Idea for a news page in the Wiki section

A couple of other suggestions for news pages:

• Perhaps we could precede each entry with a small icon to indicate its nature. One icon could indicate "News item re something external which occurred or was published during the period covered by this news report". Another could indicate "New items re something external which occurred or was published prior to the period covered by this news report". Another could indicate "News item re something external to occur in the future". And yet another icon could indicate "News item about an internal discussion on Psience Quest that happened during the period covered by this news report". There could also then be a legend at the top of the page which explained the meaning of each icon.
  
• I feel that some of the links we've got there so far cover too many words, and that we would be best off instead linking the minimum text necessary, such as the title of the video/article/etc in question. Otherwise, it feels like a bit of cognitive overload.
  

On the second item, I agree that "has appeared", "has been published" and so on is a bit repetitious and unnecessary, and also if the section is headed "Videos" we don't need to say again that the item is a video, and so on. But I think I would vote in favour of keeping the name of the author, the title and the website where the item has appeared (maybe just in parentheses after the title). I think some more information can be helpful in some cases, such as the date for older items that have only just been made available, and details of the meeting for presentations.

I'm not sure whether the icons are really necessary, though I'm happy to bow to people's opinion. I don't think we can be too strict about the period covered, as it can take a few days for things to propagate. Though certainly I think we need to make a distinction (somehow) between new items and those more than a few weeks old.

[Laird]

Oh, I think you misunderstood me a little on the second item, Chris. I wasn't suggesting the elimination of any words themselves, simply a reduction in the number of them which are hyperlinked (to the news item in question). And I don't mind so much the "has appeared" and "has been published" phrasings - I even altered some of the items I entered so as to conform to that standard which you set. The alternative, which I experimented with, is to write something like "X is an article by Y published to Z". I think it's a matter of aesthetics as to whether this is superior to the form you've adopted: "The article X by Y has been published to Z", and I'm quite happy to stick with the aesthetics of the norm you've established.

Also happy for the icons suggestion to be rejected (not least because it save us the hassle of creating/sourcing those icons).

Oh, I think you misunderstood me a little on the second item, Chris. I wasn't suggesting the elimination of any words themselves, simply a reduction in the number of them which are hyperlinked (to the news item in question). And I don't mind so much the "has appeared" and "has been published" phrasings - I even altered some of the items I entered so as to conform to that standard which you set. The alternative, which I experimented with, is to write something like "X is an article by Y published to Z". I think it's a matter of aesthetics as to whether this is superior to the form you've adopted: "The article X by Y has been published to Z", and I'm quite happy to stick with the aesthetics of the norm you've established.

Also happy for the icons suggestion to be rejected (not least because it save us the hassle of creating/sourcing those icons).

Ah, sorry, yes - I did misunderstand, thinking you were using the word "link" in a looser sense. I agree it would be better for the links to cover fewer words.

Also, does anybody else want to weigh in re naming of this news report? So far the suggestions are:

1. PQ's ParaNews.
   
2. PQ's ParaNews Plus.
   
3. PQ's ParaNews+.
   
4. Psience Quest ParaNews.
   

Any other suggestions? Any preferences?

Personally, I think you'd be wise to try (at least) to come up with something else, Laird. Only number 4 is anywhere near acceptable, PQ sounds pretentious and a bit trite. Psience Quest has always worked but "Para" has connotations.

As I'm sure you're well aware, when trying to coin a phrase or write a lyric or anything, it's best to put it in a drawer for a week and then have another look at it. If it still scans then you probably have something.

Just my thoughts. Please don't feel obliged to pay any attention to them.

@the mods I looked in the other day and there were 90 online users which is now more than half of what that other forum is pulling in.
In other words you're going in the right direction.

 Off topic (apologies) but I wondered if there was anything we could do with the NDE thread I started; maybe refining it and taking out the various comments including my own.  Not because the comments aren't interesting, just that they get in the way of the reports...untidy kind of.

[Laird]

Personally, I think you'd be wise to try (at least) to come up with something else, Laird. Only number 4 is anywhere near acceptable, PQ sounds pretentious and a bit trite. Psience Quest has always worked but "Para" has connotations.

As I'm sure you're well aware, when trying to coin a phrase or write a lyric or anything, it's best to put it in a drawer for a week and then have another look at it. If it still scans then you probably have something.

