Discuss AY Honors

New Icon

I'm not sure what exactly is wrong, but the "New Icon" graphic is not showing up in the main index. It will, however, show up in the individual honor categories, like Recreation or Vocational. Is this something wrong with my display or is anyone else experiencing this? --w126jep (talk) 13:11, 28 October 2014 (EDT)

It's working for me. Can you sort by the "new" column? --Jomegat (talk) 19:18, 28 October 2014 (EDT)

It is working now. I'm not sure what it could have been because I tried on different computers and logged off. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. --w126jep (talk) 22:09, 28 October 2014 (EDT)

Skill Level Grid

Is there any real reason to still have the grid below the Honor Categories that show the different skill levels and categories? I think the sortable list now takes care of that. --w126jep (talk) 10:40, 8 December 2014 (EST)

Not really. I think that perhaps the pages they point to should hang around though, and the IA pages that say "earn Nature honor at your skill level" could point to them. That was their original purpose, and it predates the IA pages (and the move from Wikibooks to here). The sortable table really does eliminate the need for a lot of pages like that. --Jomegat (talk) 12:26, 8 December 2014 (EST)

I agree that the pages should stick around, I just meant the big multi-color grid. I think I'll give it a week or so to see if anyone else has any opinions, and then probably get rid of it from the mainpage. --w126jep (talk) 12:43, 8 December 2014 (EST)

Sounds like a plan! --Jomegat (talk) 18:51, 8 December 2014 (EST)

Actually, maybe we could just come up with a workable spec for Honor_index and put those directly in the IA pages. --Jomegat (talk) 18:57, 8 December 2014 (EST)

How do you mean? --w126jep (talk) 19:07, 8 December 2014 (EST)

I was thinking that maybe tossing an index into the IA page might be a good idea, but I'm going to backtrack on that thought. Some indices are pretty large, and I think they would clutter the IA page. But to be clear, I am all for removing the grids. I think they exist on a lot of category pages too, but now that also they use the Honor_index template, they should lose the grid as well. --Jomegat (talk) 21:43, 8 December 2014 (EST)

I have deleted the grid. I have also changed Investiture Achievement/Friend/Honor Enrichment to include honor indexes in tabular form using Template:Honor_index, having decided that once filtered, none of the indices are really too big to include on an IA page after all. I did mix Arts & Crafts and Household Arts in one index, and Recreation, Vocational, and Outdoor Industries in the other. It would have been easier to make five indexes, but I think I like two. If someone cares that they are choosing A&C vs Household, they can always sort them by the Category column. But I think it's better to have an intermingled list so they're paying attention to the honor rather than to which of the two (or three) categories. I haven't addressed the other IA classes yet, as I wish to solicit opinions first. --Jomegat (talk) 23:24, 9 December 2014 (EST)

I think it looks good. I tend to agree that a person pay more attention to the honor they'd like to complete rather than what category. The purpose of changing to the sortable indices was, after all, to make them sortable. Three as the max amount of categories I think is best. More than that and you might as well put the entire list of honors, because it gets really big. --w126jep (talk) 23:44, 9 December 2014 (EST)

I don't think there is a case where IA calls out more than three categories, but if there are, I agree - three is the max. Beyond that, we just link them to the pages.

Master Award Count

Noticed the number of pages in the category is counting 25 on the front page instead of 16. JadeDragon (talk) 10:28, 16 September 2015 (EDT)

Good catch. I've pared it down to 17. We should probably change the way this works so that it only counts primary categories, but that's going to take more time than I have right now. The 17th is the deprecated Witnessing Master, and I don't want to remove it from the Master's category, as that's really where it belongs. I think I'll eventually add a "deprecated" category and use DPL to create the count (anything in one category but not in another). --Jomegat (talk) 15:30, 16 September 2015 (EDT)

excellent. The Witnessing Master is still listed on the GC site. We should leave it up with the note. JadeDragon (talk) 00:08, 17 September 2015 (EDT)

Their site is a bit behind then - the GC (i.e., Jonatan Tejel) reworked the Outreach category and replaced the Witnessing Master with the three new ones. --Jomegat (talk) 07:49, 17 September 2015 (EDT)

Three new ones? I thought it was divided into two: Family, Origins, and Heritage; Spiritual Growth and Ministries. What is the third one? --w126jep (talk) 03:01, 18 September 2015 (EDT)

He means 2 I think. The ADRA Master award is gone from the GC site, ADRA site I'd linked and the SPD site. Since I can't find it anywhere but here, I'm wondering if it is still available. I just wrote North New South Wales for one, so we shall see. JadeDragon (talk) 03:51, 18 September 2015 (EDT)

