Storing freqs in the wiki

[ka3jjz]

OK time to back track. I'll get started on this during this weekend - work has been really crushing my free time the last couple of days

Mike

 

[QDP2012]

Good afternoon sir,

Have you considered naming the category "US Federal Government Frequencies" instead of "Federal Frequencies", so that the name will be adjacent to "US Federal Government" alphabetically? --just a thought.

Thanks again,

 

[QDP2012]

Also, the region-categories are not being applied to articles directly since the states (the region's children) have been applied.

Thanks,

 

[AK9R]

Have you considered naming the category "US Federal Government Frequencies" instead of "Federal Frequencies", so that the name will be adjacent to "US Federal Government" alphabetically?

Done.

 

[AK9R]

Also, the region-categories are not being applied to articles directly since the states (the region's children) have been applied.

Not sure I understand. Can you point me to an example?

 

[QDP2012]

Not sure I understand. Can you point me to an example?

I removed them soon after my post here. I just wanted to mention it, so it wouldn't be applied to more pages.

Sorry for any confusion.

Thanks,

 

[ka3jjz]

I've put a rather large dent into the category - still have about 100 articles or so to migrate, but after that it might be wise to step back and see what we have

One thing that does seem to stand out is that a lot of state categories are pretty big, and would be difficult for a newcomer to navigate. I'm wondering if making the <statename> frequencies category a child of each of the state categories would be somewhat easier to understand. It would also buy us something else; we could put these <statename> frequencies categories into the collaboration area.

The same thing could apply to categories such as the US Federal Government (which has many agencies, some at the Feferal(state abbreviation) level) and Milcom (lots of stuff here).

With all the categories we have that potentially have frequency information - I haven't even looked at the Sports category yet - it seems that if we can collapse some and isolate articles better, we might stand a better chance of organizing this so anyone can use it. I don't think we want 100 sub categories on one page if we can help it.

Thoughts?

 

[QDP2012]

I've put a rather large dent into the category - still have about 100 articles or so to migrate, but after that it might be wise to step back and see what we have

A lot of very good work has been done. Thank you!

One thing that does seem to stand out is that a lot of state categories are pretty big, and would be difficult for a newcomer to navigate. I'm wondering if making the <statename> frequencies category a child of each of the state categories would be somewhat easier to understand. It would also buy us something else; we could put these <statename> frequencies categories into the collaboration area.

I have been thinking about the question of whether to subordinate a state's frequency-category under the state-category.

• Pro: It certainly makes sense initially because the information all relates to the particular state, and does provide nice grouping of information. This grouping would allow new listing on other pages like the Collaboration page
  
  
• Con: The one challenge would be how to consistently apply the "general-rule-of-practice" that parent-categories and child-categories do not get placed on the same article. Depending on how this "rule" is applied, a particular article could be in either the State-category or the State-Frequencies category, but not both. I think this would be confusing on several levels, and certainly not a navigational-improvement.
  
  
• My opinion: I know it goes against the existing-practice of not putting both parent and child categories on the same page, but in the case of the "Frequencies" categories, my opinion is that each "Frequencies" category should be both a child of its "Frequencies-parent" and a child of its non-"Frequencies" category.
  
  Example:
  • "US National Parks Frequencies" would be a child of both "US Federal Government Frequencies" and of "US National Parks".
  • This allows the category "US National Parks" to list all articles (with or without frequencies), and "US National Parks Frequencies" would simply act like a filter that would list only those national-park articles that contain frequencies.

The same thing could apply to categories such as the US Federal Government (which has many agencies, some at the Feferal(state abbreviation) level) and Milcom (lots of stuff here).

With all the categories we have that potentially have frequency information - I haven't even looked at the Sports category yet - it seems that if we can collapse some and isolate articles better, we might stand a better chance of organizing this so anyone can use it. I don't think we want 100 sub categories on one page if we can help it.

Thoughts?

