On 10/12/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
If you want almost everything linked then you want something that could be accomplished by machine. Better to run some userscript that autolinks dates/etc than to fill the article with low value links:
To me a "low value link" is one that pipes a noun into a verb, adjective, adverb, etc. e.g.
*[[malice|maliciously]] [[injury|injured]] by a [[baldness|bald]] [[table tennis|ping pong player]].
I remove this sort of crap if I see it but I can almost guarantee they weren't added by any machine.
The machine linking can do it with perfect consistency and does not require per-article effort to maintain
Yeah, uh huh. *Sherman ordered them to [[March 2000]] furlongs eastward. *On channel [[12 June]] Cleaver is cooking supper. *Every [[December 30]] relatives show up uninvited. *On [[January 6]], [[1680]] homes lost electricity.
while the manual linking allows the identification of the significant, a task the machine is ill suited for, and preserves the ability for people who do not care for everything being linked to still browse with the most significant links provided.
Frankly I don't trust the community to decide which links are significant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Switzerland&diff=prev&oldi...
If dates, sovereign nations, and their official languages are really "low-value links" Wikipedia might as well be written on paper.
On 10/12/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Why the *first* appearance? We've been able to link into sections for a long time, there are many articles I've read whos intros I've probably never seen. Do you never become curious about some date on the Nth occurrence rather than the first?
I will agree with this. Surely one becomes more curious when information is repeated, not less. Once per "screen height" is probably idea. I'd want more if using sortable tables.
—C.W.