Talk:Spire

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Note to the future: All my art history began to evaporate from my mind as I got into the section on 20th century architecture. If anyone could be so kind as to add some other spire structures (as opposed to the rectangular skyscraper), it would probably help the article a good bit. Geogre 01:16, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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[edit] Century links and spelling

What's the reason for making the article less formal by indicating the centuries with numbers and th's, and for linking to articles that are so weakly related to the subject of spires that it would be no less warranted to link to every non-preposition, non-conjunction, and non-pronoun in the article? - Centrx 06:03, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Because rightly or wrongly that's the way this site works. Giano 07:31, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
On the contrary, that's not the way the site works. Links are for content that is relevant to the article, and formality is an appropriate end. - Centrx 03:24, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think the links have been overdone. For instance, the country names are pointless. I hate year links, but there is a lot of controversy. But most irrelevant links should go. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Make_only_links_relevant_to_the_context Notinasnaid 17:09, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The purpose of century and year links is twofold. First, they allow one to see the thing (here the spire change) in a large context. If one needed to know what was going on in the 19th c., then a link there might remind one of the significant events (e.g. Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and then the British adventures there meant more sketches and paintings of Egyptian architecture hitting the west, and that introduced the exoticism). Secondly, one is supposed to see the link, go to it, and add material from this article to it. Thus, ideally, one would go to the article on the 19th c., go to the article on 19th c. architecture, and add "spires became a common element of funeary architecture." The fact that few people do the former and fewer do the latter doesn't negate the usefulness of the practice.
As for the formality, I'm afraid that that horse left the barn years ago. There isn't much that can be done about it. A site with an article per Pokemon and which is dominated by authors of the same is going to be unable to even agree to "1970's," much less replacing dates with written out terms. Insisting upon formality in such a minor point is going to do nothing, I think, but be disruptive, since everyone else has adopted the common usage of the site, and not necessarily by preference. Geogre 13:59, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It seems that linking to centuries yields an orthogonal (and so rather single-planed) connection to the vast region that is an entire century. It is not relevant to spires that Darwin "revolutionized biology" or that Karl Marx was significant sometime in the same century as something that is linked to so tangentially in the article. If indeed it is important to spires that Napoleon's conquest and British adventures introduced spires or a certain aspect of them, then that fact ought to be indicated in this article. Rather than linking to a vast region where the vast majority of information has no bearing at all on spires, the information about those centuries that is valid to spires ought to be put here in this article. As for adding relevant information to the century article, that seems to be a reason that makes information more convoluted to find than to make it easy like an encyclopedia should. This almanac approach is flawed.
About formality, what can be done about it is changing text to be more formal, or at least not reverting changes that make text more formal. By the very same reason that you say linking to centuries should be done for its usefulness despite the rarity of the practice, editors should not revert formality changes by reason of the rarity of conformity on the site. - Centrx 02:14, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Century unlinking and other changes by Centrx

(Crossposted from User Talk:Centrx)
Hello, Centrx. I saw your comments and edits at Spire. I ask you to please respect the original contributor's choice of style. In this case, the original way of writing centuries is in accordance with Wikipedia Manual of Style recommendations while your copy-edit is in violation of them, see this dates and numbers guide. If you don't approve, the appropriate action is to discuss it on the Manual of Style talk page and try to get consensus for changing it, rather than to insist on imposing your own preference on a random article (that you haven't contributed to in any other way).

As for the date linking, I remind you of this conversation between you and Rmhermen, that I noticed higher up on your Talk page:
On this page you removed links on dates. I replaced them because they are necessary for the date preference feature to work. Please don't remove them but instead add them when they are missing. Rmhermen 00:29, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I was wholly unaware of this date preference feature and its requirements. I was only removing the links because I consider them inappropriate in terms of content, but will now change this practice. Thank you. - Centrx 01:05, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Please also try for a courteous tone in Talk page and edit field comments. I assume your intentions are good and that you don't mean to disrespect the work of others, but speaking abrasively to serious and dedicated editors can only have bad effects.--Bishonen | (Talk) 23:41, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I removed only links that were on centuries and years (such as 20th century, and 1991), not specific full-length dates (such as December 25, 2001). As the style manual says, only those full-length dates are relevant to linking for the date preferences feature. Also, the tenor of my comments is not intended to be discourteous, only straightforward. - Centrx 02:41, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
As I said, I understand that your intentions are good. But I hope you'll give some good-faith consideration to my comment about the effect your straightforwardness has on other editors. For linking the centuries, see also [1]. --Bishonen | (Talk) 07:22, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Nomenclature

Are there architectural terms for straight pointy spires versus rounded onion dome spires versus spires with a round bit at the bottom and a straight pointy bit above that. ChristineD 22:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Encyclopedic treatment

Dictionary thinking produces separate entries for Spire and Steeple (architecture) — which is "often crowned by a spire" anyway. On the other hand, encyclopedic treatment draws both together in one article that, as part of its job, distinguishes the two terms. --Wetman 22:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)