All discussion is in chronological order according to the date of the first post in each section. Earliest conversations are at the top of the page, newer conversations are at the bottom.

Conversations that began in 2013

Access Issue

how come I can't create login Im from Olney SDA and it wont let me create

Haryl Linzau hossl2@verizon.net

Hi Haryl,

I don't have enough information to give you a reason for this. It's possible the IP address has been blocked. Can you tell me the IP address of Olney SDA so I can look into it? If that's the issue, you should be able to create an account from elsewhere and login with it anywhere. Or if the IP has been blocked, I could look into unblocking it (though if it is blocked, it would have been for a reason). --Jomegat 18:28, 19 January 2013 (EST)

Adventurer Awards

Is there any plan to bring over the Adventurer/Eager Beaver/Little Lamb material from Wikibooks too? I don't know how to import, but I a working through Little Lambs with my girl now and adding missing info as we go on Wikibooks. JadeDragon 17:36, 25 February 2013 (EST)

I brought this up to the NAD when I proposed having them host this material here. They said "Let's wait and see how it goes." I will bring it up in Lincoln next week, because I think it's going pretty well. Other things I would like to add to this Wiki are the PF Staff Manual and MG Manual. There are so many advantages to hosting this material on a wiki that it seems an obvious move to me. In fact, if you have a copy of the old AY Instructor's Manual, they have a note in there explaining why the pages are numbered the way they are, and why it is in a 3-ring binder - so that people could add things to it. A Wiki is really the ideal way to do that, as people from all over the world can share ideas, vs individual directors keeping their own notes with no way of sharing that info.

As for importing, you have to be an admin for that to be an available option. --Jomegat 21:41, 25 February 2013 (EST)

The Wikibooks project is also the precursor to what exists here. The more up-to-date info as far as Pathfinder stuff is listed here. I really hope the NAD does approve the move to host Adventurer/Eager Beaver/Little Lamb Awards here as well. It would help to have it all in one place. -- Bluescifiworm 08:59, 28 February 2013 (EST)

Staff Manuals?

Any news on whether adding the staff manuals here has been approved? I hope so! It will make it so much easier to find information instead of having to wait to flip through the Manual when you are at a meeting. Bluescifiworm 08:28, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

The NAD moves deliberately rather than quickly. When things settle down (for me) I'll bring it up. --Jomegat 20:07, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Awesome. It would be great to have it all in one place. Hope things settle down for you soon! Bluescifiworm 22:43, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Registered Users

From my short time here it seems that registered users make 95% of the real edits. This spam stinks. Can be just leave it on registered users and maybe even expand the question from links only to add edits? JadeDragon 18:05, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Yeah, the spam was rather rank. I started a new job today and didn't have time to deal with it. I thought disabling anon edits would be the way to go. I'm hesitant to make that permanent because of the 5% (maybe less) of legitimate edits made by IP users. I will NOT turn that on again until I am able to monitor it closely though.

I'm not sure what you meant by the "expand the question" remark, so clarification would be very helpful to me. --Jomegat 20:01, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Congrats on the new job! I mean set things so that every edit (not just ones with an external link) require typing SDA. That will kill off all the automated edits, and all the spam I killed had to be automated and completely pointless. JadeDragon 21:05, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Thanks. I don't think the MediaWiki software (which is what we are using) has a setting like that. But I'll look into it. As for today's spam storm, I'm pretty sure we were hit by a zombie network - PC's that have been infected by a virus and now answer to a botmaster. I would expect we were not the only ones hit. I blocked 23 IPs. --Jomegat 21:29, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Ah - yes, it does allow that. I just have to configure it. I'll work on that tonight. --Jomegat 21:39, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

Testing as an anonymous user...

And... it works. :-)

The captcha will only be asked for anon users. Registered users have "skip captcha" permissions. The anonymous masses are now allowed to edit this wiki again, but only after correctly answering the captcha. We'll see how that goes. --Jomegat 21:47, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

My goodness! glad you guys were around to catch it. If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. Bluescifiworm 22:42, 6 May 2013 (EDT)

I'm loving the new protection level. No SPAM now and as a registered user no need to answer the CAPTCHA question. It is a wonderful thing. BTW I answered a few remaining questions so was able to move Nature Honors to 100% !!! Thanks to everyone who worked so hard on this section (I just did a little of it). JadeDragon

Thanks for suggesting the fix. I am pretty pleased that the spam level dropped to zero. I had forgotten that I had installed the ConfirmEdit extension (which is what asks the SDA question). As for the Nature category, thanks for bringing it back to 100%. I had gotten it there a couple of years ago, but then the NAD introduced several new honors. But since the Wiki is an official arm of the NAD now, it should never be less than 100% again for very long. --Jomegat 07:28, 9 May 2013 (EDT)

Miscategorized?

I believe that the childcare honor is incorrectly categorized in this wiki. The background of the patch matches Outreach not Health and Science which is were it sits now. It also seems a better fit in outreach along side sign language and other service oriented honors. I do not know how to move it. JadeDragon 16:41, 18 May 2013 (EDT)

You were right. The GC has it categorized with Outreach. The NAD always put these under "Division" honors which I never liked. I had to guess which one it was way back when the wiki was set up, and I got it wrong. I have moved it. --Jomegat

http://www.investitureachievement.org/wiki/index.php/Adventist_Youth_Honors_Answer_Book/Outreach/Cultural_Heritage may be incorrectly categorized as well. It is a gray background reflecting its inclusion in Heritage. JadeDragon 06:15, 20 May 2013 (EDT)

The Heritage category does not yet officially exist, even though there are some honors that have been approved and are in that category. I don't think that situation will change until next February at the earliest. I don't think we should move any existing honors into it until the NAD makes a decision. I can well imagine several honors that belong here:

All the "Lore" honors
African American Heritage in the NAD & Advanced
Anything else with "heritage" in the title.

I think the greyness of its background is an artifact of photography rather than an intentional color change. As far as I know, there are no honor patches yet with an intentionally grey background. --Jomegat 17:47, 3 June 2013 (EDT)

except for the Florida Conference honors, which are found here: http://www.floridaconference.com/iym/pathfinders/honors/(unsigned comment by User:98.242.149.225

Not disagreeing with you, but I know an elderly MG with gray background vocational patches. JadeDragon 05:34, 4 June 2013 (EDT)

Another complication is that the Cultural Heritage honor is an SPD honor, so the NAD doesn't really have a say in what color its background is, or what category it belongs to. Has the SPD adopted a Heritage category? --Jomegat 17:49, 3 June 2013 (EDT)

Not according to their sites as far as I can find.JadeDragon 05:34, 4 June 2013 (EDT)

According to the GC, it belongs in Arts & Crafts. http://gcyouthministries.org/Ministries/Pathfinders/Honors/tabid/85/agentType/View/PropertyID/574/customFieldIDs/1/Default.aspx?SearchValues=Cultural+Heritage --Jomegat 17:51, 3 June 2013 (EDT)

Or in Outreach http://www.pathfindersonline.org/honors/outreach-ministries/257-cultural-heritage but this page says "Category: Outreach (NAD) / Arts Crafts, & Hobbies (GC)" and the image is a Arts & Crafts background. Confused yet? I'm half a mind to earn it and order it from somewhere and be surprised by the color-my wife (and kids) are native from Borneo so if I do the research for her area the answers will make total sense, not so much so for British Columbia where we don't have traditional wear or bride prices. JadeDragon 05:34, 4 June 2013 (EDT)

I ordered the Cultural Heritage patch from Florida Conf. and have it in hand. Clearly an Arts and Crafts background. Should we move it? How? JadeDragon 16:27, 15 April 2014 (EDT)

I moved it. Along the top of the screen is a "down" triangle next to the "View history" tab. That contains a "move" feature. I made it leave a redirect behind in case anyone has bookmarked it in its old place. I also updated the Outreach & A&C pages to move the honor, and updated the master index on the main AYHAB page as well. Oops - I still need to change the category in the honor header, but I'll do that in a second... --Jomegat 18:51, 15 April 2014 (EDT)

Same problem for Maori Lore. I did all the above steps to move it from Outreach to Arts&Crafts (like the other Lore honors) plus updated the honor counts on the category and main pages to reflect the two moves. JadeDragon 22:12, 15 April 2014 (EDT)

SPD Honors

These SPD honors are not represented in the wiki yet:

~~http://honours.adventistconnect.org/master Zoology Master~~ Done
~~http://honours.adventistconnect.org/folk-art-1~~ (new one)Done JadeDragon 06:00, 4 June 2013 (EDT)
~~ttp://honours.adventistconnect.org/hiking-2~~ for which you would just add a star to your hiking patch when earned.

I've never even heard of either of those. Must be pretty new? Bluescifiworm 00:30, 6 June 2013 (EDT)

The South Pacific Division (SPD) has their own set of honors. Over the past five years or so they have been going through each one, reviewing it, and if necessary modifying it to fit their needs. http://honours.adventistconnect.org is SPD's http://www.pathfindersonline.org

They also have introduced several of their own (such as Folk Art 1 - which implies the existence or at least a plan to introduce Folk Art 2). Divisions routinely introduce new honors, and then the GC committee reviews them. If they are not too region specific, they approve them for world-wide use.

SPD was the first division to officially recognize the wiki. They incorporated lots of content from it into their official resources. They link to the wiki (at its old location - I should send them an email) but made static copies of the content for their official documentation. It was pretty cool back when it happened (and still is). --Jomegat 06:44, 6 June 2013 (EDT)

That is pretty cool! I sent an email to the people at the YPAC site, letting them know the wikibooks project they linked to was now here. Would be cool if SPD linked here too. Bluescifiworm 07:56, 6 June 2013 (EDT)

Patch Photo Updates

The wiki shows Dressmaking and Advanced patches with Red/Vocational backgrounds but I believe they are (maybe again) Household Arts/Golden JadeDragon 05:43, 4 June 2013 (EDT)

Maybe BLueScifiWorm can help as I just awarded her one of these. Cailin, if you could remove the advanced star from it, take its picture, and upload it here, that would fix it. I'd do it, but I don't have a patch any more! --Jomegat 12:06, 4 June 2013 (EDT)

Can you take it from here? http://www.pathfindersonline.org/es/honors/household-arts/13-dressmaking or http://www.flpathfinderstore.com/Dressmaking--ADVANCED--PF-NAD_p_8321.html JadeDragon 18:31, 4 June 2013 (EDT)

I could, but I'd rather teach you how to do it. First step is to download the photo to your computer. Then look for the "Upload file" link in the left pane of most any page on the wiki and click it. Browse to the copy of the image on your PC, come up with a file name for the wiki, in this case "Dressmaking_Honor.png", assuming your downloaded copy is a .png file. If it's not, you could either convert it, or you could name it Dressmaking_Honor.jpg (or whatever) and change the honor to use that instead of the old one. There is a pulldown menu where you can select the license, and the correct choice there is the "PF insignia" one. That's pretty much it. It might complain about the file already existing, but you should be able to override that. Let me know if these instructions were sufficient! --Jomegat 23:28, 4 June 2013 (EDT)

Perfect instructions - all done. I added a Golden version of the basic honor and replaced the red version of the advanced honor. JadeDragon 02:31, 5 June 2013 (EDT)

Nice work! I'm a bit overwhelmed this week with some major projects, but maybe next week I will have some time to pitch in more here. --Jomegat 07:19, 5 June 2013 (EDT)

All the edit logs show you have contributed vastly to this project. Don't feel bad! JadeDragon 11:48, 5 June 2013 (EDT)

Woops! Didn't see this till now! Guess I need to pay more attention. Haha! Glad you got it sorted though! Bluescifiworm 00:27, 6 June 2013 (EDT)

Field Guide

What do you guys think of creating a field guide here? It would be an enormous undertaking, but I think it would be pretty cool to have one. It could have information on birds, flowers, mammals, sharks - basically every kind of species one needs to identify to get an honor.

I would organize it so that every species was on a different page, and could be added to several categories depending on where they live. In other words, we could have an entry for Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), and it would belong to regional categories for all 50 US states, plus the Canadian provinces where it grows, etc. It would belong to a single category for its species or genus, and that category would belong to its own family category, which would belong to its order, etc.

For Edible Wild Plants, we could add edibility categories (edible tuber, edible greens, etc - as per the EWP honor requirements).

With all these categories set up, it would be a piece of cake to then create a dynamic field guide for a given area and subject. By using templates, each species could be presented in a uniform way (which we already do).

