From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2003-01-12T00:07:28+09:00
Subject: Re: Wiki sub-pages

On Sunday, January 12, 2003, 1:58:20 AM, Dave wrote:


> On Saturday, Jan 11, 2003, at 08:41 US/Central, Gavin Sinclair wrote:

>>
>> No, but that would be a good start.  I'd suggest putting the string
>> "@deprecated@" in there so someone can search for those and remove
>> them sometime down the track.
>>
>> There's no way I know of to move Wiki pages.
>>

> As admin,[1] I can do that. However, I was wondering what problem we're 
> trying to solve here. Wiki's are not intrinsically hierarchical 
> structures: they are designed to be mostly flat. In fact, there's 
> sometimes an interesting serendipity involved: you edit a page putting 
> in a WikiLink to some new fact you want to talk about, only to discover 
> that the page already exists.

I totally agree, but there are pathological cases (like the one I made
an example of: LicenseIssues, which sounds general but pertains only
to the RubyOnlineCookbook).  Over time, these patholical cases
increase in number, and the classic Wiki problem emerges: you can't
see the wood for the trees.  There's a lot of good stuff in there, but
there's also a lot of pollution.

That's why I'm glad that subpages can go only one deep: the Wiki
stoutly refuses to be over-categorised, but allows refactored pages to
have a local frame of reference.

In short, sub-pages are a good feature that have their place.  Also,
the Wiki is a good resource that needs a little administration now and
then.

Your point about serendipity is well made, though.  I may have been
guilty of overusing them, but only slightly :)

> [1] http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?AdminFeatures

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