Jan Hidders wrote:
Why not [[George Washington (person)]]. I thought that was the whole point of having namespaces. That reminds of something else I wanted to ask. Why do we now have two namespace concepts? (We have "X:Y" and we have "Y (X)".) I would vote for one namespace concept with one notation: X (Y).
I think the two are different: the software enforced name spaces are there to separate the encyclopedia proper from all the cruft surrounding it. Your parenthesis notation serves mainly to distinguish several concepts with the same name: [[Cardinal (bird)]], [[Cardinal (person)]]. I don't think people want to or should be required to universally slap on "(person)" to every title that describes a person.
Jimbo's "tagging" idea is different still. I agree with Magnus: if such a tagging is to take place, it would have to happen on the article level, maybe easiest as a little choice list when you edit and submit an article (Place, Idea, Person, etc.) That wouldn't complicate matters for contributors (they could always ignore the choice list and leave it at the default). I don't immediately see the payoff though.
Axel
From: "Axel Boldt" axel@uni-paderborn.de
I think the two are different: the software enforced name spaces are there to separate the encyclopedia proper from all the cruft surrounding it.
Why do we want to do that? Because some pages are generated? That is more elegantly solved with macro's like {{{MostWanted}} and {{{SpecialPages}}}. So why then?
Your parenthesis notation serves mainly to distinguish several concepts with the same name: [[Cardinal (bird)]], [[Cardinal (person)]]. I don't think people want to or should be required to universally slap on "(person)" to every title that describes a person.
I don't see how that is implied by what I said. All I am saying is that we could replace names like "special:MostWanted" with something like "MostWanted (Wikipedia)" and "user_talk:AxelBoldt" with "Axel Boldt (Talk)" (or, better: "Talk (Axel Boldt)"). Of course you would then reserve certain namespaces such as Wikipedia so people couldn't add terms in those namespaces, or even make all those pages uneditable for non-sysops, but otherwise they would be treated equally.
Why? This would keep the software and the interface simple and more consistent. Look at the links to namespaces at the bottom of pages. Sometimes there is none, sometimes one, sometimes two. Why is that? And why on earth is the link to a discussion page called a namespace? And why is there no Talk page for SpecialPages?
In my scheme you would have the same rules for every page: 1. at the bottom of page "X" there is a discussion link to "Talk (X)" except when "X" is already of the form "Talk (Y)". 2. at the bottom of page "X (Y)" there is a link to namespace "Y"
Or is that too simple? :-)
-- Jan Hidders
I don't see how that is implied by what I said. All I am saying is that we could replace names like "special:MostWanted" with something like "MostWanted (Wikipedia)" and "user_talk:AxelBoldt" with "Axel Boldt (Talk)" (or, better: "Talk (Axel Boldt)"). Of course you would then reserve certain namespaces such as Wikipedia so people couldn't add terms in those namespaces, or even make all those pages uneditable for non-sysops, but otherwise they would be treated equally.
But, then you want to filter all non-encyclopedia articles from your search (should become a standard option on searches). Then what? Now, all you have to do is say "no articles with : in them". How do you filter something like "Talk (Axel Boldt)"? All articles starting with "Talk ("? And then the same thing for wikipedia? And move the user pages back into the normal namespace? Or "User (Axel Boldt)"? Like "User (computer)"?
Somehow, I fail to see the beauty of that.
Why? This would keep the software and the interface simple and more consistent. Look at the links to namespaces at the bottom of pages. Sometimes there is none, sometimes one, sometimes two. Why is that? And why on earth is the link to a discussion page called a namespace? And why is there no Talk page for SpecialPages?
Looks more like a layout problem than anything else. At the time I installed namespaces, listing all of 'em "en blocc" seemed easiest. No reason not to change that to something more readable.
In my scheme you would have the same rules for every page:
- at the bottom of page "X" there is a discussion link to "Talk
(X)" except when "X" is already of the form "Talk (Y)". 2. at the bottom of page "X (Y)" there is a link to namespace "Y"
Or is that too simple? :-)
That must be it! ;)
Magnus
From: "Magnus Manske" Magnus.Manske@epost.de
But, then you want to filter all non-encyclopedia articles from your
search
(should become a standard option on searches). Then what? Now, all you
have
to do is say "no articles with : in them". How do you filter something
like
"Talk (Axel Boldt)"? All articles starting with "Talk ("?
.. and ending with ")". Exactly.
And then the same thing for wikipedia?
Yes, everying ending with "(Wikipedia)" is filtered out if you choose so. Why do you think that is a problem?
And move the user pages back into the normal namespace?
No, you would have "Axel Boldt (User)". The namespaces "(Wikipedia)" and "(User)" would probably then be special restricted namespaces that replace "special:" and "user:".
Why? This would keep the software and the interface simple and more consistent. Look at the links to namespaces at the bottom of pages. Sometimes there is none, sometimes one, sometimes two. Why is that? And why on earth is the link to a discussion page called a namespace? And why is there no Talk page for SpecialPages?
Looks more like a layout problem than anything else. At the time I
installed
namespaces, listing all of 'em "en blocc" seemed easiest. No reason not to change that to something more readable.
