Talk:Overview

Forums: Index > Village pump > Overview

Incorrect use of Overview header in articles[edit]

As the issue is too big wide spread to be tackled in each article, I try to address the issue in focused post. That said in many many articles here have a separate Overview section. This section then gives a short overview about what the article is about. This kind of overview section is pointless. A article should start with the overview, then open those topics mentioned in the overview later on in the following subtopics. If you need a good example, look any article in wikipedia. If you need a bad example, look any article that has a overview section in them. BlackSmith (Contributions • Message) 12:21, February 16, 2013 (EST)

This is a good point and I will try to remember to remove useless overviews/introductions/backgrounds when I encounter them. --Cru121 (Contributions • Message) 02:35, February 17, 2013 (EST)

I STRONGLY disagree with your assessment of this BlackSmith (Contribs • Message • Email). The == Overview == has a VERY important function on this wiki. It creates a section for the table of contents, this is important. It also creates an anchor point that allows people to link to that section from another page. Please do NOT remove these sections.

ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message) 09:21, February 18, 2013 (EST)

Does this mean that if an article starts with a section heading, the article gains a toc? Or only if the title is "overview"?

→ --Cru121 (Contributions • Message) 12:28, February 18, 2013 (EST)

Good question... Let's see if I can explain it well.

By default, any page with more than three section headings defined by being wrapped in == (heading) == will automatically get a ToC.
You may force a page with three or less to have a ToC with __FORCETOC__
Every section heading also is given an anchor point which can be specifically called upon from your URL bar. Simply add #(heading) to the end of the URL.
The title is not required to be overview, it can be anything; however, Overview is the most appropriate on most of the pages on which it is used.

For more information on the subject, check out:

ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message) 12:45, February 18, 2013 (EST)

First of all the ToC is generated from the first header, like you self pointed out in the following post, so the point that overview section is important because of that is false.

Secondly a page that has not more than three headings hardly needs a ToC as it is so short. If its not short, then its not good wikiarticle as it has too big sections. In case a badly formatted wikiarticle is needed, you can use the ToC forcing as needed. But as said, if the article is longer than one screen and it is not cut down to sections, its a bad one and needs some chopping. They area called headings after a reason.

By starting an article with overview the reader to the article is already show the, eh, overview of the article. Anchoring point to the start of any article is redundant, pointless. The hyperlink already takes the reader to the start of the article, otherwise the metalinking function is handy if the wiki editors name the headings shortly and promptly. Not like Epic_Destinies#Leveling_and_unlocking_Epic_Destinies (simple unlocking would be a good header). Enforcing that hyperlinking would make every article link to look like [[articlename#overview]] instead of [[articlename]]. If the overview section is not in the start of the article, then the article is wrongly formatted. That is the only time when a separate section (and heading) for Overview is grounded, but as said, its wrongly formatted. The separate overview header has no other function except cluttering up the ToC and pushing the start of the article even future down from the start of the page. BlackSmith (Contributions • Message) 07:43, February 24, 2013 (EST)

I consider the overview, when present, to be the start of the article and therefore it is not pushing the real article down the page at all. Overviews and summaries are a handy place to highlight the most important ideas about a topic since many people might not want to read the whole page. I really don't see why having a section like that is a problem. Your assertions about page lengths don't make much sense to me either. A wiki page should contain all directly relevant content on it. Indirectly relevant content should be linked to from that page. Some topics are more broad than others (like the difference between Enhancements vs. Half-Elf Barbarian Toughness. The enhancement page is long because there are many things that need to be said about it. Wikipedia itself has plenty of very long pages with many sections. I will also add that your confrontational and condescending tone in every post is not helping to further your cause, at least not in my book. Susalona (Contributions • Message) 10:55, February 24, 2013 (EST)

How can it not push it down as the there is a <h2> header that does not need to be there? It has already been pointed out numerous times that a (good) article starts with an overview. A worse example would be starting every page with == {{PAGENAME}} ==. Then you would end up having an article that starts as <h1> {{PAGENAME}} <break line> <h2> {{PAGENAME}} <break line> <h2> Overview and then comes the actual overview instead of having one header and the overview like it is done in any other wiki, including Susalona's reference wikipedia.

I brought up the article length because ShoeMaker was pointing out that the making of overview header is important for ToC, which it is not.

OT: @Susalona You are welcome to take the issue up at my talk page and point out where and when I have been confrontational and condescending. I grant that the topic does stir emotions as there is no presented theoretical or practical evidence of its usefulness, it is against good practice (which is recognized in other established wiki's) and the supporters themselves provide reasons why this practice of == Overview == should be stopped. If I appear an arrogant idiot, my apologies it was not my intention, however this will not change my arguments on the perceived necessity of overview headings. BlackSmith (Contributions • Message) 16:16, February 24, 2013 (EST)

my thoughts.

ya == {{PAGENAME}} == is bad, but so long as we are sticking to Eliot's skin it doesnt matter, or sometimes its helpful even. will we ever get rid of now-8-years-old skin? well that is up for discussion but i dont see it happening too soon myself.
each page is supposed to provide short overview section on the top, yes. but sometimes what is supposed to be short overveiw gets longer and longer due to the nature of the article. thats when we use == Overview ==. thats how i see it. its all case by case thing.
overall BlackSmith's point is perfect world argument/Asperger's dream thing. i know where its coming from, i appreciate your passion but;
- our time and resource is limited, we have to consider cost/reward ratio and prioritization.
- as much as we wanna tidy up the wiki, we dont wanna intimidate casual editors by rules after rules.

