Talk:Eura Garb

Thank-you for fixing up my mistakes, Cian.

Is there anything else I should be adding to this article (other than the usual random updating that naturally occurs on wikis)? How detailed and obsessive can one article get before it gets too damn scary?

• That's okay. The main thing to remember is that most pages are for singular nouns, not plurals (of course, shoes is an exception).So a link is for mitten not mittens. Of course, someone might have to write the corresponding page too.
  
  The main thing I as a recreater would like to know is what periods is Eura Garb supposed to cover and what does it look like. All you have said is that the early reconstructions seemed to regard it as iron age but the modern reconstructions put them in at least the 11th century. Is there a definite range of years? And other than the link to the peplos page, I have no idea what they look like. A hand-drawn or copyright-free image might be helpful. Also, is this only representative of Finnish clothing or do the experts say that it also reflects the dress of other areas well? - Cian Gillebhrath 21:40, 28 Dec 2005 (CST)

• • Ah, the iron age is the 11th century in the Northern Scandinavian/ Finnish backwaters. (The Iron Age up there lasted from 3000 BC-1000 AD.) Possibly it should be rephrased viking age, as then more people would understand what era? - Asfridhr Ulfvidhardottir

• In my opinion, an article can get pretty obsessive. But if it does it's best if it defines all it's terms, and presuppositions. This doesn't have to be in the article (although some central ones like iron age is 11th C should be), but could be in linked articles. For example, if you said the mittens were naalbound, futher details of the technique could be left to the naalbinding page. (after checking it exists and is useful). Sometimes we do leave out central bit - eg leaving side articles unwritten, because we hope someone (maybe ourselves) will fill in the gap later.

I think the general wiki reader is not going to be an expert on any given topic (but many will have a moderate backgound in medieval stuff), so it's best to write for them - ie, explain everything or at least build in links for pages where such things will be explained. That doesn't mean you can't build up to quite complicated stuff (have a look at Scholasticism Renaissance, Stone_Carving, Pallet, 12th_century_calendar, Graelant). Also if a large collection of articles exists on a topic, then they will get referred to by more special-ists, and thus can have more special-ised info. Of course, in the real world, we are just happy to have people write about what they know, in any depth of focus. We don't let perfect or completeness get in the way of having something now, especially in places where there may be no other easy to find info on the web. If you haven't already, check Cunnan:How_does_one_edit_a_page for info on how to make a link say words other than the title of what it links to - I think you'll find that indispensible. Tiff 00:59, 30 Dec 2005 (CST)