Template:Test

From The Kim Stanley Robinson Encyclopedia

Contents 1 Carlos' Tests 1.1 Some notes 1.2 2nd attempt 1.3 Comments upon implementation 2 Thoreaubred's Tests 3 Orodromeus' Tests

Carlos' Tests

2nd attempt to please everyone:

The Mars Trilogy
People	Major figures  ||  John Boone • Frank Chalmers • Nadia Cherneshevsky • Ann Clayborne • Michel Duval • Nirgal • Art Randolph • Sax Russell • Maya Toitovna • Zo Others  ||  Hiroko Ai • Arkady Bogdanov • Jackie Boone • Phyllis Boyle • Peter Clayborne • Desmond Hawkins •
Groups & Organizations	First Hundred • Greens • Reds • Free Mars • Praxis • UNOMA • UNTA
History	Timeline • 1st Martian Revolution • 2nd Martian Revolution • Second Renaissance
Culture	Areophany • Viriditas • Gift Economy • Ecopoesis • Little Red People
Settlements	Acheron • Bogdanov Vishniac • Burroughs • Cairo • Da Vinci • Dorsa Brevia • Echus Overlook • Nicosia • Odessa • Sabishii • Senzeni Na • Sheffield • Underhill • Zygote/Gamete
Areography	Mars • Tharsis • Valles Marineris • Hellas • Argyre • Olympus Mons • Pavonis Mons
Satellites & Spacecraft	The Ares • Clarke/Space Elevator • Deimos • Phobos • Novy Mir •
Kim Stanley Robinson | The Mars Trilogy | Other Works

Some notes

• I have tried renaming 'Characters' to 'People' in the hope that this might alleviate some of the disagreement about what counts as a 'character' and what-not. Also, 'people' is an in-universe term like all the others are, whereas 'character' is not. I also alphabetised all the characters instead of splitting them into two groups. Hopefully this will satisfy those who can't stand to see them split up without an explanation as to why.

You have a good point about Characters being out-of-universe. I would update my compromise to acknowledge that, but I would still make a separation like "Major Figures" and "Other Important People" or something. thoreaubred 00:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

What about just having them all together? KSR himself has said (and I know how much that counts to you!) that Hiroko is just as important as any of the POV characters - the only reason she doesn't have a POV is that he wanted to keep her mysterious and enigmatic. She's still just as important a character as Zo or even Michel.Carlos 03:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I agree with all together in alphabetical order. We can always have a page/category grouping the POV characters. --Orodromeus 06:02, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Another thing I was thinking about last night is that having them all in one list looks managable now, but right now we just have example characters in there, and we'll probably want a much bigger list. When the list gets to be three or four lines, should we really have to search through the clutter of "minor" characters to find people like John Boon or Maya Toitovna? What's so bad about having a single-line group of people who are obviously more major characters than Phyllis Boyle or Peter Clayborne or even less important people than them, separated at the top, identified with small text as in my compromise, so that we can add a lot of characters of medium importance without worrying about the list being too big? thoreaubred 13:36, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

• I strongly recommend removing the word 'Factions' as it makes the column unnecessarily wide for no real gain. Factions are really a subset of Organizations, or at least they're close enough to not get too wound up about it.

The thing is that Factions allows for some grey area where there is an ideology that is important and influential but not necessarily an organization (group also implies organization.) thoreaubred 00:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I know it's not, but is that really an important enough distinction to justify wasting that much space compared with the other headers? I mean, anyone who looks at the header, and sees the list is going to understand completely, and I can't imagine anyone getting bent out of shape over whether the 'Reds' are able to be fully considered a 'Group' or and 'Organisation'. Can you? It's still 95% accurate. Carlos 03:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I was trying to have the link to spread over 2 lines with a <br> in the middle of "Groups, Factions & Organizations", but taking off Factions does solve the problem better. --Orodromeus 06:02, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I'm fine with removing factions. There are some things I'm more stubborn about, and putting up a fight on them is getting me in the habit of putting up an equal fight on everything, so I need to watch myself on that. thoreaubred 13:36, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

• I've made the heading column a fixed width, so that it should always display the row headings on one line. Better, IMO.
• I have removed the forced line breaks '<br/>' as this allows the lines to break naturally depending on your browser width. When I expand my browser to full-screen, I can fit every single row on one line! Without this, those who view with a big window will have a nasty and wasteful white space on the right.

