[[Saturday_Night_Live/Generalissimo_Francisco_Franco_is_still_dead]] ... In the second case, the main page serves to set the context of the subpage in a really nice way. Anyone stumbling into the subpage would probably be interested in visiting the main page.
Yes, that's the one use that subpages really make sense for: small topics that _only_ make sense in the context of a larger topic. But sacrificing that small utility to avoid more serious problems isn't that drastic, I think. My personal preference would be to live with longer articles (just include those short things within the main article). Accidental links aren't an issue here, precisely because these topics are context-dependent.
As soon as we move to Magnus' software, the obvious solution will be [[Nirvana (rock band)]], etc.
But how, exactly, is this really different from, let's say [[Nirvana/Rock band]]?
Because "Nirvana/Rock band" forcibly encodes an association between the rock band and the concept "Nirvana" that's not appropriate. If there were some relationship, we could still link back to it; if there is no relationship at all, we remove the author's choice.
I think it makes them easy to *guess*, though. And that's pretty important. [[History of Baseball]] or [[Baseball History]]? Hard to guess which it might be. But [[Baseball/History]] -- at least it is a system.
But Larry's right here--allowing subpages just makes three things you have to guess among rather than two. Personally, "History of Baseball" is the first thing I'd assume, because that's what it would be in a paper encyclopedia.
You might suggest: [[Baseball (History)]], but then I would respond
No, parentheses are for context to disambiguate the main term, not for sub-domains. Again, there's already a standard body of knowledge for how to do this: real encyclopedias. I'm the first to point out that we aren't constrained by paper here, but there's no reason we can't learn from the existing scholarship about how to organize and title knowledge. This has been going on for a long time, and they're very good at it.
what's the difference? And shouldn't this page link to the main [[Baseball]] page, automatically? One would think so.
"Automatic" things are great when they are things that a stupid computer can figure out. Associations between ideas are at the bottom of that list. Human beings should determine those.
Won't any convention "force" or "direct" us to think in certain ways? I hardly see this as an objection against this _particular_ convention.
Conventions are chosen freely; yes, they force you to think certain ways, because we have chosen them to do just that. We need more conventions. But we can also break them if we choose. Hard-coding things in software is harder to rebel against.
Sure, subpages are handy for some things (I use a lot of them). But they don't really do much that we can't do anyway, and they have at least one serious problem: that they enforce inappropriate conceptual relationships. I think that's 10 times as important to get rid of than any mere convenience they might have.0
You, lcrocker@nupedia.com, were spotted writing this on Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 02:51:44PM -0800:
But Larry's right here--allowing subpages just makes three things you have to guess among rather than two. Personally, "History of Baseball" is the first thing I'd assume, because that's what it would be in a paper encyclopedia.
No, it wouldn't; it would be a subsection "history" of the article "baseball". Which corresponds to subpages quite nicely.
On Thu, 8 Nov 2001, Anatoly Vorobey wrote:
You, lcrocker@nupedia.com, were spotted writing this on Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 02:51:44PM -0800:
But Larry's right here--allowing subpages just makes three things you have to guess among rather than two. Personally, "History of Baseball" is the first thing I'd assume, because that's what it would be in a paper encyclopedia.
No, it wouldn't; it would be a subsection "history" of the article "baseball". Which corresponds to subpages quite nicely.
That entirely depends on the encyclopedia. In an encyclopedia on the history of sports, it wouldn't be true. In an encyclopedia on baseball, it wouldn't be true.
We should not limit ourselves to what we see in ordinary general encyclopedias like Britannica, World Book, and the rest. We should aim to have the content, eventually, of 1,000 specialized encyclopedias, such as one of my very favorite encyclopedias, The Companion to Epistemology. This contains nearly all the information you'd find in an ordinary introduction to epistemology, and then some, broken into relatively small chunks and (in very many cases, anyway) presented from a neutral point of view.
Larry
First of all, let me apologize to everyone for even having this conversation. I really wasn't aware of all that had gone before, including the fact that Larry had already made a decision based on existing consensus.
lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
No, parentheses are for context to disambiguate the main term, not for sub-domains. Again, there's already a standard body of knowledge for how to do this: real encyclopedias. I'm the first to point out that we aren't constrained by paper here, but there's no reason we can't learn from the existing scholarship about how to organize and title knowledge. This has been going on for a long time, and they're very good at it.
That's certainly true!
"Automatic" things are great when they are things that a stupid computer can figure out. Associations between ideas are at the bottom of that list. Human beings should determine those.
O.k., that's a good counter-argument.
How about this...
There seems to be agreement that we could use the new software for the meta-wikipedia, where we want all commentary _about_ the encyclopedia to go. Why don't we start that one without subpages, and then live with it for a little while there. This will give us real world experience. If we find that we don't miss subpages, then when we move the full encyclopedia over to the new software, we can just re-align the subpages, and be happy with it, secure in the knowledge that we aren't giving up anything useful.
You, Jimmy Wales, were spotted writing this on Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 06:39:26PM -0600:
First of all, let me apologize to everyone for even having this conversation. I really wasn't aware of all that had gone before, including the fact that Larry had already made a decision based on existing consensus.
