On 16/12/2008, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
As a human user of interwiki links, I don't necessarily use them as a way of saying "here is an article on the same topic", but "here is an article that also covers this topic". I do agree with you in this particular case---maybe I'm wrong on this, but I don't generally expect links to *narrower* topics. But links to *wider* topics are fine, if the linked article does cover the specific topic.
So English wikipedia 'Rocket', which is intended to be an encyclopedic article on rocket *vehicles* including rocket planes like the X-1 ( :-) ) wouldn't link anywhere? Is that right?
Having checked the other articles, neither the French nor German articles are anything like as broad. So you seem to be arguing that that's right and all the links should be removed. I'm really not sure about this.
One big problem is that the article names frequently affect the article scope. Any two languages use the term "rocket" in different ways and this lends a different scope. In one language it may be a vehicle. In another a missile only. In a third it might be the engine.
I think using this link for anything other than synonymity reduces the usefullness and gets nothing back.
So, unless you have coordination of article scope between languages, then these links cannot be exact. And trying to get coordination between languages just to impose exact cross-linking for a bunch of bots- don't even think about going there, the problems would be *massive*.
So far as I can tell, these links are used by humans to denote synonimity. Using bots to assert synonimity based on transitivity might probabilistically work for at most a few hops. Beyond that, the bots will get it wrong too often to be much use; they just don't know what's going on well enough.
-Mark