[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia's scope

[Magnus Manske]

Having "stable" versions of articles requires the ability to "lock" pages,
which requires new or adapted software. If the wiki software is changed
anyway, I'd suggest a "namespace" mechanism. I already mentioned that
somewhere, I just forgot where;). So, here again, my proposal:

- Enable article names that have a namespace at the beginning, separated by
a ':'
- A blank namespace, like ':HomePage', leads to the "normal", current
wikipedia
- If no namespace is given ('HomePage'), the link is within the current
namespace. So, once you view an article with a namespace, it will link to
destinations within that namespace unless stated otherwise.
- The current namespace is displayed at the top of the page.
- Other namespaces that have an article with the same name are displayed as
links to these articles.

That would enable the following scenario:
- Article "xyz" is developed as usual
- Some authorized person decides that this article is great, and cpoies it
to "stable:xyz"
- The article "xyz" can be developed further as usual
- The article "stable:xyz" is for view only, unless you have special
authorization, and can be linked to or cited
- Links in "stable:xyz" would, without changes, automatically go to other
"stable:" articles, while the same article in the ":" namespace would link
to normal wikipedia articles
- A link within the "stable:" namespace that leads to a blank page could
automatically lead to the normal wikipedia, or display a page "no stable
version, see the normal one", or something similar.

There could also be a "talk" namespace, for example, to get rid of these
ugly "/Talk" pages ;)
Or a "data" namespace, to store, say, famous texts that are in the PD now.

I don't see a problem implementing such a mechanism, and it won't hinder
wikipedians in any way, it just adds an option.

Magnus


> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Robert Bihlmeyer
> Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 11:36 AM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia's scope
>
>
> <lsanger at nupedia.com> writes:
>
> > The other disadvantage mentioned, that references might lead to personal
> > embarrassment, doesn't strike me as a terribly huge disadvantage.  Who,
> > after all, is going to *cite* a Wikipedia article?  Nobody, or at least,
> > nobody before we have "stable versions" of articles (if we
> *ever* do) that
> > are given a stamp of approval (perhaps by Nupedia review groups).
>
> That's what I meant.
>
> But the reliability problem, if it is one, can creep up inside
> Wikipedia as well. Just now, I wrote on [[i386]]:
>
>   See [[Intel]] for a comprehensive list of all CPUs produced by
> that company.
>
> This is correct now, but actually I find the big list on [[Intel]] a
> bit too much information without proper presentation. I'll not do
> anything about that yet, but other Wikipedians may have the same
> feeling, and, say, put the list on one or more other pages.
>
> One feature missing is finding all reference to a page. I don't think
> the new search supports that yet.
>
> > But I think we probably will, in the distant (how distant, who knows)
> > future, have an official approval process (that is kept
> carefully separate
> > from the article-generation process).  It would make sense to
> save copies
> > of the exact article that was approved, for citation purposes, or to
> > populate a database of "approved articles."
>
> I don't know whether you imply that, but I am against keeping the
> approved pages separate from the "main" Wikipedia.
>
> One can already link to stable version like
>
> <URL:http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=browse&id=Pentagon&r
> evision=3>
> the only problem being that older revisions are cleaned out. The
> easiest solution is keeping all revisions, or keeping them longer. But
> I don't know how this would influence disk space requirements, and,
> more important, I'm not the one shelling out $$ for it ...
>
> Approval comes to the rescue: Why not a few weeks worth of revisions,
> as we do now, AND approved revisions going back 5 years?
>
> I.e. what I'm proposing is that when some approval authority decides
> that revision X is good, nothing more than a "approved" bit is
> flipped. All approved revisions are marked in the "View other
> revisions" page of an article, they have a longer expire period, and
> one is able to instruct the wiki.cgi to hand out the latest approved
> version. Nothing more changes.
>
> It should also be possible to get a diff between the last approved and
> any newer revision. That makes re-approval easier as well.
>
> That is largely similar to the "stable" and "development" branches
> used in many software products.
>
> > And, at this stage anyway, the best way to keep a lot of people
> > working on it is by keeping it completely free.
>
> If you meant free-from-restrictions, "at this stage anyway" is
> misleading. I don't know of a feasible legal way to change the
> Wikipedia license apart from starting from scratch.
>
> If you meant for-free, that can certainly change. But I suspect that
> there will always be parties willing to sponsor the costs for hosting
> Wikipedia.
>
> --
> Robbe
>