Category talk:Tabularium (Nova Roma)

Contents 1 Visual Presentation 2 CJNR 3 Subcategories 4 Cat Head Text 5 Inclusion of the Commentarii Pontificum 6 Categorisation of Leges

Visual Presentation

All editors please read this.

I see this section of our site is getting a lot of non-standard presentation elements. This practice must stop. I mean things like HTML "break" elements, using LI elements to provide indent and other things as well. If there is a display problem, we can deal with that using our stylesheets and classes. Adding presentation elements to articles is a horrible practice that makes upkeep far more difficult. In short, resist the temptation to "prettify" individual articles. It is 2007 after all, not 1985. We have tools to deal with presentation that work site-wide. Anything else will just make breakage of future skins likely. Really seriously, folks, this is a system-wide issue. Anyone with a working knowledge of XHTML (who can code to validation to the "strict" DTD) and CSS (level 1), and ideally experience with MediaWiki skins is welcome to contact me and I will give you a lot of work. Any specific presentation issues should be brought to my attention and I will try to get something worked out systematically. Well, actually, I will get something worked out. Agricola 17:20, 31 August 2007 (CEST)

CJNR

Too bad that all the work that went into the CJNR is being ignored. I suspect that since the CJNR was an early addition, later editors did not become aware of it. For this reason I am placing this page on protection, in the hope that we can have a real plan in place before any more energy is spent on duplications. Agricola 07:17, 25 August 2007 (CEST)

I would like to see a discussion regarding the "Novaroman Law Handbook", specifically stating why the existing CJNR cannot form the basis for this. Considerable time has been spent on the CJNR and I would dislike to see that wasted. On the other hand, if there is a fundamental flaw in the CJNR that makes it unusable, I would be willing to delete it, rather than seeing it hang on incomplete. Either way is fine, but let there please be a thoughtful reason. I urge in the strongest terms that we recruit someone from outside legal circles to look at what we have already (CJNR). If we want to write "in terms understandable by every citizen and reader", then it is best practice to get input from one or two non-specialists, at least. If we do that now we could avert the need for future potential revisions. I am not particularly happy with the CJNR title, by the way, so a move to something reasonable, and linkable would find support from me. In short, please look seriously at CJNR and explain either how it can be improved, modified, transformed or otherwise used, or why it must be abandoned. This commentary is not legal text itself. It is a community resource, so let's get the community in on the ground floor and build to last. Agricola 17:20, 31 August 2007 (CEST)

For what it's worth, I do not like the CJNR and I do not find it helpful. But even if it is helpful to others, I do not think it ought to be included as part of the tabularium. The tabularium is a repository for legal texts. Tools which help people understand and circumnavigate those texts are jolly good, but it is not the place of the official organs of government to endorse any particular tool as any kind of official or definitive guide. Different people will have different interpretations of legal documents, and it would be iniquitous to present one interpretation as more valid than another by including it as part of the tabularium. It may be thought that the CJNR does not engage in interpretation, but I say that even classifying documents by topic is a form of interpretation: it involves decisions about what is the main or essential topic of a given text, and that is a decision about the true meaning, i.e. the interpretation, of the text.

For the same reason, I am extremely troubled by the suggestion of creating any sort of official handbook of modern Roman law. It would, in effect, put the resources of the state behind a particular interpretation of the law regardless of whether that interpretation had the sanction of consensus, magisterial authority, decisions of a court of law, or indeed common sense. A handbook might be a very useful thing, but it should not be in the tabularium and I am not certain it should be on the website at all.

- Cordus 21:00, 31 August 2007 (CEST)

It is an interesting point. In the extreme there is of course the "search" function. It is in fact quite efficient and very much under-used. In any event you articulate well why this discussion is needed. You also point to the very thing that was on my mind when I suggested those magisterial domain templates last year. There is very little here that is canon. If we mark that explicitly, would you be more comfortable with everything else being "non-canon" by implication? Or does the fact that it occupies the NR server taint it all? I could easily be convinced of that as it is consistent with post-modern understanding of power in the classroom, for example. Agricola 05:18, 1 September 2007 (CEST)

Subcategories

For discussion:

1. Subcategories should cover all topics in the tabularium.
2. Every item should be in at least one subcat.
3. Any item may be in more than one subcat, as appropriate.
4. The main tabularium cat (in addition to the top matter) should contain only subcats, with very few or no exceptions (e.g., maybe the constitution that is in force at present).

Agricola 07:27, 25 August 2007 (CEST)

Addendum: One giant category full of everything isn't very useful, it seems to me, but if the community thinks it is, then so be it. My preference would be a cleaner organization and then use index pages for comprehensive listings. If we go for the one giant cat, then we have to discuss indexing (see message from Q·CAEC·MET·POST below). Anyone who is really interested in categories in MediaWiki can read the almost excessively comprehensive online documentation at meta-mediawiki. Agricola 17:20, 31 August 2007 (CEST)

Those all sound like sensible principles to me.

- Cordus 13:37, 26 August 2007 (CEST)

I now have a single template to replace the seven or so now in use. It will handle all the category assignments automatically. This will be a big time savings in addition to ensuring that the status that is displayed always matches the category assignment. Since I'll probably write a bot to handle this conversion, we can postpone the cat discussion for the time being. (Because once a single template handles all the cats, we will be able to do all the cat assignments for all articles at once, with a single edit.) Let's take a look at the presentation and cats used before too long, maybe in the next couple of weeks, if possible. Agricola 17:20, 31 August 2007 (CEST)

I'll be away over the weekend, but I'll play with the new template jobbies when I get back.

- Cordus 23:45, 31 August 2007 (CEST)

Cat Head Text

The head text on this cat page talks a lot about what we plan and so forth. This sort of thing belongs on this talk page, not cluttering up the main article. Let's strive to be clear, simple and concise. Barring negative comments I will soon have at that material and move a lot of it here. Agricola 09:41, 25 August 2007 (CEST)

Agreed, though some brief explanation of the nature of the category could usefully remain.

- Cordus 13:37, 26 August 2007 (CEST)

What I would really like to see first is to move any talk about the historical building in Rome to its own article, leaving a link behind. This is especially important because, as the present text states, the functions of the two tabularia are not the same. This also satisfies our principle that articles about NR and RA should have good separation. We have already have a cat for Category:Archaeological sites in Rome, in which the article should be put, and I have a number of pictures of the tabularium itself, both from the forum and also inside the passage. I'll upload the photos as soon as I see the article appear. Agricola 17:20, 31 August 2007 (CEST)

Inclusion of the Commentarii Pontificum

I realise that this was likely by my own doing, but should we include the Commentarii Pontificum (i.e., responsa) in the Tabularium? Since they do have no legal bearing, it seems to me that they might be better placed with items on the cultus Deorum. Thoughts, anyone? Metellus 03:10, 13 November 2006 (CET)

Let's not view this as "the laws", let's say this is where we put official documents that should be protected from edits. Does that solve the problem? Agricola 07:27, 25 August 2007 (CEST)

Categorisation of Leges

In looking at the list on this category page, I think that for the sake of ease, it might be more user-friendly to categorise the leges either A) by name (e.g. lex Vedia in the 'V' part of the alphabetical list; or B) by the topic as given in the name (e.g. a Lex Vedia Provincialis would be found in the 'P' section). Any thoughts on this? Q·CAEC·MET·POST 03:45, 12 February 2007 (CET)