Theory:Discontinuity pages: spelling and grammar

Index → Discontinuity index → Discontinuity pages: spelling and grammar

Spoilers are strongly policed here.
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.

The discontinuity pages are a sort of weird hybrid, halfway between a conversation (like a Forum or Talk page) and an article.

In particular, we don't sign questions and answers, and try to write the answers in an authoritative rather than speculative style.

But, at the same time, we generally don't replace or modify previous answers; instead, we add additional ones.

So, should spelling, grammar, wording, etc. be fixed on these pages, as in articles, or should the answers be left alone to reflect the original poster's intention (so long as they're coherent)? --Falcotron 22:23, May 30, 2010 (UTC)

They are something of a weird hybrid. But they are theories rather than opinions, so I think they should be edited to at the very least be readable.

Also any personal opinions shouldn't be there, opinions being for the realms of The Howling to deal with. It's a somewhat vague line but personal opinions (stuff on the Forums and talk pages) are signed, stuff in the discontinuity is theory though not personal. --Tangerineduel 13:26, May 31, 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is that the discon pages aren't a hybrid in any sense. They're forum pages, and therefore explicitly discussions. I admit to editing a couple of lines when I transferred some stuff over — simply because they were god awful or because they were repetitive after separating the initial statement and the response from each other. But I kept a lot of horrible, horrible grammar and spelling in. The whole point of the move, from my perspective, was so that we could put those discussions in an area where copyediting was less of an issue. Perhaps more explicitly, I thought we were tucking those sections away in a zero maintenance zone.

I'm also not sure I'm seeing TD's point above. How is a theory different than an opinion, exactly? And I'm really confused by the intimation that the discon sections aren't in The Howling. Of course they are. That was surely the point of the exercise. They are in an area where people can say whatever they want. We should not get into the business of watching these sections like a hawk for grammatical errors and confusing wording. To my mind, they are — like every part of the Howling — little admin-less areas for our users to play in however they want — provided they don't actually commit vandalism. Now that the TV pages are in — and let's face it, that was the bulk of pre-existing discon commentary — I think we just step back and let them evolve naturally. It's made explicitly clear on the story page and on the discon page (through the use of Template:discontinuity) that users are entering into a discussion and navigating away from the article proper. That should be all the action we need take, except in the case of true vandalism. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 19:06, June 3, 2010 (UTC)

Although I agree that putting the discussion in terms of "theory" vs. "opinion" is a bit awkward, I think what Tangerineduel is getting it makes sense anyway.

If the intention is for it to just be forum pages, then nobody should be touching anyone else's posts. But in that case, we really ought to have people signing their comments. For one thing, it's a lot easier to have a discussion when you know who you're talking with. For another, it's just easier to say "going back to CzechOut's point above" rather than "going back to 2 points before the one 2 levels of indentation from here".

If the intention is closer to something like the Answers site, then it makes sense for people to edit existing responses to clarify them, rather than to (as people more often do) add a whole new 90%-redundant one just to clarify one part or add one bit. And, while we don't need to be vigilant to keep them in perfect form, if something is confusing or just painful to read, and you happen to notice, it's better to fix it than not.

And honestly, I don't know what the intention is, which is why I brought this up. --Falcotron 19:45, June 3, 2010 (UTC)

Ahhh, my apologies. For some reason I had it in my head that you were one of the people who actually participated in the discussion to move this discon stuff away from the story pages. But now that I actually think about it, you probably weren't. So, sorry for assuming the untrue. Okay, so how to encapsulate all this quickly? These discon pages were created basically by cutting the section from a story page and pasting it onto a new forum page. Because of this, we had no idea who had posted what. Obviously users hadn't signed their comments on a mainspace page, even though what they had typed was essentially just a post more akin to something on Gallifrey Base. Thus there was no other way to clearly distinguish between various points but through indentation. Would I be opposed to people now starting to sign their posts? Absolutely not. They can do whatever they want. I just don't want to have to police those pages at all. The discon pages are firmly a part of The Howling, and no one polices any other part of The Howling (or any forum) for spelling, readability, etc. To use a nice, vague homily, these discon pages are what they are. There's a guideline at the top of each page giving people an idea of how to have an orderly discussion, but if they don't choose to follow that, there's not much we can practically do. The point really is that they're no longer cluttering up the main article pages, and they're now in a place where lively debate can ensue without someone going behind and editing away points. Any theory/opinion/whateveryouwanttocallit should now be allowed to stand. The very last thing we want on these pages is a return to the kind of "edit warring" that went on before. If you don't agree with a point, fine; post your counterpoint. I think the concept works best if it's largely unmoderated.

