Talk:&

Confusing link

Sorry: [[Normal lists|reducing]] it's just the way of linking that makes people feel confused, stupid, bad. Awaiting something that describes how the actual reduction is done, we are moved to a (seemingly unrelated) topic that is even harder to understand. Thanks in advance for fixing this usability nightmare. --Xenwolf (talk) 11:14, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Xenwolf. I see your point. Indeed, at the time I linked that up, I did understand that the link to which readers would be sent wasn't the best way to immediately understand matrix reduction, and lamented that, but I linked it anyway. I'm sorry if this made you feel confused, stupid, or bad. Or perhaps if it wasn't you in this case, you're just striving here - like I have been striving - to make the wiki a place that doesn't make other people feel that way.

But I'm not sure exactly how you would like me to fix the problem. Please let me know what you have in mind.

Currently, I don't think there is any better explanation of reduction on the wiki than what is on that page, except somewhere in my big RTT How-To that I've been working on full-time for the past couple months. But I'm still working on it daily, so I haven't graduated it to being a main page. I thought the more appropriate choice here was to link to a page that isn't just a user page, and also I thought it was more appropriate to link to a page which is dedicated to the topic. So if I wanted to assuage your concerns, maybe I would have had to add a new page for reduce, or majorly revise the normal list page. I just didn't have time to do that yesterday.

I had erred on the side of over-linking. But I can see that removing the link might actually be better, since the quality of things available to link to is lacking. Let me know if that's what you had in mind instead.

Anyway, before I created this page, I don't think there was any explanation of the & operator anywhere on the wiki, except - again - somewhere in my big RTT How-To. So I was only trying to help. I hope you will see where I'm coming from now, and that I'm working as hard as I can to make things better on the wiki in the exact spirit you're calling for here.

And one thing I would ask you for is to please be friendly. It's the internet and it's hard to read tone, but your "thanks in advance" in this context is coming across a bit rude to me. I'm not sure if you intended it that way. If I've said something to offend you previously, I'm sorry, but I'm not aware of it; please let me know (I can be reached at [email protected]) because I'm always eager to improve and to make more friends in the community. When I have harsh criticism for someone, I try to deliver it with kindness, and I also think it's nice to balance it out with something encouraging or complementary; in this case, for example, you could have - if only perfunctorily - thanked me for creating the page in the first place. Sorry if this is coming across condescending. I don't mean it that way. I am just slightly offended by your words, and am trying to let you know in a police and constructive way. --Cmloegcmluin (talk) 16:02, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Cmloegcmluin, thanks for the very constuctive reply, I think usability nightmare was not chosen careful enough. And maybe I didn't take enough time put the issue (link A for B) into words. I'll come back soon via PM or here to clarify this even more. BTW: your WIP is much better than vast majority of articles in this wiki (and definitively deserves a better name than Sandbox). --Xenwolf (talk) 17:49, 1 July 2021 (UTC)