I think that the biggest reason to avoid deeper hierarchy is not constraints of the usemod engine, but constraints of our feeble human minds. It's hard to remember hierarchy. Does 'Collie' go under /animals/pets/dogs/breeds or does it go under /animal/canine/breeds or what?
Also, one reason for the success of the project so far is that it is instantly accessible. We have a concept which people grasp intuitively: "encyclopedia". And we have software that is usable with virtually no learning of any kind.
Still, I do like the idea of having some more "behind the scenes" structure.
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
On 21-04-2001, Jimmy Wales wrote thusly : This solution is of course helpful. And we are coming back to the good ol' encyclopedia approach we we have multiple entries or entries with "subentries".
There's another issue - nearly flat ( with one subpage level ) or hierarchical design of wikipedia. Computer storage and the web in particular is mostly hierarchical and tree-like. I understand constraints of the usemod engine but it would be helpful to have some sort of 'behind the scenes' hierarchy so that we could make links 'smarter'. Regards, kpj.
There are many questions of this type. Perhaps we should have this: Heart -- about the organ in general, in all kinds of animals Heart/Human Heart/Reptile Heart/Amphibian These might also be categorized under Reptilian_Anatomy/Heart Amphibian_Anatomy/Heart Human_Anatomy/Heart My general feeling is that in many cases we should just do "all of the above". But other people might have a more clever perspective than I can muster this morning. :-)
How do I reconcile situations when I write about, for instance, human heart and reptile or amphibian hearts ? Wouldn't the links clash ? Am I supposed to write [[Heart - human]] and [[Heart - reptile]] ?
-- Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, M.D | ¯aden cz³owiek nie chce umrzeæ. Ale tak rzadko Czestochowa, Poland ... | siê zdarza to, co cz³owiek chce. Stanis³aw Tym Wiêcej cytatów : http://www.cytaty.phg.pl [Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l