I still think we should add a width to the table, in % of the window, if not a fixed width in pixels. I prefer having something compact even if links spread over 2 lines. There is hardly anyone left with 800x600 any more anyway. --Orodromeus 06:02, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

What do you mean exactly? A % is not a fixed width, so which one do you mean? At the moment, it's 100%. I guess you can have a fixed width table, but that would have to be centered. I don't really the see the point though. What are the advantages in your opinion? Carlos 06:21, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

My point is not having it 100%. Ideally I'd have a fixed width, but I'd settle for a width in %. The advantage is that a smaller width allows for a more compact table IMO. Even if this forces the links to be in more lines, it still doesn't increase the height by much. Just compare your table with my previous suggestion at the bottom of the page: there are no less articles included, but the table is less wide and I think nicer. --Orodromeus 06:45, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

That's interesting. Your version below shows up as full-width in Firefox. I had to open up IE to see what you were talking about. Looking at your code, it seems you didn't actually define a width, you just used align=center. There's nothing in there that specifies a width, so once again Firefox renders correctly and IE proves itself to be the piece of dog turd that it is. Anyway, rant aside, yes, I'm happy for it to be a bit narrower like your one is, just as long as we actually code it correctly instead of relying on a crappy non-standards-compliant browser to do it arbitrarily.Carlos 06:57, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

My bad! Don't go accusing IE just yet! My table is less wide just because I used the <br>tag, that's all. I added no code for a fixed width (and I use Mozilla here). I agree we should add a fixed width and avoid the <br> unless really necessary. --Orodromeus 07:20, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Percentage of window is fine. Oro's example is smaller than the window in my IE (though he did it manually, not with percentage, as has been explained) and it looks good. I would be subtle though--something like 95%, rather than 90%. Just barely smaller than the window. thoreaubred 13:36, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

• I cannot see why Regions and Areography could possibly need their own rows, esp if there is only a couple of entries in each. And Regions are definitely part of the Areographical features, just as the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains are considered geographic features on Earth.

If it were Earth, I don't think you would have continents in the same category as land features. In fact, if it were Geography, that would make me think more of regions and borders than of specific mountains or canyons. The latter don't belong in the same categories as region, in my opinion. thoreaubred 00:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Of course you would. You might not label them as continent names (Americas, Europe, etc.) but Geographic features certainly include the earth's tectonic plates, which are effectively continents and equivalent to these great Martian regions. Come to think of it, of course you'd include continents. Geography is the study of the earth, which includes all the physical features of the earth, of which continents are a major one. Do I need to find some sources explaining what geography is, cos I'm pretty sure you're wrong on this? Everything to do with the macro-physical structure of a planet is considered part of its 'geography', not just mountains and rocks. Carlos 03:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

All-encompassing Areography is fine. We had talked about one line regions, one line features, which could be a compromise; but definitely not 2 rows. --Orodromeus 06:02, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I'm not arguing that there is a literal difference between whether Mount Everest and Asia are both geography. What I am arguing is that in a table like this you're sort of organizing the way you would in a tree of categories, where individual locations would be a level inside of large regions, they would not be on the same level. You wouldn't see Asia next to Mount Everest, you would find Mount Everest inside of Asia.

But I'm beginning to think that the solution here is to not include regions at all, just as I don't think we should include the other planets, since there aren't really enough regions that will have their own detailed articles to justify it, and if there are one or two that well, we can fit them into Areography. So okay, we all agree on this point now. thoreaubred 13:36, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

One more thing though: On which row do we put The Demimonde? Is that Areography, or Culture? I always thought of it as a region, but it's not an areographical region in the sense that that part of Mars is actually named The Demimonde. thoreaubred 13:55, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

• Still in favour of 'Settlements', as it says with one word what 'Cities and locations' takes 3 to say. Also, it makes it clear that they are man-made, whereas locations could get blurred with regions. It's much better, IMO.

