Wikipedia talk:Root page/Archive 2

star == hierarchy

A star is an acyclic graph is a hierarchy, which is essentially what summary style is about. In your example of animation you make it clear that there is a problem with deciding which pages are root and which are not. Basically you make a very arbitrary decision that although graphics provides basic concepts used in animation, it is better to designate only animation as root page and not graphics. This is a deadly limitation. What you really want is for a page to be able to specify a rooter page, regardless of whether it is a root for other pages itself. Ideally the rooter page also refers back to its children, same as in your own proposal, and would explain briefly what its child is about, which is exactly summary style. Templates {{details}} and {{background}} are also already in place to accomodate this. Then all you need to do is choose good article titles and actually use summary style. -MarSch 12:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

MarSch your comment appears very sensible and, unless I misunderstand Lindosland's intentions, in fact may be the solution that both he and I have been seeking. I dont know what you mean by rooter page tho'. Do you mean root/hub ?

So its, summary style with back links on sub pages?

In my proposed system I would put a back link at the top of each 'Main' topic page so the reader could get back to the hub/root page. I have been experimenting with this on the Electronics hub page. Have a look!

In this way the root/hub/parent page is actually defined by the back link at the top of the sub page. I did not envisage a sub page having more than one root page BUT you could easily get back to another root/hub/parent by having a back link to that page also at the top of the sub page.

It seems simple now (unless Im missing something important)--Light current 15:44, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Your Electronics page shows very well what I have in mind when thinking of summary style. But suppose that some other page about a broader topic than electronics needs to discuss electronics. It could use summary style and electronics could link back to it. This is what I mean by a rooter page, more root. It may be easier though to envision one of the children of electronics growing out of proportion and needing to split off some articles for which it would become a root. -MarSch 18:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

MarSch: Yes, you are quite right that I make an arbitrary decision about what to choose as a root page, and the more I think about this the more I come to the conclusion that in the end this has to be arbitrary for the simple reason that what we are dealing with here, ie encyclopedic objects and concepts are just not hierarchical! Living things are amenable to hierachical classification (just about), but other things aren't.

It's easy to create a false heirarchy for any given subject, but then if you come in somewhere else you realise that it's just based on your own chosen criteria. What criterion are we to use for hierarchy? The obvious one we all go for is 'broadness' - the wider ranging a topic seems to be the higher up the hierarchy we put it. But then if we go to the top of our hierarchy and think things through again we find a problem. Many topics seem to be close to many hub pages, depending on the criterion of 'closeness' that you choose. Trying to use the criterion of 'broadness' now breaks down.

For example: take a topic common to me and LightCurrent - filters. He might put filters as a sub-hub of electronics. Or he might put filter as a daughter of analog electronics. But then he needs to consider digital filter - does that go on digital electronics or what. And of course, filter has nothing special to do with electronics even, because there are optical filters and gamma ray filters and statistical filters and so on!

One lesson to take from this is to always make new pages quite specific, leaving the simple name, like 'filter' for the more general use. Even so, there seems to me to be no way to reconcile the problem that while electronic filter seems to be fundamentally a daughter of filter it is only so for those people interested in the general concept of filter, by way of example. Those looking at electronic filter are actually very unlikely to even want to look back at filter because they know what it means, but they are more likely to want to look at digital filter and analog filter and spacial filter and Sallen and Key filter and so on. What criterion are we using here? It's not hierarchy, its more like 'common interest grouping' - likely to interest the same people. --Lindosland 17:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

What I object to is deceiving yourself that you're not talking about a hierarchy. Only a circular link would break hierarchy. Once you accept this, you will either retract your proposal or you will realize that there is no reason for limiting the number of levels. Once the number of levels is no longer limmited there is no need to make an arbitrary choice. If an article summarizes another article as per summary style, then it is a hub or a root for it. For this the ambiguous template {main} is used. All I'd like to see is the backlink to the parent. For which confusingly {main} is also sometimes used. Unfortunately my {background} template got deleted after a hundred nominations, although not by a margin making it a legal delete. -MarSch 18:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The argument has moved on somewhat since 26 Feb and discussion is now taking place on the talk page for Wikipedia:WikiProject Electronics. Please join in and give us your opinion if you have the time.--Light current 19:11, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

