User talk:Matthewfaulconer

Leave comments for Matthew Faulconer here.

Questions about editing

Is the verse grouping by multiples of five going to be permanent? It would be nice if users could regroup them into logical paragraphs. Braden Anderson 21:35, 27 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Hi Braden,

There is a way to make this change and I believe the rights are setup so that any user (not just me) can do this. I'm not totally sure though, I'd need to test it.

So, I think all I have to do is write-up the instructions. Is there some set of verses that you particularly want to group differently? Let me know what it is and that will provide me both:

• motivation to write up the somewhat tedious instructions for making such a change
• a test-case for me to try out the instructions to make sure they really work.

--Matthew Faulconer 16:31, 28 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Thanks, Brother Faulconer. I didn't actually have a specific passage in mind, but a logical project would be Alma 13. In [the 1830 edition], paragraphing is as follows:

• Alma 12:37--Alma 13:9
• Alma 13:10--Alma 13:16
• Alma 13:17--Alma 13:20
• Alma 13:21--Alma 13:26
• Alma 13:27--Alma 13:31

How's that sound? Braden Anderson 08:37, 29 Jul 2005 (CEST)

P.S. Thanks for the formatting help!

Braden, feel free to call me Matthew--unless you prefer Brother Faulconer. But if you prefer Brother Faulconer, be sure to let me know if you also prefer being called Brother Anderson as I'm happy to do that.

By no means; I use it only out of respect. Thank you, though. --Braden Anderson 03:27, 31 Jul 2005 (CEST)

In thinking about this more I think we should require a strong case for making a change to the way we divide up verses before making any change. This is a much more stringent requirement than what should be expected of changes to the commentary page. For the commentary page I think the bar should be much lower--if the the edits leave the commentary better than what it was before editing than by all means make them. But the reason we can have a low bar for changes to the commentary page is that it is easy to make changes, easy to reverse them and easy for everyone to see the history of what has happened. None of these hold true for changes to verse grouping.

With that, does anyone have any suggestions where a different division of verses is much better than the arbitrary version we have? I'm sure there are some cases.

On the particular issue of using the paragraphing from the 1st edition to dictate divisions, I don't believe we should consider 1st edition paragraphing to be authoritative. According to Royal Skousen's article "Book Of Mormon Editions (1830-1981)" in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, the publisher of the first edition of the Book of Mormon, E. B. Grandin, "added punctuation and determined the paragraphing."

Of course, since my formula for breaking things up was very arbitrary (break after every 5th verse and at the end of each chapter), my guess is that Grandin's is at least no worse. Still following the theory that we don't make a change to the verse groupings unless there is a strong case to be made that the changed version is better than the old, I say we don't break it up acording to E. B. Grandin's paragraphing unless someone can explain why doing so is much better than leaving it arbitrarily divided.

What do you think? Does this make sense?

--Matthew Faulconer 00:03, 31 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Entirely reasonable. I was aware of the Grandin bit, actually, but both of the recent commercial editions use very short paragraphs, so I figured it was the most authoritative useful guide. [1]

[2]

Braden, I just want to make sure I am understanding what you are saying. re: The first one by Doubleday--I don't think this one uses anything other than the chapter and verse divisions. On the second one, edited by Grant Hardy, are these paragraphs the same as what was used in the first version of the Book of Mormon? --Matthew Faulconer 07:36, 31 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Sorry for the ambiguity. Yes, Doubleday just uses chapter and verse. I believe that Grant Hardy came up with his own paragraphing, but Alma 13 in particular had groups of only two or three verses, so I preferred Grandin. --Braden Anderson 13:37, 2 Aug 2005 (CEST)

ahh. I understand what you are saying. My preference would be to leave Alma 13 (and other sections) as they are until we have stronger justification for making a change. Does that make sense? --Matthew Faulconer 16:23, 2 Aug 2005 (CEST)

Hmmm, depending upon the regrouping process, I might be able to throw together something in Perl that would automatically regroup them according to the Grandin paragraphing (with added breaks at chapter divisions as they now stand).

