Talk:Na'vi/archive

move from Wikipedia
Thanks for moving this over, Adrignola. There's no way to preserve the article history, is there? Kwamikagami (talk) 21:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid we can only copy-paste the history on this talk page if that's what you're thinking of. If Special:Import will work properly in the future I could history merge it, but as it was I could only get the latest revision with it without getting an error.  The original may be too large, or, as I suspect, it has problems if an article's been moved in its history. As the major contributor, at least you were credited in that one revision brought over. -- Adrignola talk contribs 02:58, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh well.

I added some texts to the phonology section. I figured they were more appropriate here than at Wikipedia. Please let me know if you think they're inappropriate here for any reason. —Kwami (talk) 07:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought that the refs would be better placed in the chapters where they're referenced. That only left two general refs in the biblio, so I moved them to the main page and blanked the biblio page. If that's not appropriate, please copy my section to that page - I really don't think we need more than those two refs in a general bibliography. —Kwami (talk) 08:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm wondering, do you think we should move the longer texts to a chapter "Texts"? (Done. Much more accessible.) —Kwami (talk) 09:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Very nice. Everything you've done so far is certainly appropriate.  I hope you'll find the flexibility Wikibooks provides in teaching a subject refreshing.  This and the Chess books both stand out in my mind as excellent examples of cross-wiki cooperation and integration between Wikipedia and Wikibooks, with each project complementing the other. -- Adrignola talk contribs 13:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Print version
I see that Chess has a "printable" link. Is it possible to create a link like that for Na'vi, or even a "whole book in one page" link (it doesn't necessarily need to be printable)? The chapter structure is great for browsing and instruction, but for research and reference lookup having it all in one page is very handy. It lets you do a "find" in your browser for terms or vocab and quickly see everyplace they appear in the whole document. - Erimeyz --69.45.101.10 (talk) 20:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Word processors do this, where you have chapters set up as separate docs, but links on a central page, which then displays them all at once. Is there a template such as "chapter X" which would display the current contents of that chapter? We could then place a series of such links on a subpage so people like Eri can browse the whole book. —Kwami (talk) 22:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The "whole book on a page" link should be easily doable, as should be a printable version: both would include all chapters using template inclusion, with the printable version adjusting markup a little. If we really wanted to have that, I think I would be able to do it. We'd maybe have to take care of some things, like notes and references sections (though the Wiki is clever enough to allow multiple notes sections and do the right thing). Sebastian… talk 22:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I just saw how it's done. I don't have time right now to do it, but will get it later, unless you want to give it a shot.
 * I imagine we could set up each of the chapters this way too: a link to the text, followed by a template to display the refs. Then in the integrated version we'd have just the one ref template. Though that would make the chapter texts a pain to edit.
 * Will the cross-chapter linking still work it the full-text version? —Kwami (talk) 22:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I set up a first draft of the print version document at Na'vi/Print version. It's not nearly perfect, e.g., the TOC still appears, and it appears only at the start of the second chapter, but those are things I know how to fix.
 * Cross-chapter linking will probably not work as intended as it is now. The links will still work alright, but they'll continue to point to the separate chapter articles. But this can be solved with some little template magic along the lines of   and   , I think. Sebastian… talk 22:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, I got rid of the TOC in the current draft of the print version. What about notes and references? Do we want to have one section of each per chapter ( that's what we have now ), or do we want to collect all notes and/ or references at the end of the document? Since   is pretty clever, it shouldn't be hard at all to have one big notes and references section at the end of the document. Right now, with 12 notes/ references blocks it looks a bit cluttered, so I guess I'd prefer the notes/references at the end. Sebastian… talk 22:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Cross-chapter linking works now. Depending on whether the cross-chapter link's target is a chapter, or an anchor within a chapter, different changes are necessary.
 * {| class=wikitable style="text-decoration:line-through"