Thoughts? --Jomegat 08:28, 16 June 2013 (EDT)

I don't have the Wiki skills to set it up, but it sounds like a good plan. Would we be duplicating an existing online effort? Would this detract from completing answers for remaining unfinished honors? JadeDragon 00:29, 17 June 2013 (EDT)

It might be better to do this at Wikibooks instead of here. They already have some of the meat but not much in the way of bones. In other words, they have articles grouped by major categories (birds, reptiles, etc) but do not have the category system in place. I have a lot of printed field guides, and every single one of them is aimed at a particular region. To create a universal FG we would have to be able to narrow it down by region. I'll think about this some more before acting. Maybe, I'll think about it for a long time. --Jomegat 08:06, 17 June 2013 (EDT)

This sounds like a massive job and duplicative of the printed field guides in existence. I just came back from a trip - much of it without internet access. Tried to ID some flowers and trees and really wished I'd brought a field guide. Practically field guides are meant to be taken to the field so they don't work well online. JadeDragon 11:58, 17 June 2013 (EDT)

I have sometimes had better luck with online FG's, as they are searchable. In these days of smartphones, I expect online FG's to be very fieldable. --Jomegat 17:47, 17 June 2013 (EDT)

Outreach

These honors are getting close to finished too. I brought all 9 ADRA honors back into the navigation system and have nearly finished off the ACS honors now. Peacemaker and Advanced are outstanding. African American Adventist Heritage in NAD and Advanced are the main sticklers. Be real nice to get these to 100% too. JadeDragon 16:22, 15 April 2014 (EDT)

new outreach honors keep getting added faster than I can finish the category. Some tough questions still outstanding. JadeDragon 20:27, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

Images with issues

I cant get the image for Bones R5 to display. What am I doing wrong? JadeDragon 20:19, 18 June 2013 (EDT)

You weren't doing anything wrong, it was me. A while back, when anyone would click the upload tool at Wikibooks, it would upload an image to the WB wiki. Later, they switched it so that images would be loaded to the Commons by default instead. I first answered this honor on Wikibooks before they made the switch, so the upload went to WB instead of the Commons. I'll move it here, and everything should work. --Jomegat 08:40, 19 June 2013 (EDT)

Maybe same issue with Aircraft Modeling JadeDragon (talk) 15:53, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Conversations that began in 2014

Outdoor Industries

After a push on these Honors we are down to three incomplete honors, with about 11 total questions to still answer. We should keep plugging away at the remaining tough questions so we can put the whole category to 100% soon! Jomegat, (and anyone else) you want to look over the honors in this category and double check them for reasonableness and completeness? JadeDragon 16:22, 15 April 2014 (EDT)

I have been checking, and I like what you've done so far. Thanks! --Jomegat 18:43, 15 April 2014 (EDT)

New South American Division Honors

Hello, everyone. I'm not sure how many here really follow other divisions, but the South American Division approved several new honors and have manuals out in Portuguese and in Spanish. Are there any plans to incorporate them here? I do lots of translation work and would be available to contribute the requirements into English.

If needed, I can post a link to their new honor manuals, which include all of their requirements. W126jep 15:49, 29 July 2014 (EDT)

The GC just approved eight honors (some from the SAD, some from other divisions). If you would like to add the SAD honors, that would be a good thing. If you need help formatting them, I can do that, though it's not that hard. Thanks! --Jomegat 22:50, 29 July 2014 (EDT)

Perhaps a greater need would be translating the Answer Book into Spanish? If you're interested, I'd like to explore that. We'd want to see how Wikipedia sets up multiple languages and follow their lead. I'd also want to get the NAD to buy into this (if they've already set something in motion, we would not want to duplicate the effort). --Jomegat 23:00, 29 July 2014 (EDT)

That was actually one of the goals I had in mind for the Answer Book. The NAD provides an Honors Manual in Spanish, which I have a copy of. I wouldn't have to translate myself the requirements (except for the newer honors for the past 3 or so years). I could work on translating the answers or finding equivalents in Spanish. I would probably need some help, though, with formatting. Check with the NAD and let me know if we can get started on this. w126jep 08:35, 30 July 2014 (EDT)

If the NAD has official requirements in Spanish, I think we can proceed with setting things up here for the answers. I'll dig into how to do a multi-language wiki when I get time, but with Oshkosh coming fast, I don't know that I'll have much of that in the next couple of weeks. I have already put the question to one of the NAD guys, but he was a champion of the wiki in the first place. --Jomegat 15:15, 30 July 2014 (EDT)

Introduction

Hope I am doing this right! Wanted to introduce myself to you all. My name is Alyssa and I have utilized this resource a lot in the last year. I am passionate about Pathfinders and helping our kids and today decided to sign up so I could actually help and participate and give back as a thank you. Looking forward to contributing as I can :) Loved Oshkosh and all the honors we earned there and can't wait for the start of a new year ScrappinAly 20:49, 30 August 2014 (EDT)scrappinaly

Welcome to the PF wiki Alyssa. People like you are what make this wiki work. --Jomegat 21:47, 30 August 2014 (EDT)

And BTW, yes, you are doing it right. I prefer for people to not worry too much about wiki syntax. That will come with time, and I am more than happy to correct formatting errors. Just add the information - that's what we really need. --Jomegat 21:52, 30 August 2014 (EDT)

Multilingual Wiki, and Expanding the Scope

Here's a new header since we've morphed this into a new topic... --Jomegat 21:32, 1 September 2014 (EDT)

I've been trying to figure out how to create translated pages. From what I gather, a completely new wiki needs to be created in the different language and then linked. I'm wondering if you were able to find out anything and also if you were able to speak with the NAD.w126jep 19:41, 1 September 2014 (EDT)

I have been researching the multilingual wiki, and have pretty much settled on the Translate extension. Setting up a second wiki is another approach, and is the one taken by Wikipedia, but it is fraught with difficulty. There are a few hurdles that need to be overcome before we can install the Translate extension however. We need to update the version of mediawiki we are using (we're on 1.18 right now, and we need to be on 1.23). To that end, I archived the site last night to prepare for the upgrade. The other issue is that we will need shell access to the server, which is something our provider is going to resist (as well they should). This means I will have to get them involved, and for that, I have to talk to the NAD, as it probably comes with funding requirements. Incidentally, setting up a second Wiki would require the provider's involvement every time we want to add a new language. The Translate extension should only require their involvement once.

From what I have gathered, the NAD is very much in favor of a multilingual wiki in principle. Further, I understand that the GC is interested in the wiki now as well, but they want to see it less localized to the NAD before they adopt it - and for that, the first order of business is going multilingual. The second order of business will be to beef up the species accounts for those honors that feature various species.

I plan to add some hooks to the species account template so that we can tag each page that uses it with a set of regions where that species is endemic. We will then be able to create dynamic pages based on that information, and specific to a given area. After all that is in place, it's just a matter of adding species (which is a huge task, but should not be technically difficult).

I know I said that it would be the second order of business, but we have all the pieces we need to make that happen now without any involvement from our provider. So there might be some work on that sooner rather than later. For the multilingual effort, I may have to have a sit-down, face-to-face working session with the provider. I will try to get the ball moving without that, as it will be very difficult to make that happen before March. But if I can make it happen sooner, I will.

The GC is very interested in this wiki project, and it came up at Oshkosh when the 12 division heads of youth ministries met. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would happen when I started this back in 2005. :-) They have people who are ready to translate the wiki into Russian, and are just waiting for the infrastructure to be created. So that is a very exciting development, and of course, it makes it a priority. That said, things often move with less speed than I would prefer, so we must be patient, but keep pressing forward.

I will install the wiki software on my machine at home and give the translate extension a spin. If I can get it to work here, that will go a long way towards easing the NAD's server into the upgrade. I'll keep you posted! --Jomegat 21:22, 1 September 2014 (EDT)

Wow ... so there's a bit to be done. No matter, all will be done in its time. I think that if the NAD really wants to make this site able to serve their population, Spanish and French translations are a must. The NAD has always seemed biased to only serving the English-speaking members, even though I know they do not do so with any malice or intention. They provide all investiture curriculum and much material in those two languages as well, so it would only be natural for the wiki to be provided in them also.

It's good to know that the GC is interested, it makes sense if we would like to do a multilingual format. I have seen the Russian wiki page and they have very good material. It's exciting that the division heads are talking about the wiki and wanting to make it available to all the world.

I guess I will continue to be patient and wait to see what the uppers decide. I just really want to start providing resources and translations; there are many clubs I work with who are eager to be able to find support in Spanish. --w126jep 11:24, 2 September 2014 (EDT)

I have installed the latest wikimedia software on my laptop (1.23.3), but have not yet been successful at importing the archived wikidata into it. The problem is that the archive file is 580Megs, and 20M is considered pretty big. I adjusted the apache2 server to allow up to 1G file sizes, and allow up to 5 minutes for a file to load, but my browser timed out on me before it could finish. I can probably use some other method since I do have shell access to my laptop. I just need to be careful about needing shell access on the NAD server. But I should quit working on it tonight, or I will not be able to turn my brain off and go to sleep later. Must. Decompress. --Jomegat 22:53, 2 September 2014 (EDT)

The import into the test wiki seems to be working, but it is very slow. It has been running for over an hour and is just now finishing the A's. At this rate, it's going to take a full day to populate the database from the XML dump. There are faster (but more difficult to use) tools, and I am regretting my choice at the moment. But patience!

Meanwhile, I found some decent tutorials on the Translate Extension. Anyone who is interested in doing translation work should take a look at these. --Jomegat 19:51, 3 September 2014 (EDT)

I ran over the tutorials and it looks pretty straight forward and easy with the extension. It mentioned that the wiki could have translation administrators (I guess that means one has to be authorized) or accessible for everyone to translate. Which one is being leaned towards?

That's something we will have to play with, but it would be crazy to not have you as a translation admin. Also, I lean towards opening things up to registered users, and deal with problems as they arise rather than preventing participation because I'm afraid someone might do something bad. Open is good. It's what got us this far. --Jomegat 22:31, 3 September 2014 (EDT)

The import failed. I let it run for about 26 hours, and it grabbed quite a lot of data, but then it just quit adding stuff. I killed it and tried a different, much faster tool, and now I pretty much have the wiki running on my laptop with most of the data from here in it. Next step it to install the Translate extension and see what happens. --Jomegat 22:14, 4 September 2014 (EDT)

The second method for restoring the wiki from the dump worked! I now have a fully-functional version of our wiki running on my laptop. Furthermore, I have installed the Translate extension (actually, the MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle), and that seems to be working too! I will play around with it a little bit, but from what I can tell, it really looks pretty good.

The other news is that I have been exploring the possibility of upgrading the NAD wiki via ftp (without shell access), and it looks like that is something that can be done. The worst thing that can happen is that I completely trash it in the process, but since I have a full backup (minus this week's edits), even that is a recoverable scenario. But the wiki would be down for a little while. I will think carefully about this before proceeding. --Jomegat 19:04, 5 September 2014 (EDT)

There are some problems with the extension that will have to be worked out. The one I know about right now is that the SUBPAGENAME magic-word is kind of broken on the translations. SUBPAGENAME on a page called "Page/foo/bar" returns "bar", and this is used extensively in the honor_header template. However, if you were to translate that page into French, the software creates a new one called Page/foo/bar/fr, and SUBPAGENAME returns "fr". This makes the honor title "fr" instead of "bar". That would not be too hard to fix, but there are other problems this causes as well. For instance, the code in the honor header that detects if there is an advanced honor also relies on SUBPAGENAME... and that will be hard to fix.

I did find an extension that looked promising (SubPageFunctions), but it broke the wiki with a syntax error. It was last updated five years ago, so I suppose it's incompatible with 1.23.3.

One possible fix would be to come up with a new honor_header template (and name it something else). It would required us to provide the name of the honor as a parameter and not use SUBPAGENAME at all. Then we'd have to go through 400+ honors and use the new template. I could possibly just change the existing template and make it use SUBPAGENAME if the honor name was not provided, but that is fraught with peril and bumps up the ugly factor. I am still exploring options.

Another thing I discovered is that since a translation creates a new page, that will mess up the honor counters. We'd have to add "secondary=true" to the honor_header template in all the translations, or attempt to detect "not English" and set it automatically. That one's not too scary. Bottom line: it still looks promising, but I'm glad I'm trying it out before deploying it. --Jomegat 22:40, 5 September 2014 (EDT)

Everything worthwhile in life requires patience. The best results come from trial and error. I'm trying to keep up with the technical jargon but I guess I have quite a bit of learning to do with wiki editing and its terms. From what I understand, the update is running great, but there are still some issues like the header template and there might be more on some other things since it hasn't been completely explored. If it hasn't been updated in a while, that's not a promising sign. Like I said, trial and error.w126jep 22:56, 5 September 2014 (EDT)

Your summary was pretty excellent. Forgive me for filling this with jargon, but I wanted to document it somewhat accurately in a place where other people could read it too (in the hope that another gear-head might see it and be able to help out). It also helps me quite a bit to write this stuff out, as sometimes describing a problem prescribes its solution. --Jomegat 23:27, 5 September 2014 (EDT)

You may already know about this but there is a Pathfinder Honor Wiki based in Ukrainian already :) http://wiki.pathfinders.org.ua/index.php? It links here and includes at least one local honor. JadeDragon 03:45, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

Accounting

I've added a few things to the Accounting honor under requirement 3. The info is taken from Wikipedia. I've linked in the Honor entry to the particular articles. If you could import the Edit history for those two items, I would appreciate it :) Bluescifiworm 12:45, 2 September 2013 (EDT)

I've exported the WP articles to my laptop and will import them later (when the innernets at my house are not so busy). --Jomegat 15:50, 2 September 2013 (EDT)

Honor Header Template vs Translation

I have created a new template intended to replace the honor_header template. This one has named parameters rather than simply relying on the order of the parameters. It also removes the use of the SUBPAGENAME variable which will break when we start translating. I have not yet worked up the bravery required to attempt an upgrade to 1.23.3 without shell access. That is something that has to be done very carefully or the wiki will go down hard for a few days (or weeks).