When I just looked there, the 'discussion' link was red. Are you sure you meant Wikipedia:WikiProject electronics? --Heron 19:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, someone has created a project with the electronics not capitalised. The link you want is Wikipedia:WikiProject Electronics --Light current 22:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Hub page merged onto Root page

The following text is copied from Wikipedia talk:Hub page

I am labelling this page historical, as its effect recently has been to create two discussions and I think that concentrating the discussion at Talk:Root page will help us achieve the consensus that I have been seeking there for some time.

Light current: I'm pleased to find someone who understands why we need something like this, and pleased to see you have adopted so many of my ideas. However, since I started Root page in December 2005 and have engaged in a lot of discussion over it on its talk page I am not happy with you copying so much of my text over to this page. You are entitled to copy of course, but in doing so you take the concept away from the historical discussion associated with it, and dilute my attempt to get a consensus there. When I came to Hub page there was no discussion going, whereas Root page had a lot of discussion on its talk page.

This does not mean that I am insisting on the name of Root page. We can change it to Hub page or anything else if a different name is agreed to be better, but adopting, as you say, 90% of the ideas on Root page, just to call them something else does not seem right. --Lindosland 14:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There have been several useful contributions to this topic recently, and some of the talk at Hub page may warrant being over to here now. Copied from wikipedia talk:hub page

Did you not hear that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? PLus, I did have some significant differences from your ideas. 90% was of course an over exaggeration! Im happy for all my postys to be copied to Root page. In fact I was just about to propose a merge of the two pages.--Light current 16:36, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

--Light current 18:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes I will copy relevant talk from Hub page to here.--Light current 16:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Copied from talk:Hub page

Lindosland, Having read the comments on this talk page and on talk:hub page, Im pretty sure that you and I have very similar views on this subject. What the page is called Im not too bothered, but the concept is essential for these very large subjects esp in engineering and science,(physics/ chemistry etc). If you now take a look at wikipedia:hub page you will see that I have adopted 90% of your proposals. I only differ on a few minor points. perhaps we could discuss these, come to an agreement, then surge forward to implement this long overdue and absolutely necessary concept!--Light current 02:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

--Light current 16:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

SUMMARISING- a breakdown of the issues so far

The discussions on Root page and Hub page have now reached the point where I think I can summarise matters, and try to get to the core of a remaining problem.

• Support There is now substantial support, some of it very enthusiastic, for the concept of Root page, or something very much like it. Hub page has now been closed, to be merged here.

• A Base for editing Is a concept well supported. Several contributors have expressed an urgent need for the concept of a 'base camp' for editors, stating that big topics like Electronics are getting in a mess and need pulling together.

• A Common Introduction This idea is well supported and is already part of Wikipedia:Summary style. Summary style, however, does not lay down precise rules. For example it does not say that the Summary page must be labelled as such or state how this is to be done. It also talks about summary style in relation to one article as well as in relation to a series of article. It only says that 'it is a good idea' to include a navigational template. Such navigational templates get cumbersome, especially as they are repeated in full on daughter pages. The Root page concept shifts the burden of the full listing to one page only, leaving daughter pages free from clutter, with room for other, possibly more useful and diverse, links (see connectivity discussion.

• Back-referal This idea, first suggested in Root page, is well supported. A Root page is fundamentally a place that editors get taken to from many pages, so that once having found it they can then base their work around it, avoiding duplication. The idea of listing THE Root page for an article, either at the start, or first in the 'see also' list seems to be agreed. The fact that this precludes the possibility of listing more than one page as THE Root page, has been identified, since if that is done, then there is no 'base camp'.

