I've made some noise in this direction in the past, but I'm working on a proper proposal to this effect that I think will really help fix some of our deletionism/mergism issues in a way that both preserves the unique content we have and keeps articles clean and informative.
I have a version of this proposal at [[User:Phil Sandifer/Extensions]] that I invite people to hammer at. Once I have it in more detail I intend to take it to the Village Pump.
==Purpose==
Wikipedia, as we often note, is not paper. But Wikipedia is fundamentally organized like paper - individual articles are still linear stretches of text that are organized, essentially, for printability. And that's good - the idea of an encyclopedia article is, structurally, linear. But it does lead to problems with a lot of information that is accurate, informative, and seems to be viewed as valuable by our readers. This information often does not fit in well with the linear structure of articles, and the system of sub-articles leads to mixed results (as evidenced by waves of deletionism, mergism, etc)
The Extensions namespace is intended to house information on articles that is relevant, accurate, and interesting, but that does not fit into a traditional encyclopedic overview of the subject.
==Precedents==
Citizendium has a version of this, which you can see on any of their articles. They call it subpages, and have a separate tab for each subpage. This is very sleek and nice, but probably unsuitable for our purposes. User-editable interface aspects would probably spiral out of control in a categories-esque fashion.
The idea of pages that organize subtopics, of course, is similar to the Portal namespace, but that seems unsuitable to this task for two reasons - first, it's really designed for top-level topics, whereas an Extensions page makes sense for smaller topics. Second, it's not well- integrated into the site interface, and so it's not really a concept accessible to the casual user.
==Scope==
My intention is that this would be used for information that is beyond the scope of articles of any sort. That includes a large amount of stuff that is often slammed as "cruft" but also things that are routinely included without question. Among the things that would be suitable:
*Plot summaries *Lengthy tables *Bibliographies, filmographies, and other such lists *Trivia and "In Popular Culture" sections *Derivations and figures (i.e. the "axioms" section of [[Zermelo– Fraenkel set theory]]) *Lists of characters, actors, etc.
The Extensions namespace could also include full-fledged sub-articles - things like [[Early life of George W. Bush]] - but they do not have to, and it may not be preferable for them to. See also "Unsolved issues" below.
==Implementation==
Imagine an article such as [[The weather in London]], which is assumed to have an accompanying talk page. The Extensions namespace would also implement [[Extensions:The weather in London]], and this would be linked to with a tab next to the Discussion tab - perhaps called "More information," or simply "Extensions."
Clicking the tab would lead you to the relevant Extensions page, which would be an organized list of links to individual extensions - perhaps tables of individual months and years of weather, the weather in London in popular culture, etc. All of these would be subpages of the extensions page - so, for instance, [[Extensions:The weather in London/ In popular culture]].
Breaking up the individual Extensions like this does increase our vandalism targets significantly, but it means that the main Extensions page can be carefully and neatly organized and scannable, and that individual figures, tables, and sections can, where relevant, be directly linked from within articles.
==Unsolved issues==
Some of these would need to be smoothed out before the namespace was launched:
*What should the namespace be called? *What should the tab in the site interface read? *Should watchlisting an article automatically watchlist the extensions (as is the case with talk pages)? *Are there more issues we need to solve?
Others are things we'll want to think about, but that decisions about will probably need to be field-tested, and that should therefore should be left to the community to decide and create norms on.:
*Where should the line between sub-article and extension be drawn? Obviously, for instance, [[I Robot]] should not become an extension of [[Isaac Asimov]]. But should [[Early life of George W. Bush]] be an extension of [[George W. Bush]]? Doing so would probably wreck a number of featured articles. But on the other hand, does it really make sense to have those be separate articles? *What are our content policies for extensions? Obviously notability gets blurrier here. Plenty of people have expressed concerns about, for instance, plot summaries and trivia sections in terms of verifiability. Others have disagreed that either pose a serious complication or problem to these policies. Ideally extensions would provide a middle ground for such things - allowing a place where we can be more permissive without hurting our overall quality. But how much more permissive? *How should the main extensions pages be organized? *How should individual extensions be linked to within articles? (In the form of "Main article: Topic" or through small sidebar boxes, for instance.) *What extensions should be linked to from within articles, and what extensions should be linked only from the extensions page?
-Phil
On 3/17/08, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
*What should the namespace be called?