Just my thoughts. Please don't feel obliged to pay any attention to them.

I'm grateful for your thoughts, tim. Agreed, new ideas need time out of sight to be tested when they reemerge. Please do throw any suggestions of your own that you might have into the mix - even if you don't think they're acceptable in their own right, they might inspire something that is.

[Laird]

@the mods I looked in the other day and there were 90 online users which is now more than half of what that other forum is pulling in.
In other words you're going in the right direction.

I noticed something like that too. Unfortunately, it looked as though it was due to a bot which was slurping up multiple pages at the same time from multiple IP addresses in a range it owned, making it seem like a bunch of different people.

Off topic (apologies) but I wondered if there was anything we could do with the NDE thread I started; maybe refining it and taking out the various comments including my own.  Not because the comments aren't interesting, just that they get in the way of the reports...untidy kind of.

I guess we could create a "commentary" thread, and split out all of the comments into the commentary thread. One problem is that then the comments would lack context, which we'd have to reinsert, making it quite a bit of work (but doable). I'd not be in favour of simply deleting comments though - that wouldn't be fair to the people who put the time/energy into writing and posting them.

Is a commentary thread something like you had in mind, tim?

Thanks. I think it will be better to make it weekly, as it looks as though we'll have two or three dozen items a week in the psi section alone.

I have moved the page to one entitled "News - 12-18 January 2020," and have edited the link to it on the main Wiki page. I hope I got that right.

[Laird]

I hope I got that right.

Yep, looks good!

A few (hopefully not too pedantic!) further thoughts/questions:

• Not long ago, I noticed that capitalisation of wiki article titles was inconsistent, and, in the absence of objections, standardised on sentence case. I've noticed that for the most part on the News page, we've been using title case for headings and sub-headings, with the exception of the "Books and book reviews" headings, which are in sentence case. Was it a deliberate decision on your part to use title case for (sub)headings in News articles, Chris, or was it more instinctive? And, if the latter, do you remain comfortable with it? I ask because, browsing through all of our other wiki articles, I notice that - very curiously! - we seem to have standardised without explicit agreement upon sentence case for (sub)headings. Perhaps we should strive for consistency on this across the wiki?
  
• Did you deliberately choose the order in which you have listed the subheadings under each major section, or has that just emerged organically? If the latter, what are your thoughts on how to order these sections when you do consider it explicitly?
  
• We are currently distinguishing between blogs and articles. Should we continue to do so, or is this a needless separation of essentially identical content? (A sincere question - not meant to be leading/rhetorical)
  

Yep, looks good!

A few (hopefully not too pedantic!) further thoughts/questions:

• Not long ago, I noticed that capitalisation of wiki article titles was inconsistent, and, in the absence of objections, standardised on sentence case. I've noticed that for the most part on the News page, we've been using title case for headings and sub-headings, with the exception of the "Books and book reviews" headings, which are in sentence case. Was it a deliberate decision on your part to use title case for (sub)headings in News articles, Chris, or was it more instinctive? And, if the latter, do you remain comfortable with it? I ask because, browsing through all of our other wiki articles, I notice that - very curiously! - we seem to have standardised without explicit agreement upon sentence case for (sub)headings. Perhaps we should strive for consistency on this across the wiki?
  
• Did you deliberately choose the order in which you have listed the subheadings under each major section, or has that just emerged organically? If the latter, what are your thoughts on how to order these sections when you do consider it explicitly?
  
• We are currently distinguishing between blogs and articles. Should we continue to do so, or is this a needless separation of essentially identical content? (A sincere question - not meant to be leading/rhetorical)
  

Thanks. On the headings, actually I tend to prefer sentence case myself, and the reason for the title case in the headings was that I just copied them from the forum and thread titles on the main page of PQ (I think it's only the one I made up myself - "Books and book reviews" that's in sentence case). So no objection from me to using title case instead.

I tried to order the sections in a reasonably appropriate way, but if anyone has any alternative ideas they'd be welcome. I'm not sure where "Psi Encyclopedia" should really be, but I think it needs its own section because the new entries are so frequent at the moment. I'd be happy to combine "Articles and blog posts." Perhaps "Papers" should be "Published papers and preprints."