Did the SPD and GC site ever have the ADRA Master Award? I don't recall the sites having it listed, I think it was found in the manuals. The SAD still has it listed. The SAD actually also has a Botanical Master Award too. --w126jep (talk) 10:39, 18 September 2015 (EDT)

Yes, I meant two. --Jomegat (talk) 14:53, 18 September 2015 (EDT)

I had the ADRA Master sourced to the ADRA website. That link broke. I could not find another source. There are actually two versions of Zoology Master - the SPD still lists theirs and it has a different design and requirements. I've got the SPD version and enough extra honors to receive the GC version without doubling up. Maybe list it as a variation? JadeDragon (talk) 15:03, 18 September 2015 (EDT)

Smaller Cover Page & Retired Insignia Page

I went ahead and reduced the size of the Answer Key image. I also added the Retired Insignia page after the Awards and Pins category. Let me know what you think. --w126jep (talk) 16:08, 7 February 2016 (EST)

Brilliant! --Jomegat (talk) 18:47, 7 February 2016 (EST)

Page Loading

Hey Jomegat

I've talked to a few pathfinders/clubs in our area that use this website for the honors. They find the main page with all the honours takes a very long time for loading depending on their speed connection, somewhere between a couple seconds to 10 minutes. All the other pages or links are fast for them but this one takes awhile. I know the images of the honours has a lot to do with it. Some of the pathfinders that I spoke to know what honour there looking for or they want to look in a specific category to look for that honour. Just a thought is it possible to only have the categories on the main page and than have another page that lists all the honours on it? I know its a lot to ask. Ixoekea (talk) 03:13, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

List cut short

I realized that the sortable list on the main page only shows the honors up to Wattles. All other honors that would follow alphabetically, such as Weaving, Wilderness Leadership, Winter Camping, etc., do not show up. Is there a limit to how many honors can be displayed in the list? This same issue was noticed with the Spanish side in February of this year (thread here). Any ideas? -- w126jep (talk) 14:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I think you can find it here. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoiding_MediaWiki_expansion_depth_limit) It says maximum is 40 levels. --Ixoekea (talk) 19:25, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

No, that page is addressing a different problem. I'll dig into this as soon as I get a chance.

South England Conference

Hey guys, Hey Jomegat, w126jep,

Found a few different honors here that are not added on the site yet. I quickly skimmed it tonight. I was looking for something else and came across this. SEC UK Advent Youth I do not have some of the honor requirement for them.

Caving has a older patch

Chocolate is not on here Requirements found here Chocolate

Adinkra Honour

Raku is not on here Raku

Tutorial is not on here

--Ixoekea (talk) 03:19, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for these references, Ixoekea! Lol, I love the Chocolate one! I have added Chocolate and Raku for now, and will try to find the requirements for the other ones.

Just so you know, these honors are considered regional and are not indexed in the main page. This means that they will not show up on any of the indexes. However, the pages can be found by searching for their names.

I am pretty sure the Chocolate honor would receive some blowback from churches around the world ... lol, but it sure sounds like fun!

Let us know if you find any more honors from different divisions and conferences! --w126jep (talk) 12:03, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

South American Honors

Hey there me again. I found a massive Honor order page for Brazil. It seems like there are many honors on their website that are not on here. I do not have any of the requirements for them only what the patches look like. MHC (Brazil) It has 5 stages of computers. On the left hand side under "Especialidades" will list all the honors that they offer in the South American Division. --Ixoekea (talk) 22:31, 22 May 2018 (EDT)

Hi Ixoekea!

Actually, I have included almost all of these honors in the Wiki. You will find the South American Division (SAD) list right below the main list on the Main Page of the Answer Book. I have the manuals in Portuguese and Spanish and have translated them to English.

Originally, they had been integrated into the main list but a couple of problems occurred. First, the SAD has over 200 honors not recognized anywhere else, and this caused the main list to be cut short at the bottom. Apparently, the list software can only display 500 or so pages.

Second, many visitors to the Wiki were not paying attention to the fact that these honors were not NAD, and attempting to order the patches from NAD resources. Even though we tried to splat on the honor descriptor "South American Division" and put "Limited Availability", people just went straight to the requirements, assuming these were available worldwide.

