Portal talk:Contents

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February 5, 2008 Peer review Reviewed

Portal talk:Contents/Navigation

Should we go graphical?

Maybe we could apply information visualization. That is, in addition to the list in each section, perhaps we could provide a diagram presenting the subsystem names for that section. We could use one of the following, for example:

  • Radial tree - with "contents" in the middle and lines spoking out in all directions to each of the subsystem's names. Sort of like WP:UPDC but with lines and no icons.
  • Concept map showing the relationships between the subsystems
  • Tree structure diagram, with lines and boxes.
  • Mind map for the whole page.

Anybody any good with diagrams? The Transhumanist 15:18, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it is pretty clear that the simpler the diagram, the better. Our minds cannot handle more than the magical number seven (plus or minus two) independent things (in the sense of a free variable). It is related to the fact that no juggler has ever juggled more than six balls in the air at one time (see Ronald Graham-- juggler/mathematician). If you are looking for graphics, we need thumbnails of said graphics (i.e., the big picture) inset into any complex graphic diagram. It will require an education program to get the idea across for any of these types of diagrams. Equations serve very well to compress information, and all equations do is serve as a barrier for most people. On the other hand, animations can convey concepts pretty well if they are allied with standardized words for those concepts. And multiple views (i.e., index/outline/summary sentence) all at one page -- sounds like a portal might be the ticket here. However portals are high maintenance objects in Wikipedia, much more so than an article itself. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 01:13, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
That said, if we can agree on a few integrating ideas, perhaps we might concentrate on invigorating those few pages. There are several things that might be tried, such as a touchstone (ala Archimedes or D'Alembert or DNA or science or air) that manage to bring in many concepts to serve as a springboard to the rest of the articles in the encyclopedia. Another possibility might be use an equation as an icon, add a summary sentence, with sidebars to link to the rest of the encyclopedia. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 15:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for main section title adjustment

I propose that we adjust one of the section titles of the contents system for completeness and consistency....

As you know, there are 4 major classifications of sciences: Natural sciences, Social sciences, Formal sciences, and Applied sciences. "Formal sciences" is missing from the main subjects of the contents system. This is a big oversight.

Besides "General reference", each of the remaining main section titles, except for one, include a parent subject and a subtopic of the parent. Arts is a subtopic of culture, places are a focus of geography, fitness is an aspect of health, events have happened throughout history, physical sciences are a subset of the natural sciences, etc.

The exception is Mathematics and logic. Neither of these fields is a subclass or subtopic of the other, instead, they are both distinct formal sciences. Formal sciences is the parent subject, but it is missing from the title.

Therefore, the proposal is to replace "Mathematics and logic" with "Formal sciences and mathematics".

The new set of titles would look like this:

P literature.svg General reference
P culture.svg Culture and the arts
P mathematics.svg Formal sciences and mathematics
P countries.png Geography and places

 P medicine.svg  Health and fitness
 Klepsydra-pt.svg   History and events
P physics.svg Natural and physical sciences
 P vip.svg  People and self

 Socrates blue version2.png  Philosophy and thinking
P religion.png Religion and belief systems
P social sciences.png Society and social sciences
P train.svg Technology and applied sciences

It's a small change, but it would establish formal sciences to its logical placement within the contents system's structure.