• Root vs Rooter page Having established that there must only be one Root page for any article, if the word Root is to signify the 'base camp', it has become clear that back-referral for editors and back-referral for users are two different things. 'Rooter' has been used to distinguish the editing root from the hierarchical roots by one person.

• Hierarchy - The Unresolved Problem I do not think this has been adequately explored, and I propose that this is because encyclopedic topics do not have intrinsic hierarchy. They do, however, connect in interesting ways, as I will attempt to suggest now.

--Lindosland 17:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with all the above, except I am not clear on the differences beetween root page and rooter page. Does there need to be such a distinction as readers are editors and editors are readers? The two terms as named are bound to create confusion, so I would appreciate you expalining the difference and necessity for these two separate entities.--Light current 18:25, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we use such a term as Rooter, which might only confuse most people, but I was just observing that there is a problem which someone else, as I understand it, tried to explain by using these two different terms. The problem is that we must decide whether a Root page is a type of page, or whether it is a relationship, in the sense that a page is THE root page for another. If we do not distinguish between these meanings, then we end up saying that, for example Electronics is THE root page for Electronic filters and then appearing to contradict this by labelling Filter as a root page, and linking to it from Electronic filters. If the Root page is the base for editing, a common introduction, then there can only really be one root page (in this sense) for any page. From the point of view of the user however, it would seem to make some sense to allow a page to link back to several Root pages. --Lindosland 23:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well again my initial response is that a sub page could indeed be arrived at from more than one root page. Filter could be a sub hub splitting into all the different types of filter.

Root page should be a type of page (not necessarily the sole root page for any article) - arbitrarily chosen by consensus of editors. It need not be the only root page for another (sub page). Otherwise the system may be too restrictive. Im not sure tho' if this might lead to other logical inconsistencies. Actually I think this may be the answer for max flexibility & min complexity. Parents may have many children-- children may have many parents (not just 2)--Light current 03:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)!

Back to 'Root Page'

I feel quite strongly that the back links from sub pages should be prominently displayed at the head of each sub page. THat way it is easy for the reader to return to the hub and go off in a different direction if he has arrived at a particular sub page by mistake or is simply browsing. Listing it at the bottom only involves the reader searching thro' a mass of blue links to find his way back but I have no objection to the Root page being listed at the bottom of the page AS WELL as at the top.--Light current 21:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been thinking that I too would like to see the back-link at the head of each page. I was put off this idea by a reluctance to clutter the start of the article any more than it is already, but if it is kept short then perhaps thats OK.

There is also merit in putting the back-link at the start of the 'see also' list, as it makes that list a compete record, the one place to look for navigation. One possibility that I have been considering is that in the future, an extra bit of software might allow us to click and create a large tree structure, like a family history, on any page to check surrounding topics. --Lindosland 23:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

OK Im with you on this!--Light current 23:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Problems of Hierarchy - adding Connectedness

I think that the problem of whether to aim at creating a hierarchy or not is our big sticking point.

Hierarchy seems attractive when you work on any given set of pages. Editors of big topics like electronics are finding that there are just too many associated pages clustered around them, so that it makes sense to create at least two levels of 'hubs'. So, for example it seems to make sense to make Electronics a Hub, and then Analog electronics and Digital electronics and Electronic components etc, as Sub-Hubs with things clustered around them. But what do we do with Electronic filters? Do we put this as a sub-hub of Electronics which has the merit of allowing us to cluster analog filter and digital filter and transverse filter and Bessel filter etc etc around this? Or do we put Analog filter on the Analog electronics Sub-Hub, thus separating it from all the other forms of filter. And whichever approach we take, what do we say to the person editing Filters who wants to put all our filters around his hub, along with optical filters, because he says they fall more into the category filter than they do into Electronics. If he puts them round his hub too then the common introduction and point of reference concepts are lost.