After looking at the list of categories, it seems that one way to thin-out the larger categories would be to continue to parallel the previously-existing categories, and adopt the "next detailed-layer" of "frequencies"-categories. By that, I suggest that we use these additional category-hierarchies:

• US Federal Governement Frequencies
  • US Indian Affairs Frequencies
  • US Land Management Frequencies
  • US Federal Prisons Frequencies
  • US Reclamation Frequencies
  • US Civil Air Patrol Frequencies
  • US National Parks Frequencies
  • US Defense Frequencies
  • US Fish and Wildlife Frequencies
  • US Forest Service Frequencies

• Milcom Frequencies
  • Air Natiional Guard Frequencies
  • Air Shows Frequencies
  • Army National Guard Frequencies
  • MilSat Frequencies
  • United States Air Force Frequencies
  • United States Army Frequencies
  • United States Coast Guard Frequencies
  • United States Navy Frequencies

To completely parallel the existing-categories structure, one could suggest that the states be grouped under regional-frequencies categories (e.g. Southern Region Frequencies, etc.). I am not totally sold on the need to do that, but neither am I against it, because uniformity and consistancy have their value.


Your thoughts?

Thanks again for all the hard work.

 

[AK9R]

After looking at the list of categories, it seems that one way to thin-out the larger categories would be to continue to parallel the previously-existing categories, and adopt the "next detailed-layer" of "frequencies"-categories.

Agreed. I think the hierarchical nature of categories and sub-categories is a pretty neat trick and a feature that would make the Wiki easier to navigate for those who use categories to do so.

Bear in mind, though, that I don't think many people browse the Wiki using the categories. I may be wrong about this, but my guess is that the Search feature is how most folks tackle the Wiki.

 

[ka3jjz]

You're probably right, Bob, about most people trying to use the search. On the other hand, if we put enough of an explanation on 'Wiki Frequencies' (remember we can put almost as much as we like on it) then it might serve as an educational tool to inform members that there is more than one way to skin a cat, hi

I think I like what has been suggested for the US Federal Government (don't forget to index the various 'Federal (state abbreviation)' names here, too) and Milcom. My concern is that some of the states with huge amounts of articles might be very overwhelming for someone who is just looking for a particular frequency. Since the sub categories show up above the article listings, moving the frequency articles out of the generic state category would isolate them, effectively making a filter out of it.

As an example, say we have 200 articles for California, and only 20 of them actually have frequencies. There's value in both speed and physical indexing for the individual who's looking - s/he doesn't have to wade through 200 articles to find one particular topic. That could get frustrating in a hurry (and we know that the search module isn't always up to snuff. It does sometimes take a couple of days for a new article to show up in the index - at least it did with the old way. Is there a newer one that's been installed that's better? Bob?). I'm sure someone would rather look through 20 articles than 200.

As soon as I've finished indexing the remaining articles, I'll get to work on the US Federal Government and Milcom categories. We can then take a look at the Sports category, which I know has LOTS of frequency information in it, but a few articles don't (here's one case where a split off filter is valuable...)

Mike

 

[AK9R]

Mike, the old search was being handled by Google's search tools, but we've gone back to the MediaWiki search tools. It's better, but there's still some lag in indexing new material.

For example, content that was added at around 4 am this morning has not yet been indexed. But, content that was added around 10 pm last night has been indexed and is searchable.

 

[ka3jjz]

I was fooling around a little in Colorado, and realized something - at least some of the county names in each of the states also may have frequency information, along with a lot of other stuff.

So how about this - if the article has nothing on it but frequencies (like the amateur radio article or USFS articles), then it only goes to the <statename> frequency category. If it has other stuff on it, it stays in both.

We'll also need some standardized description text for each of the frequency categories. A template is an obvious choice. I'll slap something together this weekend. It should also stress that as long as the data is in a column or table format, there are applications that can copy the data from the wiki into a scanner app.

 

[QDP2012]

...So how about this - if the article has nothing on it but frequencies (like the amateur radio article or USFS articles), then it only goes to the <statename> frequency category. If it has other stuff on it, it stays in both...

I think it should be viewed from "the other end of the street"--all articles should be in the primary category, and if an article has frequencies, it should also belong in the related "Frequency" category.

