[Wikipedia-l] A quick thought about 1.0

[Peter Jaros]

On Friday, December 19, 2003, at 01:30  AM, Arvind Narayanan wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 09:58:13AM -0800, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>> Erik wrote:
>>> I feel that it is extremely tedious to have to click around
>>> many times and load many pages to get a complete
>>> picture of an issue, a person etc.
>>
>> There is little difference between clicking on a TOC link in a huge 
>> article
>> than clicking on a link to another article.
>>
> For me there's a huge difference. My latency on wikipedia
> is usually between 5 and 10 seconds. OTOH I have high bandwidth.
> So I would greatly prefer to download a huge article at once.

Same here.  At least.  But for bigger articles, it's longer.  I'd much 
rather read a short article and load expanded information in the 
background.  I object to TOC entries, though, because the links have no 
context.  The beauty of wiki links (and html in general) does not lie 
in TOCs or see-also's.  It lies in the ability to connect information 
logically through context.  If a single 'logical' entry is big enough 
to bring up the issue of using smaller 'physical' entries---that is, 
use a TOC entry with the equivalent of subpages containing sections 
thereof---I think the size of the entry needs to be addressed.  I don't 
want to read that much in a single entry, and I certainly don't want to 
edit it.  And editing *across* multiple pages?  Forget it, it's not 
worth it, "Can't someone else do it?".  That feeling hurts the wiki.  A 
lot.

If an entry gets to that size and detail, great, let's use the 
information, but let's spread it out across a few entries, not just by 
breaking it into pieces, but by separating it into multiple topics.  
And if that means duplicating a little information, so be it.  As you 
say, Arvind,

>> I really hate duplication of effort; If article A refers to event B 
>> and
> Why is this duplication of effort? We can simply copy-paste from one
> article to the other.

Very true.

Also, when I look something up, I don't want a long article to read to 
find what I want to know.  Remember, Wikipedia Is Not Paper.  That 
means that rather than have to put all the information on one topic 
*and requisite info* in one place and the shorten it because there's 
not enough room, we can include just enough to understand the topic 
with a little requisite info---short enough to read quickly---and then 
link terms to further elaboration of each background concept.  That way 
readers read only what they need to read.  Having more and shorter 
articles also encourages them to grow longer, which means more 
information on the site---and eventually these can become multiple 
articles themselves.  It's a wonderful circle of electronic life.  Ok, 
the coffee can kick in now.

My apologies for rambling and twisting myself around.  I'm running on 
very little sleep.

Peter

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