But while I think about this more, we should switch the honors over to using honor_desc instead of honor_header. I have already done Aboriginal Lore, but there are hundreds more to do. I am still considering moving all of the honors directly under "Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book" for a two-level hierarchy instead of the three level (which includes the honor category) hierarchy we are using now. This will make linking from one honor to another easier as we will not need to know its category, and cross-linking honors is going to get a lot more complicated when we start adding translations. --Jomegat 21:36, 8 September 2014 (EDT)

I should try to learn how to get a bot to make those edits. It's very mechanical, so it really lends itself to that. --Jomegat 21:56, 8 September 2014 (EDT)

Success in the bot world! I've got it running right now, and it should find and replace every occurrence of the honor_header with honor_desc (in the Main namespace anyhow - not in talk pages, etc). The task of checking all the edits still remains, especially in the insignia=xxx field, as there may be some characters in the filenames I was not expecting. We'll see how it does. --Jomegat 22:46, 10 September 2014 (EDT)

The bot had problems, but I was able to fix them with the bot. There are no pages that use the honor_header template anymore. They all use honor_desc now. Now I need to study whether or not we need to move all the honors into a two-level hierarchy vs the 3-level we have now. That study will be done on the parallel version of the wiki running on my laptop. Further bulletins as events warrant! --Jomegat 18:39, 11 September 2014 (EDT)

Very nice work :) JadeDragon 01:04, 19 September 2014 (EDT)

Honors below the division level

Been thinking, we now have most of the FL honors in the wiki but not the navigation. How about we add a Category on the main honor page below Other called "Regional Honors" that leads to a category page. There are 21 FL honor patches in their store http://www.flpathfinderstore.com/Florida_c_581.html and 19-20 of them are gray-not part of an established category. I imagine there are a few other examples, along with honors in pilot. Now that I typed this out it is really clear in my mind, so I am going to try it. We can always reverse/revise it. JadeDragon 23:09, 19 September 2014 (EDT)

Don't know how others would feel about it, but I agree. Good suggestion. --w126jep 00:52, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

I think it's time to do that too. --Jomegat 08:11, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

i started this. built the Regional Category page and renamed a few as a test. This means changing say Huricanes from Nature Catagory to Regional Category. Hopefully that is ok? don't think that earning a FL honor counts toward the Master Awards. Can't understand how to get the auto counts to work like I expect. Should I do all the page moves and then worry about the counts? What about States Study? Is there a master page for all the states specific ones to link off of? JadeDragon

The auto count stuff is mostly in the honor_desc template (which has replaced the honor_header template). It does this by adding the honor to a wiki category according to its honor category (two uses of the same word make for confusion). To avoid double-counting some honors, such as State Study, all but one of them take a "secondary=true" argument, which prevents them from being placed in the "counted" category. To get the count for any category, just use {{PAGESINCATEGORY|category_name}}. On the main page I added up several. Yes, there is a master page for State Study, and each individual state page does link to it. All of the state pages set secondary=true so they do not appear in the counts. Also, I think we should probably move all the honors to a two-tiered hierarchy instead of the three-tiered we have now. Then we won't have to worry about where the page lives - just fill in the category in the honor_desc template, link to it from the category's page, and viola - its counted there.

One other thing - the honor counts are not always instantaneous. Sometimes it takes the counts a little bit of time to catch up with the database. But the honor is counted if the category= field in the honor_desc is set correctly.

Thanks, I almost understand now. A 2 tier would mean AY Answer Book/Birds instead of /nature/birds? Would that mean moving all the honor pages manually one by one? JadeDragon 20:23, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

Yes, that's what I meant by the two-tier hierarchy. It seems to me that the third tier causes more problems than it solves. One of the technologies I have at my disposal now is a wiki bot to do that sort of repetitive thing. I used it to change all the honors from using honor_header to honor_desc, and it worked out pretty OK! There were hiccups, but it was still way easier than editing ~500 pages manually (and I was able to use the robot to fix the problems the robot caused). You might notice that the honor_desc template places a link to the category to which the honor belongs, and that was in anticipation of moving to a 2-tier system. The only thing of value I think we would lose would be the backlinks to the honor categories, so the template adds on in there. --Jomegat 21:59, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

It would sure make internal linking easier and simplify things when they move honors between categories. What happens to all the inter-honor links now in place? Prob. have to manually clean them all up. JadeDragon 22:08, 20 September 2014 (EDT)

Most of the inter-honor links are done with the ay_prerequisite template, so that would be a simple matter of updating the template. But even if we didn't update the template, moving a page leaves a redirect behind by default. So if you went to AY/Nature/Birds, and Birds had moved to AY/Birds, the redirect would still take you there. Once we adjusted all the links, the bot could easily remove the old links (but I would leave them around for a couple of years for the users who have bookmarked them). --Jomegat 19:40, 21 September 2014 (EDT)

Since we started experimenting with the regional category, I have been gathering information and requirements for different honors, especially the ones from Ukraine. One honor that I cannot for the life of me find the published requirements to is the Louisiana Purchase, from the Arkansas-Louisiana Conference. I was able to snag a photo of it at FFIC but couldn't get the requirements. I know that it was offered before at FOFIC also. Others I'm looking for include: Sofrut [Scribing] (Illinois Conference); The Gospel and the Stars (The Gospel in the Stars); Steel Pan (South Caribbean Conference, Trinidad); Jamestown (Potomac Conference); and Blacksmithing (Michigan Conference). If anyone has information about where to find these requirements, please let me know or put them up. --w126jep 19:15, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

Perhaps the direct approach? I just sent this email to the AR-LA Pathfinder Director:

I am a volunteer working on the http://www.investitureachievement.org/wiki/index.php/Adventist_Youth_Honors_Answer_Book

We are starting to add regionally approved honors in a Regional section.

I understand your conference has a Lousiana Purchase honor. Can you share the requirements? Can the patch be ordered from your conference by people outside your AR-LA? Do you have an image of the patch?

Thanks, Cameron Rogers/JadeDragon

Cool. I've asked someone in Potomac for Jamestown. --Jomegat 23:11, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

Was there ever a response from the respective conferences regarding this? --w126jep (talk) 14:31, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

No, and I forgot to pursue it. I'll ask again. --Jomegat (talk) 20:19, 23 October 2014 (EDT)

One other thing - I have the Louisiana Purchase honor (got it during CTS, kids got it at FFIC). I can take a photo, but I am slammed with Conf Camporee prep right now, and then there will be the backups/upgrade to tend to. --Jomegat 23:18, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

I already uploaded the Louisiana Purchase insignia >

--w126jep 23:28, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

Update--

I was able to receive a response from the ARKLA Pathfinder director regarding the requirements for the Louisiana Purchase. He writes:

«Apparently the information has been misplaced. We have not been able to locate the program after the last OshKosh.»

This is very unfortunate news. Unless we can find someone that took the class and saved the requirements, it looks like we might never get this one. Jim, ever had any luck finding them from the FOF camporee? --w126jep (talk) 03:46, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Nope. --Jomegat (talk) 04:54, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

New Icon

How new does an honor have to be for it to still have the "new icon" png? One year? Three? Five? There seems to be lots of "new" honors cluttering up on the main index page and some of them have been around since 2010. --w126jep 18:15, 21 September 2014 (EDT)

Thanks for pointing that out. I would think that anything less than two or three years qualifies as new. Four seems excessive. What do you think? --Jomegat 19:34, 21 September 2014 (EDT)

I would say anything older than two years shouldn't be considered new. So 2012 and earlier. --w126jep 22:28, 21 September 2014 (EDT)

Upgrade

Our service provider will be upgrading the wiki software sometime next week. This is necessary so that we can install the translate extension and then begin to offer the wiki in more languages. I will back up the Wiki on Thursday evening (EDT) just in case. I would also back it up over the weekend, but... duties to my local club call. I will then begin making backups as I have time starting Monday-ish and continuing daily (as time allows) until the upgrade begins. Hopefully, the backups will turn out to be a total waste of my time, but I'm not willing to take that gamble. If something goes wrong, the wiki may be down for a little while. If worse comes to worse, I will at least have a backup of the database and can restore it on another machine. If the wiki goes down, look for info on the Pathfinder Forum. --Jomegat 23:04, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

Very nice, looking forward to it. -- w126jep 23:28, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

SAD Honors

I am also going to put up the SAD honors, but those are at Division level, higher than regional. I don't think they should go into the main count since they haven't been approved by the GC. Where should they go? --w126jep 23:14, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

Division honors can and should go into the counts. We do it with SPD and NAD, so we have precedence. --Jomegat 23:18, 24 September 2014 (EDT)

Yup, and some, but not all, Div Honors are in the GC honors book. On that point, I have excluded the Regional Honors from the total count, the category pages, and the alphabetical list on the main page (which is really hard to update-do we really need that?), and propose we leave the Regional Honors off these areas forever. That emphases that the Regionals are less official and you got to go to greater lengths to get the patch, we don't want people confused.

The SAD has more than 50 new honors. This is why I'm hesitant to include them in the main count, because the GC or the NAD does not officially recognize them all. SPD has maybe less than 20 (don't know, haven't really counted) and the NAD just always seems to be accepted everywhere. Other Divisions, like the in Africa or Europe, have maybe one or two. Plus, AdventSource will sell these honors, making it more plausible to include and complete the honors. AdventSource does not, however, sell SAD patches. --w126jep 00:31, 25 September 2014 (EDT)

Is that LA Purchase really an honor? Patch does not follow the honor format. Interesting, I want to earn it.JadeDragon 00:07, 25 September 2014 (EDT)

That was my question too. The size is bigger. They don't call it an award, though, so I'm not sure what else it could be. -- w126jep 00:31, 25 September 2014 (EDT)

We do include the SPD specific Honors like Australian Birds, AY Honor Cetaceans and Zoology Master which you have to order from a conf in SPD (I did just that for several of them). Maybe we need a note for the ones that are not available from AdventSource. Or maybe a "guide to getting patches" page? JadeDragon 01:40, 25 September 2014 (EDT)

I think a guide to purchasing insignia would be a good idea. We could even add it to the honor_desc as a new named parameter and link to AdventSource or wherever it's available. LA Purchase is an honor. The NAD had requested that conferences make them different (they recommended a diamond shape a la Jamestown, but LA P is bigger. FL honors have (mostly) adopted the gray background. --Jomegat 07:17, 25 September 2014 (EDT)

I have added the insignia images to all the new SAD honors, in preparation to adding the requirements. There are about 120 new honors. I remember someone asking if the list on the main page was really necessary. What is the plan with that? Is it still going to be up or are different approaches being looked at? It would be good to know before I go ahead and add almost 120 new names. --w126jep (talk) 08:51, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I know a lot of people use only the index on the front page for the honors. Originally, the front-page index was a list of honors that had comprehensive answers (i.e., complete), and I had people tell me that such-and-such honor was not on the wiki. Well, it was on the wiki, and listed in the category's index, but not on the main index (since it wasn't "complete" yet). They didn't look any farther. So I would say let's leave the main index as "the" place to list all division & higher honors. If you are going to add them, go ahead and add them like all the rest are there. I may end up moving every honor into the 2-tier hierarchy soon though, but that will be done with a robot. It's easier if they are all organized the same when I do that vs some 2-tiered, and some 3. I will be working on the Translate extension this week, which will lead to the question of what language should the SAD honors go up? I know it might not be a satisfying answer, but the extension is going to require that they go up in English first (because the extension assumes that everything is English unless otherwise noted). Hopefully, the extension will go live before the end of the weekend, but we'll see. --Jomegat (talk) 15:38, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Adding 120 honors that require writing South America for the patch to the main page is going to make that really long list even harder to work with for us editors. Are we sure about this policy? It doubles the work of adding them to the category pages and doubles the effort to update the completeness icons. JadeDragon (talk) 15:50, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Regional Honors Variations

When a local conference has an honor with the same name or subject matter as a GC/Div honor - even if the requirements are different, I propose we exclude the regional honor or clearly mark it as obsolete. Examples include Florida's Adventist Heritage,, Ukraine's Feltcraft, Backpacking & Adv, Camp Cookery. If a Div creates a variation, I propose we include it with a disambig page as has been our practice so far. SPD has a few variations we have not covered yet.JadeDragon 00:21, 25 September 2014 (EDT)

Is it possible to include the different insignia image with the disambig pages? Ukraine has its own images and the FL Heritage Award does too, for example. -- w126jep 00:33, 25 September 2014 (EDT)

Sure we can just add the image. would make the page look nicer. JadeDragon (talk) 15:51, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Once the Translate extension is up, we could select an image based on language. That's an imperfect solution, I know, but it might be pretty OK-ish. FWIW, I'm uploading the extensions now. They won't go live until I can get our service provider to run the update script though. How I wish I had shell access! --Jomegat (talk) 20:17, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

i don't see how selecting by images by language helps anything - maybe I don't understand. JadeDragon (talk) 14:31, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

I was thinking that in the case of the Ukranian honors, we could use the Ukranian version of the insignia in the Ukranian translation. I guess there's no en-fl (English for Floridians), so my suggestion doesn't make sense for that case. BTW, there is an en-ca. If you want to Candianize any of the honors (or just play around with the Translate extension). --Jomegat (talk) 18:20, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Eh, Canadians are not that different! I'll stick to content creation. JadeDragon (talk) 15:28, 11 October 2014 (EDT)

GC vs Division

With all these division honors mixed into the Category pages it could be confusing as to where to get the patches. There seems to be two types of Division Honor

a) approved and listed by the GC on their website & publications as Originating in XYZ Division. AdventSource or local conf should carry these patches. In my view these have been adopted by the GC while preserving the "originated by" status.
b) approved at a Division level but don't expect the patch to be stocked outside the division.

We have no clear way of distinguishing the two varieties right now.

I propose we split the Category pages into two lists (like we did in Outreach for ADRA/ACS) - General Conference and Division sections. Since there are only 3 Div with their own honors, we can further arrange NAD, SAD, and SAD honors into the three alpha columns with subheadings, like on the Regional index page. We should also consider leaving the "group a) (above)" honors in the GC list and dropping the Div icon as these honors are no longer truly Div honors. Where honors have multiple versions, link from each Div area the right honor. JadeDragon (talk) 17:55, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Very good suggestion. I think this would be one of the better ways to rearrange the main index. I'm not sure what you mean by "group a) (above)" honors, though. --w126jep (talk) 19:08, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I would like to explore one other option before acting. There is Yet Another Extension called "Semantic Wiki" which would allow us to turn this site into something more akin to an application than a repository of Honors. We should be able to allow users to customize what honors they see. By default, it would be the ones they can get in their division. For this to work, we would want to tag each honor as "available in the NAD" and that would include all NAD and GC honors, and some SPD, TED, and other division honors. Users who create an account could customize these, and there would always be a link available to list the honors that are available outside the division.