I don't like this word "extensions" - I thought you meant some kind of plugin architecture at first. The most accurate word would be "appendices" wouldn't it? Failing that, something like "related information"? I'm thinking of online newspapers where it often happens that there is an article, then links to various related things, like galleries, tables, charts etc.
You're certainly right that there is a need for ways of grouping other information with an article, where it doesn't fit *inside* the article. But the idea of another article being such an attachment is awkward, and makes me think immediately of content forks. I don't think that trivia is a good candidate, for instance. Most of the trivia we delete not for space reasons, but because it's, well, trivial and isn't really adding anything of value. Galleries would be great though.
*What should the tab in the site interface read?
"More"
*Should watchlisting an article automatically watchlist the extensions (as is the case with talk pages)?
Of course.
*Are there more issues we need to solve?
Rules. Social issues. Safeguards. Avoiding all kinds of horrible crufty garbage accumulating just because it's below the radar.
*Where should the line between sub-article and extension be drawn?
Where the logical choice is between throwing out the extraneous material, or putting it on the extra page. If the choice is between the main page, or the extra page, keep it on the main.
*How should the main extensions pages be organized?
There are more than one?
*How should individual extensions be linked to within articles? (In the form of "Main article: Topic" or through small sidebar boxes, for instance.)
No one looks at the sidebar.
*What extensions should be linked to from within articles, and what extensions should be linked only from the extensions page?
If it's worth keeping the information, it's worth linking to.
Steve
On Mar 17, 2008, at 5:59 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/17/08, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
*What should the namespace be called?
I don't like this word "extensions" - I thought you meant some kind of plugin architecture at first. The most accurate word would be "appendices" wouldn't it? Failing that, something like "related information"? I'm thinking of online newspapers where it often happens that there is an article, then links to various related things, like galleries, tables, charts etc.
Being a namespace, we want one word - Appendix works, as does Supplementary. I'll add a section of the proposal for other proposed names.
You're certainly right that there is a need for ways of grouping other information with an article, where it doesn't fit *inside* the article. But the idea of another article being such an attachment is awkward, and makes me think immediately of content forks.
See, I think article forking is what we have now - look at [[George W. Bush]], or try to find the article on the 2008 Democratic primaries. We routinely content fork our articles. This, at least, branches them into a namespace attached to the main article so that we still have some sort of coherent whole.
I don't think that trivia is a good candidate, for instance. Most of the trivia we delete not for space reasons, but because it's, well, trivial and isn't really adding anything of value. Galleries would be great though.
I'm definitely of two minds on trivia sections. I think they're silly, but on the other hand once in a while I find something in there that makes me smile. And they're clearly seen as desireable to some people. My biggest concern with deleting them tends to be that they seem like a valuable resource that's not reproduced elsewhere.
But as I said, I do think they're silly. And I won't be sad to lose them.
*Are there more issues we need to solve?
Rules. Social issues. Safeguards. Avoiding all kinds of horrible crufty garbage accumulating just because it's below the radar.
As I suggested in the next section, obviously this will be a problem, but I also don't think it's one that can be solved via prior legislation. A policy on these concerns will form "in the trenches" as it were.
*Where should the line between sub-article and extension be drawn?
Where the logical choice is between throwing out the extraneous material, or putting it on the extra page. If the choice is between the main page, or the extra page, keep it on the main.
I largely agree, though I suspect that "move to extensions" will be the new merge. That said, the forces on Wikipedia that tend towards the verbose tend to overwhelm editors at every turn.
*How should the main extensions pages be organized?
There are more than one?
Well, one for each article. I'll rephrase the question in the proposal to be clearer.
*How should individual extensions be linked to within articles? (In the form of "Main article: Topic" or through small sidebar boxes, for instance.)
No one looks at the sidebar.
To be clear, I meant boxes on the right like we use for WikiQuote and the like - since our sister project links are, in many ways, similar to extensions in purpose.
*What extensions should be linked to from within articles, and what extensions should be linked only from the extensions page?
If it's worth keeping the information, it's worth linking to.
This does largely disable the need for a main extensions page, and I'm not entirely sure it's true. I think there's a lot of stuff we could link in the main article, but that it might only serve to clutter the main article with a link to something that is better left in the subpages. I think our readers will pretty quickly be trained to use extensions effectively, especially if the main extensions page for each article is well laid out.
-Phil
On 3/18/08, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
This does largely disable the need for a main extensions page, and I'm not entirely sure it's true. I think there's a lot of stuff we could link in the main article, but that it might only serve to clutter the main article with a link to something that is better left in the subpages. I think our readers will pretty quickly be trained to use extensions effectively, especially if the main extensions page for each article is well laid out.
