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Forum:Namespaces?: Difference between revisions

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Forum:Namespaces? (view source)

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[[User:Vorticity|Vorticity]] ([[User talk:Vorticity|talk]]) 03:42, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
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writing is not the same thing as coding. [...]
writing is not the same thing as coding. [...] When you make a mistake in coding, consequences can range from incorrect results to compiler errors to inadvertent features. But the first result is typically very bad. In the context of an incorrect wiki link going to not quite the right page... well, the user will get to read a slightly different page.
* Errors in cross-links require more prevention because ''rooting them out'' once they are in place is much harder. Text can be spellchecked, markup can be also syntax-validated, code can also be trackedalso traced, but bad links to existing targets are detectable only by an actual reader, and even then unreliably. If someonean editor messesmessed up links, this isn't obvious from context, butit can be immediately noticed only by someone looking at the link and ''remembering'' what the linked page is about. Even following ita link doesn't automatically alert the reader - at this point one still may mistake it for an obscure, but valid reference or joke. And once detected, they can be only removed, because who knows what the editor actually meant?
 
I don't think worrying about linking errors is as important of a goal as is natural writing. Most of our users are non-technical, or should be, so I want to follow the principle of least surprise. One of those surprises includes typing in the name of a work in the URL bar and having nothing come up. That's what red text means.
* What do you mean under "natural writing"? It's in '''<nowiki>[['''wiki markup''']]</nowiki>''' syntax to begin with.
* The readers you expect to input it in URL bar can be just as well expected to at very least understand the basic idea of hierarchy separated by slashes.
* It's sensitive to capitalization either way, and works use the same names (looking on imdb.com how many unrelated movies are named "Deja Vu" was a little bewildering). And work/article ambiguousness on top of that. So with a few exclusions, getting there by editing URL bar is still luck, and otherwise it's down to search anyway.
** Of course, the ''best'' solution would be to automatically format/color-code links to disambiguation pages and redirects, much like it's done with red-links.
 
Cool story bro, but I think I need evidence on that one. As if such things weren't confusing already, and wouldn't continue to be confusing under any naming scenario.
* The last work vs. common word / possible article name ambiguousness encountered (today): ''[[Monk]]''. :D Do you really think it's exactly what everyone editing it into URL bar would mean?
* For work vs. article clash - ''Death Star'' above.
* For potential article vs. work clashes ''after we exclude common words'' - yes, it's not that often. But e.g. "Sgt. Rock" is an abbreviation for what was named after it.
** Generally, [[Trope Namers]] are this waiting to happen: if something was a name proper or a catchy phrase in Book 1 of The Grey Mountains Saga, and was worth a mention, by Book 50 it's as likely as not to get on the cover, no? Serials being fountains of creativity with output pumped back to input. Or, for example, would you bet that in the next handful of Chiropterous Man comics one will not be named "''[[Joker Jury]]''" or "''[[Bruce Wayne Held Hostage]]''", or one of the other phrases trope-wikis grabbed?.. ;)
 
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