Michel Clasquin clasqm@mweb.co.za writes:
You mean, just like [[Batman]]? The people working on Tolkien seem to be the only ones in a huff and a hurry about this.
Well, thats different.
Primarily, because Batman is a *the* main character in the franchise, and the name of that franchise. If I use the proper noun "Batman", people know what I'm talking about. There is no ambiguity. The question is not where do you put [[Batman]], but where do you put [[Robin]]. Or [[Alfred]] (do you really want the [[Alfred]] page to be an article about an English king with poor culinary skills and and an article about Bruce Wayne's butler?
A link to both? What would you call the latter?
Similarly, whilst [[Bilbo Baggins]] is unproblematic, [[The Ring]] should probably be an article about Wagner's operatic cycle. Whereas [[Middle Earth/The Ring]] can tell us about its forging in Mount Doom, its loss in Gladden Fields yadda, yadda, yadda.
The fact remains, that (modulo the auto-wikifying of GNU/Linux, which was a bug not a feature), and when used for *disambiguation* rather than in any hierarchical sense, SUBPAGES WORKED.
It continues to baffle me that some people seem to think [[Alfred (Batman)]] is in somehow sense different from [[Batman/Alfred]] (rather than just more difficult to type).
On Thursday 31 January 2002 11:51, Gareth Owen wrote:
The question is not where do you put [[Batman]], but where do you put [[Robin]]. Or [[Alfred]] (do you really want the [[Alfred]] page to be an article about an English king with poor culinary skills and and an article about Bruce Wayne's butler?
I don't got no problem with that. See [[Thor]]
Besides, Batman's Alfred does actually have a surname, Merriweather, I think it was. So, between [[Alfred the Great]] and [[Alfred Merriweather]] the problem is solved.
At 08:01 PM 1/31/02 +0200, Michel Clasquin wrote:
On Thursday 31 January 2002 11:51, Gareth Owen wrote:
The question is not where do you put [[Batman]], but where do you put [[Robin]]. Or [[Alfred]] (do you really want the [[Alfred]] page to be an article about an English king with poor culinary skills and and an article about Bruce Wayne's butler?
I don't got no problem with that. See [[Thor]]
Besides, Batman's Alfred does actually have a surname, Merriweather, I think it was. So, between [[Alfred the Great]] and [[Alfred Merriweather]] the problem is solved.
The longer we discuss this, the more I wonder whether we actually want to encourage Wikipedia to be a guide to fictional characters.
Good, solid entries on [[Middle Earth]] and [[Batman]], yes. Separate entries on every character in either are starting to feel like overkill. And not just because there's already an online Encyclopedia of Arda.
I realize that these entries aren't really a "waste of resources," because someone who wants to write about Batman isn't necessarily going to say "Oh, well, no room for that, and we need an article about Tennesee/English line dancing/Nero/peas...." But I do wonder what impression people get when they come to Wikipedia, look at the lists of recent changes or new pages, and find so much on secondary worlds.
I also have a feeling that, well, if someone doesn't know who Tolkien is, we can be a useful resource. If they're looking for details of the life of Elrond, they're better off looking at the works of Tolkien.
As such, is it worth going to extra trouble--setting up separate forms or even namespaces--to make it easier to provide this information? Raise (poker) and Java (island) and such make sense, but I think that's as far as we should go.
On Friday 01 February 2002 01:25, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
The longer we discuss this, the more I wonder whether we actually want to encourage Wikipedia to be a guide to fictional characters. Good, solid entries on [[Middle Earth]] and [[Batman]], yes. Separate entries on every character in either are starting to feel like overkill.
A good question, Vicki.
I realize that these entries aren't really a "waste of resources," because someone who wants to write about Batman isn't necessarily going to say "Oh, well, no room for that, and we need an article about Tennesee/English line dancing/Nero/peas...."
I'm not too sure about that. "Most wanted" got weeded out steadily until it was swamped with dates, and I hope to see "Orphans" return
But I do wonder what impression people get when they come to Wikipedia, look at the lists of recent changes or new pages, and find so much on secondary worlds.
Well, maybe they think "hey, this place is hip and happening" ...
Fictional characters are not exactly the staple fare of traditional ecyclopedias. But wkp is something different - it can contain the traditional stuff but it need not be limited by it. If people feel compelled to write articles on Middle Earth then at some level it must be real and important to them. Someone looking for info on accounting practices in upper Sulawesi need never come across it.
As such, is it worth going to extra trouble--setting up separate forms or even namespaces--to make it easier to provide this information? Raise (poker) and Java (island) and such make sense, but I think that's as far as we should go.
As someone said yesterday, KEEP IT SIMPLE! Once you start creating namespaces for content, it becomes too difficult for the newbie to add new snippets and create new pages, or we may see people starting [[Utopians]] blissfully unaware that [[Utopia:characters]] already exists.
Next, we can see a flood of new namespace requests. How about one for [[Flashman:]], or maybe [[Davy Crockett:]]? This way lies madness.
clasqm Proud originator of the [[Asterix]] and [[Batman]] pages.
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