I still think it's too narrow, and I'm not sure the dictionary definition is even what you guys have in mind, but we'll see what happens. thoreaubred 00:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Ok, well what about Cities and Settlements? Inhabited regions? Something else? I just don't like Locations, because locations just means a place and that could be anything, anywhere, including Geographic features. Carlos 03:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Cities *are* settlements; big settlements that's all. Any kind of colony or human occupation site is a settlement in my book. Give me an example where the "Setlement" description doesn't apply. --Orodromeus 06:02, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I suppose we can go with Settlements, and if it becomes a problem later we can change it. I just think there will be locations that I don't think of as settlements, but at the moment I don't have a really good example in mind. thoreaubred 13:36, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

• You may not like 'Miscellanea', but I've yet to see a satisfactory and concise name for this 'leftovers' category. Really, 'Miscellanea' is the most accurate way to describe it.

Just when you made the good point that Characters was out of universe, you introduce this term which is even more awkward. It has an out-of-universe feel, like "these things were leftover in our index and we didn't know what category to put them in." You don't hear people using "miscellanea" to categorize real life places.

More importantly, I could see this current list showing up on a test asking "Which one of these things does not belong?" Antarctica is what is causing prolems here. It should be somewhere else, and then this would be a list of similar things: small, man-made (or man transformed in the case of the moons converted to space stations), in space. Call it Satellites & Spacecraft if you need it shorter, but it still makes more sense than forcing Antarctica in and then having to force a name that allows for it. thoreaubred 00:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Ok, so ditch Antarctica? I really don't mind, but I would just like to find some kind of 'catch-all' term for these leftovers, as they don't justify their own category. Satellites and Spacecraft is fine, but I was just trying to include some of the others. S&S will do then.

How about "Off-world locations"? I still want to add a link to "Terra", so we could keep Antarctica and the rest in one single category. And don't say that it's not possible because Underhill used the Ares habitacles! --Orodromeus 06:02, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Off-world locations is fine, except The Ares is kind of the odd one out then. I'd be more inclined to go with 'Satellites and Spacecraft', as that at least includes moons. If you really wanted, you could chuck planets in too, as they're satellites of the Sun. Carlos 06:21, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I see more problems with having planets being called "satellites" than categorizing the Ares as an "Off-world" object. And Deimos & Phobos are off-world. We say Armstrong was the first man to step on the surface of another world. --Orodromeus 06:45, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Ditch Antaractica no, but work it into a different row, yes. In one of my versions below I moved it to History as Antarctic Period--what do you guys think of that? And Oro, what are you going to write in an article about Terra that will make it a major article worthy of inclusion in this table? This is a table of Mars trilogy topics. Again, I think you're not approaching it as "What is most important in the context of the Mars trilogy?" you're approching it as "What things that happen to show up in the Mars trilogy are most important (or largest in size) in real life?" Trying to force other planets into this row causes the same problems as trying to force Antarctica in. It's just not worth it. thoreaubred 13:36, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

• I've kept Oro's left-justification, but padded it slightly out from the table division. Hopefully this makes it look better.

I don't have an argument against this other than my personal aesthetic preference that centered looks better. Except that on Wikipedia centered is far more common, suggesting that most people feel the same way I do. thoreaubred 00:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

To be honest, centered looks better when the left column is small, but the way it is now the centering of the right column makes the whole table look lop-sided to the right. If you manage to get the left column names down short enough, then I would support centered, but the way it is now, left is my pick. Now there's an incentive!

Personally I prefer align-left but I don't mind that much, we're really nitpicking here. What's more important for me is forcing a fixed width IMO. --Orodromeus 06:02, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

So with Factions taken out and the column on the left smaller now, does centered look good? I just took Factions out of my examples and the centered text looks pretty good to me. Also, even if we ever do want a particularly long heading on the left, is there a way to set a fixed width (or percentage) to just the left column, so that the text of the header wraps? thoreaubred 13:36, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

• Personally I'm not too fussed about the exact item content of each row, and you guys probably know the books better than me, so feel free to fine-tune it. I would, however, ask that you don't get too worked up about the included items just yet, as we should really wait till a few more articles are written before being too sure about what belongs. Perhaps we should agree to a tentative set, and then in a couple of months review it once the site is more filled in.

I think that about covers it. Righto, do your worst! Carlos 00:24, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

As I mentioned recently, I'm not at all concerned about the items included at the present time. Right now we just need examples so that we know what rows we need. thoreaubred 00:50, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

So, if we haven't come to some agreement soon, then I guess we'll have to wait till we've got a few more members and then have a good old fashioned vote. I'm trying here!

