[Wikipedia-l] A few comments about Wikipedia

Sat Jan 27 20:14:17 UTC 2001

Timothy Shell wrote:
> 1.  If Wikipedia is to be an encyclopedia, then it probably is not
> appropriate to have threaded discussions on a subject page.  See for
> example AlTruism, where one person gives a flame bait description of the
> concept, and numerous people then argue back about that description.  If a
> discussion is approptiate, perhaps there should be a standard discussion
> page, as AltruismDiscussion or AltruismDebate, that is linked to from the
> subject page.

There is already a cultural tradition in the wiki world called
"refactoring".  The idea is that there is a "discussion mode" and
a "document mode".  In discussion mode, people have a threaded discussion,
with many different issues being raised.

Then, some WikiMaster comes through after the discussion has died
down, and "refactors" the page.  This involves editing/rewriting/
rearranging, so that all points of view are presented fairly.

> 2.  Often the wiki links for noun and adjective forms of a word should
> point to the same subject page.  For example, SkI and SkiinG are
> essentially overlapping concepts.  We could say, on the SkI page, "To
> engage in SkiinG".  This is not elegant, but it works, I suppose.  I see
> on the WhichWikiShouldWeUse page that there are different versions of wiki
> that might allow for different ways of linking.  Do one of these
> alternative ways offer a solution to this problem, allowing for different 
> links to point to the same subject page?

I don't think there is any automated solution to this and similar
problems.

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