Jon: Your proposal sounds like one for a virtual page of some kind--say, a "page" that is actually a section, not a true page.
I have a problem similar to the one you describe for DC Comic "multiverses." Consider: <http://creationwiki.org/index.php/Eris> <http://creationwiki.org/index.php/Dysnomia> The first of these articles is about the dwarf planet Eris, the discovery of which led to the "demotion" of Pluto (and the "promotion" of Ceres). The second article concerns Eris' one and only (so far seen) satellite, Dysnomia. The problem is that virtually nothing is known of Dysnomia, save that its presence, and observations of its orbital elements, allowed astronomer Mike Brown and his team to infer the mass of Eris. Ideally, Dysnomia would rate nothing more than a separate section in the article on Eris. But the way I have it set up, I have to annotate Dysnomia as a separate page, if I want to form a consistent listing of satellites for Eris. Or for a better example, check out: <http://creationwiki.org/index.php/Pluto> and Pluto's satellites: <http://creationwiki.org/index.php/Charon> <http://creationwiki.org/index.php/Nix> <http://creationwiki.org/index.php/Hydra_(moon)> Same sort of problem. Nix and Hydra don't truly rate a separate page--but how else can I use an inline query to produce a table of Pluto's satellites? And I'd say that Charon /does/ rate a separate page. I haven't even mentioned the planet Jupiter, which has /sixty-three/ satellites at last count--because I have only begun to write articles about Jovian moons, starting with Galileo's initial discoveries. Now maybe a few of the innermost moons rate separate pages--but all sixty-two? And how about Saturn? Sure, I can write articles about Titan (already done), Rhea, Mimas, Iapetus, etc.--but must I write a page about every little ring shepherd? And I don't even want to think about annotating the asteroids. If we /could/ establish a "virtual page," then a property of the Page type could point either to a virtual page or to a real page. This might require yet another database table, say "smw_virtual_pages." This table would have at least two columns: one with the virtual page name, and the other with a page-and-section resolution that would have exactly the same syntax as a section-specific redirection. TerryH Jon Lang wrote: > It occurs to me that there are often times when you're putting > information on a wiki where you're providing information about a lot > of related items, all on one page. This happens because while there's > enough semantic information involved to warrant a brief summary about > the item in question, the item isn't important enough to warrant a > page of its own. An example of this can be found at < > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DC_Multiverse_worlds >. This > page includes information about over a hundred fictional worlds > mentioned in comic books published by DC Comics; many of these worlds > have only appeared in a single panel of a single comic book, if that; > dedicating an entire page to such a small piece of trivia feels like > overkill. On the other hand, each world has a designation, an era in > which is was conceived, a sample of inhabitants, some defining > characteristics, and the comic book issue in which it was first > mentioned. It would be quite useful to be able to annotate these bits > of information; but right now, the only means of doing so is to create > a separate page for each. > > So my proposal is this: add a tag which isolates a portion of the page > from the rest of it for the purpose of semantic annotations: that is, > semantic annotations within the tag apply to the item that the tag > represents, rather than to the item that the page as a whole > represents. > > I'm probably proposing an extension rather than a revision; but I'm > not sure - I haven't thought this idea through all the way yet. And > besides, a revision is merely an extension that's made it into the > core. :) > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Semediawiki-devel mailing list Semediawiki-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-devel