I'm pretty much go for your table Carlos! Really! We're close to agreeing now aren't we? --Orodromeus 06:02, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Almost. We'll see what thoreaubred says. (cross fingers...) Hopefully he's looked up the words 'Geography' and 'Settlement' in a dictionary before he next posts! (<-Friendly ribbing, of course! ;) ) Carlos 06:21, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Friendly ribbing understood, but if you're going to make a point of it, I would suggest that you two look up Settlement. Geography I concede, but I wasn't arguing its definition in the first place so much as I was arguing how it is applied in a context like this, which I briefly explained above. But when I look up "settlement", which I did early on in this debate, the definitions are things like "a newly established colony" or "a small community", but nothing that would include a city, or a lab that is not even a town for that matter. That said, I already said above that I'm willing to go with Settlements for now. I might change my mind later as more items are added to the row, as settlement still evokes "colony" in my mind, and that might be appropriate for the first half of Red Mars, but not overall. thoreaubred 13:36, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Ok, it sounds like we are almost in agreement, except for some very minor things. Excellent! I'll update my version of the table later today to reflect this discussion and see if everyone approves. thoreaubred, I take your point with characters about not needing to search through a bunch of minor characters to find the big ones, but I don't see why this requires special labelling. If you put them on two lines, like we had before, then it's obvious to anyone that the top row must be more major characters and the bottom one minor. And yes, I'd be happy to leave the big 'Regions' out altogether, at least until someone gets round to writing an article that justifies them. Come to think of it, the polar caps should have more right to be there than large regions. As for Antarctica, yes, putting in Antarctic period is probably ok, but I'd suggest we leave it out altogether until we have a decent article. As we've all said, the exact makeup of each row is not critical at the moment, and I think we're now pretty close to agreeing on the rows. And yes, you're right about 'Settlements', which is why I suggested 'Cities & Settlements', but Oro has a point too, and Settlements has a nice feel when talking about an emerging world. Anyway, I'm easy, but just not 'locations' for my reasons above.

Well done lads, nice teamwork! Carlos 16:25, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

"but I don't see why this requires special labelling." And I don't see what's wrong with labelling. You guys don't want it just as stubbornly as I do wan't it, so that question isn't just "Why do we need it?" but also "What would be so bad about?" Though we've already been over that point at length, I'm still not sure I understand--is it that you think people would be confused by the notion that some characters are more major than others, and yet you're okay with making such a separation as long as we don't speak its name? I'm not trying to restart a whole debate here, but that's one of the final things I still don't understand.

My only other comment at this time is, did you see my example above about The Demimonde, which was one of the "regions" I originally had in mind? Do you think it belongs in Culture or Areography or what? thoreaubred 17:59, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I'd put 'The Demimonde' in culture myself. Re: the characters, it just seems to me to be a) a horrible waste of space to label something that is inherently obvious, and b)None of the labels you've applied are really that helpful, IMO. Carlos 18:13, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

It's really not that much space. Especially once the "minor characters" sections is two or three lines, the one line used as a heading for it will seem even smaller by comparison. I've seen headings like that used in many tables on Wikipedia. thoreaubred 19:10, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

2nd attempt

Table is now updated.

• I've tried putting sub-character headings on the same row, which I think is at least better aesthetically, but I'm still bothered by their necessecity at all. Thoreaubred, if you're willing to go 'in-universe' here, then the distinction cannot really be between POV characters and non-POV anymore. In the universe, Arkady Bogdanov is a much more important figure than Art or Zo. Also, terms like 'Other important people' or 'Secondary figures' just sound awkward to me. Does two unlabelled lines not speak for itself? Do you really think people would wonder why they are split? I think it's pretty obvious myself.

It's not a matter of people being terribly confused by an unlabelled separation after they've given it ten seconds thought (after the initial seconds spent wondering, "Why is this list not in alphabetical order?") It's just an aesthetic matter of it making more sense to label the two groups. It looks sloppy to have two groups without labels, whether the average person can figure out what the groups are for themselves or not (we could get right of the entire left column and the average person could figure out what each row represents just as quickly. Self-evidence isn't the issue; common sense aesthetics is the issue.) And you sacrifice hardly any space to do it.