! || Old || New ! Chapter link ! Anchor link
 *  case endings  ||  case endings 
 *  texts  ||  texts 
 * }
 * Since the anchor link is in fact easier to write (no   necessary), we might want to drop chapter links altogether. We can emulate pointing to the chapter itself by simply including an anchor right at the beginning of the chapter's article. Sebastian… talk 23:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * (Note: This has been obsoleted by Template:Navi, and should not be used anymore. See Template talk:Navi for some documentation on how to use the template. Sebastian… talk 05:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC))


 * I now merged the notes and references sections so that there is only a single notes/references section at the end of the print version (notes and references still appear within each chapter's own article, though). Some more work needs to be done to combine identical references (such as the LA Times article, or the NZ 3NEWS link) but I figure this should be easy with the use of <tt> </tt> and <tt> </tt> and/or <tt>  </tt>. I'll get back to that later. Sebastian… talk 23:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That sounds good; haven't had a chance to look yet. Yes, all refs at end would be best, I think. Simple ref-name would be all we need, wouldn't it? Doesn't hurt to have ref-name even for a single link.


 * I really like the way the Chess article is laid out. I wouldn't mind copying them.


 * The first note under 'modal verbs' was placed as a ref because of the ref it contained. It looks as though that has a work-around, but I don't know the syntax. If we can have refs linked from the footnotes, and that also works at WP, there are quite a few articles that would benefit from it. —Kwami (talk) 00:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * If you're talking about the ref to the forum contained within the footnote to "I want you to go", I added that after learning the magic trick described here. I don't know if the same thing works on WB as on WP.  I'm not sure it's necessary; it was handy for what I was trying to do in WP, but here on WB I think we've got more flexibility to reference sources in whatever way best fits the narrative flow of the textbook, rather than having to place cites close to facts.  In fact, I'm not sure we really even need to cite sources at all - although I think it would be good to do so, especially for analyses that depend on rare or obscure attestations. - Erimeyz --76.17.0.169 (talk) 04:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I revised the print version slightly to pull the introduction but not the table of contents, so changes to the introduction don't have to be copied manually to the print version. Additionally, I added to the pages for easy navigation between pages. You'll find navigation links at the bottom of the pages as well as sitting out-of-the-way in the top-right of pages. That will hopefully ease frustrations for those preferential to a single-page version of things they're used to and means no using the back button or going up a level to go down a level. -- Adrignola talk contribs 04:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey, that's looking pretty good!


 * One comment, it would be nice if the Bibliography on the main page showed up one the print version, it its own section at the end, before the Notes. (Or maybe it would be easier just to recreate that as a really short page?)


 * I tried the pdf, but the formatting is messed up; in one table the bottom was clipped off, and there are extraneous words with arrows pointing to the next section, etc. Hopefully that's not too difficult to clean up. —Kwami (talk) 05:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Should we have an appendix on the glossing abbreviations used in the examples? And another with a glossary for basic linguistic terms? Vocab/dictionary? —Kwami (talk) 05:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed we should. The Wikibooks philosophy is that textbooks should try to be self-contained, so, despite Wikipedia being what it is, the community tries to keep links to it to a minimum and define terms in the text itself.  With the goal of writing a book, you have to ask yourself "would this make sense if it were printed out and the interwiki links disappeared?" -- Adrignola talk contribs 13:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Glossary just about done. Still a few WP links, but they're for convenience for more peripheral things that wouldn't be worth explaining here. —Kwami (talk) 10:57, 13 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Excellent work. I'm glad you didn't let the transwiki of the information to Wikibooks discourage contributions. -- Adrignola talk contribs 13:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

reviewing
how do we review s.t. as 'poor'? when I try to do that w coverage in the glossary, the 'submit' button greys out. —Kwami (talk) 12:06, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It greys out because in this system "poor" is equivalent to unreviewed, which then requires all three categories to be set to poor and the revision you are looking at will no longer be reviewed. At that point a notice will appear asking you to review the changes since the last reviewed version, basically undoing what you just did.  To get an understanding of what this system is intended to do, consider the base level of review equivalent to patrolling a page.  It only says there is no vandalism.  Higher levels of review say a quality check has been done; however that highest level is only accessible to reviewers, not editors.  Editors in this case is a specific group and doesn't refer to users of the wiki in general.  See Help:Revision review. -- Adrignola talk contribs 13:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

