Meta Discussion
Should we add links to articles on sensei's library' s articles or not? [#2011]
willemien I think we can do with some discussion here. in the hope we can come to a creative solution
I have the opinion that it is always good to have links to the pages in sensei's library of the organisation / person even when the page is mainly for linking to outside sensei's library. (i call that wikify-ing but am not sure if that is the right term for it)
Other persons think that makes the page crowded and it doesn't add anything. and I agree it does make the page crowded, because it does mean that there are two links instead of one.
only internal links makes it not easy to use. (you first havbe to go to the internal page and there you eneed to find the external link)
I start this discussion following from my editing Go Problems on the Internet adding lots of internal links and my edit was removed the day after.
Can we think of a solution of this problem that satisfies both goals? linking externaly and internally in an uncrowded way?
and also make a list of pages that would benifit of being organised this way? (can they all have a same keyword?)
I myself was thinking can we not make a table where we can have the two links next to eachother in some visually nice way? (i am a bit a table maniac)
Generally yes, but in that* case it didn't look very necessary to my eyes. 2 pence by Tapir.
I'm the guilty party for undoing your changes to Go Problems on the Internet. So that will give some context for my following comments.
I put quite a bit of work and thought into the page Go Problems on the Internet, (if you look through the old changes on it), but it isn't 'my page', in a number of senses. Velobici created it, and 4 or 5 others made significant contributions. So by editing history it is a group work. Also, by the essential wikiness of SL, everything is editable by anyone, and so that definitely doesn't make it mine. So it is editable by anyone, and I have no more right to it being my preferred way than anyone else's preference.
I'm sorry for the unfriendliness of undoing your changes. I don't mean it as challenging behaviour or deliberate intent to upset. It was just trying to protect my original concept of how I envisioned that page. There were some subtle editorial decisions that I made implicitly in that page. I shall try to be more explicit about them here, to allow you to be sure that your idea is the best way forward for this particular page.
I believe that a knife is sometimes better than scissors, that obscuring a mirror with the writing ![[ext]](images/extlink.gif)
Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear reduces the utility of a mirror, that less is sometimes more.
Let's look at the version you created.
Taking a representative example, you changed:
- Tasuki collection includes (Gokyo Shumyo, Igo Hatsuyoron and Xuan Xuan Qi Jing)
to:
A change to the wiki source of one character, removing a single vertical bar | . This causes two changes of interest:
- The phrase 'Tasuki collection' gets a question mark, inviting a user to click on it to create a page with that name. I suggest that is not what is wished for from a bookmark collection. The user of a set of internet page bookmarks just wants to click through to the content they haven't seen before, not to a blank page. For many of the links the phrase is entirely made up, as I can't read the CJK languages. Of course, this would be easily fixable by removing the square brackets, so perhaps a minor issue.
- Makes the url http://tsumego.tasuki.org/?page=tsumego visible. So adds 38 characters designed for computers, not humans, to read. A few of these in an average page maybe be fine, but think of the peculiarity of this particular page. The urls are significantly longer than rest of the text of the page, and yet they are not intended to be read by the human. An essential part of writing is thinking what is easiest and best for the reader, not what is quickest for the writer. Often the answer is to cut out the deadwood to create clarity. In this case, I believe the function of the page for the reader is best served by hiding the urls as links under the text, leading to clarity.
You quite rightly point out that the normal preference in a wiki is linking to an internal wiki page if there is an opportunity, rather than directly out on to the internet. This practice helps the wiki have a consistent feel, helps new pages get developed, and keeps to the design philosophy of not surprising the user. So your general point is correct. However (you knew there was going to be one of these!), in this particular case, I don't think applying that philosophy is correct. I believe this is an exceptional case where the actual purpose of the page is to provide links that jump out of the wiki straight out to other internet pages. The user is then expected to use the browser back button to get back here. I have recognized the importance of internal wiki linking by including the relevant internal links after the initial external link, e.g. (Gokyo Shumyo, Igo Hatsuyoron and Xuan Xuan Qi Jing) in the above example, so that the reader can easily find the related SL material. But for this page, the external material is the most important to the reader.
The minimalist philosophy was again used for the numbers in brackets after a link. I didn't even describe anywhere on the page what those numbers were, deliberately. So they were intentionally implicit. Any user of the page would quickly work out they are the number of problems on the linked page. If this was a scientific paper, or a bottle of pills, it would be necessary to explicitly label the meaning of the numbers, but this is not. At one point dates were added for when the number of problems had last been counted. Again, I thought, yes that's accurate data, but is it informative? Is the addition informing the reader with what he needs at that moment, or just making the writer/editor happy?
The page as is does flow nicely in a variety screen resolutions. This is not always true of tables.
So, a somewhat verbose explanation. Hopefully clarifies some of the reasons for how we got to here.
{willemien] Hi peter
I was not upset but i was more thinking how can we have both links on a page to have a good options for everybody. (compare it with the go programs list that i also changed a long time ago (almost a year) to link internal and external.
The idea is that every line also links to the sensei page for more information over the site / problem catagory. and also that it has a quick link to the external page.
Maybe a sugestion is:
!;;: [name |link to sensei page] [Direct link | external address] and a half line description (including number of problems if you like)
That some collections or pages don't have a sensei page is a shortcomming of our library, I do think they all deserve one. And it is the place where more information on the organisation / collection can be put. The problem is a bit that if there is information in our library on the collection people won't look at it because it is not as easy to get to that page. Therefore also the internal link.
I am a bit adverse to hidden addresses i prefer to see the webadress of the site where is linked to. But maybe i need to overcome that on this page. (and keep it visuable on the sensei page of that collection)
Hope we can figure out a nice way to organise this. But i will wait till after the page has finished to be article of the week. so we have some time to have some discussions/ brainstorming about it here. (i thought this was a better place to discuss it than on the page itself)
friendly greetings
Seems we would be sensible to agree to disagree. We have two different visions. Can I suggest you edit one of the 2 different versions Problems on the Internet and Go Problems on the Internet, and leave the other to develop in a different way. It will be good to see your approach develop.
Okay but lets keep your page (for the moment) the official one. I will make a subpage Go Problems on the Internet 2? and I hope when my page is ready you will like my page more.
My suggestion is not to have either as the 'official' one. Lets have both. The more the merrier. There's plenty of sand in the sandbox. I'm hoping that yours will be successful enough that people looking for the extra information of your approach will use your page. So overall, helps more people.
I just made go problems on the internet 2? (and i already made changes to my idea earlier)
Normally i would support the the more the merrier point, but not in this case, because the information on both pages is virtually the same. and in such a case it is better to have only one page. (i don't want to get the situation where the information between the two gets different and at the end it just becomes a mess.
Have a look at my new page and say what you think (ps i still need to make many pages to get rid of the questionmarks) for internal pages. (Yes that will become the more the merrier)
I think I have been as clear and explicit as I reasonably can be. Please re-read my 3 previous comments, if you do not think you have understood my opinion. The cases you are bringing up have been dealt with there, so you can deduce my opinion.
made a page for the Tasuki collection see the question mark is gone...
![[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]](images/stone-hello.png "Sensei's Library")