Template talk:DYK archive nav

message: The Did-You-Know navigation "Template:DYK_archive_nav" was created  6 April 2004 (by the long-time editor User:Jengod) with only 3 previous archives.  By the end of 2004, the template linked 18 archives, then ended 2005 linking 42 archives, ended 2006 linking 114 archives, and ended year 2007 linking 191 archives. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Created

message: 22-Jan-2008: Many Wikipedia articles are growing large navigation boxes which link hundreds of other articles.  For n number of articles linked by a common navigation-box (navbox), the total page links are growing by n-squared (n2), becoming a so-called n-squared problem.  Did You Know all article page-links are eventually stored in Wikipedia page-link database(s) to allow quick cross-referencing with the "What links here" option?  Although it would seem logical that templates, especially navbox templates, should have been implemented as shared "callable" subpages (linked separately), unfortunately, templates are NOT shared, but rather repeatedly copied and wikilinked over and over and over hundreds or thousands of times. Any wikilinks visible, when a template is displayed in an article, get propagated into the Wikipedia page-link database(s) on each server.  If a navbox links 200 pages, used in 200 pages, then the page-links are: 200 pages * 200 wikilinks each = 40,000 page-link entries to support the "What links here" option.  For 300 pages, the total becomes 3002=90,000, and for 400 pages, the total is 4002=160,000 entries in the page-link database.  The problem is not just limited to DYK archives, but rather millions of propagated wikilinks are also generated by navboxes in city/town articles, pop-culture articles, scientific data groups, etc.  The main problem is the design of the navbox as an inlined part of each article, rather than a "pop-up" (or similar) menu, outside the article pages.  Solutions should be sought to avert the n-squared navbox problem, as discussed below. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Navigation growing by N-squared wikilinks

message: 22-Jan-2008: Solutions are needed to avoid the overlinking caused by propagating wikilinks currently generated by full navboxes on each article.  An easy solution is to have the navbox suppress the wikilinks when included, but show only one link to the full navbox, then display the full navbox menu of wikilinks when viewed separately (only showing all wikilinks when viewed separately).  All the articles using the current navboxes DO NOT NEED EDITING.  This remarkable, simple solution is possible because wikilinks conditionally coded inside a navbox template (or any other template) that do not appear, on the article page, will not get propagated to become thousands of repeated entries in the Wikipedia page-link database(s).  Note that the "Hide/Show" option does NOT stop the propagated wikilinks: the article page must have no option to display those links on the actual article page, but rather link to the outside navbox showing those wikilinks as a separate article (which could be that navbox template's own page).  However, variations on that solution might have the navbox link not just to its one template page, but rather to multiple other navboxes, allowing the reader a wider choice of perhaps 7 or 10 other ways to access sets of related articles, such as by date groups, or sets of "largest" or "wildest" or "most popular" in the subject, etc.  From that split, there could be hundreds of various navboxes, as along as they did not appear with the page of each article, but rather were linked only by a separate outside navbox pages when viewed separately.  In a subject such as films, there could be various standalone navboxes totalling, perhaps, 10,000 wikilinks to films, but not generate the squared 10,0002 = 100,000,000 (100 million) wikilinks as would happen with internal navboxes. The solution by using outside navboxes requires no editing of the hundreds or thousands of current article pages, but rather just change the article's common navbox to link outside, using a suitable box display. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Solution to navbox N-squared wikilinks