I would rather not break the index into sections as proposed though, as people don't always read the introductory paragraphs (shock!). Instead, they skip straight to the first index they see and if they don't find the honor they're after there, they give up and assume we don't have it. By default, I would list them all, and maybe add a graphic along with the honor insignia if the honor has limited availability. But let's get the Translate stuff going first.

That said, I do support dropping the division icons from all honors that have been adopted by the GC. --Jomegat (talk) 19:20, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I don't think users will create an account to filter - too complex. Would we need to tag each honor as available in the SPD etc? That is a lot of tagging. If I am sitting in New Zealand, can I get the NAD approved patches? I hope I am understanding this correctly. I'm going to go do a sample page now - we can always undo the revision. JadeDragon (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I agree that users would probably not create an account. And I also agree that users don't read introductions and skip straight to the list. Also, I believe it's true that the honors adopted by the GC and are sold at AdventSource no longer belong exclusively to their respective divisions, but just shows where they originated from. While we continue to brainstorm, if in the end nothing really changes, I think it'll look just fine with all the honors listed in the front page. I don't think worrying about where to get the patches is an issue, since a page was set up for just that. --w126jep (talk) 19:54, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

This past investiture, myself and several other directors from the FL conference had questions and some issues with ordering patches. After many phone calls and e-mails back and forth with the FL Conference Director, we learned that AdventSource is being promoted as the official source and provider for Investiture supplies throughout the NAD and the GC. Except in FL (because for some reason, they have to do everything more difficult here), where the FL Pathfinder Online Store is the official resource for clubs in the state and clubs from FL don't have a code to access AdventSource. The FL Pathfinder Store is actually a branch of AdventSource where they specifically service the state. What I mean to say is, there is a clear way to distinguish between the two categories mentioned previously: if AdventSource sells it, it has been adopted by the GC. If it's not there, it can only be obtained from the respective division. --w126jep (talk) 20:07, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Ok that fits with what I guessed. I used to order stuff from FL but they posted that after Aug 1 no more orders allowed for out of state, except for FL specific patches and we had to go through AdventSource. I don't have an AdventSource code (I am not in a Pathfinder Club, and my conf sells direct) so I can't even see what AdventSource lists for honors. So currently I can write a complete answer key for world-wide use but can't get the patch. Here is a sample page incorporating my thoughts http://www.investitureachievement.org/wiki/index.php?title=Adventist_Youth_Honors_Answer_Book/Outdoor_Industries_Div JadeDragon (talk) 20:45, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

That link isn't active yet. As for not being able to get the patches, I understand your pain. The NAD's intent was to protect the integrity of the insignia. They were afraid that people were just awarding themselves the patches without doing the work, so they asked FL to quit selling outside of FL. Can you talk to your conference youth director and explain your situation? Our conference gives the code to club directors so we can order directly from AS. Maybe yours would do the same for you. --Jomegat (talk) 20:56, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Cool. It's active now. Love the made-up honor names BTW. :-) --Jomegat (talk) 20:59, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I guess I should address the proposal too! I like it. I had missed the concept that this would be limited to the category pages, and not applied to the main index. In the old days when we used the 3-ring binder printed version, I never liked that they separated the division honors from the rest (including NAD honors!). I don't know how many times I had counselors tell me that the answers to some honor were not in the book. They were, of course, and as with the wiki, they only looked at the first index they saw. :-/ The more that things change, the more they stay the same. --Jomegat (talk) 21:02, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

One more thought. Maybe we should turn the index on the main page into a sortable table so that people could see them alphabetically, by division, by category, or even skill level. See here for info. I always liked the 3-column approach as I thought it was easier to find honors that way (and more compact). Maybe it's time to abandon that. --Jomegat (talk) 21:08, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I was talking about category pages only, W126jep may be suggesting the main index page too (I don't have an opinion on that yet). I think on the main index we should use the icons for Div specific (group b) but not Div initiated (group a) honors. Feel free to tweak the working page.

Sortable would rock - maybe even eliminate the need to have the Skill Level grid at the bottom. Alpha - Category - Approving Entity - Skill Level - 100 px patch? however the more info the more room taken and its a long list. I think removing the whole alpha list and having people use the category pages would also be appropriate. Scanning 600 entries for the one you want, even if alphabetical, is tough.

I'm working on a mock up in my userspace.. I also had the idea of installing Yet Another Extension to automatically populate the skill level, intro year, originating institution - basically anything we throw in the honor_desc template. I'm also thinking that originating institution and authority are two different things, so maybe we should add them separately. The robot could make the initial edit, and then we could go through and make a list of honors that originated in a division and were later approved by the GC. The robot could then edit those pages to make adjustments. --Jomegat (talk) 21:44, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

We need an honor for wikibuilding and advanced and (for you) super advanced. Would NH pioneer it? LOL

JadeDragon (talk) 21:18, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

The sort list is spectacular. It would help unclutter the main page and keep information "above the fold". The only issue I have with demoting to only category pages is that I assume most directors and Pathfinders don't know how or where an honor is categorized and might spend unnecessary time searching or become frustrated. And I would be the first in line to try to earn a wikibuilding honor. --w126jep (talk) 21:40, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I wanted a wiki trading pin featuring the "keys" image on the front page. It would be cool to be able to send those out to anyone who makes a constructive edit. But those cost bucks, and I am but a volunteer. Maybe I'll ask the NAD to invest. It might attract more editors. --Jomegat (talk) 21:44, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Translation Issues

The upgrade is complete. I will begin working on getting the Translate extension installed this week. --Jomegat (talk) 17:45, 29 September 2014 (EDT)

The Translate extension is ON now, and the Wiki is once again read/write. Let the fun begin! --Jomegat (talk) 12:43, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

It looks like I don't have permission to translate or am not a translation administrator. I'm not sure what needs to be changed to allow access to others to translate. --w126jep (talk) 17:48, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

I have now given you "administration" rights, which should give you translate admin rights as well. It also allows you to do other things that you need to be very careful about, including deleting pages, importing pages from other wikis, and blocking users. Use the tools wisely, and there is no penalty for NOT using them if you are not comfortable with them. I have also given JadeDragon admin rights. --Jomegat (talk) 18:15, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Thanks, I will attempt to use it wisely. Is there a plan or a way so that the translation doesn't have to be done by approved administrators? We're just starting with translation but I imagine the idea is to eventually be able to have all cultures and languages working on the wiki. There would be a serious limitation problem if everyone has to be approved as a translation administrator. --w126jep (talk) 18:22, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Once a page is prepared for translation (i.e., add the translate tags and click the "mark for translation" link) then anyone who want to can create a translation in any language. --Jomegat (talk) 21:16, 17 October 2014 (EDT)

Just a few things I'm realizing as I play around and experiment with the translation extension that maybe you have knowledge about:

1) It seems like all the templates will need to be translated as well, or new ones created into their respective languages. While I can change the names for the honors and their category, things like "skill level" and "year" still come up in English.

2) Once there are some translations made, I've gone back to the original page in English, but from there I have no idea how to get to the translated page. Is there a link somewhere I'm missing? Where can I click to get the translation already completed?

I'll keep researching and practicing, maybe I'll figure out some of these things.

I noticed the Zoo visit list is picking up /en and /es pages as well as the no /page. That could get out of hand. Ideas? JadeDragon (talk) 14:30, 16 October 2014 (EDT)

Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Zoo Visit

I realize now that I've been inadvertently creating pages to be translated to English, which has the language code "/en". This would make these pages show up in the Zoo Visit as well. I went ahead and set the Creationism/en page for deletion, so hopefully it will not show up in the Zoo Visit list once it's completely removed. I also removed the Zoo Visit template from the Camelids/es page, but I'm not sure why it continues to pop up in the list. In the future, this should not be an issue, as the translated pages will work with the translated templates, and shouldn't show up in the English version. --w126jep (talk) 17:23, 16 October 2014 (EDT)

Yeah, I think I can fix that. I'll just need to exclude honors that are not "primary" the same way we do that with the honor counts. --Jomegat (talk) 17:37, 16 October 2014 (EDT)

I believe the template takes some time to catch up to changes. Jomegat can you do the same exclude thing on the Master Award count main page - the translations have the count up to 27 Master awards now. JadeDragon (talk) 19:48, 17 October 2014 (EDT)

Didn't need to (I think). I just deleted the Master Award pages that had been accidentally translated into English. Waiting for the database to catch up right now. --Jomegat (talk) 21:16, 17 October 2014 (EDT)

I'm wondering if I should even bother trying to mark templates for translation. The translate tags continue to show up in the English versions of the honors (honors such as Backpacking are riddled with them) but will not show up in the Spanish versions. I do not know how to get rid of them and it doesn't make sense to me why they're there. I think what I'll do is simply create new pages, copy the code to translate, and slap the Spanish extension on it, instead of marking the templates for translation. I'll only mark for translation the actual requirements and answers. I've done this for several templates and it seems to work fine. Any thoughts or ideas? --w126jep (talk) 19:29, 29 October 2014 (EDT)

I have been playing around with that too, but have come up empty-handed. I tried marking a page for translation, and terminating the translate tags before a template, and then turning it back on afterwards, but that didn't seem to help. I think the idea of creating new pages probably is the best we're going to do for the foreseeable future. --Jomegat (talk) 21:09, 29 October 2014 (EDT)

OK, maybe I've got something. In "transcluded" files (and perhaps on templates), we can surround the translate tags with <noinclude> like this:

That way the tags will be active when the content is translated, but not when it is transcluded into another page. The noinclude tag means "don't include this part in the pages that includes this." I tried it on the Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Camping/Take pictures leave footprints page, and that killed the translate tag litter in the backpacking honor. --Jomegat (talk) 21:33, 29 October 2014 (EDT)

Excellent. I'll go around and clean up and put those tags in. Thanks, as always, I'm still kind of illiterate when it comes to wiki. --w126jep (talk) 00:26, 30 October 2014 (EDT)

I know what you mean. There's a lot of wiki stuff I don't know either, but somehow, I muddle through. I'll experiment with the behavior of this approach on templates too - maybe it will solve some problems. When I get some time, I'll start marking pages for translation so you can concentrate on the actual translation. I know you can mark them yourself, but I can't translate content, and that would seem to be the best use of our skills. Any "translation" I do will be with the help of Google translate (and thus highly suspect) - that will only be for testing the markup. Thanks for your efforts here. --Jomegat (talk) 08:51, 30 October 2014 (EDT)

i dont understand the purpose of the translate tags at all. Let me know if I can help though. JadeDragon (talk) 14:03, 30 October 2014 (EDT)

Their purpose is to mark sections of text for translation, i.e., translate everything between the opening and closing tag. Once the tags are inserted, you can click the "Mark for translation" button, which will divide the content into small chunks, each of which are translated separately. When one of those "chunks" gets changed in the original, the translated versions are automatically marked as "need retranslated". The problem we've been fighting is that we cannot nest translation tags. We figured out that we can get around this by surrounding the translate tags in transcluded content with "noinclude" tags. You should read up on it at MediaWiki before doing it. There are dangers! We are still learning the ropes and feeling our way around in the dark. --Jomegat (talk) 18:51, 30 October 2014 (EDT)

Sortable List

Last night while the wiki was read-only, I experimented with my own copy of the wiki on my laptop, basically implementing the sortable index. I guess I spent three hours on that, but the result looks pretty good. When I get home from work, I will upload the new index (and associated templates). As of now, there is a column for "year", but it's not filled in yet. I am exploring ways to make that automatic, by extracting it from the honor's page. I also did work to add the development stage (0-100%) to the honor_desc template, and will auto-extract that into the indices as well (so we don't have to update it in the main index and in the category indices). I've got a proof-of-concept working on the skill level column, but... I'm not sure I like it. The approach I took might make the site substantially slower. But it's a start. Since I am monolingual, I am happy to work on that sort of thing instead of translation. --Jomegat (talk) 12:43, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Sortable list on main page looks awesome. How do we control the stage icon? JadeDragon (talk) 19:44, 5 October 2014 (EDT)

I'm glad you like it. The stage data is extracted from the honor's honor_desc template (I added a "stage" argument). Just update it in the honor, and the index will get it. Whenever we're ready, we can switch the category indices over to use the honor_entry template too. I don't mind working on that, as it could be something I can program the robot to take care of. But I have to tend to non-wiki things this week, so I might not get around to it for a little while. Feel free to step in and try it out. I will eventually try to extract the year from the honor_desc template too, but the way I'm doing it now does not scale well. It's OK for only five stagesw, or three skill levels, but for 85 years of honor intro dates... that's going to be a problem. I will want to think about that some more before acting. --Jomegat (talk) 21:36, 5 October 2014 (EDT)

I dont see the year as a really useful thing to sort by except maybe to find new honors. Does anyone say "I'm going to earn honors from 1968 now"? I did some checking and everythings seems good, just the first honor I checked must have had different % between the Category and Front pages due to me not updating it. WAY easier to do the % update on the honor page instead of the really hard to read list! I'll keep working toward getting honors to 100% since I can't translate. JadeDragon

Getting the year on the index page is definitely a low priority. The thought was that being able to sort by year would be a good replacement for the "new" icon. Actually... that could be automatic now, just by checking that the honor is in one of the categories for the past two years, and then adding the new icon. Hmm. --Jomegat (talk) 21:34, 6 October 2014 (EDT)

OK, that was easy. I usurped the "Year" column and made it the "new" column. "New" is any honor made in 2013, 2014, and getting ready for next year... in 2015. Sometime next year we should update the Template:isNewHonor template. --Jomegat (talk) 22:11, 6 October 2014 (EDT)

I notice that you're making some changes to the Category pages, so just let me know when you think youŕe mostly done so I can start translating. I assume the plan is to use the sortable lists on all the Honor Category pages so I'm going to see what templates really do need to be translated and which ones can be left alone and still work. --w126jep (talk) 20:44, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Yes, that is the plan. I'll let you know when I'm done. --Jomegat (talk) 20:48, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Arts & Crafts through Outreach are done now. I'm working my way down the list, but I'm done for the evening. --Jomegat (talk) 21:15, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Nice. I have to manually go one by one with each honor and translate the name, so it takes a while. I'm also adding the names of the new SAD honors, even though I've only added the requirements to a handful. The Spanish lists will sometimes be almost twice as long as their English counterparts. --w126jep (talk) 22:10, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Math

Mathematical formulae are broken at the moment. I'm working on a fix, but it's kinduva big upload, and it's taking a while. --Jomegat (talk) 18:23, 2 October 2014 (EDT)

Well, that's fixed now, but is was kinduva nightmare. For future reference, I was able to get it going by installing the SimpleMathJax extension, abandoning the Math+MathJax extensions. What a tangled web that was! If anyone notices any badly rendered math, let me know. It looks good in Physical Fitness and Electricity. --Jomegat (talk) 22:46, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

% Complete

I've been going through the % complete, adding |stage= to the headers where required and assessing the actual percent complete. For tracking purposes:

I reviewed and adjusted completion % for all the 0%, 25%, 50% and 75% complete honors in this session.
I finished off all the 75% ones to 100% that I could.
I believe every single honor has the |stage= in the header now
Did not check the 100% ones to confirm they are really complete

It seems to take some time for the database to catch up with the changes. Not sure how long or why.