As for the cutoff being POV, I agree that it shouldn't be if we use headings like "Major Figures". If we don't use headings, it doesn't really matter whether POV is the cutoff or not, but it might as well be so as to be less arbitrary.

Re: awkward terms, I've always thought "secondary" is an awkward term, but I don't see anything awakward about "other important people". It's awkward if you wouldn't use it in real life. You wouldn't refer to "Secondary figures in the government," but you would refer to "Other important people in the government." thoreaubred 19:10, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

• As for centering, well, it'd be ok if we ditched the sub-character headers, because currently in my browser window, Zo is being forced onto a new line, which is ugly. Otherwise, it's ok.

Thoughts?

Well, if we use the sub-headers, Zo should be moved to the lower group anyway. thoreaubred 19:10, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Ok, so are you happy if we have:

• sub-headers on the same line as the names themselves (like my example).

I'm not sure. It there some way we can separate them on the line with something other than the bullet? thoreaubred 19:39, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Pipe? (see above). I think that looks ok. Carlos 19:45, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I was thinking something that puts even more space between the heading and the list. Maybe even just -- . thoreaubred 19:51, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Double-pipe, with extra space around it? Looks great to me. Carlos 19:56, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

• the Characters split according to a more in-universe demarkation of major and minor
• the sub-headers being 'Major figures' and 'Other people' (they're not all 'important' in-universe).

What's an example of someone worthy of being on the list who is not "important" in-universe? thoreaubred 19:39, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Not off the top of my head, but I'm sure there would be. Also, it depends if you mean official Martian history, in which case people like Desmond are not really 'important'. How about just 'Others' and avoid the issue altogether? Carlos 19:45, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Important doesn't have to mean official importance, like they held a government position or something. Desmond is Nirgal's father, Hiroko's "boyfriend", the stowaway, The Coyote! That's pretty important. There aren't many stowaways in the first colony on Mars who go on to have a child with the Mother Goddess who becomes one of the most famous Martians. I think anyone who's going to have a big enough article to warrant inclusion in the table must be important in some way. thoreaubred 19:51, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

Ok, but it's still somewhat redundant, and I'm really against redudancy. What does 'Other important people' tell us that 'Others' doesn't? That they're important? No, because if they weren't of some importance they wouldn't be on the list. Carlos 19:56, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

If you can agree to that, then I think we've got a winner. Carlos 19:18, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I'll put all my comments here. This page is getting as cluttered as the Talk page, that's both bad and good :)

• Re: Terra. You're asking me what's so important about it, not as an objective universe view but as a Mars trilogy view. Well excuse me but I think it's *very* important! Earth is the place where all of the First100 come from, it's the place they're trying to escape, it's the place from which the transnationals exert their influence to control all martian affairs, it's the big enemy when an independent martian culture starts emerging, it's the in which what happens influences what happens on Mars, it's the place where a very memorable (and considerably large, 2 parts) of Blue Mars takes place. You're thinking of putting martian regions in the table because important things happened to the characters there, but Terra is no different.

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but my point is, how much of that would you put in the Terra article? Info about the transnationals will go on their articles; Nirgal's wanderings on Earth will go on his article; and so on. What I asked is, What will you write in the Terra article that would make the article worthy of being linked to from the table? thoreaubred 04:39, 10 August 2006 (MDT)

• Re: Antarctica. I find "Antactic period" in the timeline a bit awkward. It's too centered on the First100 and we're considering the whole of Mars here. It's a preparation, not an entire period before the colonization. I'd still rather see Antarctica as a place somewhere, next to Terra, rather than in the timeline. Perhaps on the very bottom instead of "KSR Encyclopedia" and "Other Works" (which by itself is ext-universe) we could put "Antactica, Terra, Mars".