How about user friendliness? Is that not a good reason? But the names was only one point. What matters is that it should be either obvious or easy to explain why these links are there an what they mean. I believe we can do better than this.
-- Jan Hidders
On Wed, 13 Feb 2002, Jan Hidders wrote:
How about user friendliness? Is that not a good reason? But the names was only one point. What matters is that it should be either obvious or easy to explain why these links are there an what they mean. I believe we can do better than this.
I think your solution is actually less user-friendly. We simply need to retain namespaces (they work fine, for the most part) and provide unique, user-friendly templates (I guess) for pages in different namespaces. E.g., talk pages could have one frame color and set of links--even font. Wikipedia pages could have a different frame color, and of course different links. User pages and special pages, ditto. The user should have the experience of being in different *parts* of the website, even though the thing is run from the same database. That's what's going to constitute a real improvement in useability. Making the page names all the same format doesn't constitute a significant improvement in user friendliness at all, that I can see. It's a decided disimprovement insofar as we use ":" to indicate namespaces and thus website page function, and we use "(...)" to disambiguate similarly-named topics.
Larry
From: "Larry Sanger" lsanger@nupedia.com
I think your solution is actually less user-friendly. We simply need to retain namespaces (they work fine, for the most part) and provide unique, user-friendly templates (I guess) for pages in different namespaces.
Well, it seems that the battle is over, and I lost. :-) I'm still not really convinced because I feel that you are seeing threats that are not really there. Was consistency ever a real problem when we still had subpages? Yes, some articles contained pieces of discussion that belonged on the Talk pages, but that was usually solved in time. Also in my proposal the pages would not exactly behave the same: The talk pages would not have a Talk link; below non-Talk pages there would be link to a corresponding Talk page; the system pages would not have an edit link; the user page is where you arrive when you click your name after the login; and finally there is of course the contents of the page itself (people read you know :-)). Giving them a different background color is something that I would not have a problem with. But the buttons, links, menus, et cetera should basically look the same, be in the same place and do the same things although some might be missing or disabled. This is lesson #1 from user interface design: the interface should not be modal.
Let me make one other final remark: What I am missing a bit at the moment is an obvious place to put my personal stuff. It's now all in Jan_Hidders/Whatever because that is where the script put it, but actually it should be in user:Jan_Hidders/Whatever, or should it? Yes it should, because it is clearly not an encyclopedia article so it should be in the user: namespace. Would it be an interesting idea to push new users in the right direction by, dare I say it, reintroducing subpages (no, please, don't walk away, hear me out) but limited to home pages only?
Anyway, I had my day in court and I'll leave it at that. I'll be happy to help implement whatever you guys suggest.
-- Jan Hidders
Also in my proposal the pages would not exactly behave the same: The talk pages would not have a Talk link; below non-Talk pages there would be link to a corresponding Talk page; the system pages would not have an edit link; the user page is where you arrive when you click your name after the login; and finally there is of course the contents of the page itself (people read you know :-)). Giving them a different background color is something that I would not have a problem with. But the buttons, links, menus, et cetera should basically look the same, be in the same place and do the same things although some might be missing or disabled. This is lesson #1 from user interface design: the interface should not be modal.
I don't see anything that can't be made with namespaces as well, mainly by altering the display of the namespaces. Instead of ":Main Page" on "Talk:Main Page", it could read "Back to the article".
Let me make one other final remark: What I am missing a bit at the moment is an obvious place to put my personal stuff. It's now all in Jan_Hidders/Whatever because that is where the script put it, but actually it should be in user:Jan_Hidders/Whatever, or should it? Yes it should, because it is clearly not an encyclopedia article so it should be in the user: namespace. Would it be an interesting idea to push new users in the right direction by, dare I say it, reintroducing subpages (no, please, don't walk away, hear me out) but limited to home pages only?
We,, the conversion script just couldn't figure out what is user page and what is article, so all of it got converted the same way. Fell free to create "User:Jan Hidders/Whatever", just remember to link back to your user page (~~~).
Anyway, I had my day in court and I'll leave it at that. I'll be happy to help implement whatever you guys suggest.
I am not judging you, and neither is the honorable Larry :]
Magnus
From: "Magnus Manske" Magnus.Manske@epost.de
We,, the conversion script just couldn't figure out what is user page and what is article, so all of it got converted the same way. Fell free to create "User:Jan Hidders/Whatever", just remember to link back to your
user
page (~~~).
Of course, my point was that people apparently have a need to create a few pages for themselves. These pages should be in the user namespace. So it should be tempting and obvious for the user to create his or her pages there when on it's own home page.
The usual semantics of namespaces is that by default, i.e., when no namespace is indicated, links stay within that namespace. Note how nicely that fits in, for example, with special frozen articles that, by default, link to other frozen articles. (But with some redirection of course, if there is no such frozen version at the end of the link.) That is actually what you would like for the user namespace, because then (when you are on your home page) it would take some effort to create a page that is outside that name space. But this is a bit cumbersome because the home pages and the other personal pages of all the users would be in the same name space. This suggests to me that every user should have his or her own namespace.
-- Jan Hidders
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