I verified that all honors on the category pages are on the main page list as well.

To do: verify that all appropriate div tags are on both main and category lists. JadeDragon (talk) 19:26, 30 October 2014 (EDT)

I just counted up 95 incomplete honors (of 470 total), including the newest SAD ones added. JadeDragon (talk) 04:08, 12 November 2014 (EST)

Translating IA pages

I've been experimenting with translating the IA pages, restricting my "translation" to copying the requirements from the official Spanish version as released by the NAD. This is a work in progress, and is intended more to flesh out the framework than to actually get a translation out there.

The IA pages are a little different than the AYHAB pages in that the requirements are always transcluded from a separate page. This was the allay the fears of the NAD of "random people" changing the requirements. The requirements pages are protected from editing, meaning that only sysadmins can edit them, and "random dudes" cannot.

So far, I have found... Problems. First, it looks like the language code is not appended to the page name when the page name has four title parts. Instead, it puts the language code in the fourth position. I will ask about that on the IRC channel when I can (they recommend chatting there during the European day time hours). Maybe Sunday morning my time...

I am also looking into being a little more surgical when adding translate tags, so that when new translators come aboard, they won't have to mess much with markup. We'll see how that goes. Anyhow, yes, I know there are technical problems with the "translating" work I have done this evening, but that's why I wanted to give it a whirl - to shake out some of these problems.

I also made a Spanish version of the Bible link template. It links to Biblegateway, specifying RVR1995 (the official PF Bible translation for Spanish readers). I have not been able to go far enough with that yet to see if it works, nor am I sure it's a great idea. The only thing translators can change on that template is the version used as Biblegateway's search term, meaning that if Biblegateway doesn't have a version in the language of choice, it just won't work. I don't know if that is going to be a real problem or not. We'll see. --Jomegat (talk) 20:09, 31 October 2014 (EDT)

Hey cool - it works: Template:Bible link/es - and in French Template:Bible link/fr. The hard part was finding out what translation the French PF Bible uses (Louis Segond). The official sources say the French version is NKJV :-/ --Jomegat (talk) 20:13, 31 October 2014 (EDT)

Very nice. I have family visiting from afar so I won't be able to work on the wiki a lot for about a week. I've always wondered who does the translations for the IA because I have wanted to point out serious errors in text and translation. I know a big concern for the NAD is to keep the requirements as is with no change, which works great in English where all the officials can understand it, but some of the Spanish versions just don't make sense. Take the example of the honor Whistles - the official requirements have renamed the honor as «Silbatos», which literally means a whistle. But the context of the requirements in that honor are talking really about types of flutes, not blowing with your lips or whistles used in marching. While it makes sense in English, the whole thing in Spanish just makes you go, huh? Many of the IA requirements make references to EGW writings, and the translated references always cite the page and paragraph of the English version. The pages are NOT the same in different languages (and it also depends what year - The Education has two versions from different years, for example). Many of the IA requirements include some portions of honor requirements (like ACS) within their text. The text in the IA booklets do not match the requirements as listed in the honor manual in Spanish. Point being, there is 1) great inconsistency, 2) wrong citations and references, 3) incorrect translations, 4) incorrect names of honors and people, & some other things I haven't mentioned. Therefore, I would love to correct some of the mistakes from the IA requirement translations as I begin to create their Spanish counterparts, but am hesitant because I know the NAD wants nothing changed. Maybe they only mean English? Maybe they'll make an exception for other languages? It would be nice to speak with the actual original translators and explain this to them. --w126jep (talk) 21:58, 31 October 2014 (EDT)

Could you use a {{Problematic Requirement template in Spanish to note the issues like we have in English? JadeDragon (talk) 00:05, 1 November 2014 (EDT)

I have forwarded your concerns to the NAD. I think it would be OK to correct them, especially the EGW references. --Jomegat (talk) 17:00, 1 November 2014 (EDT)

Translation Strategy

I've been thinking about our translation strategy, and thought it would be a good idea to share what I've come up with so far. Feel free to disagree, agree, or add to this.

We seem to have a workable approach now that we've learned to encapsulate the translate tags with noincludes, and translation is ongoing at an impressive rate. To best serve our readers, I propose that we focus first on "high value" pages, though I have to admit that "high value" is still an evolving concept. I first assumed that people would be most interested in the Camping honors (perhaps because those are some of my favorites, and I'm merely projecting). So I marked those up for translation. Then I thought maybe some higher-value pages might be the honors that are required by the IA curricula (and the camping honors do fall under that category, so I don't think I strayed too far from that mark). I arbitrarily choose Red Alert, the First Aid honors, and Basic Rescue as the next honors to tag. From there, I will look over the IA materials and tag other honors required (or suggested) there.

Once we get the "important" ones fairly well covered, then I think we can start looking at the "popular" ones.

Of course, we are always free to tag any honor we choose for translation. I just though this approach might be useful. --Jomegat (talk) 19:18, 5 November 2014 (EST)

My thoughts exactly, I mean as in to the t (tee?). I am trying to get most of the camping templates and first aid templates out of the way, since they are used in several of the «core» honors, or the honors that are required for investiture. What I would like to do is first translate the honors required for a Pathfinder to graduate (basic and advanced level). Then, work on the honors that are in series (in other words, have similar requirements, ex. First Aid series, Camping Skills series, etc.). These seem to me to have the highest importance and should be done first. Then work the way down through whatever is left. --w126jep (talk) 20:56, 5 November 2014 (EST)

The first aid and camping skills honors are required for the basic level of investiture, so that fits right in. We should probably concentrate first on honors needed for basic level investiture, and then look at the advanced levels. I don't think we need to make a list, but it might help. --Jomegat (talk) 21:19, 5 November 2014 (EST)

I'm following a list that I created long ago on my website for Conquistadores. If you think it will help, I can post it. --w126jep (talk) 21:27, 5 November 2014 (EST)

Just a reminder when marking pages for translation: make sure that you are check-marking the box that says «translate page title» so that the title can be displayed in the corresponding language as well. There are a few pages that seem to be missing that checked box. --w126jep (talk) 02:47, 6 November 2014 (EST)

I have purposely unchecked that box on pages that get transcluded. I could think of no reason we would want to translate those page names since their names would never be seen by someone unless they were editing. If I am wrong on this, please make a case otherwise. --Jomegat (talk) 07:09, 6 November 2014 (EST)

Great strategy. Maybe we could create a Category for honours tied to IA. I'll keep looking for repetitive stuff to turn into templates. That way the template can be translated once and help multiple honours or levels. JadeDragon (talk) 04:46, 6 November 2014 (EST)

Marshmallows

I think any reference towards using marshmallows, albeit for camping or celebrations or desserts, should have some kind of note or mention about using kosher or non-gelatinous marshmallows. If you read the Marshmallow article in Wikipedia (or any dietary article on the topic), under the section of dietary preferences, it mentions that marshmallows are usually made with gelatin, which can contain the hides and bones of all sorts of animals, including pigs. Since the Church promotes a vegetarian lifestyle, maybe simply adding a word like «kosher marshmallows» or «non-gelatinous marshmallows» could be added. Or maybe a link to an explanation? --w126jep (talk) 08:48, 6 November 2014 (EST)

I totally agree! I am contantly astonished at how many Adventists I know, who when learning that marshmallows are generally made from unclean sources of gelatin just shrug it off. The only time I am ever able to find clean marshmallows is around Passover, so I typically buy enough then for four camping trips. --Jomegat (talk) 09:21, 6 November 2014 (EST)

So then should we simply add the phrase «non-gelatinous marshmallows» or should we also provide maybe a page of explanation. Personally, I would like to link to an explanation, but then maybe I'm just overreacting. --w126jep (talk) 11:32, 6 November 2014 (EST)

I'd go with Kosher marshmallows, and make it a wiki link to a page describing the issues. --Jomegat (talk) 17:42, 6 November 2014 (EST)

IA Basic vs Advanced Presentation

Issue 1: There are two or three different approaches to sections that have only Basic or Advanced requirement. Which style do you prefer?:

The Personal Growth section is a requirement for both the Standard Friend and Trail Friend classes: FRIEND Personal Growth
There are no additional requirements in the Outdoor Living section for Trail Friend.

FRIEND Outdoor Living

There are no requirements in the Honor Enrichment section for the Standard Friend level. This section is required only for the Trail Friend level.

FRIEND Honor Enrichment

I prefer the second of these, but do not have a strong preference. --Jomegat (talk) 17:45, 6 November 2014 (EST)

I also like the second version. --w126jep (talk) 17:52, 6 November 2014 (EST)

Issue 2: I can make these lines more generic so they can be turned into transcluded modules which will make translation faster. Ie "There are no additional requirements in this section for the Advanced ribbon."

JadeDragon (talk) 16:42, 6 November 2014 (EST)

Absolutely. --Jomegat (talk) 17:45, 6 November 2014 (EST)

Done and all sections are consistent now. JadeDragon (talk) 19:54, 6 November 2014 (EST)

Very good and excellent work.--w126jep (talk) 19:55, 6 November 2014 (EST)

Wonderful work on adding the new IA templates and really unifying the curricula throughout the wiki. As a user, it makes it so much easier to navigate and understand how all the classwork is really linked together. As a translator, it just simply makes the job easier. Nice! --w126jep (talk) 00:59, 13 November 2014 (EST)

I've got additional work to do in this vein. Don't start translating IA until I let you know IA is all restructured and ready.

jomegat how to create a Category or template called "Honors tied to IA?" I'd like to standardize and template how we show the IA connections at top of every connected honor. JadeDragon (talk) 19:56, 13 November 2014 (EST)

Creating a category is easy - just add it to the page a la [[Category:Category Name|sort key]]. It will show up as a red link at the bottom of the page. Click on it and it will let you create a page (but even if the page doesn't exist, the category will). You can add text to the page. --Jomegat (talk) 20:24, 13 November 2014 (EST)

Actually, I think I can automate that if the IA page uses the ay_prerequisite template. If it doesn't, we can still add the category manually. --Jomegat (talk) 20:33, 13 November 2014 (EST)

Nope. Harder than I thought. --Jomegat (talk) 21:00, 13 November 2014 (EST)

Transcluding large swaths of Honors

I'm not terribly comfortable with taking large swaths of honor material and transcluding it into the IA pages. I have one main objection, and that's the header levels (i.e., the number of equal signs surrounding a section name). It should not be the same in the IA page as in the honor page. We could deal with that, but it's very ugly and would make it difficult (to nearly impossible) for a novice to edit. I would like to explore options before we walk down that path very far. I remember seeing an extension I could install that would allow us to transclude a portion of a page - maybe that would help. --Jomegat (talk) 08:48, 14 November 2014 (EST)

Yeah - here's the extension. Let's come up with a formula for naming sections inside an honor, and see what we can come up with. I'll work on installing the extension this weekend. --Jomegat (talk) 08:54, 14 November 2014 (EST)

Jomegat I just saw this after you commented on my talk. I've just finished the last section of the last section (Guide Serving Others) that could benefit from this (except if we want to bring over Nature honor requirements, but that is not really necessary because the IA provides the requirement directly without calling out the honor. It is really only in the Serving Others sections that specific requirements are called out and that is a mess. I kind of like the way the Requirement displays exactly the same size as on the honor page, but we can easily push it down in size by adding == or === on either side of the template text and excluding the == within the template page itself. For this to work the question and the answer need to be on separate templates.

I don't think making it easier for a novice to edit the Requirements is a good thing. In fact, would it be worthwhile to put the honor questions all in protected pages like the IA requirements are? Maybe a bot could be asked to do that following this formula Adventist_Youth_Honors_Answer_Book/Outreach/Rural_Development/R1 for Requirement 1 Would that make translation harder though? JadeDragon (talk) 18:58, 14 November 2014 (EST)

I agree that making the requirement easy for a novice to edit is bad, but making the answers easy to edit is most definitely a Good Thing. Moving the reqs to their own page would be a very laborious proposal. It would be nearly impossible to coax a bot into doing that right and could easily make a huge mess. Also, it solves a problem I don't think we have (that is, people coming in and changing the reqs - the NAD was afraid of that, but it hasn't happened here).

