On http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_utilities/Talk, Larry wrote:
Manning, this is very useful, but the new Wikipedia PHP script will allow us to have all "about Wikipedia" pages in a separate "Wikipedia:" namespace. Moreover, the new script isn't going to permit subpages. Soo.... --LMS
I was unaware that a final decision (which, of course, LMS has authority to make--I'm no raving anarchist) had been made about subpages.
Is this a final decision, or just advocacy?
I think we've discussed subpages quite a bit--certainly enough to air the issues and give people a chance to state their views and change their minds--and in view of this, I've decided to get rid of them.
Let me explain this decision--I'm done arguing for it, but of course you are owed an explanation, since the issue has been very controversial.
Examining the various pages on which people have discussed them, it seems there is at least a majority of people in favor of getting rid of them or who are amenable to the idea of getting rid of them. I think it's pretty important, although perhaps not absolutely essential in every case, that we at least not contradict majority opinion, when a consensus cannot be arrived at. The majority includes many old hands who have had more experience with the problems associated with subpages than some of their newer advocates, which I also think is important. Finally, and probably as importantly as anything else, my well considered opinion is that the arguments in favor of getting rid of them are much, much stronger than the arguments in favor of keeping them. I predict yer gonna thank me in a year. (Maybe not *all* of you. :-) )
I'm going to put this up on a few relevant pages on the wiki.
Larry
At least in my mind, there is no final decision. But I'm inclined to agree with the no subpages point of view.
The only thing that bugs me about this is that subpages are just pages. The only thing that a subpage does that's different from a regular page, is link back to the main page automatically. That seems like a good thing!
Other than that, there is nothing all that special about a subpage.
One of the issues is the ease and naturalness of 'accidental linking'. If I want to casually mention [[Bill Clinton]], I shouldn't need to know that he's really under [[United States Presidents/Bill Clinton]]. But isn't that just an inappropriate use of a subpage, rather than an argument against subpages?
It is true, I think, that every subpage could be just as well titled as a regular page, or put into a pre-defined namespace like talk:.
But I really like the feature where subpages automatically link back to main pages.
Compare:
[[Military of Afghanistan]] and [[Sudan/Military]]
In the former, the author had to link back to the main page by hand, in the latter, it happened automatically.
On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, Jimmy Wales wrote:
At least in my mind, there is no final decision. But I'm inclined to agree with the no subpages point of view.
OK, but the point is, the decision has to be made whether they're going to be implemented in the new wiki software or not. I did make that decision. We could always reinstall them, yes, if we wanted to.
Larry
I've followed both sides of the issue, too. I believe that subpages are a bad idea because they discourage clear thinking about what the encyclopedia article's title really ''should'' be. I'll go along with the multiple-namespace idea, as long as the ''purpose'' of ''each'' namespace is ''clearly'' identified. So far, I like the namespaces that Magnus has come up with.
I also agree that the new software should be smart about linking to parent pages. I think it's better solved with software than with subpages. The idea of a back-link feature has been tossed around. That was a feature of Ward's original WikiWiki. It's helpful.
<>< [[tbc]]
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On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, Tim Chambers wrote:
I also agree that the new software should be smart about linking to parent pages. I think it's better solved with software than with subpages. The idea of a back-link feature has been tossed around. That was a feature of Ward's original WikiWiki. It's helpful.
Can you tell us more about that? I am imagining that this means you'd link, say, at the bottom of a page, all the pages that link to the given page? That could be cool.
Larry
Tim Chambers wrote:
I also agree that the new software should be smart about linking to parent pages. I think it's better solved with software than with subpages. The idea of a back-link feature has been tossed around. That was a feature of Ward's original WikiWiki. It's helpful.
Can you brief us on how this works? It'd be nice to have a concept of "being smart about linking to parent pages" but without the downsides (and I agree there are many) to subpages.
On Wednesday 07 November 2001 02:40, you wrote:
Compare:
[[Military of Afghanistan]] and [[Sudan/Military]]
In the former, the author had to link back to the main page by hand, in the latter, it happened automatically.
But I could have arrived at [[Military of Afghanistan]] either from [[Military]] or [[Afghanistan]]. Odds are I want to return to the page I came from, not the other one. For which purpose we have a little thing called a Back button in most browsers <g>, so the linkback's function is still there, really for the majority of cases. Given all the other problems subpages seem to cause, I agree that we can nix them.
PS. the meat world has caught up with me and I have had to cut down on my wiki activities for a while. But as [[Arnold|Terminator]] put it "I'll be back"
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