As for how the "flow" of the conversation can work with just indentation, there's really nothing preventing someone from posting immediately under a point with which they disagree. What's there now is not set in stone. They don't have to post at the very bottom and say "I disagree with what was two points ago". They can create a new level of indentation at the spot they want to. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 00:48, June 4, 2010 (UTC)

Additions to this discussion

If the discontinuity index is just part of the howling, why does it say "Spoilers aren't cool here. Try the howling instead," at the top of the page? If no one is signing their posts, but it is supposed to be like a discussion, won't that just be confusing. Especially, if you have people posting stuff earlier up in the discussion. It sounds like that would just get confusing. Instead of just saying that there is no reason that people shouldn't do something, wouldn't it make more sense to come up with specific guidelines for how to use the discontinuity index, instead of just allowing it to evolve naturally. Even if you don't feel like policing it, there isn't any harm in coming up with a policy on whether people should sign their posts, and whether people are allowed to correct previous posts for spelling and grammar.Gowron8472 06:38, June 2, 2011 (UTC)

I can quite appreciate how this might be a little confusing to editors who are looking at this area for the first time. It is a weird sort of hybrid world, where some of the provisions of our discussion policy are in effect, and some aren't.

Let me see if I can explain it.

I suppose a good starting point is to point out that everything above the subheading "additions to this discussion" is an archive of how things were in the summer of 2010. At that point, the discontinuity index was a new feature, and it was part of the Howling. In 2011, we moved the Howling into a namespace of its own, and pulled the Discon Index into a separate forum, which was still part of the Forum namespace. This allowed us to have a bigger "barrier" between the Howling (where spoilers are allowed) and the regular Forum namespace (where they aren't). A chief benefit of this is that searches, using the default settings, do not pull up results from the Howling. This has gone a long way to protecting our users against accidentally being spoiled for unbroadcast episodes.

So when you see references, above, to the Discon Index being in the Howling, understand that those are historical truths. That's not how it is now. As of 2011, the Discon Index is firmly in the Forum namespace, where spoilers are not allowed.

As for setting up firm rules for this place, I think it would at least as confusing to have them as not to have them.

As is pointed out in the above discussion, all this stuff was on story pages, where of course signatures are absolutely forbidden. It was practically impossible to figure out who left which note. Thus the vast majority of posts in these threads are not signed, and will never be signed.

That leaves us with an obvious policy problem. Can we really mandate that signatures must be used here? Honestly, we can't. We have no idea who said what at this point. Reality demands that we just let it slide.

As for grammar, content, and accuracy, well there we have the real heart of the matter. See, the entire point of the move from the story pages was to absolve us from the responsibility of fact checking and copy editing. We had accumulated six years of discontinuity sections on story pages. And for reasons not well understood, editors were not able to effectively police those sections on story pages. They just kept attracting extremely low-quality edits. It got to be such a wasteland of poor grammar and unsourced speculation that we ha simply nuke it. We moved it off those pages, and treated them like what they had become: discussion threads at Gallifrey Base.

If we were to now require that this stuff gets cleaned up, there honestly wouldn't have been that much point to the move. We put all this into a forum environment specifically so it wouldn't have to be cleaned up.

Of course, that's not to say that you can't, on your own initiative, go through and edit these pages. If that's what you want to do with your editing time here, that's absolutely fine. Understand that it's strictly forbidden' to alter another user's post in any other forum, but if you want to edit Discon Index pages for grammar — you can. We will never require, however, that these pages be properly copy edited.

So it's not fair to say that we haven't come up with a policy for the Discon Index. We have. That policy is simple. Generally you must obey our broader discussion policy. If there are instances of abuse between users, administrators do want to know about it, and will take action. A suggested format for the discussions is given at the top of every page. If people follow that format of indenting new posts, it won't be confusing to follow the discussion, because the indentation indicates where each thought ends.

But that's about where it ends. Our policy for Discon Index pages is to officially not require signatures, good grammar, proper spelling or even accuracy. These pages are clearly advertised as discussions on the story page links, and at the top of every page.

I think it's very clear to readers that they're getting a discussion, not an article or a well-researched essay — just a discussion.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 17:26: Tue 20 Sep 2011