[Wikipedia-l] Limits to the non-paperiness of Wikipedia?

[Toby Bartels]

Erik Moeller wrote in part:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Erik Moeller wrote in part:

>>>Replacing all redirects to FOO with redirects to BAR is a job for a
>>>machine. Replacing all links to FOO with links to BAR is a job for a
>>>human, because you don't know in which verbal context these links appear.

>>I don't understand this comment.
>>Can you give an example (possibly hypothetical) of a situation
>>where you can contrast the effects of the different designs?

>OK, let's say you have [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]], and for each of
>these characters you have a redirect on their page (e.g. [[John Galt]]) to
>the [[Characters ..]] page, so that they can be linked to.

>Now let's say we move [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]] to [[Characters of
>Atlas Shrugged]]. Whoops, now we have lots of double redirects for each of
>the individual characters, and need to change the redirs. But this can be
>done using a single DB query:
>UPDATE cur SET cur_text="#REDIRECT [[Characters of Atlas Shrugged]]" where  
>cur_text="#REDIRECT [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]".

>On the other hand, let's say you have
>[[Don Conway]]
>[[Eddie Willers]]
>[[Ellis Wyatt]]
>[[Hank Rearden]]
>...
>as individual articles, which all point to [[Atlas Shrugged]]. Turns out
>that Ayn Rand actually called her book "Worship Me" and "Atlas Shrugged"
>was just the working title. So we now need to fix all those links, but
>because of the different context they can appear in, this may not be
>possible with a DB query.

Ah, so it'll be a lot easier to make a small change using your system
that to make a big change using Oliver's system.  No surprise there!

OTOH, let's suppose that we have individual articles on each character
in addition to an article [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]
that (I guess) summarises information on the characters.
Then we decide to move that to [[Characters of Atlas Shrugged]].
In that case, all of the links to [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]
can be left just as they are -- even easier to fix than with your system!
(Another possibility under Oliver's system, of course,
is that there's no [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]] at all,
but comparing *that* would be quite unfair to you!)

Alternatively, let's suppose that you have [[Characters in Atlas Shrugged]]
but discover that the title is really "Worship Me" and not "Atlas Shrugged".
Then you'll have to change not *only* the links in that article --
that's just the tip of the iceberg -- but *every* reference to the title.
If the individual character articles are reasonably long
(where I agree with those that think 1KB is sufficient reason),
then this will be about the same (large) amount of work
under your system as under Oliver's system.
OTOH, if the individual character articles are rather short --
well, in that case I agree with you already, keep them together.

(Of course, it's unfair of me to say "Oliver's system",
since he doesn't contend that fictional characters
must *always* have individual articles, however short.
Unfortunately, nobody is advocating that position,
so there's no one else to name such a system after!)

>In general, having lots of small articles requires us to have lots of real
>links (not just redirects) to tie them together, which may need to be
>updated at some point. And this can get very messy. There's other stuff,
>like the redundant intro texts which may need to be changed etc.

In general, about the same amount of text appears under either system --a
assuming that the articles to break off aren't very short --
so about the same amount of work will be need either way.

I do agree now that you have another argument
that very short articles shouldn't be separated
when they can reasonably be combined into one longer article.
I've always agreed with you about that.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that
conversion from Oliver's system to your also creates double redirects.
This shouldn't affect ultimate policy decisions,
but anybody undergoing such a conversion should remember that.
(I fixed these for the case of [[Dennis the Menace]].)

>And how we look reflects
>on what we are (yeah, very deep, I know). If we consider every Gnipper
>relevant enough to get his own article, that says something about our
>standards of significance, too.

Yes, it does, and we've already decided our standards of significance:
Gnipper *is* significant enough.  Thus we have an article on him.
To be sure, we have no article *exclusively* on him,
but that's not at all because we believe him to be insignificant.
Rather, it's because all of the material that we have on him
fits quite well inside [[Gnasher and Gnipper]],
which is where [[Gnipper]] (an article that still exists!) redirects.

>Whether an article can theoretically grow is a somewhat counter-intuitive
>way to *determine* significance, even for a non-dynamic encyclopedia. My
>policy suggestion could also be phrased as "Insigificant subjects should
>not have their own articles but instead be merged into longer ones", but
>that's more vague and can perhaps be perceived as condescending ("Gnipper
>is no unsigificant! He's the best dog EVER!").

So is your proposed policy about potential length or significance?
You phrase it in terms of potential length normally,
while you phrase it in terms of significance here,
yet you seem to agree that the former doesn't measure the latter well.

I agree with you that significance is a vauge criterion.
Luckily, Wikipedia is not paper, so we don't have to judge that.
(We do have to judge *verifiability*, of course --
insignificant topics have been removed on that ground.)
We shouldn't have any policy regarding significance,
although individual contributors may well wish to
budget their time and choose their priorities on such grounds.

OTOH, length (but not necessarily *potential* length)
goes directly to the problem with redirects that you mentioned above.
It also goes to the other points that you made in your main post
(<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-May/010396.html>),
which I still agree with when applied to articles the size of [[Gnipper]].


-- Toby


PS: Do you have any objection to [[en:Sarah Marple-Cantrell]],
    the example that got Oliver started on all this?
    I'm trying to see if you two (and I) disagree about any specific case,
    or if you only disagree about the various hypothetical cases
    that have been brought up.