Hi Erik
In order to
demonstrate the capability of our product across an entire
encyclopaedia we have fully integrated it with Wikipedia. The advantage for
Wikipedia users is that each time they view an article from the
encyclopedia they are provided with an automatically generated list of
related Wikipedia articles.
Hmmm, how is this information more accurate than that provided by the
"What links here" feature (which enumerates backlinks to an article)?
InfoWrangler doesn't necessarily provide more "accurate" links to related
material, but it will provide a more thorough set of links without the
author having to physically construct (or maintain) them.
In the case of the Gawain page in Wikipedia there are three entries in the
"What links here" page (as viewed on the main site, we will have a look at
generating the links for our install). They are:
Solar Deity
Prince Valiant
King Arthur
By contrast InfoWrangler has listed 20 links (which is a configured maximum
in this demonstration) that are all on topic.
King Arthur
Sir Galahad
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Tintagel, Cornwall, England
Lancelot
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Arthur, Prince of Wales
Prince Valiant
Talk:Dubious historical resources
Arthur of Britain
Arthurian legend
Arthur
Guinevere
Uther Pendragon
Round Table
Literature cycle
Merlin
Bodmin Moor
Holy Grail
Monty Python and the Holy Grail/Black Knight
The notable inclusion is the third entry "Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight". This doesn't appear in the back links page as neither author
thought to provide a link on the name Sir Gawain. InfoWrangler generated
links are not intended to replace links/back links, but to complement them.
These links are generated automatically, without the need for any user
input. If I were to add another article related to the topic of Sir Gawain
(and didn't know that the original existed), then InfoWrangler would notice
the association and link the docs up. No human intervention required. No
maintenance issue. No fore-knowledge required.
This issue has been under discussion recently on the
gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc list in the post "most
excellent!". This post discussed a requirement for a feature that would
show a Wikipedia author, pages related to the one they are working on. If
I am reading that post right, I think that we are providing that kind of
feature.
Incidentally, "What links here" doesn't
work on your site, probably
because the links table has not been generated.
Thanks for pointing that out, we will set it up.
In any case, do you plan to keep up the site? A
Wikipedia mirror would
certainly be nice.
We do intend to keep the demonstration on-line. Making it a proper mirror
to
www.wikipedia.org is an option, but may require that we upgrade the
hardware hosting it (and pay for more band-width as well, depending on
traffic). There are also technical issue of synchronisation to be
addressed. We are happy to discuss this further.
Regards - Langdon
----------------------------------------------------
Managing Director
Object Positive
Sydney, Australia
Ph: + 61 2 9659 2344
Fx: + 61 2 9659 2355
http://www.infowrangler.com