Hi everybody!
I've been trying to keep track of all the email flying back and forth; I'm
glad for the vote of confidence for Editor, but I want to make sure I have
time before I commit to anything else other than sticking web pages up (or
just making webspace available.)
That being said, I've got a 'suggestion' up for pages, and page format. I'm
from the minimalist school of page design. I've read other people's
suggestion, but I only had twenty spare minutes to put this up, so I decided
to just go with that and then take the time to organize what people said later
on, and incorporated said suggestions then.
Basically, the index pages would either link to pages on my site, or to off
site pages with information, depending on how the 'keeper' of that information
would want it.
I used the first example graphic I found.
As for consistency; I think we should realize that absolute consistency is
impossible, since everybody will have different ideas of what the future
should be like. I like the idea of making sure that Tuffley's canon be
separated out from the rest of our ideas, so people know 'this is a fan idea',
and 'this is what the sourcebooks say'.
Project Management/Process Ideas: Get an Editor. Editor designs an
index, with input from the list. (Not sent to the list, but sent to the
editor.) After a week or two, Editor publishes index to the list, and asks for
volunteers to write articles for the various things. As articles come in,
Editor gets other people to proofread, or does it him/her/itself,
depending
on load. Links/pages are published. Iterate as required.
How's that sound for a really quick summation of what everybody has suggested?
Oh, heck, I'll volunteer to fill the Editor spot as well, if that's alright
with people. I seem to have gotten the bug pretty badly. And besides,
it's what I do all day anyways. (8-)
Anyways, please comment. Note that I'm going to be out of touch tomorrow, so
don't expect too many changes; I guess I'll start in earnest on Friday or
Monday, depending on what the heck happens at work.
Thanks everybody,
J.
> That being said, I've got a 'suggestion' up for pages, and page format.
Looks good!
> As for consistency; I think we should realize that absolute consistency
Perhaps change text color to indicate this?
> Project Management/Process Ideas: Get an Editor. Editor designs an
Grabbing an encyclopedia volume (Grolier's Academic American) and looking up
England, we see these paragraphs, with "links" mentioned in that paragraph: I.
General description, covering location, area, population, capital, and
derivation of the name.(UK, London) II. Land A. Landforms (Pennines, Lake
District) B. Climate C. Rivers and vegetation (Severn, Thames, Trent) III.
People A. Ethnicity
B. Population distribution--urban vs. rural
C. Language and religion IV. Economic activities A. Natural resources and
industry (five industrial areas) B. Agriculture C. Transportation including
ports (Liverpool, Hull, Bristol) V. Government and History A. Division into
counties B. History (Wessex) C. Effect of geography on history
Thirteen paragraphs in all.
> Jerry wrote:
> That being said, I've got a 'suggestion' up for pages, and page format.
White page, black text. I read a lot of stuff online rather than printing it.
White on black is harder to read.
I prefer the standard link colours (Links to pages that have not been seen by
the user are blue; links to previously seen pages are purple or red. Don't
mess with these colors since the ability to understand what links have been
followed is one of the few navigational aides that is standard in most web
browsers. Consistency is key to teaching users what the link colors mean.)
> On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Tim Jones wrote:
> White page, black text. I read a lot of stuff online rather than
yep. ideally, we could just leave it to the default colours, but many browsers
uses grey as a background, which is just dumb. a bgcolor tag is fine to fix
this.
> I prefer the standard link colours (Links to pages
an excellent point; the more our style is like normal/default style, the
more readily people will understand it.
there's a set of 'patterns', aka rules of thumb, for building websites here
that would be worth a look for an editor or two:
http://www.anamorph.com/docs/patterns/
a few ideas worth having are:
- sparing images (use an image where you actually need a picture of
something, not just for effect)
- worksheet documents (barely-formatted pages that are kept totally
up-to-date, a bit like a log, saying what is in progress on the site)
- document format consistency (use a consistent layout throughout, to
show that this is a single document)
- link-type distinction (didtinguish between links within the pedia and
links to external sites; perhaps include the latter in a 'references' section
in the document rather than inline in the text)
- relevant dates (all documents should state date of creation and last
modification; my proposal for versioning was a bit over the top...)
- readable hyperlinks (ie, links are applied to descriptive text, rather
than "click here")
- document content-listing (the top of a document should have a brief
list of the contents)
- consistent headers and footers (eg, the header says "Encyclopedia
Galactica" and has links to the frontpage, the footer has contact info and
local links, etc)
i think all of these are pretty obvious, really.