I have the extension working now. You can see it at Sandbox/ComDev which is divided into sections, and in Sandbox/IAComDev which transcludes those sections. We might want to discuss putting the headers in their own sections and their bodies in another. That way we could fix the header level problem.

Maybe we don't care about header levels on the IA pages though. The problem would be more apparent if the IA pages didn't suppress the table of contents (with __NOTOC__), but if we take that out and look at the TOC, we'd see that the page outlines are very broken. Not a big deal on the IA pages, but it would be a huge problem on the honor pages (which do not suppress the TOC). --Jomegat (talk) 19:23, 14 November 2014 (EST)

Useful tool. In the ADRA/ACS honors and the Serving Others sections there is significant duplication, which I've just transluded for anything called out in IA. Some additional transluctions can be done between ACS-ADRA honors. I can split the few cases where the req and ans and combined, very easy to spot, and remoive any == inside the transluded page. Then we have full control of text size.

I checked and there is no problem with the TOC for the honors with transluded requirements. For example this one is 100% in transluded modules. Identifying Community Needs JadeDragon (talk) 19:42, 14 November 2014 (EST)

FRIEND Health and Fitness includes 2 requirements from Nutrition. COMPANION Health and Fitness includes 3 requirements from Temperance EXPLORER Health and Fitness include a requirement for Christian Grooming and Manners The answers are not synced at all. Can you translude them Jomegat? JadeDragon (talk) 18:01, 15 November 2014 (EST)

I sectionized Nutrition and included it in Friend. I'll work on Temperance & Grooming next. It's not that hard. --Jomegat (talk) 18:43, 15 November 2014 (EST)

Still to do - all Nature Study IA vs honor translutions. Just making a note so we remember. JadeDragon (talk) 17:37, 16 November 2014 (EST)

IA Connections

We present the IA Connections in a variety if ways now, so I created a template at IAConnections. It is set so you insert the level and section together then what the requirement is. Next there is a free form field. Given the variety of situations I can't figure how to better systemize it. It does not need to that user friendly since I'll go through and add it to all applicable Honors in one go and then we are good until the IA requirements change. I add the IA logo, however I think it would look nice in a box - don't know how to add the box. See Red Alert for an example. JadeDragon

I've boxed the template - to do that, all you need to do is wrap it in a table and set the table's background color. Feel free to change the color to something else if you want - I borrowed it from the honor_desc template. --Jomegat (talk) 18:40, 15 November 2014 (EST)

Advanced Honors Prerequisite

I don't think it's valid to say that Antelopes is a prerequisite to Antelopes - Advanced. Just because it makes sense doesn't make it so. The requirements don't call it out, so I don't think we should add it as one. --Jomegat (talk) 22:15, 17 November 2014 (EST)

How about we insert a problematic requirement? Since the advanced star is added to the basic patch, how you going to show you earned the advanced honor only? JadeDragon (talk) 22:43, 17 November 2014 (EST)

That sounds like the right way to deal with it. There is no way to show advanced sans basic in this case, but as I said, just because it makes sense doesn't mean we have license to change it. If we did, no honors would have problematic requirements. ;-) --Jomegat (talk) 22:52, 17 November 2014 (EST)

So is this the only Advanced honors that doesn't request the basic honor as its first requirement? --w126jep (talk) 23:11, 17 November 2014 (EST)

these have the same issue - official requirements don't require basic honor as a prereq:

Antelopes - Advanced
Bible Marking - Advanced
Cacti - Advanced
Disaster Response - Advanced
First Aid - Advanced No header
Geological Geocaching - Advanced
Lifesaving - Advanced
Paper Quilling - Advanced
Ultimate Disc - Advanced
Water Safety Instructor - Advanced
Some or all the swimming honors - but you can't pass red cross levels without getting the earlier levels or testing out

discussion

We should create a category for advanced honors not requiring the basis as a prerequisite. I could then present that to the NAD for action. A lot of them did not originate in the NAD (but some did), so the NAD would hafta forward that to the GC. BTW, These lists would be a lot easier to read if you used wiki links instead of web links. --Jomegat (talk) 14:28, 18 November 2014 (EST)

I was thinking use the problematic requirement template and just paste in a standard explanation in it at the top of each honor followed by the ay prereq template. We already provide the answers we feel are right to the other problematic requirements across the project. There is no one that will argue with linking the Advanced back to the Basic Honor at the beginning of the answers, or linking the basic to the advanced as a Sequel and in the header. These are all links of convenience not changes to the requirements.

I agree. It simply states "see also" not "followed by" or "next level". It would be more for convenience. --w126jep (talk) 18:08, 18 November 2014 (EST)

We should submit all the problematic honors together. Dixie Plata (on both NAD and GC Honor Comm) told me they are working to rationalize the GC vs NAD variations and fix any problematic requirements. She asked me to email the details to her, which I'll do when I think we have them all tagged. JadeDragon (talk) 17:19, 18 November 2014 (EST)

Sequential Honors not showing at Prereqs pages sequential box:

(need to check these later - hopefully resolved with addition of templates)

Computers (GC) (Computers Advanced and Internet Advanced I think) and Advanced honor not showing in header.
Currency - Advanced (Canada)
First Aid, Basic (nor in the header)
First Aid, Standard (nor in the header)
Music (GC)
Music - Advanced (SPD)
Stars (South Pacific Division) not showing See Also in header-can we over ride?

es pages showing in the sequential honors

I'm going to have to change honor_desc to take an optional argument for the advanced honor for cases like these where the honor name cannot be computed (can't insert " - Advanced" before the parenthetical portion. Not easy, but I'm sure it's doable. --Jomegat (talk) 14:30, 18 November 2014 (EST)

So then what is the difference between the Honor Prerequisite Template and the AY Prerequisite Template? If I remember correctly, the Honor Prerequisite Template was created because the AY Prerequisite Template wasn't helpful in the translation process. Does this have anything to do the sequential honors and how they are categorized? When do we use one instead of the other? --w126jep (talk) 15:01, 18 November 2014 (EST)

honor_prerequisite was intended to replace ay_prerequisite, but I don't remember what the difference was, or how far along I got with honor_prereq. For now, we should proably stick with ay_prereq. I'll coax the robot into doing the replacement when it's ready. I'll add that to my todo list. --Jomegat (talk) 15:18, 18 November 2014 (EST)

I just looked at every Advance Honor and hopefully every sequential honor. 95% of the honors use ay_prerequisite and I replaced the few that did not with ay_prerequisite. Hope that was correct. JadeDragon (talk) 17:14, 18 November 2014 (EST)

Having Dixie take a look is a good idea and lends weight to the concept of adding a problematic requirement report to all of those honors. That way we can collect them all in one place. --Jomegat (talk) 18:44, 18 November 2014 (EST)

Adventist_Youth_Honors_Answer_Book/missingprereq JadeDragon (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2014 (EST)

Honor prerequisite

I have unleashed the bot. It is converting all pages that use ay_prerequisite over to honor_prerequisite. When it's done, I will delete ay_prerequisite. Honor_prerequisite uses named arguments:

honor - the page name of the honor
category - the category to which that honor belongs
displayname - an optional argument for the name that should displayed. This is useful for translated honors, as the honor= argument should be Page_Name_In_English/language, while the displayname should be the translated name.

Watch for trouble! --Jomegat (talk) 21:03, 18 November 2014 (EST)

Nice. I'll be on guard. --w126jep (talk) 21:50, 18 November 2014 (EST)

It's done, and I have detected no havoc. That does not mean there isn't any. I also changed the template:honor_prerequisite/es and everything that linked to it. Even that looks pretty OK, though the robot was not able to handle that, as the bot takes the edit path, and these had to go via the translate path. Dunno if we'll be able to effect wholesale changes like that with the bot. That's something we may have to look into. It also had a spot of trouble with the pages that have been "translated" into English (with the "/en" suffix). I deleted those. I have also deleted the deprecated ay_prerequisite templates. JD, you were battling the bot for a while (inserting ay_pre's while it was replacing them with honor_pre's). But the bot won. ;-) --Jomegat (talk) 22:20, 18 November 2014 (EST)

I'll check around and see if I see anything out of place. --w126jep (talk) 22:26, 18 November 2014 (EST)

I noticed the new line does not use the category. That is just fine. Makes translation easier. JadeDragon (talk) 22:39, 18 November 2014 (EST)

Primary vs Secondary Honors vs prerequisites

The honor_desc template has an argument called secondary which can be set to true. This prevents that page from being counted in the honor counts, and is used in honors where there are answers with regional variants (such as Currency).

I'm thinking I might want to change the way that works so that rather than setting it to true (and calling it secondary), we would instead add a new argument which would point to its primary, and if it is primary, it would not set that field at all. The intended use of this argument would be so we could pass it along to the "See also" page (which would have to become a template, as pages don't take arguments). "See Also" displays all the pages belonging to a category [[Category:Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Prerequisites/(this page name)]]. Instead, honor_desc will pass it the name of the primary if there is one, or the honor name if there is not. In other words, instead of a secondary honor checking that it is a prereq, it will check if its primary honor is.

The alternative is to include every variant of an honor as a prerequisite in the pages where the primary is a prerequisite. And although that would work (kinda, but badly), it would also create a maintenance headache - for example, when people create a new variant of Currency, someone would then have to edit Currency - Advanced to add the new variant as a prereq. Ouch.

My thought is that if we add a new arg to honor_desc, we could use it for both prereqs as well as knowing to count (or not count) an honor in the tallies.

I think all translated honors should set the primary field to the English primary. The translated "See Also" templates will know to tack on the language code and link to that honor. Honors that have disambiguation pages (i.e., a list of variants) should be the representative primary for that whole group (State Study, Christian Citizenship, etc). This way I think the list of sequels will work in any language, and the honor counts will be correct.

Before I move on this, I need to see how else the secondary is used so I don't break something.

Thoughts? --Jomegat (talk) 18:40, 19 November 2014 (EST)

Great idea. I don't believe secondary is used in any other fashion besides the counts. I have always tried to defer the counts to the English pages anyway because if not, the count would include the other hundred or so SAD honors that I haven't yet added requirements to. And if this will help with a translatable and usable «See Also» page, even better. --w126jep (talk) 19:11, 19 November 2014 (EST)

It's in progress now. I'm hand editing all the honors in Category:Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Secondary to add primary=blah to their honor_desc. The honor counts may be off while I do this. Didn't think I could get the bot to do it for me either. An added benefit is that we no longer have false alarms on sequels - if the honor has no sequels, the sequels box should not appear. No more expanding to check. I like that! --Jomegat (talk) 22:07, 19 November 2014 (EST)

Well that is a nice feature. A general rule of thumb in web design is the less clicking there has to be done, the better the layout is perceived by the reader. I guess it just means people like being lazy ... --w126jep (talk) 22:31, 19 November 2014 (EST)

Now that the sequels stuff has been worked out, would it be wise to remove the link to the advanced honor from the honor_desc box? Should we not collapse the sequels box? Should we look at collapsing it only if it has more than N (and if so, what does N equal)? -- Jomegat (talk) 12:34, 20 November 2014 (EST)

I personally like having the link to the advanced honor in the honor_desc box. I feel as if it is more important to show that the honor has a direct continuation, regarding the same topic, so it should be highlighted more, as it currently is.

I think having a non-collapsible sequels box is preferred. I think people are less prone to click for more information than they are to scroll down. Maybe we could collapse it if it has more than five (which I can't think of any honor at the moment that might have more than that). --w126jep (talk) 16:53, 20 November 2014 (EST)

OK, I will leave the advanced honors in the box. There are indeed some honors that serve as prerequisites to more than 5 other honors/IA requirements (the new stuff does not distinguish). Also, I found there is a better DynamicPageList extension that gives better control over the output formatting - so potentially we could add graphics, suppress full page names, etc. I will look into that. Meanwhile, I could change the sequels box to show up to five, and those beyond five would be collapsed & expandable. --Jomegat (talk) 17:34, 20 November 2014 (EST)

First Aid, Standard - 7 honors and IA Ranger.

Intermediate Swimming is a prereq on 11 honors.

Can't see a reason to collapse 8 or 11 but not 5 as each takes just one line. If we set the sequels box to never collapse an made it sit tight to the header box and maybe same color we could dispense with the See also link in the header. I'm not a fan of all the various boxes separated with different offsets and widths. JadeDragon (talk) 19:35, 21 November 2014 (EST)

IA desc

I've been beating the See Also template into submission, but I'm not quite there yet. The problem I'm trying to solve with it is getting it to display the page's title (which may be a translation) vs the page name (which is the link). I have a path forward, as the new dpl extension give us a nifty way to extract template arguments from a page. In other words, if a page that it lists contains a template (such as honor_desc), and that template has an argument we want (such as honorname), we can pull that out and use it as the link name. It was an incredible battle trying to tease that out of the documentation.

However, the "See Also" template wants to return IA pages as well as honor pages, and IA pages do not have an honor_desc template. This can be solved by creating Template:IA desc, which I have already done. Right now it has very little info in it - the name of the class, and the display name of the page. I will be changing "See Also2" (which is the experimental version of "See Also") to extract the translated page name from there, but it could take me a week (so you might want to hold off on translations).

Meanwhile, is there any information you can think of that we should add to IA_desc? I know there are a ton of things we could add - but there's no need to go bananas. Stage might be a good addition, but are there others? We do not need "insignia" as this header will be placed on all eight sections of an IA class's pages, and they do not have separate insignia associated with them. Skill level and year really do not apply either.