Antarctica only figures into the Mars trilogy because of the year the colonists spent there, so I don't see why it can't be thought of as a history article. Its content will be about the things that happened there between characters and the process of selecting the hundred; it won't be about city planning in McMurdo or the geology of Antarctica, things that are never mentioned. I'm not sure I understand your objection that putting the article under history is too focused on the first hundred, as the artcle will be focused on the first hundred no matter where it appears in this table. thoreaubred 04:39, 10 August 2006 (MDT)

Yes it will be about the First100 no matter what, but putting an article "Antacrtica period" in the "History" category is like all this is about is the story of the First100. Something like "Mars before manned landings" fits better in History than "what did the main characters do before going to Mars". It's the same as separating off-Mars locations from Areography. The main focus is Mars, as you said; not the Solar System nor the First100. --Orodromeus 08:41, 10 August 2006 (MDT)

• Re: Settlements. I guess "Cities & Settlements" would satisfy everyone, but it's a bit long. Can't we put something like "Cities & <br> Settlements" and put the same link on both lines?

Well, we've all agreed to go with Settlements at this point, so this is moot... thoreaubred 04:39, 10 August 2006 (MDT)

• Re: The Demimonde. Definitely culture. Sabishii is part of the Demimonde and it's nowhere near the South Pole region.

• Re: People. Esthetic reasons: I find that putting a labeling major/other doesn't look very nice, especially when alignment is centered. There are no links on the labels whereas the rest of the row and the rest of the items in the right column are links. Thoreaubred you said Zo should go to the "others" subgroup. Now I don't get it. I thought that the whole debate from the beginning was to separate POV characters (ie people we know how they think) from other characters that, important as they may be in-universe, were not granted a POV part. Then if we go on to debate who's important in-universe and who's less important in order to separate the subgroups we'll never agree. I'm still go for all-alphabetical ; or, POV & non-POV separation without headers.

--Orodromeus 03:56, 10 August 2006 (MDT)

It sounds like you posted the above comments before reading today's discussion between Carlos and myself. When the characters are thought of as "characters" and a cutoff between "major characters" and "minor characters" must be chosen, I see POV as the least arbitrary cutoff, with the added bonus of calling attention to the subjectivity of the POV system, in which we only know the other characters through the POV characters. However, Carlos made a fine point that "Characters" is out-of-universe in the first place, so we decided to go with "People". At that point, I'm more flexible about the cutoff, because it's arbitrary no matter what. Zo gets moved back with the other "minor" characters (I think of them more as medium characters, and "minor" characters as people who don't belong in the table at all), while others who are imporant in the Martian history such as Arkadt and Hiroko can move up. That said, I repeated what I said said a few times already, which was that if identifying the character separater with rows or headings was unacceptable, I would rather just see one alphabetical list, and I think I finally got that point through and we decided to go that way after all. I do think, though, that when we've got three or four lines of characters, you guys are gonna start having second thoughts, and at that time I might point out that next to three lines of minor characters two little small-text headings don't look like such a big deal, so maybe at that time we'll return to that discussion. thoreaubred 04:39, 10 August 2006 (MDT)

And that will be fine! Carlos 04:50, 10 August 2006 (MDT)

I did read everything and I understood what you said, and I did title my paragraph "People". I just wanted to group all my comments here so that they wouldn't get lost above; you gave your opinion, I'm giving mine, no need to complain about it (re: moot). Now that we've agreed, let's continue. --Orodromeus 08:41, 10 August 2006 (MDT)

Comments upon implementation

One thing that got overlooked is that the text in the rows is centered but the headings still are not. Can we recenter them as well?

Also, looking at the headings on the rows in practice, I really think these attempted compromises are doing more harm than good. I said quite a while back that you guys outnumber me and should just go with what you originally wanted and not worry about pleasing me, and I also said quite a while back that if you're are so opposed to having actual headings (i.e. not on the same row) that I would rather just see one alphabetical list like you originally wanted. So I don't know why you don't just go with that (though I still think you'll regret it when the list is three or four lines long.) It seems like we're trying to force a messy compromise in order to please everyone. I would rather have a single list that is cluttered by not messy, than a messy looking table because we couldn't agree where the headings should be placed. All my preferences are based on having the best looking and best organized table possible, but when I think something is badly organized or bad aesthetics the only compromises everyone can agree on are just as bad on both counts (or perhaps more so), just in different ways, so they're pointless and trying to reach a unanimous consensus is only making things worse. thoreaubred 22:51, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

The headings are centered for me. I haven't checked it in IE, but I will when I get home later tonight. I agree that the character names are messy, so why don't we just put them in one alphabetical list and split them up later when there is more? That sounds like a sensible option. Carlos 22:59, 9 August 2006 (MDT)

