Kanji
 * - style="background:#ccccff"

and

|-

That's all. Remember, when you don't use templates, what you have to do is... yes, edit all the vocab pages to rearrange all the row or the tables... I do not like to do it.


 * Sample
 * Try editing header sample and item sample and see what happens to sample page.

Comments
What should be done now?
 * 1) To decide whether we use the templates or not.
 * 2) If use, to name the templates.
 * 3) If use, decide the temporary order of a row.

Again, samples are here: header - item - footer - example.

Probably the point is. Personally, I do not feel this format is not so complicated. Rather, I felt which parameter to put is quite clear (say, where "Kanji= " ...okay, I'll put 航空 and where "Kana= " ...okay, I'll put こうくう, and so on).

I wouldn't push this idea anymore if it's certain that the change would never occur again in the future... but can that be?

Of cource, if it's decided to use the templates, I'll do the task to create the templates(just move the samples) and apply them to the pages now exist(this will take some time). - Marsian / talk 16:09:49, 2005-08-29 (UTC)


 * I think templates would be a good idea. You should go ahead and do it if you are up to it :). One thing I would suggest is that English word wikilinks should take you to wiktionary, not to wikipedia. Also, it would be nice if the kanji (or kana where kanji is not available) could also link to the English wikibook in addition to the Japanese wikibook. I'm not sure if there are any naming conventions for templates, but something like Wikipedia:Template messages, Japanese:Vocabulary:Entry and Japanese:Vocabulary:Footer would probably be ideal.


 * As for being "certain that the change would never occur again in the future", you just never know for sure :). Also, you never know for sure what other kind of tweaks we might need to make to the pages.– 207.195.35.2 00:58, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what happened to my cookie, but that was me.– Sik0fewl 01:00, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comments. All right, I'll fix the links to wikt:. But I don't understand for kanji or kana matter, what do you mean? I let them link to ja.wikipedia at the moment. You meant en.wikipedia? About the name, though I couldn't find colons are used for templates, well, I'll try it anyway. - Marsian / talk 09:01:48, 2005-08-31 (UTC)

Slash convention
Several subpages of Japanese/Vocabulary are at Votes for deletion. The problem is that 63.43.156.166 copied the pages instead of moving them.

I am reverting this module to link to the old pages. When the copies are deleted and the pages are moved, please undo my revert. --Kernigh 20:32, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Unlike with some wikis, at Wikibooks it is best to move the pages before changing the links. Wikibooks "move" feature leaves a redirect so old links still work. Also, you need a Wikibooks user account for the "move" feature. --Kernigh 20:37, 14 November 2005 (UTC)