"MF" == Mike Friedman friedo@friedo.com writes:
MF> I think there needs to be a method for creating sub-articles MF> which share content with their parent in a permanent way. I MF> think this would be extremely beneficial in creating content MF> where there is a need for hierarchical organization.
MF> In particular, what I envision is a special tag which could be MF> placed in a sub-heading, which would collapse everything from MF> that point to the next heading behind a link that says "Read MF> more..." (or similar.)
The way this is currently done in Wikipedia is thus:
Algeria.
== Agriculture ==
See [[Agriculture of Algeria]]
== Metallurgy ==
See [[Metallurgy of Algeria]]
Subpages are pretty much disparaged on Wikipedia, but this could also be:
Algeria.
== Agriculture ==
See [[Algeria/Agriculture]]
== Metallurgy ==
See [[Algeria/Metallurgy]]
The big problem with sub-pages, as I understand it, is that hierarchical information networks imply a certain way of looking at that information. And that's not always justified. For example, why wouldn't "Metallurgy" be like this?
Metallurgy.
== In Algeria ==
See [[Metallurgy/Algeria]]
== In Spain ==
See [[Metallurgy/Spain]]
Having an intertwingled network rather than a strict hierarchy allows us to structure and re-structure information in extremely interesting ways.
That said, I think twist-down sub-sections of MediaWiki articles would be somewhat useful.
~ESP