Teflpedia talk:Lesson namespace

Valuable space
Roger. You make a big point about "lesson" taking up "valuable space" as it's long name. I'm afraid that I'm not quite clear on the nature of the problem. Could you give me an example of the difficulty this causes in practice?

Is it a technological problem or a usability one? (or something else)?--Bob M 11:52, 25 October 2012 (CDT)


 * Usability problem. A name is an important thing. If I address you always as Lesson Bob, whether or not you are a lesson, it will annoy you, and others, and it will cause needless confusion. Prefixes can be useful, but I think we have missed the usability mark by trying to apply the prefix "Lesson:" to things that may or may not be properly or widely understood to be "lessons". I believe the technical advantage of being able to check or un-check the "[ ] Lesson" box on the Search results page lead us to trying this "Lesson:" prefix/namespace. However, it has not worked because it is not the apt name prefix for all things for ELT as apposed to about ELT that want it to be. We just don't help the usability situation calling things that are not lessons, "Lesson:XYZ". It is a rather glaring usability problem. In contrast, "User:XYZ", "Help:XYZ", "Teflpedia:XYZ" (consistently used only for pages about Teflpedia), all work because they are consistently accurate, and they are short. "Lesson:" is short but inaccurate. People will be able to find the pages that interest them more easily if we simply call them accurately what they are, and rely on Category tags instead of Namespaces to organize our primary content, whether it be about and for ELT. I conclude we are simply better off without the "Lesson:" namespace. Sometimes less is more. --Roger 16:17, 25 October 2012 (CDT)
 * Length. As for length, "Lesson:" is not too long, but it is often wrong. It is in being often wrong that it fails. Let's consider "Class materials:" which may be more often right for material for ELT (but perhaps not consistently enough to make it a good namespace for everything for ELT), "Class material:" is long--would use up limited page name space in the page name at top of the relevant page and in page name listings of Category pages. So I wouldn't use it. What about "For ELT:"? Nope, it's an awkward abbreviation. We just don't need this level of exacting complication. IMHO this level of partitioning, in practice, turns out to be more a usability problem than a solution. --Roger 16:41, 25 October 2012 (CDT)
 * Length. As for length, "Lesson:" is not too long, but it is often wrong. It is in being often wrong that it fails. Let's consider "Class materials:" which may be more often right for material for ELT (but perhaps not consistently enough to make it a good namespace for everything for ELT), "Class material:" is long--would use up limited page name space in the page name at top of the relevant page and in page name listings of Category pages. So I wouldn't use it. What about "For ELT:"? Nope, it's an awkward abbreviation. We just don't need this level of exacting complication. IMHO this level of partitioning, in practice, turns out to be more a usability problem than a solution. --Roger 16:41, 25 October 2012 (CDT)