"Steve Bennett" wrote
Let me ask you, what do you see as the basic model for readers finding a given article? Are you focussing primarily on a reader coming to Wikipedia to find information on a very specific topic? What if he just wants to browse? What if he doesn't know what he wants?
There are half-a-dozen major ways.
Let's take an example, [[Template:Energy Conversion]]. Do you consider this intrusive? Do you not think there is value in raising the visibility of all these topics? Do you not think there is value in showing how many different solar power topics there are compared to only three wind power topics? Had you heard of "blue energy"? Does it make you wonder what "Anaerobic digestion" is doing in amongst energy conversion topics?
I think navigation boxes serve to stimulate interest and lead readers to other, related topics. And if we can stimulate the reader's interest, we can stimulate him to help us, don't you think?
Another way to put it: they are tendentious and can even be considered a type of advertising. We have debated this recently at the mathematics WikiProject, and apart from calculus, where students may well want to get from one calculus article to another via a menu of suggestions, and a few limited list like exceptional Lie groups, there is no enthusiasm at all.
Charles
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Not to mention that categories require articles to exist. You can combine a bunch of stubs into a list.
From what I've seen the idea has become less common, but a few months ago
there were plenty of people saying lists were obsolete to categories. As long as we all understand they are complementary, I'm happy.
Mgm
And red links, of course.
--Ryan
On 12/4/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Not to mention that categories require articles to exist. You can combine a bunch of stubs into a list.
From what I've seen the idea has become less common, but a few months ago
there were plenty of people saying lists were obsolete to categories. As long as we all understand they are complementary, I'm happy.
Mgm _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/4/06, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Another way to put it: they are tendentious and can even be considered a type of advertising.
Advertising as in "Come and see the great article I wrote"? I don't see any harm in this, and indeed, it would serve as encouragement to our readers. I shamelessly add links to articles I write. You could also call this [[WP:BTW|building the web]]. As long as it's not too obnoxious, relevant links to groups of articles that Wikipedia has are valuable.
We have debated this recently at the mathematics WikiProject, and
apart from calculus, where students may well want to get from one calculus article to another via a menu of suggestions, and a few limited list like exceptional Lie groups, there is no enthusiasm at all.
This may say something about mathematicians :) Now, I just had a look at [[Trigonometry]], and I really wouldn't have guessed, until I clicked on the category link that there somewhere between 44 and 53 articles about trigonometry. Wikipedia has such an incredible depth of material that it seems a shame not to make that more visible. Why not a navigational box that effectively carves out that part of Wikipedia as a specialist encyclopaedia on trigonemetry?
Steve