This project page was nominated fordeletion on September 11, 2007. The result ofthe discussion wasKeep, wrong place.
This page is laid out and designed as part of a set of pages. To discuss the set as a whole, seeWikipedia talk:Contents. For more information on Wikipedia's contents system as a whole, seeWikipedia:WikiProject Contents.
How about we add "Template:Wikipediacats-flat" here? Although those are a type of categories, they are not category pages and they do link to basic kind of information (such as time, etc.) [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9(talk)]] 19:45, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻
Done. This page looks much more likeWikipedia:Browse by category now, and should be more easily maintainable because it uses templates. —AlanBarrett 16:55, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The name "abstraction" for a category (and its choice of categories) is awful. Can't we find better categories or invent a new one with a different name to put these in??Revolver 09:08, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Am I just confused, or had somebody deleted this page? It links right off theMain Page, so I didn't think it should be deleted. (Gosh, I hope I didn't do it myself, by accident.)Uncle Ed 19:04, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
I removed the extra systems theory at the bottom. It was added slightly out of place to the template above but I fixed ithere. --Sitearm |Talk 06:51, 2005 August 22 (UTC)
This browse page doesn't "overview" articles any more than the category or portal browse pages. I propose it be renamed to "Browse by article." —RDFtalk04:31, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it could be "browse by article" or even "browse by defining article" if you want to get technical, since almost all of these articles have a corresponding category. --Fplay13:19, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, "overview" or "main article" are the current terminology used in the UI. We should try to make this uniform by choosing one term and settling on it.
Follow the style described in the Category FAQ (use{{catmain}}, have redirect if names are different by singular/plural). If cat has description, it should closely match that of the overview.
Have portal links, if they exist
Generally be a well-organized and balanced category (neither too few nor too many non-overview articles or sub-categories) and a well-written and accurate overview, because this browser increases the visibility of those pages. That includes an opening paragraph that describes the nature and scope of the catagory.
I'm fairly new to this project, so I'm not going to make big changes without consulting you guys, but what do you think of something likethis version of the overview page? I'm not sure how to fill up the righthand side of the bottom of the page yet, but I'm working on it. Also, I'd like the images to be on the right, but alignment is more important. If we could, we should use <div> tags to correctly align the images to the right of their categories. -ElAmericano |talk22:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
HiElAmericano, Very belatedly, looks like a much better start than what we have on this mess of a convoluted page that has unclear categories, with artbitrarty subcategories and miscategorized items (for example, underneath communications, we have thing like internet, when that is not communications - that is communications technologies. Communications addressess things like languages, linguistics, speech communications, written forms of communications (fiction, nonfiction, research reporting, etc. etc.Peacedance (talk)05:38, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The icon that displays when an image can't be shrunk down to the size specified in an image link has been replaced by a TechSpot ad. The artic map was triggering the display of the ad, but I increased the size slightly and the ad went away. But the ad still needs to be tracked down, and the original error image restored. --The Transhumanist23:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"List of overview articles" because that's what should be here, short and sweet. Then the navbar links can be renamed to "Overviews," as a parallel construction.Rfrisbietalk15:40, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But most of the articles arenot overview articles. This list has been completely transformed. The list itself is an overview article, while the articles listed are key topics of each major subject. Waitasec, just got a brainstorm. The articles aren't overviews,but the sectionsare! Just name the sections "Overview of Art and culture", "Overview of Geography", "Overview of history", etc. To fit, you'd just need to drop the "articles" from the end, which would make itList of overviews. --The Transhumanist17:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But, having just reminded myself by visiting a few of the links, if a topic's so-called "main article" (as in{{main}}) serves as an overview, this list does seem to be a list of (links to) articles that are overviews. Perhaps, therefore,List of overview articles is a more accurate / less ambiguous name...? Also, since this list lists items within the encyclopedia, should it reside in the "Wikipedia:" namespace...? Regards,David Kernow(talk)13:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Since my move was reverted I will make it clear why I believe that this ans all the other pages listed on the top of this one should be moved to Wikipedia space rather than Article space.
This is more of a table of contents than an actual article. Usually, tables of contents aren't considered articles, and something like that should be put in to the Wikipedia space.
This article does not meet anything in the Manual of Style at all. I know those are just guidelines, but ususally, lists in the main space actually have descriptions next to each of the items. This doesn't, so putting it in the article namespace, along with the other lists that this links to, Only exaggerates our article count.
TheList of overviews lists topics which are overviews of the subjects they are named for. The topicphilosophy is the "top" or "root" topic in the subject of philosophy, thus being a gateway to the entire subject. This isn't any more abstract nor arbitrary than a great many other lists, such asList of films that most frequently use the word "fuck". Other examples of lists of arbitrary or abstract things includeList of unusual deaths,List of faux pas,List of paradoxes, andPrizes named after people. Thus, listing topics which are overviews of their respective subjects is totally acceptable under Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.
Wikipedia has quirks you might not be taking into account. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is mirrored all over the Web. For example, in Answers.com. Pages in the Wikipedia namespace don't show up on it. Among other uses, mirrors serve as alternates when Wikipedia is down (or for when you mistakenly get blocked). But Wikipedia mirrors aren't as useful without the tables of contents!
Migration just adds another maintenance chore to our already huge maintenance burden. We're not keeping up as it is.