Anyhow, if you think of anything we should add to it (or want to suggest what it should look like), the best place to do so would be on its talk page. Here's what it looks like now: (removed to prevent us from adding the discussion page to wrong categories).

Feedback please! --Jomegat (talk) 12:19, 24 November 2014 (EST)

Template:Honor index

After learning some of the ropes of the new DPL extension (while working on See Also), I hacked together a really cool template that will generate an honor index much like the one on the front AYHAB page or on the honor category pages. It takes up to three category parameters (named cat, cat2, and cat3) and a "lang" template (for specifying the language). It creates a sortable table of all the honor pages in all of the specified categories. Sandbox/test has two examples of its use. The first shows all the Nature honors that have been translated into Spanish. The second shows all the Household Arts honors at Skill Level 2.

I could easily add more cat parameters, and if we want, I could add some "excat" (exclude category) parameters as well.

What makes this cool is I was able to extract the honor insignia and year from the honor_desc template in all the honors and show them in the table. Nice!

We will not need to translate this template, as it works for any language.

Cool factor aside, this will eliminate the need for us to create indices manually. All we have to do to get an honor to show up in an index is add it to the categories the page wants (and honor_desc already mostly takes care of that). The question is... should we replace the indices we have with this? --Jomegat (talk) 15:39, 26 November 2014 (EST)

Adding the honors to the lists alphabetically and manually is a big pain. I synchronized the 8 category lists with the main page list and found a few errors. The translated honor names will not be alphabetical in the new language if they just follow the English order, so anything that helps automate this is welcome. I love showing the honor images - that was on my to do list of something to try. JadeDragon (talk) 16:06, 26 November 2014 (EST)

Lovin' it. Yes, yes and yes. Show the patches; replace indices; add/exclude whatever. I think it is a very nice improvement. --w126jep (talk) 16:39, 26 November 2014 (EST)

True, though, that the names don't seem to be alphabetized in the Spanish version. I think default should be alphabetized instead of having to click for it to sort it that way. How can that be arranged? And the labels at the top of the table will need to be translated. --w126jep (talk) 16:44, 26 November 2014 (EST)

Oh yes... the column headers. We will have to translate then, but I will limit the translation to just the header name fields. I want to ring this out a bit more before going live with it. I'll dig into the sort key issue too. --Jomegat (talk) 16:49, 26 November 2014 (EST)

Right now, sorting is done based on the full page name (AYHAB/category/honorname). I have added a sortkey to all the categories in honor_desc, but sometimes it takes the database a while to catch up on such things, so I'm not sure if it worked (and it may not have). There are ways of making the sort happen after the page loads, but they look incredibly cumbersome to me, and I don't know that I want to try them out. There won't be a problem using this template on the honor category pages, as the category shows up in the page name before the honor name, and thus, all the pages will be sorted as we wish in that case. But on the main index page, there might not be much we can do about the sort order. All the ADRA honor will come first, then Arts and Crafts, etc. I will keep looking, but it doesn't look great. --Jomegat (talk) 18:30, 26 November 2014 (EST)

One thing I noticed in the Sandbox/test is the index in Spanish shows the different versions of some honors, like the Cats honor (Gatos). It is showing the different pages for different divisions. How can that be fixed to only show the primary page? Does the Primary argument have to be added? --w126jep (talk) 19:06, 26 November 2014 (EST)

Good catch. I'll have to think about that one for a bit. It's a little messy in that if we add Gatos to the primary category, it will be added to the counts (which we don't want). That's why it's good to move slowly sometimes. --Jomegat (talk) 19:43, 26 November 2014 (EST)

I think it is fine for the main page to be sorted by category rather than strictly alphabetically. After all that is how you find the honors in the printed book. Anyone wanting strict alphabetical can have that with a single click. JadeDragon (talk) 20:47, 26 November 2014 (EST)

That was a feature of the printed answer books that I always disliked. Oh well. BTW, I have a solution to the triple Gatos problem. I could brute-force it in to all the others, but am holding off on that until I know I can't finesse it in instead.

In other news, we had a snowstorm yesterday and our power is out. I'm at the church right now for a couple of hours (where we do have working utilities). We don't expect our power to be restored today, and perhaps not tomorrow either. So I am Wiki-limited for a bit. --Jomegat (talk) 17:03, 27 November 2014 (EST)

I've got the bot working on it now (finesse). It's adding the honors that should not appear in a regular index to the AYHAB/noindex category. --Jomegat (talk) 17:51, 27 November 2014 (EST)

Quite the trooper! No power, middle of a snowstorm, and still working on the wiki! I hope your Thanksgiving wasn't ruined! --w126jep (talk) 11:06, 28 November 2014 (EST)

Not ruined at all. Just delayed. One of my sons declared that it was our sitcom Thanksgiving (because it read about like you wold expect a sitcom TG to read). :D We have our power back now, but still no Internet (or cable) service. Went out for lunch today and ordered a side of free wifi. --Jomegat (talk) 12:46, 28 November 2014 (EST)

Internet service is back at my house. I have created a test page at Sandbox/AYHAB which may eventually replace the main honor page. Please take a critical look at it. Here are a few things I have discovered:

Whenever we accidentally create an English translation of a page, it will show up here.
The Honor_index template does not gracefully handle the lack of an insignia image - we will have to deal with that somehow.
It found some test pages that I had created earlier - I have deleted them. I could also have added them to the noindex category.

All this does point out the weak point in an automatically curated front page - it will find things we might not want it to find. However, I think it may well be worth it. I will create test index pages for the Honor category pages (Arts & Crafts, Nature, etc) and we can look for problems there too before going live.

Great work. Currently the wiki inserts the honor keys image if no honor image is specified. If we specified the honor keys image in the header template as a placeholder it would show up in the index instead of the patch. I'll try that when I'm on my computer. JadeDragon (talk) 14:55, 29 November 2014 (EST)

That should work. I've changed honor_desc so that if the insignia is set to the keys image it will still add it to Category:No insignia image. That way we can easily find those that lack insignia and either continue searching for them, or know to pester someone. I'll change the few honors that have no insignia... --Jomegat (talk) 16:51, 29 November 2014 (EST)

Your changes moved the "Limited Availability" beside the honor token from below the token. Not as pretty. JadeDragon (talk) 18:12, 29 November 2014 (EST)locat

Fixed! --Jomegat (talk) 18:24, 29 November 2014 (EST)

I have made the change. The eight index pages plus the main page now use Honor_index to create the indices. As always, please report any problems if you notice any. --Jomegat (talk) 18:24, 29 November 2014 (EST)

I notice the Spanish index does not alphabetize by default. Is there a way to fix that so it can be consistent with the English version? --w126jep (talk) 11:26, 30 November 2014 (EST)

Yes - I'll need to change the Honor_desc/es template to add the honorname as the sort key in all the categories. --Jomegat (talk) 11:57, 30 November 2014 (EST)

Done. It might take a bit for the database to catch up. It has to notice that pages that include honor_desc/es now have category sort keys. You can force the issue by performing a null edit (edit & save without making changes), but it's a lot easier to adjust the patience threshold knob upwards a bit and wait for it to happen by itself. --Jomegat (talk) 12:07, 30 November 2014 (EST)

I have replaced the Spanish Honor category indices with Honor_index/es, (except for Arts & Crafts). None of those have been translated yet, so I though the existing one would be better than a new, but empty page. Also we may have to revisit the Outreach index - the ACS/ADRA sections will almost certainly need to be adjusted. Those subsections are empty now, but may be incorrect once populated with real pages. --Jomegat (talk) 12:57, 30 November 2014 (EST)

Very nice. I'm working on all honors as fast as time and family allows. I haven't worked on the the Arts & Crafts section yet but I'll get there. I think I got translated most of the honors that are needed for IA (except ADRA/ACS), which was more priority for me. Thanks for setting that up, though! It also helps me see how much I've completed and how much still needs to be done, since only the fully translated honors show up. --w126jep (talk) 14:19, 30 November 2014 (EST)

Very minor issue, but the Stage column in the new template sorts 0 - 100 - 25 - 50 - 75 JadeDragon (talk) 20:08, 30 November 2014 (EST)

I have addressed that now (in English and in Spanish). Let me know if you see anything else. --Jomegat (talk) 22:22, 30 November 2014 (EST)

Honor Category showing as Honorname

All the honors are showing their honorname where the category should go. The link takes you to the category, but the name appears as of the honor, instead of the category. I'm not sure if that was done intentionally, but I think it would be more beneficial to show the category name instead of the honorname, which seems redundant. --w126jep (talk) 19:19, 26 November 2014 (EST)

Thanks for fixing that - it was unintentional. I was attempting to add a sortkey to all the categories and didn't pay close enough attention to what I was doing. The good news is that the sortkey appears to be working! Just so you guys know, when you add a category to a page it's done like this: [[Category:Name of Category|Sort Key]]. The sort key is optional, and once in place, it takes a while for the database to catch up. --Jomegat (talk) 17:10, 27 November 2014 (EST)

Deletion bot

(Moved from other topic)

I also plan to run a "delete English translations" bot on a nightly basis. I have noticed that when we kick off a translation deletion, it really bogs down the server. So we will want to schedule such activity at a time where we are not typically doing any heavy editing. I'm thinking 4:00am Eastern time (1:00am Pacific). If you plan to do regular editing then, let me know and I can search for a different time slot. I will also look into a way of excluding pages that end with /en, but that could be tricky. --Jomegat (talk) 23:29, 28 November 2014 (EST)

I did not notice this post until now. I have been deleting translations the entire time -_- I don't know why, but almost every time I mark for translation, it will automatically create an English version. I tried working with the website in Spanish mode to see if it would curb that, but no success. Is the bot running every night and deleting /en pages? The /en pages mess up the indices and also the "See also" template (or whatever is in its place now). --w126jep (talk) 19:06, 1 December 2014 (EST)

I have not done that yet. I can look into it tonight though. --Jomegat (talk) 19:14, 1 December 2014 (EST)

Yes, please. It is a constant battle deleting these pages and they come back every time a new marking is made for translation. Poor Fuzzybot seems to constantly be on the move getting rid of these. --w126jep (talk) 19:22, 1 December 2014 (EST)

Might not be doable. The delete script is not very flexible when it comes to specifying pages to delete. I can either retrieve them from a category, get the page names from a file (generated by what?), or name each file explicitly. The "category" bot script will allow me to add a page to a category using wildcards in the page name, so I thought I'd be able to add the */es pages to "Speedy Delete", and then run the delete bot against that category. But no dice. The category bot cannot edit translations (translations can only be translated, not edited, even by a bot). If I could get over that hurdle, I would then surely face the "You can't delete translations" hurdle (if that exists). I will continue researching this, but we might not see any results tonight. --Jomegat (talk) 20:08, 1 December 2014 (EST)

Sometimes I ask stupid questions but hopefully they trigger an idea for you. Why are the /en pages not valid? Why not make the /en pages the ones that populate the whole English version of the wiki? How is English different then any other language in the wiki? If we translate to fr or Greek will these /en pages get created everytime a page is marked for translation? If so maybe we should work with them instead of against the en pages.

Say an honor is added in Spanish with Spanish answers, can I go in and translate that to English? What if answers are supplied in Spanish, will we know to translate them to English? Certainly I can personally make perfect English sense from Spanish but not the reverse. So if W126 wants to just type in (or point me at an online source for) Spanish Honors I can translate a bunch to English.

It seems like to me that this wiki can be a fantastic tool for getting the requirements into every language used in Pathfinders far more cost effectively then translating and printing material, and faster. A huge benefit to the whole world if used correctly.

The translate extension requires that all translations come from "the source language" which in our case is English. It is not possible to translate from Portuguese to English. I did some asking on mediawiki, and learned that the /en stuff should perhaps be considered as valid. This would be most useful for transcluded content, as the /en version is stripped of the translate tags (which we strip ourselves by surrounding with noinclude tags). I hae not fully digested all of that yet, and at this point, I don't know if that's the way for us to go. They also strongly suggested that the TNT template would solve a lot of problems, but SimpuleUpdates (our provider) will not allow that extension as it opens a security hole. They did not answer my main question, which was "how can we avoid creating the /en pages?"

I do think that rather than fighting the /en pages, we should learn to live with them. That may mean suppressing them from Honor_index and See_Also. It would be nice if we could quit rolling that stone up the hill. --Jomegat (talk) 08:36, 2 December 2014 (EST)

From what I researched, many times the answer provided was the TNT template. We'll make due, though. Really, there are only two issues with the /en pages: they show up in the indices & See Also template, doubling the names; and they mess up the count. If suppressing them can fix that, there'd be no other pertinent reason to keep deleting them. Though, if we can find out how to not create them in the first place, all the better. --w126jep (talk) 08:51, 2 December 2014 (EST)

I have changed Honor_index and See_Also to exclude all pages that end with /en. So I think we can quit fighting. --Jomegat (talk) 19:39, 2 December 2014 (EST)

Excellent! I deleted the last few /en pages just for old time's sake. Now we won't have to worry about them showing up in the indices. Will they mess up the count, though? --w126jep (talk) 21:44, 2 December 2014 (EST)

I'm glad you asked, because the answer was yes - /en pages were being added to the counts. Now they are not. --Jomegat (talk) 22:29, 2 December 2014 (EST)

Unknown or Blank Year => Not Specified

Someone knows the year but has not listed it. OK? JadeDragon (talk) 19:25, 29 November 2014 (EST)

Well, we don't know, so it is unknown to us. Also, whatever you put there will cause a new category to be created - "Honors introduced in Unspecified". I think it would be better to stick with one so that we can collect all of that info on a single page. I don't mind if you change it to unspecified, but if you do, please change them all. --Jomegat (talk) 19:47, 29 November 2014 (EST)

Yes that is why I brought it up - all should say the same thing or all blank would be fine too but no category page. I want to agree on the word before I change them all to one thing. JadeDragon (talk)

I don't have a strong opinion between blank, Unknown, and Not Specified (though blank would made the column less wide). I think that if left blank, the template will add it to the unknown category (but I should check). --Jomegat (talk) 21:46, 29 November 2014 (EST)

I just checked - blank does add it to the unknown year category. I think I prefer blank. --Jomegat (talk) 21:47, 29 November 2014 (EST)

I shall blank them all then. JadeDragon (talk) 23:09, 29 November 2014 (EST)

Possible NAD Concerns

I have been thinking about all of the SAD honors we've been adding. Though I personally love having them here, I'm afraid the NAD will not be happy if/when they notice. They already did notice (but I don't think they knew how many we had), and asked that we make it plain that AdventSource did not carry the Volleyball. That's when I added the "Limited Availability" notice to the patches.

