As for me, I think that we should make changes very slowly and only after we're really sure. :-) And I'm not 100% convinced.
Here's a couple of good examples of good uses of subpages: [[Villanelle/Example]] and [[Saturday_Night_Live/Generalissimo_Francisco_Franco_is_still_dead]]
In the second case, the main page serves to set the context of the subpage in a really nice way. Anyone stumbling into the subpage would probably be interested in visiting the main page.
As soon as we move to Magnus' software, the obvious solution will be [[Nirvana (rock band)]], etc.
But how, exactly, is this really different from, let's say [[Nirvana/Rock band]]?
The fact is that having subpages doesn't make pagenames any easier to remember. It is just a system, which implies one indeed reasonably easy way to remember page titles.
I think it makes them easy to *guess*, though. And that's pretty important. [[History of Baseball]] or [[Baseball History]]? Hard to guess which it might be. But [[Baseball/History]] -- at least it is a system.
You might suggest: [[Baseball (History)]], but then I would respond -- what's the difference? And shouldn't this page link to the main [[Baseball]] page, automatically? One would think so.
In other words, we can have the same functionality of /Talk pages without subpages.
Yes, and I do agree with this.
One of the ways that I conceptualize namespaces is that it makes it easier to distinguish what is *in the encyclopedia* versus what is *about the encyclopedia*. Right now, our personal names [[Jimbo Wales]] for example, are *in the encyclopedia*, which doesn't really make sense. (Unless anyone thinks I'm famous enough to deserve an entry, ha ha!)
Well, I think there are a lot more failings than that. See the above URL.
I would answer that it's one naming scheme, but it has no great advantages over the combination of [[Iwo Jima]] and one of the names just mentioned (e.g., [[Battle of Iwo Jima]]). It's no harder to "accidentally" link to from elsewhere. Making battles subpages of wars is more or less a matter of convention, and other intuitive conventions can be learned if they indeed make some intuitive sense.
Won't any convention "force" or "direct" us to think in certain ways? I hardly see this as an objection against this _particular_ convention.
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_subpages_pros_and_cons
Well, I disagree with some of those.
For example: "Subpages replace the English meaning of the slash with a special meaning" -- the "sub" meaning of "slash" is well known in English, at least to people who use computers at all, which means all Wikipedians and all customers. Websites do it!
http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Art_History/ http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Art_History/Criticism_and_Theory/
People know what this means, instantly. This means that this category "Criticism and Theory" is not about criticism and theory generally, but in the context of Art History.
--Jimbo