I believe this is an incorrect characterization of the issue. Larry made the decision, but it was not based on any existing consensus.
(this isn't meant to criticize Larry's decision, although I happen to think it's misguided; it's meant to be a statement of facts as they are).
I'll note in passing an uncanny resemblance of all arguments Jimmy has advanced in favor of subpages to all arguments I made on the Wikipedia discussion pages regarding the same; considering that Jimmy apparently didn't read these pages, the coincidence is remarkable.
I stopped discussing this particular issue on Wikipedia after seeing that all discussions led nowhere.
On Thu, 8 Nov 2001, Anatoly Vorobey wrote:
You, Jimmy Wales, were spotted writing this on Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 06:39:26PM -0600: > First of all, let me apologize to everyone for even having this > conversation. I really wasn't aware of all that had gone before, > including the fact that Larry had already made a decision based on > existing consensus.
I believe this is an incorrect characterization of the issue. Larry made the decision, but it was not based on any existing consensus.
Yes, I'm not aware that there was a consensus. It was, rather, a decision to get a choice behind us, in view of my understanding of the issues and in view of the fact that, by my count, most of those who had weighed in about subpages were opposed to them or wouldn't mind having them removed.
I'll note in passing an uncanny resemblance of all arguments Jimmy has advanced in favor of subpages to all arguments I made on the Wikipedia discussion pages regarding the same; considering that Jimmy apparently didn't read these pages, the coincidence is remarkable.
Well, it's just a sign that you're both observing the same phenomena, and coming to the same conclusions about them. The conclusions just happen to be wrong, in many cases! :-)
Larry
On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Jimmy Wales wrote:
First of all, let me apologize to everyone for even having this conversation. I really wasn't aware of all that had gone before, including the fact that Larry had already made a decision based on existing consensus.
And let me apologize for making a decision when there were still plenty of people wanting to talk.
But the decision has been made.
How about this...
There seems to be agreement that we could use the new software for the meta-wikipedia, where we want all commentary _about_ the encyclopedia to go. Why don't we start that one without subpages, and then live with it for a little while there. This will give us real world experience. If we find that we don't miss subpages, then when we move the full encyclopedia over to the new software, we can just re-align the subpages, and be happy with it, secure in the knowledge that we aren't giving up anything useful.
This is a rather good idea, I think. I'd like to hear what others have to say.
I personally am not at all opposed to the idea of having subpages on a commentary wiki. In that context, I frankly don't care. They also help people build their own "personal pages." On the other hand, maybe we should agree that the latter is actually a bad thing. :-/
Larry
At 02:11 PM 11/8/01 -0800, Larry Sanger wrote: <snip>
I personally am not at all opposed to the idea of having subpages on a commentary wiki. In that context, I frankly don't care. They also help people build their own "personal pages." On the other hand, maybe we should agree that the latter is actually a bad thing. :-/
I think it depends on what the personal pages contain. Mine is mostly a list of wikipedia things I've done, or mean to do (incomplete in both cases), and a few notes people wrote to me about my edits.
If I want to go on at great length about philosophy, or my life, or, well, anything, either it belongs in a regular Wikipedia page (some philosophy topics might), or it can go on my home page. My personal pages don't live at wikipedia, they live at www.redbird.org.
On Wed, 7 Nov 2001 lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
[[Saturday_Night_Live/Generalissimo_Francisco_Franco_is_still_dead]] ... In the second case, the main page serves to set the context of the subpage in a really nice way. Anyone stumbling into the subpage would probably be interested in visiting the main page.
Yes, that's the one use that subpages really make sense for: small topics that _only_ make sense in the context of a larger topic. But sacrificing that small utility to avoid more serious problems isn't that drastic, I think. My personal preference would be to live with longer articles (just include those short things within the main article). Accidental links aren't an issue here, precisely because these topics are context-dependent.
Agreed. That's another thing that needed to be said. :-)
You might suggest: [[Baseball (History)]], but then I would respond
No, parentheses are for context to disambiguate the main term, not for sub-domains. Again, there's already a standard body of knowledge for how to do this: real encyclopedias. I'm the first to point out that we aren't constrained by paper here, but there's no reason we can't learn from the existing scholarship about how to organize and title knowledge. This has been going on for a long time, and they're very good at it.
Another thing I wish I had said. :-)
what's the difference? And shouldn't this page link to the main [[Baseball]] page, automatically? One would think so.
"Automatic" things are great when they are things that a stupid computer can figure out. Associations between ideas are at the bottom of that list. Human beings should determine those.
This, by the way, is probably the most serious objection to any attempts to automate the placement of navigational links in articles. We should we leave that to chance, if it's so important?
"Let the content itself determine the structure of the web." That's my motto.
Sure, subpages are handy for some things (I use a lot of them). But they don't really do much that we can't do anyway, and they have at least one serious problem: that they enforce inappropriate conceptual relationships. I think that's 10 times as important to get rid of than any mere convenience they might have.0
I agree with that 100%. (I think there are a few other really serious problems too, though.)
Larry
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org