It would be quite useful to store only the relevant data for each day/month/year/decade/century page (e.g.
1985). That way we could implement more advanced queries, e.g. "list all important events in the years 1348-1352" and minimize the amount of stored data (saying that John Doe was born on DD/MM/YY once rather than adding his name to both the Days list, the Months list and the Years list).
Regarding the Concepts
WikiProject, I would like to understand better what qualifies as a concept and what doesn't. For instance, is "electron" a concept? How about "beauty" or "religion"? What happens if there are wpc articles about concepts which are also treated elsewhere in the Wikipedia? --
AxelBoldt
- I'm not yet sure how to define the concept of "concept". I'd say that a concept is something that can be defined by its relationships to other concepts (somewhat circular, I know... anyone have a better definition?). "Electron" is definitely a concept. I'll get around to defining it eventually. "Beauty" and "religion" are loaded words. If you find a particular, simple definition for those terms, I'd say you would have defined concepts. But probably not everybody would agree to call these concepts "beauty" and "religion". The idea here is to start from concepts, then slap a name onto them, rather than the other way around. Thanks a lot for your interest! --Seb
I think by far the best way to figure out how to "organize all known concepts in a logical manner" is to write encyclopedia articles. Trying to say a priori how concepts are related, without exploring all the multivarious ways,
in detail (here, the devil is in the details), of how different topics are related, seems inefficient.
- I hope that discussions of concepts will result in new relationships that can be integrated in the definition. In that sense, I wouldn't say that we're trying to say a priori how they are related. The first edition of a concept entry is a priori; but a posteriori modifications are always possible.
I also don't see what the point of trying to "organize all known concepts in a logical manner" for Wikipedia would be. How would we use the work? As I understand it, the point of "WikiProjects?" is ultimately assist in the building of an encyclopedia. How does "WikiProjects? Concepts" do that?
- I'm not only interested in building an encyclopedia, but also in building an encyclopedia that makes it easy and quick for a reader to find and learn about stuff that is related to his/her interests. And I believe that an easy-to-follow logical structure is one of the best ways to get acquainted with concepts that we know nothing about, starting from concepts that we do know about. I'll try to find a good example for you. Check back this page in a while.
The very best thing we all can be doing on Wikipedia is writing encyclopedia articles about stuff we know about. --Larry Sanger
- I respect your opinion. I believe I'm not the first contributor to propose that we complement Wikipedia articles with an access structure. I hope you don't see this project as a threat for the Wikipedia itself. I for one believe it could make it even more attractive. --Seb