→ yoko5000 (Contributions • Message) 02:24, February 25, 2013 (EST)

BlackSmith, I think you misunderstood me. == Overview == creates an anchor point so that on those long pages with lots of sections, you can put in a [[#Overview|Back to top]] to easily get back to the top of the page without having to reload the entire page, which there are some pages that it is extremely so important. Like what was done on the Jewel of Fortune page. That is a page that has five sections. If you were to search for say "Large Jewel of Fortune" and/or go to Large Jewel of Fortune you would get a redirect directly to that section on that page. This streamlines the page a little so that a reader only has to click a link to get back to the overview at the top instead of having to waist their time scrolling up manually. This is important to some readers. I also appreciate your passion, contributions, and time spent. If you are bored, I'm fairly sure that most of the administrators have personal to-do lists somewhere in their user spaces; IIRC we also have a wiki goals and projects list on the main page as well. Feel free to work on any of those projects, and I give you (or anyone else) permission to help work on most anything on my to-do list. As a matter of fact, I'm going to go through and mark the projects on my page that I would love someone to step in and work on.

ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message) 08:22, February 25, 2013 (EST)

The == {{PAGENAME}} == is similar and as bad situation/example, but it goes off the topic. Elliot's skin has the H1 pagename in the upper left corner, but that hardly gives grounds to add another or double header's before the article starts. If you keep using (either or both) additional headers, then when someone does fix the skin/layout (the plainlinks section was back then and is still a hot fix for representing the different topics neatly), all the articles using incorrect headers need to be manually fixed. Articles that are using additional headers for no practical nor theoretical reason.

(I still hate T:post as it breaks the lines badly) I fail to see how the length of the overview has any impact why a separate heading should be used for it. Like agreed, overview comes on top. If its long or short, its still on top. Giving it a separate header makes it even longer. In worst situation article can have two overview sections when a editor tries to use the trend/practice in every other wiki and then another editor creates a separate overview section thus resulting into two overview sections, one before the overview header and one after it.

How it is intimidating or prioritization thing except by guiding people not to keep up doing something that is not enforced by rules and that makes the article worse? Its not overview headers job to create TOC (__ TOC __ ), overview headers job is not to be anchor point to start of the page (#top), rules not enforce for its use (as it would be nearly impossible to ground such rule) and the overview section is always in top (structural demand). So please illustrate to me as I seem to be otherwise too stupid to grasp what else the overview header is doing except taking time from editors to add 'em and cluttering up the pages?

Like I pointed out before, making headers just to have anchor points to start of the article is really bad way to do it. Its like using a hammer to screw nails. You could use the WikiMedias inbuild #top if you want back to top of the article or add a java extension[1] that makes such link next to each header. A feature that I personally regard as a must extension to any wiki that I maintain. Regarding the Jewel of Fortune and many other pages like it, the NOTOC removes the header thus forces the reader to scroll down instead enabling him to use the ToC for fast navigation to the topic the person wants to read, its sole and only purpose. As a side note, all those pages that collect same kind of items that have different name with redirects to a single page makes a situation where reader is looking information of a single item but instead he is showered with a article about four different items and a overview, total of four sections of information he was not looking for. In the case of Jewel of Fortune, that article should inhold only the overview section, everything else is offtopic. While the other sections (items) are there it can't be categorized correctly.

I can look at the To-do lists. For administrative tip, its more easy to have C:Todo (example[2]) and include all stuff there instead of spreading them over multiple users (talk) pages.

BlackSmith (Contributions • Message) 14:09, March 4, 2013 (EST)

For the record, Wikipedia does use == Overview == headings on some articles. However, we are not Wikipedia, and we have our own set of rules. This being said, Overview headers should be used on any page of the wiki that "may" require scrolling to create a logical anchor point back to the top of the page without having to reload the whole page.

ShoeMaker (Contributions • Message) 15:37, March 4, 2013 (EST)

Link me one article then from wikipedia that has top overview section and a second overview section with a overview header, because I have never seen such.

DDO wiki does have its own set of rules but creating header overview is not one of them. If such rule is suddenly created, grounding such a rule would be quite challenging. What would be such rulings groundings as all the so said features it would do are already presented by native features? If you want a send the reader to the top of the page without reloading the page, use #top or .js feature. Thats why it/they are protected so that their function cant be disturbed. BlackSmith (Contributions • Message) 17:00, March 4, 2013 (EST)

Talk:Overview

Incorrect use of Overview header in articles[edit]

Navigation menu

Search