[Wikipedia-l] a quick feature request...

Fri Nov 9 21:24:53 UTC 2001

Actually since the word typed in is [[ox]]en, we won't need a database or
anything, we just use the section inside the double brackets to define the
page reference, and the whole word (defined by the area between spaces) as
the link.  The feminism, feminine issue is a red herring, because we
wouldn't link to part of either of these words.  Sophistry and Sophism,
would still require the [[xxx|yyy]] format, as it does now.  The only
benefit of this software change would be to pretty up partially linked
words. 

Frankly partially linked words don't particularly bother me, so it seems
like time better spent on other things, but I don't really care one way or
the other. The downside of the suggested modification is that someone could
link to postmodern[[ism]], leading an unsuspecting person to click on a link
to --postmodernism--, and get our page on --ism--.  So, I do think it
essential to provide a way to override this behavior if you really, really
want make a partial word a link. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Manning Bartlett [mailto:manning at bartlett.net]
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 4:06 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] a quick feature request...

hmmmm... I could see how this would work with systematic suffixes such as
"cow/cows", but how would it convert"oxen" to "ox", "sophistry" to "sophism"
or "misanthropic" to "misanthropy"? 

I think we'd need either a consistent language (which is not likely in our
lifetimes), or else a huge database of how terms link to one another. Even
then we'd run the risk of words like"feminine" being linked to "feminism"
which is not accurate.

Manning

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Gareth Owen 
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com 
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 8:55 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] a quick feature request...

I'm very lazy, so I like typing things like [[algebra]]ic to create the word
"Algebraic" with a link to algebra.  This is convenient but ugly looking.

Are ther compelling reasons why software shouldn't convert the whole word
into
a link, exactly like [[algebra|algebraic]] would?

-- 
Gareth Owen
[Wikipedia-l]
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