Template talk:Franz Kafka

This template is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.NovelsWikipedia:WikiProject NovelsTemplate:WikiProject Novelsnovel articles

Czech Republic

This template is within the scope of WikiProject Czech Republic, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Czech Republic on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Czech RepublicWikipedia:WikiProject Czech RepublicTemplate:WikiProject Czech RepublicCzech Republic articles

Titles

The German titles, which Kafka wrote and readers know from FA Franz Kafka, were removed, also the publication years, in this edit. I believe that the template was more useful having German titles and history. I am also sure that Kafka didn't write The Castle but Das Schloss, and that "castle" is not even a good translation of schloss, - nuance lost. I believe that we have "space" enough for both original and translations. Thoughts? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:06, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose the English titles are well established in the English-speaking world and are consequently of better navigational value to EN readers than German titles. As for years: I think removing them was unnecessary as they provide additional navigational help, at little cost. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:54, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think you miss the point that the English titles were there and are meant to stay. - I often don't know which short story is meant if I only read the English title. The English Wikipedia is the main reference on the topic for people from other languages who may also be served better by both original and translation, instead of English only. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:02, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think that English first, then German name, unlinked and in italics would work. WP:ENGLISH needs a nod, but educating the reader as to what Kafka himself used is good. Montanabw ^(talk) 16:18, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"English first" sounds wrong to me because he wrote first in German, the translation is secondary. When Franz Kafka was made a featured article, we decided to use German with translation in brackets. It would be strange to do it differently in the template on his page. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:22, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I see no problem with having the two. Although I do think the English name should come first. Gerda, I see your point, but this is the English Wikipedia after all. Cassianto ^Talk 19:49, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It was less my point than (American) PumpkinSky's, and followed the example of FA Honoré de Balzac, where the titles are not even translated, in article and navbox. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:03, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In {{Honoré de Balzac}}, the titles match the article titles, which one assumes have been chosen per WP:COMMONNAME. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:33, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We shouldn't be cluttering up the navbox with additional information, we should be following article titles per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:UE. This is a fairly sizeable navbox as it is, no need to make it any bigger than it need be with various translations. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:27, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No issue with adding the years back in though, my removal was due to consistency. Only about 6-7 had years, the rest didn't and it looked odd. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Various replies, also to the above and below:

The years and the German titles were given for major works, as an additional help and orientation for readers more familiar with the originals than the (sometimes strange) translations. That takes only little space in a template which is shown collapsed anyway. Consistency is a different goal, less important for me.
In {{Richard Wagner}}, all titles are German (for consistency!) while not all article titles are German.
The template could show/educate - by a few German titles - that Kafka wrote in German, not English, not Czech.
The links to the categories are not needed. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:11, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, no real issues with the years, was just doing a bit of housekeeping and trying to keep a neat consistent style in the navbox. As far as I can see with a cursory glance at {{Richard Wagner}}, most of the articles match the titles, regardless of language, with the exception of The Flying Dutchman. I think this is wrong, but that's an issue for that navbox. Note that each article does not have a separate translation for each. The purpose of a navbox is not to show/educate, but to navigate. This is best achieved by using the most familiar titles, to the reader, the ones chosen by WP:COMMONNAME. Extraneous information that clutters the navbox hinders navigation. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:36, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It seems your personal belief that navigation is the only purpose of a navbox. Did you see the discussions about red links in them, which don't serve navigation but were considered useful? I see purpose in saying more about a topic than the article name does, compare {{Beethoven piano sonatas}}, supplying keys, opus numbers and nicknames, to help the readers' orientation. - If most readers know the common name, but some may only know the original name, we can easily serve both, - that is no clutter. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:49, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We can throw other templates around all day where we do or do not do this or that. Have a look at {{Jean-Luc Godard}} as an example of works produced in and known by multiple languages, but one where we match the article titles if you like. It's all just WP:OTHERSTUFF though. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:16, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You mentioned consistency. Template Franz Kafka being consistent with Franz Kafka is the first I pursue. Helping a reader coming from whatever language (the English Wikipedia is read by people worldwide) and not knowing that English-speaking people know Das Schloss as The Castle seems worth those few extra characters, imho, whatever other stuff is out. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:37, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Category links

Someone removed all the navbox links that go to categories. There was a discussion over on one of the navbox talk pages about this, but the general discussion seemed to be that they could link to list articles instead, except here there really aren't appropriate list articles (and they would be redundant to the category anyway.) WP:EGG is not an appropriate guideline for this change. Categories should stay. I have no real opinion on the German/English split, though if the German is incorporated, it is best to have both languages, as this is English WP and readers here will be unfamiliar with German titles. Montanabw ^(talk) 16:16, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WP:EGG is fully appropriate. As noted at Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Category "easter eggs" in navboxes, a reader will not expect to see categories when they click on the links, they would expect to stay in article mainspace. Oddly, you agreed this in the discussion. However, will add an explicit link in the "below" section to the main category. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC

That discussion is far from over and decided, yet Rob has been going around removing these from many templates. I can ask 'Please put them back' but that won't help, someone will have to go back over Rob's edits someday and replace the links to these fine resources. What this amounts to is removing information from templates, thus from Wikipedia readers and researchers, and thus making the template weaker in informative terms. Categories contain the work of many editors over many hours of time, and are totally appropriate in templates, especially writer's templates (for links to the writers overall work, novels, short stories, etc.) when no corresponding Wikipedia article exists. Randy Kryn 11:36, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The question I asked was suitably answered, and no-one has contributed to the discussion for over a week. WP:EGG applies. Links to categories need to be explicit. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:40, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You've been chopping these "down to size" for most of this week if not the last. I've got lots of author's and other templates on my watchlist, and witness the removal of important data on a daily basis. For people like me who like to offer our readers the total package of what Wikipedia editors spend their time creating, it's good to see people speaking up. Randy Kryn 11:49, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's only you that sees this as "important data". See the discussion. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:11, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd think the people who spent hour after hour creating the categories would beg to differ. And I see you've gone from this edit to remove the links, as you did here recently, to Wikiquotes and Wikisource texts from Walt Whitman's template, a discussion which is itself a long way from over even though a "decision" was made without the inclusion of important evidence of long-term use. Randy Kryn 12:39, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Will you stop banging on about the Wikisource and Wikiquotes links on every single bloody talkpage. CASE CLOSED. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:43, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You removed them from this template, so it's well worth talking about. Case is far from closed, and is in fact well opened, and will go forward soon. Randy Kryn 13:22, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How many times does it need pointing out to you that we have a closed RFC? --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:30, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(watching in disbelief:) What have sister projects to do with a link to a category, well within this project? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No one gives a rip what we actual users and content contributors do over in template land, they are their own echo chamber. And anyway, it's a guideline not a policy, so if we can debate infoboxes on an article by article basis, so too can we discuss navboxes on a project by project basis. Rob and Randy, your bullying and personal attacks are completely inappropriate here. Please cease making comments like "banging on about" and such. Most users don't watchlist templates, so they don't realize these changes have been made. An IDONTLIKEIT attitude is not useful to improving the actual navigability of articles on wikipedia. Montanabw ^(talk) 17:41, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies to the discussion and to Rob. I didn't and don't feel as if I was bulling, but if people see it like that, yikes. Rob and I are just template fans, and discuss them at times. Category links seem fine on this one, one way or another. Several categories fit well, and maybe someone will click on one, see it's a category, and think about writing an article about the topic instead. It's too bad more people don't have templates on their watchlists, they are a very useful tool for the reader and savvy researcher. Randy Kryn 19:01, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In this case - modest output - you can just go to the article linked under Works in the header and have them sorted by categories and sortable by whatever else you like, - no individual articles needed. Should we make anchors in the table, to link to? - Thanks to Alakzi, I know now how to do that. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:10, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ps: example Collections --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:15, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You're not actually supposed to repeat links to the same article in navboxes. --Rob Sinden (talk) 07:55, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Teach me: what "same article", and is it clear that we talk about the links from "novels" etc. which mean Kafka's novels, of course? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:32, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Using your example of [[Franz Kafka works#Collections|Collections]], we already link to Franz Kafka works elsewhere. It is not common practice to link to sections of the same article again and again. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:02, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It would be different groups within that article, exactly corresponding to the topic. Don't tell me that to split it to small different articles on those groups would make any sense. You would lose the sort over by other parameters, such as time. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, what I am saying is that we just link to Franz Kafka works once from the navbox, not to the sections of that article from different navbox group headers. Perhaps that isn't what you meant and we're talking at cross-purposes. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't we in the process to find something to replace the links to the categories which you claim are not wanted (although within Wikipedia? That is my understanding of this thread. I made a suggestion: go directly to where the group of articles is covered, supplying much more per title than the year, even access to the source text for some. You say that is not common practise. So? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:18, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To my mind, there's no replacement needed. We already link to the Franz Kafka works and Franz Kafka bibliography articles from the navbox. Job done. No sub-header links needed. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes a sub-header might be needed to point readers to the various sup-topics; I can see value in either linking to sections or categories, navboxes help people - navigate- both as a concept and as a link to existing articles. Dual purposes here. Montanabw ^(talk) 02:17, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]