title
Should this be at "Na'vi", or at "Na'vi Grammar"? The latter would seem more appropriate. —Kwami (talk) 02:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This book is not exclusively about grammar, but also about the language in general: apart from grammar, we also have history, phonology, a small lexicon, and texts. On Wikibooks, it seems to be commonplace that books about a language are simply named "[Language]", for instance, Italian, French, German, etc. You're right that the other books also offer language lessons which we don't, but still, I think that "Na'vi" is the proper title for this book. Sebastian… talk 03:21, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Just noticed: English has a separate grammar book: English Grammar. But they deal exclusively with grammar while keeping everything else in the 21 17 (!) other books on the English language.
 * I only count 17 in Subject:English language. One thing to note in regards to this is that new contributors to Wikibooks often will start a new book on a topic, in their own style, rather than finish or work on an existing one.  The featured books are arguably complete; nearly all the other books (~3000) are works in progress (or, more commonly, stasis). -- Adrignola talk contribs 03:46, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, "Na'vi" could also be the Na'vi people.
 * Phonology is part of grammar. The history section is mostly an introduction; the texts are for reading practice. You'll find both in good grammars. —Kwami (talk) 10:41, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Right, I was just saying that, to me, the Na'vi book doesn't look so different from other language books on Wikibooks. But I wouldn't mind if you changed the title to "Na'vi grammar" if you think that would be a better fit. Sebastian… talk 16:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose "The Na'vi Language" would be just as good. I wonder how self-explanatory plain "Na'vi" is. —Kwami (talk) 19:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

While "Na'vi language" may look good coming from conventions at Wikipedia, "Na'vi" by itself matches with existing books at Wikibooks. I don't expect any books to be created soon on the Na'vi people, given that they would end up being deleted as fictional. -- Adrignola talk contribs 20:37, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

new template
I set up a new template, tl:navi, because, not only is it a pain to type the following:

Na'vi/Appendix

to link a gloss Na'vi/Appendix  to the appendix, but it's very difficult to copy edit. So now we have:

to do the same thing:. —Kwami (talk) 11:40, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * How does the template handle the ... part? I mean how would those links appear in the print version which should be self-contained? (I think I have an idea how to make that work, even without using ... in the template; I'll come back to that later; have to go now.) Sebastian… talk 16:28, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I just fixed the template. Since we cannot use ... in the template code directly, the template is now checking for the page title: . This includes the "Na'vi/Appendix" part only for regular pages, making it self-contained in the print version. Sebastian… talk 17:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! —Kwami (talk) 19:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

bad link
I've split off 'adpositions' as a separate chapter. Now, in the print version, the link to that chapter doesn't work, just as links to the word 'adposition' in the glossary don't work. I don't want to try some hokey work-around, since Sebastian, you seem not to be having any problem. —Kwami (talk) 08:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This time I had the same problem. But that was because the includes farther down in the print version were still pointing to the old articles. I fixed that now. Sebastian… talk 11:56, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It's not a problem in safe mode, so I think it's a bug in an extension I have. Best to avoid it regardless, since if you had the same problem, it's probably a common extension.


 * (Can you tell me which extensions you have? If I can figure out which one causes the prob, I can file a bug report. But I have way way too many installed to want to go through them all.) —Kwami (talk) 10:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That's good because I don't have a lot of extensions at all (Firefox is not my regular browser). I have: "Adblock Plus" (1.1.3), "Novell Moonlight" (2.0), "User Agent Switcher" (0.7.2), and "Web Developer" (1.1.8). Filing a bug report is a good idea. If you can identify the extension that is causing the problem (assuming it's not some weird bug within Firefox itself that just doesn't appear in safe mode) would you let me know? Thanks! Sebastian… talk 12:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)


 * We overlap in only two: AB+ and UAS. But I've had the latter disabled, so it's gotta be AB+. —Kwami (talk) 02:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yup, that was it. But of course: it's "ad-position", and we have an ad blocker. That's not a bug, it's the price you pay for getting rid of adverts. —Kwami (talk) 02:35, 22 February 2010 (UTC)