So most of the requirements are available and can only be found in English here at this Wiki. Also, if you click to look at the honors by their categories, the SAD honors are mixed in. We've had several people contribute to answer quite a few of the SAD honors already. The requirements can be completed, but obtaining the patch will be difficult. --w126jep (talk) 12:02, 23 May 2018 (EDT)

Permitted file types

Is it possible to enable more file types to be uploaded to the wiki? Specifically, I need the "new" Office extensions: xslx, docx, pptx ... I would like to attach some original files instead of just the picture of something, so they can be easily modified in the future.

Marc3 (talk) 11:07, 7 June 2018 (EDT)

Hi Marc,

Those should all work now. Sorry for the delay in responding, but I was away from the Internet for the weekend. --Jomegat (talk) 18:20, 10 June 2018 (EDT)

2020 Changes by the NAD

The NAD Honors Task Force voted to change the requirements of some honors in February, 2020. I have made some of those changes, but forgot that the changes create NAD variants. Therefore, we need to create these as new NAD and GC variants and create a disambiguation page for all of them modified to date. Sigh...

Unless we explore other options.

We could create a template noting that the NAD and GC have different requirements, and that template could link the user to the GC site where they can find the GC version. That way we could avoid creating new variants. If the GC adopts the NAD's changes, it's a simple matter to delete the template.

Thoughts?

--Jomegat (talk) 18:30, 9 March 2020 (EDT)

That seems to make sense. The only issue I would see is of there are very different versions (such as Welding or Automobile Mechanics), there will be no resources for the GC requirements. This might actually appease some people at the top, though. --w126jep (talk) 19:02, 9 March 2020 (EDT)

Another possibility is to create a GC variant in-wiki, but use the "main" version as the NAD variant instead of making it a disambiguation page. We'd still have a template to note the difference and point to the GC page.

So something like a link to the Wiki GC requirements at the top of the page? That could work too. It would make it a lot easier that created so many disambiguation page, those really are a hassle. Especially because it's not just three pages, but SIX including translations. --w126jep (talk) 17:25, 10 March 2020 (EDT)

OK, let's do it that way (NAD=main page with pointer to on-wiki GC page). I'll start on that soon. --Jomegat (talk) 21:17, 10 March 2020 (EDT)

Reworking some of the plumbing

I just got out of a brainstorming session that Marilyn Bosimer set up to talk about the NAD Pathfinder web presence and what we can do to make the wiki more useful. Some good ideas came out of that, and now we need to think about how we can go about realizing them.

The big ask was that we have a way to separate out the requirements as a printable document, but without requiring a second copy (i.e., a PDF that we'd have to keep in sync with the wiki requirements). I'm thinking that we might want to treat honor requirements similar to how we deal with IA requirements - that is, create separate pages for each requirement, then transclude them into the answer pages as well as in a requirements-only page.

Another ask would be for us to create a Worksheet page. This could be done by transcluding the requirements, and adding in some space for answers. It's possible that the template for the requirements could indicate how much (and what type) of space each answer would need, or we could specify that in a worksheet page. I think the latter would be better than the former.

Another idea is to create a "landing page" for each honor. The landing page would be structured more like an e-commerce product description page. One problem we'd attempt to solve with this page would be to flag the "difficult" parts of an honor so that people could know right away that if they can teach that requirement, the rest should be easy. Instead, people go through almost the whole honor and then find out that they need to visit a water treatment plant. The request is to get the "money requirement" out there for evaluation by the reader before they make a big investment in the rest of the honor. Since the "activity" requirements often come near the end of the honors, they typically don't discover that until they've made an investment.

The landing page would have a link to the answer page, requirements page, and worksheet page, and would include a description of the honor. We should also tie this into the idea we discussed at the last YPAC - where we add a lesson plan, materials list, and an estimate of prep time and teaching time to each honor. A new landing page for each honor would be a good place to keep all that.

A landing page would require some significant rework to our plumbing, so we need to think about how we can do this so that it does what has been requested, but doesn't create so much work that we can't get there from here. It's possible that the landing page would be on the club ministries site rather than on the wiki, so if we find that this is something that we can't realistically do, we have that as an option instead. Even if the landing page is at clubministries, we would still want to host the requirements and worksheet pages here.

None of this is carved in stone, but I think that the ideas that were presented would indeed make the site more useful than it already is. Thoughts and ideas are invited! --Jomegat (talk) 22:21, 6 October 2020 (EDT)

There was also a request to expand to table of contents by default (which I've done). Most people don't know that if you do that, you get a reasonable list of the requirements (though there are exceptions, one of which I have addressed). I also renamed "Contents" to "Requirements" since that's what we're using it for. --Jomegat (talk) 23:37, 6 October 2020 (EDT)

This is a lot to process. I'll see if I can go point by point.

