I've already briefly discussed this with Gary on his user talk page. A few observations:

In his proposal below, Gary does not explicitly deal with what happens when a previously unambiguous name is given a second meaning. Here's what I suggest:

* The original page is moved to a disambiguated name. This name is selected by the user who creates the second page. * All existing links are updated via the pipe trick to point to the newly-disambiguated primary article.

Gary's "resolve links" page, in my opinion, could be made easier to use by making it a list of links, each one followed by a combo box, rather than a clone of the full article.

As I said on [[User talk:Gaz]], this kind of software disambiguation, if implemented properly, could satisfy both camps in the city names preemptive disambiguation debate (see wikiEN-L). Pre-emptive disambiguation would be (IMHO) unnecessary, and since manual links to [[Perth]] instead of [[Perth, Australia]] are encouraged, I would see no reason to push primary-topic disambiguation.

Gary, are you offering to code this?

-- Tim Starling.

From: Gary Curtis wikiman@freemail.com.au Reply-To: wikitech-l@wikipedia.org To: wikitech-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [Wikitech-l] Software Assisted Context Resolution Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 05:08:12 GMT

Hi people. This is my first post to wikitech-l, and its a biggun. I've been mulling over this idea for a while now and have finally gotten the electrons moving...

I propose a number of changes to the Wikipedia software to enable "software assisted context resolution", or if you prefer "software assisted disambiguation". The primary purpose of these changes is to allow users to more easily resolve ambiguous links at the time they are created, or if necessary, at some later stage. I stress that this is not "automatic" link resolution, although the process will be invoked automatically in many cases.

The process, detailed below, is invoked in two ways. The first would be manually and explicitly by the user. The secound would be automatic when an article with new or modified links it saved.

To enable this process to be invoked manually I propose that a new meta-link be added to the footer of every page that contains at least one link (most pages). IMHO, an appropriate position would be between "Edit this page" and "Discuss this page". It would read "Resolve links", and invoke a page titled "Resolving links from (real title)". This new page would look identical to the original except that the destination of each link is changed to a "context selection" page as detailed below. Note that it is entirely possible (and probable) that many links will point to UNambiguous pages. "Context selection" pages will still be generated for these links as the user may have found the first instance of ambiguity and will need to deal with it.

The "context resolution" process would also be invoked when an article is saved, and the article contains new or modified links. In this case the "context resolution" page would not be a mimic of the real page. Rather, a short list of new or modified links would be generated in the form of an alphabetized list.

The "context selection" pages are generated from the articles currently known as "disambiguation pages". The bulleted list found in these articles is transformed into a set of radio buttons. In addition, a radio button is generated that basically means "unresolved". At the bottom of this list is a small form to allow new links and associated context descriptions to be added. Whichever option is selected from this page, the link in the calling page is adjusted to point to the selected destination article, with the original text preserved by using the pipe trick.

A by-product of these changes will be that the "context selection" pages will, in the main, be updated by the wiki software (as opposed to hand editted). This should make it possible to more tightly control the layout of these pages, perhaps with the addition of subheadings like "People", "Places", "Things". Further, when the "Edit this page" link is clicked on a "context selection" page, the normal edit page is replaced by a purpose- built form for editing such pages.

I understand that there are probably a millions reasons why some aspect(s) of the above will be difficult or impracticable. I hope that the general concept is possible and feasible.

Gary Curtis [[User:Gaz]] on Wiki <wikiman.at.freemail.dot.com.dot.au> for all Wiki email

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