Examples like this make me think that encyclopedia articles are not amenable to hierarchical organisation. Why should they be? There are an infinite number of hierarchies that we can chose, depending what our criterion is. We get drawn into thinking in terms of a hierarchy of 'broadness' when editing our own group of pages, but forget that 'closeness' in some other sense also matters. If there was just one hierarchy, then all articles would lead back through a series of Hubs to just one page perhaps? What would that be! Something like Thing which splits to Animate and Inanimate etc, a bit like the guessing game?

This problem led me down a different path to thinking of articles as like individuals in a population, connected in all sorts of ways. Are there typically only Six degrees of separation between any two articles on Wikipedia, as has been shown true for human beings? Should we perhaps be taking note of research into this phenomenon, which concludes that it is a combination of 'short-range' and 'long range' links that make this possible. We look around at our network of close friends, and then find that one is an actor, who knows a famous actor, who met the queen, and suddenly we are just three handshakes from the queen! Do similar linkages apply to topics I wonder, such that we should first create our local communities around Root pages, however arbitrarily, with the emphasis on coordinated editing, and then encourage the putting in place of 'long range' links between the individual topic pages to increase 'connectedness'. This seems to make some sense if you think of putting Electronic filter in the Electronics grouping, but then add a link to Filter in its 'see also' list. Does this explain why I was wary all along of placing importance on 'hierarchy'?

Returning to Electronics though, it does not seem to satisfactory to try to cluster all its (possibly hundreds of) pages around one Root page. Yet these pages do seem to share something important in common.

What if we say that a Root page can back-link to a Root page of its own, but that no page can back-link to more than one Root-page. So Electronic filter does not back-link to Filter, surprising though that may seem to some, because that would devalue the Root page concept from the point of view of coordinated editing. Instead Electronic filter just lists Filter - forming one of those long-range connections that perhaps add more connectedness than any further attempt at hierarchy could. On this basis, we get to back-link Electronics to Electricity, which in turn has as its 'branch pages' Electronics, Power distribution,Static electricity etc. Where does Battery go? Same problem as Electronics filter, we put it arbitrarily with Electricity, and link from Electronic components for the long-range connectivity.

Note that I've moved away from Hub and Sub-Hub in this reasoning, because they now add nothing, but give us a big problem when we try to link back. If Electronics is a Hub and we back-link it to Electricity what does that make Electricity. A Super-Hub, or a Pre-Hub perhaps? The Root page concept allows this without any re-naming problems, but if we are to get this freedom then we must make Root page a relationship such that any page has only one 'Root page' to which it back-links. Any ideas on all this? Personally I'm beginning to think it could be the research subject for a PhD! --Lindosland 00:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

My first response is KISS (Keep it simple). As simple as possible. Then its more likely to work. I must re-read your submission more carefully to respond fully.--Light current 01:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Subjects should not be pushed further down the heirarchical chain than absolutely necessary. So with electronic filters, this should be linked from the hub/root page. Analog filters may also be liked from the analog electronics page also!--Light current 14:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, except where a Root page is becoming too big (I suggest more than 20 branches will not normally be desirable. Distributing topics around the second level helps keep the lists small.

I've taken your advice to keep it simple, and have adopted your back-link text, which now just reads 'Back to'. I've set up a template {{backlink}} which is easy to remember and avoids the confusion of saying 'back to root page' when you are already on a root page. I've just put this in place on Animation, and it looks good. I've also added a rule that Root pages must have a 'Branch pages' section which lists just the branch pages for that root. I think this clarifies things a lot, and I've said that the back-link, if there is one, should be put at the top of this list, so that the list now allows navigation both ways.

I'm also suggesting that the link addition will be automated in future, so that all you ever do is add the back-link template at the start of the article and the rest is done for you. How's that for simple? One reason for adding a 'Branch pages' section is so that the program or software 'bot' could easily locate where to put the links in. --Lindosland 16:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Index page

Created Military of Australia which serves like an index page. -- Zondor 08:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

You've done the same as at List of articles about Mormonism and listed everything. This may be useful, and we should probably allow it, but one advantage of the Root page system, especially if multiple levels are now to be allowed, is that each Root page only really needs to list its own branches. To see the wider picture you navigate back to the previous Root and then out from there.

