Wikipedia talk:Root page/Archive 2

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

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

text: 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)
thread_title:  Hub page merged onto Root page 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  SUMMARISING- a breakdown of the issues so far 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Problems of Hierarchy - adding Connectedness 

message: What is the purpose of this? -- Zondor 08:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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  template, which automatically adds the category Root page in at the bottom of the page. --Lindosland 16:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is good!--Light current 16:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

text: 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)

text: Thinking.....--Light current 01:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Template:Rootlink]]