My thoughts are that we might be able to add a drop-down Division selector which would default to NAD. The honors shown in the index could then depend on the selected Division. We would still have the SAD honors, and though they would be hidden by default, they would be easy to reveal. It would be cool if we could detect the user's IP address and choose a default division for them, but that might be asking too much. In any case, a user would always be able to see what other divisions offer without too much effort.

I might experiment with this to see if it's possible, but I do not plan to act on it unless the NAD asks me to fix it. They are, after all, paying for the host provider. --Jomegat (talk) 22:42, 2 December 2014 (EST)

Dixie told me the committees were unhappy that SAD just published so many honors without talking to anyone else. They are working through the SAD honors to see what they can adopt. Someone noticed that someone in FL is adding them to the Wiki and "they have been spoken too". I'd say we are very carefully showing what has been approved where and that we are trying to build a worldwide resource, so we should do what is right for the Pathfinders. If it becomes an issue we can move the SAD ones off to the regional section, or an SAD section off the main index. JadeDragon (talk) 00:38, 3 December 2014 (EST)

It is my understanding that each Division is autonomous and works independently and does not need permission or approval from another, in regards to creating new honors. The SAD set up a committee with the leaders within their own territory and decided to create these honors. Who would they need to "talk to"? And what would they need to "talk to" someone for? For approval, for permission? I don't understand why the NAD or any other Division would be unhappy in that regard.

I agree with JadeDragon that we, as contributors, would like to see this site become a worldwide resource. But I understand what Jomegat pointed out too; this site is funded and provided by the NAD and they will have final say on what is appropriate for display on their site. I'm not sure what the problem really is showing the FL honors, though, since we have specified that they are Conference-level only and not approved by the NAD.

Again, I just find it odd that the committees of the NAD are "unhappy" with what another Division is doing for their own population. Much Spirit-led prayer needed to correctly address this. --w126jep (talk) 01:18, 3 December 2014 (EST)

She is on both the NAD and GC Honor committees so I don't know who was upset. If SAD had sent the honors up to the GC to start with they could have gone global right off, but then NAD and SPD do whatever they want too. She did say there is an effort to bring the GC and NAD variations together. Why all the politics? Glad I'm far outside that. JadeDragon (talk) 04:20, 3 December 2014 (EST)

Sending the honors straight to GC would have been a tremendous work to go through for the SAD. Most of their new honors were originally written in Portuguese. They had to spend about another 6 months taking the time to translate them to Spanish. To further translate them again to English to send them off for GC approval would have been another enormous task, especially since that is not the native language of any of the leadership there. It would seem unfair that SPD and NAD can approve their honors within a year but have the SAD wait almost 2 and a half years to get theirs approved by the GC, and then finally distribute the new honors to their population. I wonder who represents the SAD in the GC committee? Does the SAD have representation? Maybe they could address this?

And personally, I love the politics. I think it helps sort things out (refined in the fire, anyone?) and fix it for the better, especially when it is done according to the leading of the Spirit ;-) -- w126jep (talk) 10:05, 3 December 2014 (EST)

And in BC I noticed the Conf uses FL honors at camporee since it is unlikely anyone has earned them, so yes making the resource more widely available is helpful. JadeDragon (talk) 13:27, 3 December 2014 (EST)

Obsolete Page

I've been musing and I was just wondering what opinions might be about including a page where we can post honors that are obsolete. A page to go to where it would state in a big heading that these honors are no longer in circulation or available. Some examples I am thinking of are the NAD skateboarding honor and the Church Heritage Award (which will be replaced with Adventist Pioneer Heritage). There we could provide links to the honors that now replace them, if available. It would help clear up for many which honors are in circulation and which ones should be taught.

I don't mean regional honors, since they are still valid within their respective conferences. I mean honors that literally were wiped out of existence for one reason or another. I'm sure there are a few others out there and I think it would help dispel rumors or incorrect information that might be out there. --w126jep (talk) 12:55, 4 December 2014 (EST)

Isn't Skateboarding still in circulation outside the NAD? BTW, I am in favor of your proposal. It would be kind of a museum of ancient honors. We might also consider adding an obsolete field to Honor_desc - if present, it would add the page to the AYHAB/Obsolete page, and then we'd be able to filter them out of the main indices and auto-create the Obsolete index. Another option would be to add them to an AYHAB/{{division}}/Obsolete category so we could control their exclusion by division. Incidently, I'm thinking the division drop-down selector is looking more and more likely. It's more a question of how and when rather than if (though "if" is still a question). --Jomegat (talk) 13:26, 4 December 2014 (EST)

The Skateboarding honor is indeed still in circulation outside the NAD. I guess what I meant was insignia patches and/or requirements. I'm thinking about the many people I've seen that ask "what patch is this?" and the answer is that it is an antique. This wouldn't be for miscategorized honors (a la Optics white background to purple) but for honors whose entire design or requirements have changed dramatically (Swimming honors?).

It kind of would be like a museum, which I like. Again, we would make sure to emphasize that earning these honors would be pointless since they're not in circulation. --w126jep (talk) 15:10, 4 December 2014 (EST)

I'm not aware of any honors that are obsolete. Quite a few have been recategorized over the years, or had the requirements changed significantly.The vocationals were discontinued and reintroduced. JadeDragon (talk) 03:28, 14 December 2014 (EST)

In 2012, Drawing and Painting was replaced by Drawing, Drawing - Advanced, Painting, and Painting - Advanced. There may be others, but my history with Pathfinders does not go back that far. I think it would also be pretty cool to offer a gallery of retired insignia. For instance, the insignia for Basic Rescue used to show a St John's cross. Native American Lore used to show a multi-colored headdress (which was a historical inaccuracy). --Jomegat (talk) 22:22, 14 December 2014 (EST)

Yes, Teaching used to have a US flag and I think Caving insignia was changed. The patch for Drawing and Painting was assigned to Painting so it is not really obsolete. Dixie is collecting error patches and wants to put them online someday. She'd know about any obsolete patches out there. JadeDragon (talk) 03:43, 15 December 2014 (EST)

"Retired insignia" - That is the perfect way to describe it, I just couldn't put a name to it. That is the basic idea.

Also, the St. John's cross was used for First Aid, not Basic Rescue and I believe it is still the official version for other Divisions that don't operate in coordination with the Red Cross, such as the SPD or the TED. In fact, one of the pre-requirements states that British countries can complete the honor by passing the "St. John's Ambulance" course. --w126jep (talk) 12:38, 15 December 2014 (EST)

Main Navigation Menu on Left

At some point soon I'd like to see Achievement Classes added to the navigation - but can't see where to do that. JadeDragon (talk) 13:01, 15 December 2014 (EST)

Conversations that began in 2015

Category Listings as Pagename

As I work on translating category pages, I'm wondering if there is a way to have the listings or links show up as their pagename instead of the entire link. I see that one of the parameters put is to replace the long link name with the honorname but this is not happening. It makes the lists cumbersome and difficult to navigate or read through. Is the wrong parameter being used? --w126jep (talk) 00:12, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

There is no way to do that. The parameter is a sort key, not a display name. If we removed it, all the honors would show up under "A" for "Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book". I know that makes categories less useful - especially for translations, but there's really nothing we can do about it - except perhaps include something like an honor index in the category page. That would create a table with translated names, which would be followed by the unformatted pagenames. I am working on a new template that will do that, but it doesn't work yet. :-/ --Jomegat (talk) 07:55, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

I thought as much. It was just a question to see if anything could be done about it, just to make it easier to read through. I don't think most editors would use much the category pages anyway. If a template works, though, let's try it. --w126jep (talk) 09:17, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

Yeah, categories are more of a tool for managing the data. Still, it would be good if the pages looked a little more presentable. --Jomegat (talk) 10:46, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

Seems to work:

So then this would work kind of like the Master Award pages. They are Category pages but have the index template at the top. Wouldn't the honorindex template work for this? Or is a new template like honorcategory necessary? --w126jep (talk) 11:58, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

It would work after a fashion - but because it automatically excludes some pages, it's not exactly what we'd want. Right now it works, but only with pages that include honor_desc. Ideally, it would list every page as we'd want to see it, but since that info has to be extracted from the honor_desc template arguments, it really has to be there for it to work at all. Honor_category is very similar to Honor_index, but I removed the capability for it to specify more than one category or to exclude anything. --Jomegat (talk) 22:41, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

Deletion Request at Wikibooks

I have requested the deletion of the original version of this wiki developed over at Wikibooks. The intent is to force its deprecation, since development of the material (and technology) has been focused here since this version was created. A lot of people have the old site bookmarked, and when they find that the material there is "good enough" they do not find our site here. If the material is removed there, it should move this wiki to the top of Google (et al) searches.

I do not know how the request will be received there. So far, it has been roundly ignored with no comments or votes either for or against. You can follow the proceedings at https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Requests_for_deletion#Adventist_Youth_Honors_Answer_Book

If the WB community votes to keep the material, there is really nothing we can do about it. I have also asked that we be allowed to replace the main page with a link to this wiki. As the primary contributor to that version, my request should carry substantially more weight than if someone with no connection to the project there made the same request. We'll see how it goes. --Jomegat (talk) 13:15, 21 July 2015 (EDT)

I think that is a wise choice. It would be much better to redirect to this site so those who are seeking helps can actually benefit reom this much larger material. All the better if it pushes this wiki to the top of a Google search. --w126jep (talk) 16:18, 21 July 2015 (EDT)

. . . soooo, what is going on with the deletion process? Has the community decided not to delete it and keep it instead? It seems like sufficient time has elapsed and that permission should have been granted for deletion to begin. --w126jep (talk) 22:43, 10 September 2015 (EDT)

The short answer is "nothing." Almost nobody has even commented on the request. The good news is that no one has opposed it. The bad news is that no one has decided that the vote is over and should be acted upon. --Jomegat (talk) 19:06, 11 September 2015 (EDT)

Is there a way to expedite the process and close the vote, or should I sign in under a bunch of different usernames and vote to close? (kidding . . . kind of)

No, don't do that. When I was active there, we were very good at detecting that. I will contact some of the admins and ask them to look into it. --Jomegat (talk) 08:01, 12 September 2015 (EDT)

I had not voted, so I closed the vote. I then blanked the first few Art and Crafts honors. I don't have the power to delete whole pages, do you? JadeDragon (talk) 21:42, 17 September 2015 (EDT)

New Honors

New SAD Origion honor at GC level. Making note here so it can be added here. Adaptive Sports. http://gcyouthministries.org/Ministries/Pathfinders/Honors/tabid/85/agentType/View/HonorID/721/Default.aspx JadeDragon (talk) 12:13, 8 October 2015 (EDT)

I added it and provided complete answers. JadeDragon (talk) 02:51, 19 October 2015 (EDT)

This honor, originally in Spanish and Portuguese, was first titled Paralypmic Sports by the South American Division. The General Conference reviewed it, made some changes to its requirements, and retitled it Adaptive Sports. I had already uploaded this insignia under its previous name. You can see what the original insignia looked like under the SAD here. I changed the insignia to the original one I uploaded so that it could have a clear background, since the insignia you uploaded had a white square background. w126jep (talk) 12:39, 19 October 2015 (EDT)

Perfect. I knew it needed fixing. JadeDragon (talk) 12:55, 19 October 2015 (EDT)

Nearly Complete Categories

We almost have all the Health & Science and Household Honors to 100%. I'll finish Viruses shortly. The tough ones are Tailoring and Advanced Dressmaking. With a little effort Nature can be brought to 100% too. JadeDragon (talk) 02:51, 19 October 2015 (EDT) Tailoring done. Just one left. JadeDragon (talk) 15:43, 7 November 2015 (EST)

Image Issues

The Birds honor is not the only honor having issues with its images. It seems to be throughout the site. I'm not sure if it has to do with only WikiCommons images or all of them. --w126jep (talk) 13:05, 6 November 2015 (EST)

Sigh. I'll look into it when I can. --Jomegat (talk) 16:54, 6 November 2015 (EST)

Wikimedia Commons made a change recently to require https vs http. The correct "fix" on our end is to upgrade to a new release of the wiki software. That's an extended project. I have applied the incorrect, but expedient fix. But we do need to update soon. --Jomegat (talk) 17:08, 6 November 2015 (EST)

For future reference, here's what I did: [1] --Jomegat (talk) 17:09, 6 November 2015 (EST)

Any plans on upgrading for the new year? Or was it done already? --w126jep (talk) 14:30, 16 January 2016 (EST)

No, I have not applied an update. I am very pressed for time these days. I hope things let up before the end of February, but we'll see. --Jomegat (talk) 19:36, 16 January 2016 (EST)

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