Tom
Tom Anderson wrote, on the subject of standardized and easy HTML code for the
GZGpedia:
> - link-type distinction (didtinguish between links within the pedia
On my page, I've left internal links in regular font and external links in
<strong>Strong</strong> text. (Bold (<b>) is equivilent; it's just that
<strong> is older and HTML standard AFAIK.)
I've tried to apply this standard throughout the site, and so far mostly
succeeded, I think. I've also got very few external links inside regular text;
they're mostly in seperate Links menus. Perhaps that's what we
should do - each article can have a small external links menu at the
very bottom, along with related internal links, the way some real
encyclopedias have both 'See Also..." (internal 'links') and a Bibilography
('external
links') at the end of each or most articles.
Oh, and I'll add to the requests for a seperate 'GZGpedia' mailing list
-
to which I'll subscribe...
My $0.02,
> Thomas Anderson writes:
> - link-type distinction (didtinguish between links within the pedia
By external sites you mean documentation or webpages hosted elsewhere? Do you
think this is really necessary? And if so, what reasoning do you have for it?
As to the topic of backgrounds on pages, I'm for the default grey background.
In webmastering for my department when we had the option of leaving our pages
default grey or going with the white, everyone
except upper-upper management wanted the grey background. Upper-upper
management had this wild hair about white backgrounds on everything. Okay,
granted, I'm working with a restricted sampling of people, but we all liked
the grey background. I think it's easier on the eyes (contrast isn't so harsh
as it is with white).
Eh, my $0.02 worth.
Mk
> As to the topic of backgrounds on pages, I'm for the default grey
I agree on this--a 100% white background doesn't quite work. A very
pale blue or grey is easier on your eyes.
> Laserlight wrote:
> I agree on this--a 100% white background doesn't quite work. A very
I agree, the contrast is to hard on the sensitative eyes after a long day at
work.
Bye for now,
> I agree on this--a 100% white background doesn't quite work. A very
An off white is even nicer. The code is: BGCOLOR="#FFFFF0"
> An off white is even nicer. The code is: BGCOLOR="#FFFFF0"
This isn't bad. The original 'Mosaic' grey was designed for better contrast
for images, but its not so good for text
contrast. If you find white is too bright - you see that
little knob on the monitor... ;-)
Color selection does get a bit on the religious wars side of things. I
personally have no problem with pure white but you need good display equipment
or it can wash out the text. #FFFFF0 is a good compromise and preferal to the
grey.
> On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, kochte, whose pseudonyms we love really, wrote:
> Thomas Anderson writes:
i mean documents which are not part of the encyclopedia itself; by "part of
the encyclopedia itself", i mean stuff that has not been through the process
(organising, proofreading, formatting, peer review), but which is still
relevant.
f'r instance, the entry on the Alarishi might have a link to laserlight's
own site, where extra or more up-to-date material might be found.
external links might also point to resources that are not and will never be
part of the encyclopedia, but which are nonetheless relevant. i can't think of
anything in particular just now, but we might need them.
the physical location of such documents is irrelevant, and since the 'cyc will
now be hosted in one place (iirc), all internal links are local to that server
anyway. whilst it is true that external links will either be to another server
or to jerry han's pages on canoe (assuming that's where it gets hosted), this
follows from the definition rather than being part of the definition.
amazing: it took me three paragraphs to express what any normal person could
do in a line or two. i need help. or i could write textbooks.
> Do you think this is really necessary? And if so, what reasoning do
it's to let people know that this is a different resource, not part of the
encyclopedia, and that by following the link they are leaving the
encyclopedia. it stiffens the defnitions of the 'edges' of the work. it's a
warning that what they are travelling to does not come with the same
gold-edged certificate of quality (i'm assuming lofty goals for the work
here ...).
> As to the topic of backgrounds on pages, I'm for the default grey
i have to say that i am now converted to this. we should make no explicit
reference to background colours (or text colour, or link colours) in the
documents. many people will get 'mosaic gray', but if anyone really cares,
they can override their browser defaults (i have done so, to get white
backgrounds). if we later decide to add colour, based on graphic design,
layout policy, ergonomics or whatever, we can either use stylesheets or go
through and change all the pages - this is a trivial job for a perl
script.
Tom
Thomas Anderson replies to meeee:
> > - link-type distinction (didtinguish between links within the pedia
[...]
Okay, got it. I wasn't sure exactly where you were all going with this, hence
my question.
> amazing: it took me three paragraphs to express what any normal person
:-)
Go the textbook route. You can make money that way.
Thanks for the clarification.
Mk