ARCHIVE SNAPSHOT · RESTORED FROM 2007
Discussion
talk: Main Page
No open thread on this page right now
Talk pages are where edits get debated before they happen — a place to flag a faster algorithm, question a category, or ask why an entry was rewritten. This snapshot caught the page between conversations.
$ start_thread –page=”Main Page”
PURPOSE
What belongs on this page
Discussion pages sat one click behind every article, separate from the code itself. Nothing written here changes the entry directly — it just makes the next edit easier to agree on. A handful of conversation types showed up here more than any other:
- Naming disputes — two contributors disagreeing on what a page should be called, usually settled by whichever title says what the code does.
- Merge proposals — flagging that two entries solve the same problem and should be combined instead of competing.
- Correctness debates — pointing out an edge case a piece of code misses, before rewriting it on the article itself.
- Category questions — whether an entry belongs under Math, String, or both.
- Deprecation flags — marking an approach as outdated once a clearly better one exists, without deleting the history of how the page got there.
EXAMPLE THREADS
The kind of topic that opens here
Should the bubble sort entry stay once quicksort covers the same case?
style
A typical opener: bubble sort is rarely the right tool, but it’s still the clearest way to teach the idea of sorting. The usual resolution keeps both, with a note pointing from one to the other.
Does “Trim whitespace” belong under String or under a new Formatting category?
category
Category boundaries get fuzzy fast. These threads usually end with the entry tagged under both, rather than forcing a single answer.
The flood-fill example doesn’t handle a one-pixel canvas
correctness
Edge-case reports like this rarely turn into an argument — usually a fix lands on the article within a day of being raised here.
ETIQUETTE
How replies were expected to look
→Indent each reply one level deeper than the comment it answers, so a thread stays readable top to bottom.
→Sign and timestamp every comment — the same convention used in the news log, name and date together.
→Keep the disagreement about the code, not the person who wrote it.
→Once a thread resolves, leave it — the record of how a decision was reached is as useful as the decision itself.
discussion · archive snapshot · content carried under the GNU Free Documentation License