Sincerely, The Transhumanist 10:34, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I have a big problem with this proposal: it elevates 'Formal sciences' which is the path to ossification. A student reader needs to be aware that 'before' a science becomes formal, there is an informal stage, where concepts are clarified. The informal stage cannot be skipped during the learning process, either, because that is the stage at which weaknesses are clarified. Granted, this takes intellectual honesty on the part of the student ("do I understand this? If that were true, then ..."). The 'hmmm' stage has to be acknowledged, and inventive people are frequently valuable just at this stage. Otherwise, inventive minds will simply turn away, whereas copycats will merely propagate unnecessary errors in the incipient concept, which creates huge unnecessary silos. In any event, it hardens thinking, which is the exact opposite of a mathematical mind which is careful, flexible, gentle, (i.e., subtle) and open, yet still capable of using machinery: for example, John Tukey, who invented the fast fourier transform after hearing one lecture on the Fourier transform. See: intuitionistic mathematics --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:55, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Some noted mathematicians such as Hilbert had a formalist POV, which was demolished in the 20th c.
I am simply saying that mathematics is not only formal. This is well acknowledged in the logic articles. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 12:00, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I see, mathematics is a formal science and something else. What else is mathematics besides being a formal science? (I.e., where else in the navigation system does mathematics belong?) By the way, the main issue here is that "Formal sciences" is missing. As one of the major branches of science, shouldn't it be one of the main sections? Where in the contents system should we place "formal sciences"? The Transhumanist 23:35, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for responding. I can share something my teacher, Richard Feynman said to us: "Mathematics is not real, but it feels real. Where is this place?". The best location I can be comfortable with right now is a virtual location under Technology and applied science, under Virtual reality. So how about "Virtual science: mathematics and logic", under its own heading, alphabetized after Technology and applied science. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 00:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

P literature.svg General reference
P culture.svg Culture and the arts
P countries.png Geography and places
P medicine.svg  Health and fitness

 Klepsydra-pt.svg   History and events
P physics.svg Natural and physical sciences
 P vip.svg  People and self
 Socrates blue version2.png  Philosophy and thinking

P religion.png Religion and belief systems
P social sciences.png Society and social sciences
P train.svg Technology and applied sciences
P mathematics.svg Virtual sciences: mathematics and logic

We don't have an article or category for "virtual sciences". The only thing I could find on Google were companies by that name. The term appears to be a neologism or less-than-commonly-used name for these sciences. There is a specific classification called "Formal sciences" that isn't placed in the Portal:Contents system yet. There is a great deal about them on the Web, and Wikipedia has Category:Formal sciences. Where should "Formal sciences" be placed? The Transhumanist 01:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm completely against "virtual sciences", which in addition to being neologistic appears to be POV. The original proposal is OK with me, but I think even better would be to combine the "mathematics and logic" and "natural and physical sciences" titles into a single "mathematics and natural science" title. Physical sciences are ipso facto natural sciences, so nothing is lost there, and the part of logic that belongs with mathematics is mathematical logic which is really mathematics. Philosophical logic should go under a different title, probably the "Philosophy and thinking" one. --Trovatore (talk) 02:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment: The phrase as you know, there are 4 major classifications of sciences isn't a good starting point for discussion. As it happens, I don't know such a thing, and I'm sure a lot of other people don't either. The page Branches of science does not actually give a source for a four-fold classification. I'm not convinced that a widely accepted classification of the sciences exists. And there certainly isn't consensus as to whether or not mathematics is a science (formal or otherwise); there are people who view it as closer to an art form, or as a discipline which doesn't fit inside any other category. Jowa fan (talk) 05:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Oppose We should use what is common outside of Wikipedia in classification not start doing our own thing. There may be some deviations but this looks like it has no justification from the real world outside. That is how titles of articles are mainly decided, we need things to be obvious easily found and accessible. Hiding computer science and mathematics under virtual or formal science is nonsense when they are so important in today's world. How many children would ever think of looking up something under these headings? Dmcq (talk) 08:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Another way of doing things would be to use the reference desk categories plus medicine which it avoids. That way people would know where to ask if they don't get an answer. The reference desk probably has some talk about revised categories too. Dmcq (talk) 09:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. Mathematics isn't any kind of science. There's no such thing as a "mathematical experiment"; even people who use that term do not intend for the word "experiment" to mean what it does in, say, physics or biology. See for example Skewes' number, which is known to exist, but is known to be so large that we cannot currently find it; if mathematics relied on the results of experiments, then we would have to conclude that Skewes' number did not exist. The scientific method has no place in mathematical reasoning. The foundation of mathematics is logic and proof, and the practice of mathematics is art. Anyone who mistakes it for science should be ignored. Ozob (talk) 12:07, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Oppose: I don't see any value in the change and I disagree on the division of science and the placement of fields within it. CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Oppose any use of the term "formal science" here. Yes, technically mathematics, logic, statistics etc. are formal sciences. But the term causes confusion, is needlessly controversial, and is not a term that the man on the Clapham omnibus would understand without explanation. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Weak Support Today's heading "mathematics and logic" is objectionable because of the extreme foundationalism and structuralism of the article mathematics, which discounts history and relations to science/engineering. The term "formal sciences" is conventional for the cluster of logic, mathematics, and mathematical disciplines without empirical claims.