• Even if a "Frequency-only" article was posted and named as such (for example say someone created an article titled LA County (CA) FD Freqs), it would still seem to deserve both "California" and "California Frequencies" categories.
  
  
• If the article is titled with a more general name, much like existing articles are now titled, (for example LA County (CA) FD), which does not denote a "frequencies-only" article, then it should have the primary category as a minimum, and if frequencies exist, then also the "frequencies" category.

Just a thought,

Thanks,

 

[ka3jjz]

I've tossed a template together that we can use in each of the categories to standardize the verbiage, as well as to point the user to several articles that will be useful. I've only installed it in the category below so the wording can be shaken out.

Category:Arizona Frequencies - The RadioReference Wiki

When it's time, I think another template can be used to send the <statename> frequency articles to their collaboration state name . That way we don't have to do a great deal of coding for the same function. In other words, the 'Maryland Frequencies' category should appear on the Maryland state collaboration page. Since we've already got most of the states at least partially broken out, that's one task that can start now, if anyone wants to tackle it.

We'll likely need a separate article off the collaboration page for the various broader categories (those that encompass multiple states), such as the US Federal Government or Milcom.

I'm nearly done with the Sports stuff - after that we can step back and see what categories can be collapsed or renamed (there's one that stands out - 'US Defense' should be collapsed so that each article points to the correct organization. Once that's done, and the writeup deleted, the category will disappear). No doubt that someone coded that not knowing we already have categories for this function.

Mike

 

[QDP2012]

Good morning sir,

I'm nearly done with the Sports stuff - after that we can step back and see what categories can be collapsed or renamed (there's one that stands out - 'US Defense' should be collapsed so that each article points to the correct organization. Once that's done, and the writeup deleted, the category will disappear). No doubt that someone coded that not knowing we already have categories for this function. Mike

Quote from "Category:US Defense" (emphasis added in quote for clarity)

Please post here all articles relating to administration of the US Department of Defense (DoD).
Please post all military-related articles in the "Milcom" category or one of its subcategories.

I created category:"US Defense" as a subcategory under "US Federal Government" for three reasons:

• to "thin-down" the list of articles in the civilian category "US Federal Government" (not the military category "MilCom")
• to represent only the civilian/non-military component of the DoD, and
• to represent those systems directly administered/owned by the DoD and not by a military branch.

After "US Federal Government" was broken-down into its "US..." sub-categories, and "Milcom" was broken-down into its military-branch sub-categories, articles could be reasonably categorized with both civilian and military categories as appropriate.

• As an example, please notice how the Wiki article "Joint National Capital Region" has both
  • the proper "Milcom" subcategories of "United States Air Force", "United States Army", and "United States Navy" to represent the military users of the JNCR system,
  • but also has "US Defense" to represent the civilian/non-military users, as well.

Closing thoughts:

• Though some of the articles listed in "US Defense" might need their category-assignments verified to ensure that "US Defense" properly represents civilian-users of a particular system, such review might not result in the "US Defense" category totally going away.
  
  
• Periodic review of articles and categories certainly is a good thing that keeps the Wiki current, correct, and useful. If a category like "US Defense" is no longer needed, then it should not be used.
  
  
• But, it might be appropriate to keep "US Defense" as a child of "US Federal Government" for those articles that do not belong only and strictly in "Milcom", especially as the US expands its multi-user systems that have primarily civilian-federal, or both civilian-federal and military, users.
  
  
• The narrative quoted above from the Category:US Defense article, might need to be updated to add clarity about its purpose and scope.

Thanks again for all your work,

Your thoughts?

 

[ka3jjz]

Then perhaps a better name is in order - it seems US Defense is too vague. How about US Military Support, which is more in line with what the category describes?

Mike

 

[QDP2012]

Then perhaps a better name is in order - it seems US Defense is too vague. How about US Military Support, which is more in line with what the category describes?

