Forum:Contents box

From Solar Cooking

Ashok Kundapur has created a substantial Compendium of solar cooker designs. It was far too long for one page, so I split it up into multiple pages and created Template:Compendium TOC which I have put on each subpage. Now I'd like help or advice in two areas:

1. Improving the TOC template. It'd be nice to have some space outside it (so things don't butt right up to it) for example.
2. Deciding what to do with the Compendium of solar cooker designs page. Should I just redirect this to the Compendium/Introduction page, for example?

--Beth Ogilvie 18:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, Compendium of solar cooker designs would either be a summary or list article. I've added Template:Main (used {{Main|Parabolic Cookers}}) to Solar Cooking Wiki to facilitate the summary style. Also, look at the navigation box at the bottom of Wikipedia:Yosemite National Park for a third way articles are grouped. Please see Wikipedia:Template:National parks of the United States. It is similar to your Template:Compendium TOC.

Putting articles in sub-directories is discouraged on Wikipedia. I wouldn't do it without a compelling reason. It may confuse the search engine. Try searching for Concentrator cookers, for example. Additionally, I should mention that the rough guideline on Wikipedia for article size is 32 kb excluding references, markup, etc. Walter Siegmund 19:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Now I've read Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Subpages I'm wondering why Wikia allows them in the article namespace, if they cause so much trouble. :-| I'll rename the subpages I've created. Re: article size, the wiki engine grumbles when we edit a page >32K, so we get a constant reminder of that. I've put a comment about the Main template on Forum:Main template. Thanks. --Beth Ogilvie 15:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You needed another "Wikipedia:" in your link above (which I added). The first Wikipedia references the Wikipedia mainspace where the articles are. The second references the "Wikipedia" namespace where documentation, policy and guidelines reside. Other namespaces are "Image", "Template" and "Category".

Don't take the 32kb grumbles very seriously. It is mostly a historical artifact when some browsers couldn't edit larger blocks and before section editing was implemented. However, many readers will not want to read an article a whole lot longer than 32kb, at least at one sitting. Many, many articles on Wikipedia are longer than 32kb. Still, it is still a useful target. Walter Siegmund 17:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The discussion was becoming fragmented, so I moved it to Talk:Compendium_of_solar_cooker_designs. Please watchlist that page, if you haven't done so.