Alternative: I would propose Mathematical and logical disciplines, which avoids the erroneous term "sciences".  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 19:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment It's just false to say that mathematics does not make empirical claims. It most decidedly does make empirical claims. Granted, these are not so much in the day-to-day practice of mathematics as they are part of the content of the axioms, if you want to think in axiomatic terms, but that's true of the day-to-day practice of, say, physics as well. --Trovatore (talk) 20:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
What complete nonsense. If you are talking about the content of the axioms, you are no longer talking about mathematics. Please take a look at atomic sentence so as to learn about the relationship of subject matter, to the logic which makes sense of the the subject matter. Also shockingly, you compare to physics. The content of an axiom of physics is also no longer talking about physics. The axiom itself however, is a product of empirical observation. Math and logic are not empirical insofar as organizing Wikipedia's categories are concerned. Perhaps there are some philosophers of mathematics who claim it is, and have a very abstruse argument therefore, however, no one editing Wikipedia is at that level of understanding so as to reject or adhere to that view intelligently. So we should go with the simplified, prevailing view that math and logic are not empirical. Furthermore, logic and math aren't sciences, nor are they arts OR they are both sciences AND arts. There is no reasonable claim that either of them are one to the exclusion of the other. Logic and math are both beyond either art or science because they are fields that equally apply to the whole of science and the whole of art (i.e. every single scientist and every single scientific claim adheres to reason, also every single artist and every work of art adheres to some system of reason). Therefore all of mathematics and all of science are more properly categorized as specialized subfields of logic. Greg Bard (talk) 23:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Whether mathematics has empirical content is a controversial point, and the category structure should certainly not assume that it does. But it should also not assume that it doesn't. As far as the titles go, I specifically argued for Mathematics and natural science, which does not imply in any way that mathematics is natural science, but simply reflects the prevailing reality that these subjects are often studied and presented together and by the same people. --Trovatore (talk) 00:37, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's still the placement issue. There's a Portal:Social sciences, and it's only a matter of time before we have Portal:Formal sciences, and maybe perhaps an Outline of formal sciences. And "Formal sciences" is missing from Portal:Contents/Overviews. The question remains: "WHERE DOES "FORMAL SCIENCES" GO?!"   The Transhumanist 01:17, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Why does it have to go anywhere? It seems to be a slightly unusual way of categorizing things, not as extreme as virtual sciences, but not as standard as something like "mathematics and natural sciences" at a high level, broken up in turn into "natural sciences" and just "mathematics". As I argue above there is no need for "mathematics and logic", because mathematical logic already is mathematics, and philosophical logic is a separate category that should not go under M&NS. The only other big thing that one might want to include in "formal sciences" is computer science, but that doesn't seem to be part of the proposal as I understand it. --Trovatore (talk) 01:33, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood the question. Let me rephrase it: when portal "Formal sciences" gets created, where will it be listed on Portal:Contents/Portals? Your answer above sounds as if this portal wouldn't be listed at all, as if being barred from the portals list. Is that what you meant? Disallow it from being listed on the portals list? That sounds like POV or censorship. All other portals are listed, so why wouldn't this one be? The Transhumanist 02:44, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand why there should be a formal-sciences portal, if all of its proposed contents are covered by other portals. --Trovatore (talk) 02:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree. "Formal science isn't a very important category insofar as organizing things is concerned. As far as the name of the category these guys are trying to formulate, I would recommend Deductive sciences. That covers math and logic. That was what Tarski would call it.Greg Bard (talk) 05:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
That's POV from two sides: It assumes math is purely deductive, which I contest, and that it's a science, which others contest. --Trovatore (talk) 08:06, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Formal science as far as I can work out is about dividing computer science from computing and probability from statistics and studies about linguistics from languages and stick the first three into one box. The box is already there and it is called mathematics. There is no need for more than the current empirical split between pure and applied sciences, why have formal, pure and applied? Do you really want to try splitting Newtons laws of motion which is pure science from the maths used for Newtons laws of motion which by this would be the formal science? Dmcq (talk) 09:10, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Oppose: Technically, mathematics and science are completely different. ~ ⇒TomTomN00 @ 23:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Oppose: Mathematics is not a science. Support status quo.Havelock Jones (talk) 23:25, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Rename sidebar link - proposal

