[WikiEN-l] Serious problems with interlanguage links

[Ian Woollard]

On 05/12/2008, Lukasz Bolikowski <L.Bolikowski at icm.edu.pl> wrote:
> A short introduction: let's say that two articles are connected if there
> is an interlanguage link from one to the other in at least one
> direction.

Yes.

> Next, let's say that if A-B and B-C are connected, then A-C
> are too.

No. That's only generally true for equality relations.

Equivalence relations are not equality relations.

For example in maths, if you need a value to be 'equal' within 0.1,
then 9.95 is equivalent to 10.04, but not to 10.06, even though 9.95
is equivalent to 10.04 and 10.04 is equivalent to 10.06. That's
because 'equal' within 0.1 is an equivalency, not an equality.

Interlanguage links are equivalence relations (at best.)

Really, there is no solution to this problem. 1:1 translation of
concepts/topics between different languages does not in general occur
and hence these relations are at best equivalencies NOT equalities.

Your analysis is assuming that they are equalities, and that's why
you're getting nonsensical results.

Fun though.

--
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. Life in a perfectly
imperfect world would be much better.