Whether or not we end up regrouping all of the verses according to the first edition's paragraphs, there may come a place where we could use your help. On that topic, do you know any good design people that might help out? I'd like to redesign the look and feel a bit. To implement the design I would need someone very good at css.--Matthew Faulconer 07:36, 31 Jul 2005 (CEST)

I'm fairly confident in my CSS skills; however, I've admittedly awful aesthetic taste. I should be able to implement any changes you like, but if you want a sounding board for look and feel, I could do no more than refer you to the graphic designers in the firm I work for. --Braden Anderson 13:37, 2 Aug 2005 (CEST)

These deeply nesting comments are getting confusing. I'll start a new thread to respond.--Matthew Faulconer 16:23, 2 Aug 2005 (CEST)

After that, perhaps we could limit the change to registered users who want to make a comment spanning a division break and require a vote on the discussion page? --Braden Anderson 03:27, 31 Jul 2005 (CEST)

I like this idea. --Matthew Faulconer 07:36, 31 Jul 2005 (CEST) PS Braden, thanks for your interest in this site. I hope you feel comfortable posting some commentary as well.

Thank you. I'm still a little leery, having little deep doctrinal experience and no training at all in relevant languages, but hopefully I've interested a few friends mentioning it in my blog, at least.--Braden Anderson 13:37, 2 Aug 2005 (CEST)

These deeply nesting comments are getting confusing. I'll start a new thread to respond.--Matthew Faulconer 16:23, 2 Aug 2005 (CEST)

I noticed that the edits I made do not show up immediately on the Alma 13 page. Is there a review period before they will appear? How does this work? Oh and bye the way, we have met. It was over ten years ago. I attended BYU and graduated in Philosophy. I have been to your father's house.

Cool. I wish I could remember. Maybe if I saw a picture I would remember. --Matthew Faulconer 05:37, 1 May 2005 (CEST)

On second thought...I click on the link on the main page to Alma 13. My edits do not appear. However, if I click through the navigation menu on the left, following the links to the page, they do appear. This is a problem. If you have people come edit the same page and do not realize that other editing has taken place as well, you may run into some strange results.

Mark Mason

This sounds to me like a caching problem. I have tried to reproduce the problem you encountered but wasn't able to. Can you come up with a specific scenario that always seems to cause this problem? --Matthew Faulconer 05:37, 1 May 2005 (CEST) PS Mark, if you don't mind I think it works better if you sign in so that people can see your posts when they are yours.

Reply:

Didn't realize that I was not signed in. I will make sure I am in the future. There is a picture, not from college, on my blog. virtual theology.

No problem. Thanks for the picture. I recognize you. Do let me know if you are able to replicate the problem so I can research further. Thanks, Matthew --Matthew Faulconer 07:36, 1 May 2005 (CEST)

Questions about MediaWiki

I have some questions about mediawiki you might be able to answer. I have just started a wiki that is a nice compliment to this one. LDS Doctrinal Wiki. I am having some technical problems. The external link png image does not show up. Neither do the images at the top of the edit page in the edit bar. I am assuming that there is a ref URL I have to change in a CSS page. Do you know which one or what I am supposed to update so these images will show on the pages?

Also, if you are interested in joining me in that project, I can use all the help I can get. It is very much in its infancy.

Mark

Slowed down?

Has the site slowed down as much as it looks like it has? Unfortunate if so. I'll try to pick back up soon. -Visorstuff 03:09, 13 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Yes, it has slowed down a bit in the recent past few weeks. Looking forward to your posts. --Matthew Faulconer 07:39, 13 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Projects that could use programming help.

Hey Braden, Both of the following projects are no small task.

• enhancement 1 on site:Feedback (on this one, I'm not sure what the best way to do it is. If I were doing it myself I would write directly to the DB versus using a Perl script. I could give you access to the db if you want to go the sql script route. Given the sensitivity of executing code in the DB, I would give you read-only access to the DB, then I would review the code before running it. If you prefer using a PERL script, that's fine too (my guess is a PERL script would be harder in this cases but maybe I am just saying that because it would be harder for me to write). In this case too, I would ask that you not execute a PERL script against this site without giving me first the ability to review and approve. Does that make sense to you?)

Hmmm, I'm not sure what the best way to do this would be, not knowing the backend of MediaWiki. Would you mind giving me read-only access so I can have a gander?

• implementing css changes once we come up with a new visual layout for this site. (Clearly I need to first find someone who can do some visual layout. I have two different people in mind. If this one interests you I'll hit them up and see what they think. Before you sign up for this one though you may want to take a look at the css used on this site just to make sure you are up for this project. I know I wouldn't be. The CSS is a bit complicated. Here it is:

[All of a sudden I can't find it. I'll keep looking and get back to you later today. I've got to run.] --Matthew Faulconer 16:35, 2 Aug 2005 (CEST)

This CSS sheet is, I believe, what you're looking for. It's certainly detailed, but it's clean code, and I don't see any complicated hacks. I think I could be of use.