I'm not seeing any problems with header rows not being centered - even in IE. Are you still getting this? Carlos 04:49, 10 August 2006 (MDT)

Thoreaubred's Tests

Ideal:

The Mars Trilogy
Major Figures	John Boone • Frank Chalmers • Nadia Cherneshevsky • Ann Clayborne • Michel Duval • Nirgal • Art Randolph • Sax Russell • Maya Toitovna • Zo
Other Important People	Hiroko Ai • Arkady Bogdanov • Jackie Boone • Phyllis Boyle • Peter Clayborne • Desmond Hawkins
Groups & Organizations	First Hundred • Greens • Praxis • Reds • UNOMA
Culture	Areophany • Big Man • Ecopoesis • Little Red People • Viriditas
History	Timeline Antarctic Period • 1st Martian Revolution • 2nd Martian Revolution
Cities & Locations	Acheron • Bogdanov Vishniac • Burroughs • Cairo • Da Vinci • Dorsa Brevia • Echus Overlook • Nicosia • Odessa • Sabishii • Senzeni Na • Sheffield • Underhill • Zygote/Gamete
Regions	Tharsis • Valles Marineris
Areography	Olympus Mons • Pavonis Mons
Satellites & Spacecraft	The Ares • Clarke • Deimos • Novy Mir • Phobos
Kim Stanley Robinson | The Mars Trilogy | Other Works

Compromise:

The Mars Trilogy
Characters	Major Figures Hiroko Ai • Arkady Bogdanov • John Boone • Frank Chalmers • Nadia Cherneshevsky • Ann Clayborne • Michel Duval • Nirgal • Art Randolph • Sax Russell • Maya Toitovna Other Important People Jackie Boone • Phyllis Boyle • Peter Clayborne • Desmond Hawkins • Zo
Groups & Organizations	First Hundred • Greens • Praxis • Reds • UNOMA
Culture	Areophany • Big Man • Ecopoesis • Little Red People • Viriditas
History	Timeline Antarctic Period • 1st Martian Revolution • 2nd Martian Revolution
Settlements	Acheron • Bogdanov Vishniac • Burroughs • Cairo • Da Vinci • Dorsa Brevia • Echus Overlook • Nicosia • Odessa • Sabishii • Senzeni Na • Sheffield • Underhill • Zygote/Gamete
Areography	Olympus Mons • Pavonis Mons • Tharsis • Valles Marineris
Satellites & Spacecraft	The Ares • Clarke • Deimos • Novy Mir • Phobos
Kim Stanley Robinson | The Mars Trilogy | Other Works

Orodromeus' Tests

Note: the previous test is still here; it's just hidden in comments in the page source for easier reading.

Here goes without some editing artifacts (colspan unnecessary, padding=0px by default). It's now the same as Thoreaubred & Carlos with some personal additions.

The Mars Trilogy
Characters	John Boone | Frank Chalmers | Nadia Cherneshevsky | Ann Clayborne | Michel Duval | Nirgal | Art Randolph | Sax Russell | Maya Toitovna | Zo Hiroko Ai | Arkady Bogdanov | Jackie Boone | Phyllis Boyle | Peter Clayborne | Desmond Hawkins
Groups, Political parties & Organizations	First Hundred | Greens | Reds | Free Mars | Praxis | UNOMA | UNTA | Metanationals | Transnationals
Culture	Areophany | Viriditas | Gift Economy | Ecopoesis | Little Red People
Settlements	Acheron | Bogdanov Vishniac | Burroughs | Cairo | Da Vinci | Dorsa Brevia | Echus Overlook Nicosia | Odessa | Sabishii | Senzeni Na | Sheffield | Underhill | Zygote/Gamete
Areography	Tharsis | Valles Marineris Hellas | Argyre
Moons, Stations & Spacecraft	The Ares | Clarke/Space Elevator | Deimos | Phobos | Novy Mir
Off-Mars Locations	Mercury | Terra & Luna | Antarctica | Mars | Jovian Moons
History	Timeline | 1st Martian Revolution/World War III | 2nd Martian Revolution/The Great Flood | 3rd Martian Revolution | Accelerando/Second Renaissance
Kim Stanley Robinson | The Mars Trilogy | Other Works