I will have to think some more before I can offer anything that might hopefully be constructive, but for now I will just compliment both Gutza and Danutz for bringing the issue to us with thoughtful explanations and reasons. I personally think that this is the most important thing: to work together with reason and love to find a solution that is satisfactory to everyone.
It occurs to me just now that in many cases, what we ought to have is something in the software similar to a "hard link" versus a "soft link" in Unix. Let me explain.
Right now, we have the concept of a "redirect". The redirect is like a soft link in Unix, i.e. the redirected term is "inferior" in some sense to the "real" name. Without making any formal comment on whether I think the decision is right or not, the redirect of "Eskimo" to "Inuit" is a reasonable example -- "Eskimo" is not the preferred term, so it is redirected to "Inuit".
But another way of going about this would be to have a way in the software to form a special bond between two terms so that the two are existentially equal from the point of view of end users of the website. Rather than being a redirect from a less preferred to a more preferred term, the two would be totally equal and linked.
This does not solve the problem of what words to use in the body of the article, so perhaps it would be pointless. But it would resolve the issue of people feeling that the redirect itself is a commentary on the validity of one use. (Sometimes we _are_ commenting on the validity of one use, and that's fine in some cases. For example, we might redirect the common name of some species into the scientific name, to promote general consistency of our naming conventions for species.)
But really, as I started out saying, I don't think I have anything really brilliant to offer in terms of solving the problem, except my usual guidance that thoughtfulness, caring, reason, love, and respect are the way forward.
--Jimbo
So, basically, instead of * When article X contains" #REDIRECT [[Y]]", it displays "Y (redirected from X)" in the title and the contents of Y we have an additional form * When article X contains "#EQUALS [[Y]]", it dispays "X" in the title and the contents of Y
That would not be consistent (it would still show "Y" as the title upon editing), but otherwise pretty easy to do.
Magnus
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I will have to think some more before I can offer anything that might hopefully be constructive, but for now I will just compliment both Gutza and Danutz for bringing the issue to us with thoughtful explanations and reasons. I personally think that this is the most important thing: to work together with reason and love to find a solution that is satisfactory to everyone.
It occurs to me just now that in many cases, what we ought to have is something in the software similar to a "hard link" versus a "soft link" in Unix. Let me explain.
Right now, we have the concept of a "redirect". The redirect is like a soft link in Unix, i.e. the redirected term is "inferior" in some sense to the "real" name. Without making any formal comment on whether I think the decision is right or not, the redirect of "Eskimo" to "Inuit" is a reasonable example -- "Eskimo" is not the preferred term, so it is redirected to "Inuit".
But another way of going about this would be to have a way in the software to form a special bond between two terms so that the two are existentially equal from the point of view of end users of the website. Rather than being a redirect from a less preferred to a more preferred term, the two would be totally equal and linked.
This does not solve the problem of what words to use in the body of the article, so perhaps it would be pointless. But it would resolve the issue of people feeling that the redirect itself is a commentary on the validity of one use. (Sometimes we _are_ commenting on the validity of one use, and that's fine in some cases. For example, we might redirect the common name of some species into the scientific name, to promote general consistency of our naming conventions for species.)
But really, as I started out saying, I don't think I have anything really brilliant to offer in terms of solving the problem, except my usual guidance that thoughtfulness, caring, reason, love, and respect are the way forward.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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