More than merely lists of articles, the lists in question are expanded lists of topics. What's an "expanded list"? Well, when an artcle, including a list, grows too large, part of it is split off and a link is provided to the new page. For this reason, many articles have links to aHistory of page, for example. The same principle applies to lists, with links to various "List of" pages, thus becoming lists of lists. Some lists retain their "list" name even when they are broken up into parts, others get the new name, with over 130 "Lists of" lists on Wikipedia so far. For example, under this system,List of animal species would becomeLists of animal species. The set of lists is the same list, just split up into multiple pages. To remove part of the list to the Wikipedia namespace and not the whole list would be counter-intuitive.
Pages in the Wikipedia namespace are not included in the Wikipedia article index. If a user wanted to get a list of all the lists on Wikipedia, they'd go toAll pages and start fromList of. If theLists of were removed to the Wikipedia namespace, such users might not think of looking there, assuming that all the lists would be kept in the same place.
Almost all lists on Wikipedia are defacto tables of contents. As Wikipedia's coverage expands, redlinks are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, so lists become lists ofarticles rather than merely lists oftopics. Technically, that makes most stand-alone lists in violation of the "no self-references" rule, which is why we have thestand-alone list exception. Many stand-alone lists started out as embedded lists in articles, which were split off from articles when they grew large enough. It wouldn't make any sense to migrate them ortheir expansions to non-article space.
Links to the Wikipedia namespace are generally not allowed in the main namespace. So whenList of animal species becomesWikipedia:Lists of animal species, editors would no longer be able to provide links to it, such as in theSee also sections of articles. Instead, they would be forced to include the entire list of lists in each article.List of mammal species, List of reptile species, List of insect species, etc. This defeats the purpose of having lists of lists in the first place! Similarly, at the end of the articleMathematics, we wouldn't be able to include a link toLists of mathematics topics, even though that page is entirely relevant, because a link toWikipedia:Lists of mathematics topics would not be allowed. Instead, a link to each individual list would need to be included. That would make theSee also sectionHUGE.
Even if Wikipedia namespace links were allowed in the main namespace, those links would be dead in Wikipedia mirrors that don't include Wikipedia namespace pages.
It appears some company tried to turn this page into advertising; I didn't realize this at first, but I fixed it and I will be keeping an eye on this page. Eran of Arcadia 13:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
"Self-referencing" template at the top of the page
I have removed the ambox at the top of the article. It appears that this is an attempt to force the issue identified atWikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of overviews. I note thatWP:POINT may apply: this page is potentially used by hundreds or thousands of readers every day, whose first impression will be that the page is (somehow)wrong. It's not - there just are editors who want it to be located in a different place (at least that seems to be the sort-of-consensus). An article messagebox on the top of the page isn't the right way to get editors to come to a consensus on where it goes, so I have removed it. --John Broughton(♫♫)23:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This page just lists regular articles, likeArt,Earth orUniversity. In what way are these "overviews"? Overviews of what? If you like, any article is an "overview" of its topic. If this is simply a "list of core topics", how is it different fromPortal:Contents/Lists of topics, which is obviously also a list of core topics. Unlesss somebody is able to describe exactly what this page is supposed to do, it would be best to{{merge}} it intoPortal:Contents/Lists of topics. --dab(𒁳)11:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Essentially: This page links to prose articles. The other page links only to List-type articles.
Since it is not meant to be complete, simply calling it a "list of" does not convey its specialized scope or purpose, which are that of an overview.The Transhumanist03:33, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia's current overview is great. but it can even be greater. For example,
here is the current order:
General reference
Culture and the arts
Geography and places
Health and fitness
History and events
Mathematics and logic
Natural and physical sciences
People and self
Philosophy and thinking
Religion and belief systems
Society and social sciences
Technology and applied sciences
here is a better order, carefully arranged (in 3 years) from prerequisite subjects to dependent ones:
General reference
Mathematics and logic
Natural and physical sciences
Geography and places
Health and fitness
People and self
Culture and the arts
Religion and belief systems
Society and social sciences
History and events
Philosophy and thinking
Technology and applied sciences
It's never perfect, but
For 10 years, I've been studying at least an hour a day to improve it.
Every step of the classification is better than before
I can bring reason for every slight arrangement that I choose. for example:
We must start with references, because a reference is what separates information from other types of text.
Math is immediately after that, because it contains coherent and formal info. not every info
Ontology, then separates real info from just coherent formal info
Physical science
Physics is the rules study of rules governing quantities. or simply, the relation between reals.
Chemistry studies the properties of this reality,
and cosmology studies the part of this reality that we are in contact with. (what's definite. not just what's possible)
Geography is a part of cosmology. (but it should be separate here).
History (time) is NOT after geography (place), because we mean History of societies.
...
Since the alphabetical order is not required here, I can also classify the arrangment of sub-contents. example: the section about technology really needs to be arranged.
I suggest someone revert the vandalism of the entire section that seems to have been replaced by content having nothing to do with the subject as a new editor i am not competent yet and do not have autocomfirmed status --The Peaceful Punk (talk)23:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Under theAges of History section, I noticed that the Information Age is listed before the Space Age. Since these seem to be listed in chronological order, should these two be switched to where the Information Age is last?
In my opinion, the article 'Universe' should be added under the 'Astronomy' subsection in 'Natural and physical sciences'.Szymioza (talk)22:07, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]