Memory Alpha talk:Subpages

Cid
This page is called "do not use subpages" - but since its first revision, the guideline actually is: "do not try to arrange articles in a tree-like structure". :)

Subpages per se have never been the problem - using an article title like Federation/Starship/USS Enterprise in a sensible way has. I'm going to rephrase that and move this page to just afterwards. -- Cid Highwind 10:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Subpages in the main namespace are a bad idea
So, lately there have been some really questionable decisions to attach data to pages in the main namespace with subpages. The Ron Moore and Brannon Braga AOL chats, and then this strange one It's A Wrap! sale and auction/Missing references. The policy says not to use subpages in the main namespace to arrange things in a treee structure, but I think that subpages should never be used in the main namespace, and if we are going to hack a workaround, the workaround should be to make things work the way they ought to, without subpages. So instead of naming things like "em-3-green" with a subpage redirect as a workaround, they should be named their proper title with parent page redirects as a workaround, and the subpage breadcrumb list should be hidden with CSS in the main namespace since wikia won't just turn it off.

Articles that should have a / in the name, but can't because of sub-pages:
 * AMT/Ertl
 * Chapman / Leonard Studio Equipment
 * Chevrolet C/K
 * Deep Space 9 station regulation 82/7B
 * Em/3/Green
 * Em/3/Green's species
 * Kei/Yuri factor
 * M/ARA
 * Mm/Hg
 * Montgomery/Cobb
 * NCC-1701\5A
 * NCC-1701/R6
 * NCC-1701/4
 * NCC-1701/9

Aside from those really awful AOL chats, some other stuff that shouldn't be in the main namespace:
 * Elements by atomic number/temp
 * Elements by symbol/temp
 * Thomas Riker/peerreview
 * Warp factor/temp

--bp 15:54, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

It appears that Ira Steven Behr and Michael Pillar have AOL chats subs as well, those should all be moved out of main namespace, if they should exist at all. --bp 15:56, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

CSS for removing the subpage crumb list in the main namespace: body.ns-0 span.subpages { display: none; }

--bp 16:07, March 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * Just as a quick first response - I think that temp pages (as long as they really are in use) should be located with the article they are a "temp" of - where else would you want to put them? For the others, using the DISPLAYTITLE magic word (see mmHg) could be an additional part of the workaround. -- Cid Highwind 16:08, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, attach anything you want in a subpage of the Talk namespace page for the article, but keep subpages out of the main namespace. Peer review, FA noms, temp pages could all be in the talk namespace, while keeping the main namespace clean. Also, I think that just naming the page its actual name is better than using DISPLAYTITLE. --bp 16:15, March 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * OK... I've been convinced regarding the slashy titles. Case in point: Special:Prefixindex/NCC, lists all articles with "NCC..." as a title - "subpages" are already listed in the order we'd expect them in. No need for fancy redirect magic. -- Cid Highwind 21:35, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

Ok then, so todo: --bp 21:42, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Fix the articles and redirects above so the slash is used in the title (done)
 * Apply the CSS that hides the crumb list (admin) (done (for monobook anyway))
 * Move the AOL chats out of the main namespace or delete them if they exist somewhere else in the www (admin)
 * Update this policy page (done)

Moving AOL chat subpages out of the main namespace
Here is a list of all the AOL chat subpages that need to be moved out of ns0. I've also added a "handy move link" for each one that will fill in the parameters for the move page, so all that has to be done is to click the "handy move link", then click the "move page" button on the special page that comes up... for each one.

The pages will all be moved from  $article/AOL chats/$filename  to  Memory Alpha:AOL chats/$article/$filename  Updating the template will be easy.

Easy peasy. --bp 23:52, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

[...] list of move commands removed

You're welcome. --bp 23:52, April 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. ;) - 02:26, April 2, 2010 (UTC)