See discussion about renaming the link to this page (not the page itself) in the sidebar, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Change Contents link in Sidebar. –Quiddity (talk) 01:10, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Disclaimer header

Per a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/RFC on medical disclaimer, I would like to propose adding a Disclaimer header to the top of this page. Here is what the header looks like:

The purpose would be to increase awareness of Wikipedia's limitations, without adding warnings to the top of every page. --agr (talk) 23:59, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Adding a publisher's footer to the bottom of the page would be a nice touch. Across the Web, disclaimers and other administrative links are typically placed at the bottom of webpages, in a page's footer, so as not to clutter or distract. We've spent considerable effort to keep the top of this page uncluttered, so that the reader sees as much of the content of the page as possible from the instant he arrives here. Most importantly, adding headers would distract from the purpose of this page, drawing readers away, and therefore it would be inappropriate to place headers at the top.
A footer, which included a link to How to participate in Wikipedia, Wikipedia copyrights, and disclaimers, would be very helpful. I hope this helps. The Transhumanist 20:05, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

New sections

As there currently are sections of this portal dedicated to 'Outline of...', 'Index of...', 'List of' etc..., should we expand these to include contents pages for 'History of...' and 'Timeline of...' articles as well? Mschamberlain (talk) 23:27, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Click on "History" in the subject menu at the top of the page. The body of the Contents page covers Wikipedia's general navigation systems, the scope of which is all knowledge (the entire encyclopedia). To get to the branches of knowledge, click on any of the nav systems. Or use the subject menu at the top of the page (which will lead you to a treatment of the subject by all the major nav systems). The Transhumanist 20:27, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

'Contents' links here, but there is no contents

The Contents link in the sidebar (displayed on all pages) links to this page, but there is actually no contents here. Also, the whole styling deviates from all other Portal:Content/ pages. Is this something that needs to be fixed? If not, I'd like to propose (on WP:VPP) that Content link to Portal:Contents/Overviews, or maybe Portal:Contents/Portals instead, because those pages actually list topics, instead of explaining how Contents works. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:16, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Adapted from a quote by Shenme: "A 'normal' wiki usually doesn't have a core structure, but Wikipedia has quite a lot of material, and various ways of organizing it, [and so this page became its navigation hub]. Having a link in the sidebar to the contents page helps people discover what organization there is."
While its subpages all have TOC and subject heading styling, this page does not because its subjects are those other systems (among others), rather than the subject classifications of Wikipedia. The Transhumanist 13:09, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Still... if I come here as a first time vistor, and click on 'Contents', I'd expect to see some contents listing. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:21, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
There are subject links right at the top to: Reference Culture Geography Health History Mathematics Nature People Philosophy Religion Society Technology. There's also {{Contents pages (footer box)}} at the bottom. I'll admit these are not very prominent, but this isn't the One True TOC for Wikipedia; there are multiple ways to organize the encyclopedia's contents, so the bulk of this page is just a list of those listings. Would you like to see a big list of topics and subtopics here instead of a big list of lists of TOCs? -- Beland (talk) 20:00, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Picking one subsystem above the others would be problematic. Creating yet another overview list would be superfluous. What we have are several vying systems, that together make up a supersystem. To favor one over the others by directing the Contents link to it rather than to this all-encompasing page would be counter productive. This, after all, is the top-level of the all-encompassing navigation system.
By the way, I like the revision. Nice touch. The Transhumanist 11:13, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
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