Edit made on October 30, 2008 by ColinWright at 13:44:08
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WW
HEADERS_END
There is occasionally a problem with two (or more!) pages being given names that cover the same idea, hence leading to duplication, contradiction, and in short, confusion.
I'm not sure what to do.
There are two over-riding driving forces:
* We want people to contribute
* We want links to be found
I'd rather pages have slightly longer names that encapsulate a single concept/topic, rather than have one word short names that get linked to from all over the place. On the other hand, unless people read widely and do some research before contributing, duplication will happen. My inclination is to copy the information from one page into the other, tidy it up, and simply leave a pointer from the other page. Later we can see which is better to keep, and delete the superfluous.
Other peoples' thoughts would be welcome.
- Colin
I agree - however I would suggest avoiding use titles starting with "The" unless it is a unique idea like "The Reimann Hypthosis" and even then the word "the" could be omitted.
I agree - however I would suggest avoiding use titles starting with "The" unless it is a unique idea like "The Riemann Hypothesis" and even then the word "the" could be omitted.
Also pages referring to persons should have the surname or a single name only so that it will definitely be referred to whereas a title like Carl Friedrich Gauss would not be referred to by any shorter name. !/ (good points - colin) !/
- Derek
If persons are entered with their forename first they will occur out of the obvious alphabetical order. What about a standard policy of having two pages for all people - (1) Kepler, Johannes and (2) Kepler. Problem with that family of mathematicians - Bernoulli they even share their forenames!!!
- Derek
If persons are entered with their forename first they will occur out of the obvious alphabetical order. What about a standard policy of having two pages for all people - (1) Kepler, Johannes and (2) Kepler. Problem with that family of mathematicians - Benouilli they even share their forenames!!!
!/ But this site is not necessarily intended to be used for indexing, so I don't think that matters. I think we should allow that this will be imperfect, and that some problems can be fixed when they become problems. I suggest a single page - surname only - for people, and if there is more than one with that surname, have links to separate pages where the name is used in full. In the case of the Bernoulli clan, list all the individuals with the same name on the same page, in sections headed with their dates of birth and death. Then point back to the Bernoulli page where we can have a family tree. With links. These are just example and suggestions. Remember, this is specifically intended not to be an encyclopedia. We should have a page for a topic or person with just a skim, then pointers to other material. No more pages than necessary to create the required disambiguation. - Colin !/