Mike

The name "US Defense" was chosen to follow the pattern of how the other subcategories of "US Federal Government" are named--that being "US (department name or bureau name)"

..as seen in the table on the "US Federal Government category page":

• Article (Wiki Article Name)...............>> list articles for only (Sub-Category Name)
• Article:Bureau of Indian Affairs.........>> list articles for only: Category:US Indian Affairs
• Article:Bureau of Land Management........>> list articles for only: Category:US Land Management
• Article:Bureau of Prisons.................>> list articles for only: Category:US Federal Prisons
• Article:Bureau of Reclamation............>> list articles for only: Category:US Reclamation
• Article:Civil Air Patrol..................>> list articles for only: Category:US Civil Air Patrol
• Article:National Park Service............>> list articles for only: Category:US National Parks
• Article:U.S. Department of Defense.......>> list articles for only: Category:US Defense
• Article:U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service..>> list articles for only: Category:US Fish and Wildlife
• Article:US Forest Service.................>> list articles for only: Category:US Forest Service

Perhaps the name is fine, but maybe a better narrative explanation at the top of the "US Defense" category-page would achieve what you want?

Your thoughts?

 

[ka3jjz]

I think the explanation is fine, I just want to achieve something where the name squares with the definition - which right now, it really doesn't

OK how about US Department of Defense Support? That fits your pattern and explains the article much more clearly

Mike

 

[QDP2012]

I think the explanation is fine, I just want to achieve something where the name squares with the definition - which right now, it really doesn't

OK how about US Department of Defense Support? That fits your pattern and explains the article much more clearly

Mike

• The "US Defense" category is for non-military articles that actually "belong" to the DoD itself, not articles for entities that "support" the DoD so the word "Support" seems confusing/out-of-scope to me.
  
  Perhaps, simply call it "US Department of Defense" or "US Dept of Defense"?.
  
  But, then again, either of those two options breaks the consistent naming-pattern "US (department name or bureau name)" used thus far with all of the other "departments" or "bureaus" within the "US Federal Government" category.
  
  
• Since, the DoD is a rather large entity with many non-military components, perhaps, it just takes a little time to get the habit of thinking "US Defense" is related to the civilian portions of the DoD, and "MilCom" is related to the military branches under the DoD.
  
  EDIT: I understand what you seem to be saying (because before I created the category, I came up with the same question/idea you've brought up), and the above suggestion is not intended to be a "wise-guy" suggestion. It's the step I chose to use after creating the category, because I couldn't come up with any better category-name that met all of the criteria discussed in the earlier posts.
  
  EDIT 2: Another option, which I don't think will be given the "light-of-day" is to bring "MilCom" under "US Defense", or at least bring its US military subcategories under "US Defense". One could certainly theorize that all of the US Milcom properly belongs under US Defense since it is part of the DoD. But, there are enough ramifications involved with that scale of change that it would need careful consideration from all perspectives.
  

I'm sorry, I don't have any better suggestions. I had all these same thoughts before and after I created the category, with no other obvious solution.

 

[ka3jjz]

Yeah, I think that deserves a little more thought. Let's shelve that for the moment, and move on. We have a lot of other data that needs attention.

I can see that we're going to need at least one more 'super category' - the Businesses category could encompass everything from airports, marine, fast food, railroads - that one would seem to be a no-brainer. That category should likely be broken down by state, where possible - i.e. a Burger King listing for Maryland would also show up in the Maryland Frequencies sub-category as well as Businesses.

We're going to need to keep track of these super categories - I plan to create an article where a user could either look at a super category or one of its subordinates. I'm certain the number of categories we have now would overwhelm a newcomer looking for a specific organization, so having an article with them more logically organized around the super category would, I think, help immensely.

Right now I'm installing the FreqWiki template in all the statename/frequencies articles. Once that's done I will distribute them to their state collaboration pages; when that's done, all of them will have a logical home. That will also set up the next bit of checking...which is to look at each county page for every state and see if they have any frequency information on it. Since we now have a category for it, it shouldn't be too hard - tedious, but not difficult. I suspect most of the county level articles don't have this information.

We're making progress - slowly, but getting there...we're doing a lot here, no doubt about it...To be honest I didn't think we had this much frequency data in the wiki, but man, do we ever....Mike