A number of people I've spoken to about Wikipedia said they have no idea how to edit it, and that they have never seen an "edit" link. Don't overestimate the readership...
Steve
On Mar 17, 2008, at 7:06 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/18/08, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
This does largely disable the need for a main extensions page, and I'm not entirely sure it's true. I think there's a lot of stuff we could link in the main article, but that it might only serve to clutter the main article with a link to something that is better left in the subpages. I think our readers will pretty quickly be trained to use extensions effectively, especially if the main extensions page for each article is well laid out.
A number of people I've spoken to about Wikipedia said they have no idea how to edit it, and that they have never seen an "edit" link. Don't overestimate the readership...
OK. Let's go with "a reasonably savvy reader."
Though Lord knows we could do a lot better with our interface design and produce more reasonably savvy readers than we have.
-Phil
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 7:09 PM, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I've made some noise in this direction in the past, but I'm working on a proper proposal to this effect that I think will really help fix some of our deletionism/mergism issues in a way that both preserves the unique content we have and keeps articles clean and informative.
I have a version of this proposal at [[User:Phil Sandifer/Extensions]] that I invite people to hammer at. Once I have it in more detail I intend to take it to the Village Pump.
==Purpose==
Wikipedia, as we often note, is not paper. But Wikipedia is fundamentally organized like paper - individual articles are still linear stretches of text that are organized, essentially, for printability. And that's good - the idea of an encyclopedia article is, structurally, linear. But it does lead to problems with a lot of information that is accurate, informative, and seems to be viewed as valuable by our readers. This information often does not fit in well with the linear structure of articles, and the system of sub-articles leads to mixed results (as evidenced by waves of deletionism, mergism, etc)
I would only worry about it becoming unclear what went in the "main" article versus the "appendices" -- one man's cruft is another's treasure. But, this would ideally have the effect of making articles *a lot* more readable, as appendicy-type material was cut out to a separate page. I would support it.
I just discovered the articles in this category : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bibliographies_by_subject
These sorts of bibliographies would make *ideal* appendices off their main article. As it is, they're a little unwieldy as articles. But imagine, if every good or even half-way decent article had an associated "bibliography" tab, along with "appendices" and the main article... that would be pretty cool.
-- phoebe
On Mar 18, 2008, at 1:21 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:
I would only worry about it becoming unclear what went in the "main" article versus the "appendices" -- one man's cruft is another's treasure. But, this would ideally have the effect of making articles *a lot* more readable, as appendicy-type material was cut out to a separate page. I would support it.
This is why I've deliberately avoided adding policy on the use of this namespace into the proposal - it's something that I think we'd have a very hard time legislating prior to actual discussion on articles.
I just discovered the articles in this category : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bibliographies_by_subject
These sorts of bibliographies would make *ideal* appendices off their main article. As it is, they're a little unwieldy as articles. But imagine, if every good or even half-way decent article had an associated "bibliography" tab, along with "appendices" and the main article... that would be pretty cool.
That's very similar to the Citizendium method - my hesitance about it is that extensible interfaces can be a problem for us - it's much of what went wrong with categories.
-Phil
On 18/03/2008, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
That's very similar to the Citizendium method - my hesitance about it is that extensible interfaces can be a problem for us - it's much of what went wrong with categories.
Work is going into category intersections, so that they'll work more like tags - and the present querulously microscopic sub-sub-sub-sub-categories will instead be formed from the intersection of broader tags. This is particularly at the begging and pleading of Commons - tagging looks like a really good way to index and search on media - so the bugs will be worked out there.
- d.
On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 10:35 AM, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Mar 18, 2008, at 1:21 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:
I just discovered the articles in this category : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bibliographies_by_subject
These sorts of bibliographies would make *ideal* appendices off their main article. As it is, they're a little unwieldy as articles. But imagine, if every good or even half-way decent article had an associated "bibliography" tab, along with "appendices" and the main article... that would be pretty cool.
That's very similar to the Citizendium method - my hesitance about it is that extensible interfaces can be a problem for us - it's much of what went wrong with categories.
Aha! I hadn't looked at citizendium since they implemented this. Well, it seems like a good idea, if potentially a place for spam to accumulate (not to mention doing a good, comprehensive, unbiased bibliography is *hard* -- though that's no reason not to try).
-- phoebe