Transcluding requirements has always made sense to me as that way we can 1) prohibit access to editing them (although it hasn't really been that big of an issue); 2) makes it easier and uniform to link specific requirements in other places besides just the honor; 3) one edit is all that's necessary to a requirement and the change is automatic throughout the Wiki. The only issue is it would be tons and tons of work.

I am hesitant about making worksheets and even a separate "requirements only" file. AdventSource already does this and takes the time to do so. Maybe they would be delighted to have the Wiki take over this role, I don't know, but I think something like that would need to be cleared first with them, as the Wiki would essentially be duplicating those efforts.

A landing page would be a good idea if there is lots of content to add, like the worksheet and the lesson plans. I also like the idea of including info for if there are traveling requirements or materials or time constraints. However, a landing page adds more complexity and another "click" to have to go through, making it less user-friendly. People don't even like having to scroll down, much less clicking through more pages.

I also worry that the more complexity we add, the less likely people are to edit and add answers. I think we have to be intentional and either point out where they can edit or add some standardized text on every landing page reminding users that they are source for these materials.

I do think these are good suggestions and definitely good topics to explore, and am generally onboarding with these ideas, but these were just some thoughts and concerns that came up at the moment. --w126jep (talk) 02:38, 7 October 2020 (EDT)

I agree that this would be a tremendous amount of work, and I'd hope that some of it could be done with a robot. As for the requirements-only page, the problem that we'd be trying to address would be to have a single source of truth for the requirements. Brad had said before that he'd love to quit maintaining the requirements PDF's and even asked if we could host them. I said we could, but the idea then was to just upload all those PDF's, and that doesn't make for an editable entity. It never happened because he never sent us the PDF's.

Your concerns about increased complexity are valid, and that's something we need to watch out for and avoid if we can. --Jomegat (talk) 16:32, 7 October 2020 (EDT)

Having a "one-stop shop" makes sense. I remember having to check the Wiki, AdventSource, PathfindersOnline.org, AND the GC Youth Ministries website to see if all requirements aligned. Also, in my experience, it is not well-known that AdventSource has the worksheets and requirements, and even less how to access them (and even far less that they're available in Spanish).

I am wondering how to format worksheets and requirements sheets. What would that look like? Would we attempt to make it look as close to what AdventSource does? or something completely different? The worksheets currently have a lot more than just lines to write answers. Depending on the honor, it can include, charts, graphs, tables, columns, etc.

Regarding a landing page, I think one aspect we could incorporate would be the icons idea that was proposed a few years ago. We could create simple graphics to work as icons and that way include them on a landing page to label them with whatever info.

How soon would we be able to begin changes? Do we need approval from someone? --w126jep (talk) 15:46, 8 October 2020 (EDT)

I don't remember the icon discussion - you'll have to refresh my memory.

As for the worksheets, yes, I'd think we'd want to make them look as much like the ones people are used to - charts, graphs, lines, blank maps/unlabeled pictures, etc. We'd want to develop some templates to do that.

As far as when we start, I'd think that we could get started right away. One of the people at the meeting does e-commerce for a living and he was going to mash up something to demonstrate ideas for the landing page though, so I think we should wait a few weeks before we embark on that.

We will also want to prototype some things and experiment before we start making any wholesale changes. We should probably pick an honor (or a few honors), make an experimental copy of it and then rework it while we leave the original intact. --Jomegat (talk) 22:11, 8 October 2020 (EDT)

Plumbing Progress

I've been experimenting with the new plumbing using the Amphibians honor as a guinea pig. (Maybe I should have used Small Animal Pets instead ;)

Anyhow, you can see the experiments at User:Jomegat/reqs and User:Jomegat/reqs/es. I've proven (to myself) that the requirements can be saved in one place, translated, used in multiple places (honor answers, honor requirements, and when we're ready, in honor worksheets too). Each of these can have different styling, as the styling is done in the a template.

Basic concepts: Each requirement goes into its own page. The page name is of the form Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/<category>/<honor name>/Requirement/<requirement number>. These pages should contain no styling, but they do need translation tags. I did a fake translation of the first requirement, but that will need to be deleted. I just needed to see if it would show up OK.

There are two templates (with a third one planned). Template:Ansreq and Template:Reqreq. The first one formats a requirement for the answer book, and is based on the way we display them on the IA pages. The second one is used for formatting the requirement in a requirements-only page. I anticipate that we will keep those at Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/<category>/<honor name>/Requirements. I don't think these templates need any translation, except for what's already there.