So you could make Department of Defence, Australian Army, etc into Root pages, and each would then have around 10 branch pages. Military of Australia then has only to list its 5 Branch pages. I suggest that you put each Root page into the recomended format with an introduction and then Root and Branches listed under 'see also'. If you want to give the full index, add this onto the end, after the 'see also', with the heading 'Full index to pages' or something like that. --Lindosland 13:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I got the wrong impression. I was thinking of Wikipedia:Hub page. -- Zondor 04:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Category:Topic lists -- Zondor 11:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:Rootlink

What is the purpose of this? -- Zondor 08:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Simply to create a standardised form of text that's easily added. Standardised text could be useful if someone tried to automate the adding of links, perhaps using a software 'bot', for example adding a link to a branch on the Rootpage as soon as the Root page is listed on the branch page. While the use of a template for just a few words might seem pointless, it allows us to change the precise text at any time in the future on every page using it! The presence of {{ }} also serves to make the text unique and easily recognised by a software 'bot' which could put in the links on Rootpages automatically.

I've just changed the recommended template to {{tl|backlink]], and put it in place on Animation articles. As well as being easy to remember, this now makes no reference to Root, and just reads 'Back to', in line with Lightcurrent's use on his Hub pages. It's simple and to the point, and the use of a template means we can change the exact text or appearance on all pages that use in should we wish to, just by editing the template. I was impressed when someone created the {{rootpage}} template, which automatically adds the category Root page in at the bottom of the page. --Lindosland 16:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

This is good!--Light current 16:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, I think we are getting close to making this official policy. I suggest we now put the two templates into use on more pages, starting with Electronics and see how it works out.

I've made a start on Electronics. Yes, it was a nighmare, but the scheme is working well. I've put in a lot of back-links and started Branch page lists but there's much more to do. I've done the same on Mormonism and its pages, so hopefully people will now get the idea and continue the sorting process. I reckon allowing just one backlink works really well.

That work has really highlighted the way in which page linking can be simplified by going to two or more levels of root pages. It also made me think that perhaps an automated list of branch pages at the start of the article on the RHS in a box would be nice. It would not complicate things because it need only contain ten or twenty links now. --Lindosland 18:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Lindosland, Im a bit uneasy about a root page having its own root page. Are these two pages always heirarchical> and is it the same as my hub/sub hub idea. Im not clear- can you explain?--Light current 22:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm happier with it than I was. As I explained somewhere in my long epistles above, I became happier with it when I realised it would not spoil the idea of a 'base' for editing so long as only one back-link was allowed, ie one Root page for a page. I also got happier with it when I adopted your 'back to' so that I didn't have to say 'this is a rootpage' followed by 'back to rootpage' at the top of an article, which sounded confusing. Yes, it's like your hub and sub-hub, but more general, in that you don't have to decide what is the hub and what is the sub-hub in advance. Having two main levels on Electronics certainly helps, and I then backlinked Electronic to Electrical Engineering (mistake perhaps!). Hierarchical? I don't think that means anything, as I've explained, unless you say hierarchical in terms of what. I'm settling for recommending backlinking if there seems to be an obvious choice of page. I came across a good example of how 'hierarchy' isn't it, in Electronic noise and White noise and Pink noise which you had put on the Electronics hub, but I thought were more associated with Noise, a page which I had re-organised earlier, since 'noise' is not primarily electronic. I think I altered a couple of them, but in the end some of this has to be arbitrary. Whatever you do, I reckon it's going to help a lot in making sense of big topics. I see for example that there are pages on Semiconductor and Semiconductor device and probably Solid state device, and once you start to associate them you start to see what comes first and what to merge, and what groups together most naturally --Lindosland 00:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thinking.....--Light current 01:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)