Talk:Outline (list)

message: Italic textOkeydoke; I know I'm just a newbie, but I'm gonna be bold and revert this back to a candidate to be moved to Wikitionary-- as it stands it's not even a full definition and I can't really see how it could be made encyclopaedic.  And I really don't mean this personally, but Kappa, I'd just like to point out that the template for moving to wikitionary says: "If this article can be modified to be more than a dictionary entry, please do so and remove this message" (emphasis added).  Simply deleting a request to move without attempting to expand the article strikes me as counterproductive; this article's been on the Cleanup list since the day it written with no significant alterations since then.  I'm just trying to do my part to keep the place neat.  ;-)  Soundguy99 23:02, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 2005

message: "They both help the writer to organize her ideas."
I changed 'her' to 'his or her.' Many people believe that offering either gender when sex is unknown is cumbersome, so they agree to use the masculine pronoun. I prefer 'his or her' to keep things equal, but it really doesn't matter. Change it to masculine if you want. But leaving it as feminine makes it seem like all writers are female. --Acetic Acid 04:01, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The essential notion is fairness, which means that we not do it one way all the time. Using masculine all the time is not an avoidance of the cumbersome, it is a return to an old style which eliminates feminine gender from serious discussion. Not acceptable, today. Your last line is perverse. Pray tell what impression it leaves if we "leave it as masculine"? Another common solution is to alternate genders, through one's text, or to use the third person pronoun (in English ("they"). More and more I see the latter. Tom Cloyd (talk) 15:10, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The notion is flawed, and using "her" in random places instead of "his" is no better than using "him" all the time (worse, since it's jarring to anyone over the age of about 20, and distracts them from the article, putting them into a frame of mind about gender and language instead of what they're reading).  The blindingly obvious solution is to simply rewrite all such case to avoid any such construction, whether an awkward "his/her", a political and distracting "her" or an insensitive and patriarchal "his":  "They both help writers organize their ideas." — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 06:24, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor gender issue 

message: Hi, GPHemseley filed a request for a third opinion
 regarding the ongoing dispute over the tone. After reviewing the separate reversions and the edit summaries, I'm inclined to agree with GPHemseley's version. However, neither he nor Rmcmn have explained their reasoning on this talkpage and both users have failed to maintain civility. I have added the NPOV template because the entire "Outlining reports" section is someone's opinion stated as though it were fact. Whose opinion this is is unknown to me. DRK 21:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He didn't have a version. All he did was change the header levels and request a change of tone. I did explain that there aren't any contractions, abbreviations, or slang: meaning it's not informal. As for bias, I added some qualifiers. Writer's guides generally recommend these practices.--Rmcmn 00:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please remain civil. Calling other users' edits vandalism, when the edits are made in good faith, is pointless. Please state which writers guides recommend these practices. DRK 03:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed the header levels because they needed to be changed. They were too small and should have been bigger. "Contractions, abbreviations, or slang" may constitute informality, but the lack of them doesn't automatically constitute formality. You can be "formal" (as per that definition) and still not have the right tone. Tone often goes along with NPOV, as DRK has mentioned above. Not to mention that Rmcmn registered simply to revert my changes to this article. Those are his only contributions. (And it should be noted that I requested a third opinion immediately after my second revert.) —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 20:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tone dispute

message: This article is more of a how-to article, which is common in encyclopedia articles about outlines.  But a really good article would have historical information about the evolution of outlining styles.  Presumably they arose in pedagogical circles, but that information would be interesting.  
Mark Foskey 13:51, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a draft of a rewrite at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/Drafts/Outline. Hasn't been worked on since April though. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  More background needed 

message: Found in :Category:Wikify_from_August_2007; Did what I could...Added WPBanners and flagged for needing attention. -- Mjquin_id (talk) 22:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: 2009

message: I am amused, as someone who uses outlining a great deal, to find that the outline of this article on outlines seems to have been prepared by someone who does not know the subject. It is basic (taught in the USA from middle school - approx. grades 6-9 - on) that when an entry in an outline is divided there must be two or more division. One cannot divide anything into one. That's illogical. Ironically, this principle is stated in the article itself: "Note that each category above has at least two subcategories." This appears in the section on Alphanumeric outlines. 
This is wrong:
 A.
  1.
 B.
  1.
  2.
Either of these corrections is right:
 A.
 B.
  1.
  2.
OR...
 A.
  1.
  2.
 B.
  1.
  2.
I found this article, on 2010.03.15, to contain two instances of a division of a heading into ONE subheading. Nonsense. So now we have "illiteracy", "innumeracy", and "illoutlineracy" - HA!
But not in this article, any longer.
Divide and conquer!
Reference: "Division - How do I accomplish this?" in Four Main Components for Effective Outlines
Tom Cloyd (talk) 15:06, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Please WP:Be bold, fix mistakes, and improve content. That's the only way this place works. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 22:26, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, sir. I shall unleash the shy pups of my intellect (well, they're more like rabid hounds, in truth), and forge on, emboldened by your affirmative response. Bold is easy for me. So is rational, and that does give some folks a bit of a problem - but most of them well deserve the problem, if I may say so! Tom Cloyd (talk) 22:36, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correction of violation in this article of a basic principle of outlining 

message: There two different editions of the Chicago manual of Style referenced, which seems a bit silly.  The 15th edition is reference in the first section and in "Outline organization", and the 14th edition is referenced in "Alphanumerically labeled hierarchical outlines".  The references to the 15th edition were recently added by Tomcloyd.  Since I don't have a copy of the 15th edition, it would be good if Tomcloyd or someone else could verify that the recommended style is the same in the 15th ed as in the 14th, and then update that last reference to just refer to the 15th ed.   Rwessel (talk) 03:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I worked on the article this afternoon for as much time as I had, and noted this silly discrepancy (which I caused), but had more urgent issues to resolve at the time. I will fix this, and other things, tomorrow, when I have some time to go by the library, where the 15th edition is available to me.Tom Cloyd (talk) 05:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

text: update - Didn't get to this today. Will tomorrow. I also hope to expand the article just a bit, to make it more useful. Thanks for your patience. Tom Cloyd (talk) 04:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two Chicago Manual of Style references