[[Wikipedia:Merging encyclopedias]] is about one of those slow-burning, long term issues: engulfing material such as the 1911 EB.
It turns out that there is a bit more than meets the eye, and a few of us have been working on an essay that records some experience in the field. I've just now moved it out of my userspace because we seem to have a stable version.
Charles
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How does a mathematician write: "That begs the question of what happens to the bluelinks that are taken out of the Red List."
Anyway, some comments.
I think the essay could benefit from some more structure - basically, an architecture designed to comprehensively treat the problem of merging encyclopedias. There is a lot there, but headers like "More general yet" with a single sentence make it harder, I think, to use the essay as a "how-to" sort of resource.
I was under the (mistaken, I guess) impression that there wasn't all that much going on in this area. Can you give us an idea of what the current activity is at English Wikipedia relative to merging PD reference works? You cite the issue of losing important history of the project - would it make more sense to not use the article talkpage to track progression, but instead to maintain ratings and status information inside the project management page structure?
On ratings specifically - one reason it might make more sense to use a central resource for all page ratings and other data is the recent opposition to rating and project templates. I think we've found that the ratings don't get used much, although it varies from project to project. A lot of the templates just get removed, and if the page is moved or deleted I think they often get lost even if the article is later restored.
Good work, I wonder if this could be fleshed out into a 'pedia merging guideline instead of an essay?
Nathan
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:43 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
[[Wikipedia:Merging encyclopedias]] is about one of those slow-burning, long term issues: engulfing material such as the 1911 EB.
It turns out that there is a bit more than meets the eye, and a few of us have been working on an essay that records some experience in the field. I've just now moved it out of my userspace because we seem to have a stable version.
Charles
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