Portal talk:Complementary and Alternative Medicine/Quotes

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Miscellany for deletion This page was nominated for deletion on 29 November 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

[edit] Format change

May I suggest a change of format? The current format uses an awful lot of pages and makes it very "user unfriendly." Take a look at my user page and see what you think:

Isn't that more accessible? Maybe something similar to that. It can be divided into various topic areas. -- Fyslee / talk 04:45, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the purpose of this page mostly to serve as a database to feed into the module on the Portal main page? If so, I would think that the format here would have to be rather rigid in order to feed into the randomizer module correctly.
Fyslee, now that you are editing this page, are you going to change your vote on the MfD? -- Levine2112 discuss 17:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I already changed my vote just before my comment above. -- Fyslee / talk 20:54, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

As stated elsewhere, the portal is using the recommended format. This random display feature was part of the recommended setup for selected articles, selected biographies, and selected pictures. I simply used it for quotes. But, yes, I am open to format changes. -- John Gohde 19:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't aware of that reasoning and function. Makes sense to me. I'll stick with the format that works. BTW, just how is it supposed to work? Right now it only displays the same quote no matter how many times I refresh the page. I thought it was supposed to change each time. -- Fyslee / talk 21:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
It depends a lot on how you have your browser options set up. On an IBM PC click on the control panel, then click on Internet Options, click on the General Tab. Then click on settings for Temporary Internet Files. If you have Never selected, you are in trouble. A better name for this function would be once a day, change the file displayed. A visitor will be hard pressed to ever see all of the quotes, unless we decide to disclose them. See how below.
Also, on the very bottom of the page there is a Purge server cache option. First, you click on that, then you do a Refresh/Reload in your browser and that should do the trick. But, I agree that it should be a lot more random. See: Template:Random portal component
Wikipedia is a dynamic website, which means all the data is stored in a database. Webpages are created on the fly which is how you have a choice of different skins or looks to each page. While it does appear to take up a lot of space the storage is actually pretty efficient because of the database design.
I was studying Portal:Holidays. They use slightly different coding, but still put each quote on a separately numbered page. However, they have it setup so that all their quotes are displayed for easy reading of all the quotes. Our current setup is a lot more secretive. I changed the first entry on the quotes page to disclose the quote. Which style do you prefer? Hidden or disclosed? -- John Gohde 04:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
By golly John, it works! Purging the server did it. Thanks. That's a nifty function. As far as the style, I like the disclosed style. Some people will be content with seeing one quote on the portal page, while others may like to see them all and study them. There are a few gems there. Regardless of any differences of opinion we may have, I must commend you for your hard work and some pretty good results. Hats off to you for that. -- Fyslee / talk 07:24, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Your vote would be appreciated on whether to keep or delete the Quotes box of the portal. -- John Gohde 19:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I will start working on disclosing every quote. Alternative medicine covers a big topic area. We still need quotes from more different areas like TCM, for an example. -- John Gohde 18:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)