User:SolKarma

Why are you so fixated on hard disk drives? And why are you repeating the same information on multiple pages?

SolKarma replies Simply this: an encyclopedia is a like a thesaurus, a collection of entries and their descriptions. This is how humans categorize knowledge. To better categorize knowledge, one must contain elements of knowledge into their most discrete form.

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You are severely mistaken about the nature of encyclopedias, the nature of this wikipedia and the best way to archive knowledge for users' retrieval and access.

''As Uriyan says, encyclopedias have full articles, not nodes. The wikipedia has a search facility so that if a user searches for something in an article entry, they will be able to find it. You do not need to put all the keywords you can think of into separate entries.''

''Also, splitting everything up by nodes like that is extremely detrimental to the user. Having to navigate through the wikipedia costs user time and mental resources. If a user has to go back and forth across two dozen different entries to understand a single, simple idea, then those entries are completely useless.''

''The best way to present information to the user is one screenful at a time. That way they have as much information as possible at one glance and can see how all of that information interrelates. When entries are much longer than a screenful, the user wastes time scrolling through the entry. When entries are smaller, they waste time clicking on links.''

''Also, putting related links in the same article (like object oriented programing, and object oriented programing language) just to shorten the path between nodes is another bad idea. The cost of the shortened path is that each article ends up having more links, which end up confusing the user.''

''A special case of avoiding such out-linking redundancy is to avoid linking the same term multiple times closely together. So if operating system is already linked in a paragraph, avoid linking it a second time. Unless the occurences of a term are separated by at least a half-screenful, creating additional links just clutters the page.''

These customs are all developed in order to aid the reader's ability to reflect on what they're reading, instead of mindlessly travelling along a chain of nodes.

If you understand what wikipedia is about, it will earn you karma if you gather all the entries you made and put them together into one or two large articles.


 * Wikipedia is not a thesaurus (look at Most common Wikipedia faux pas!), and in no way must it split knowledge into a discrete form. On the contrary, it should be as complete as possible, and in order to be that, it should integrate significant chunks of related facts into a single article. Of course, an article should not generally include unrelated topics - but "primary partition" and "logical partition" are hardly unrelated. Also, articles like "Drive letter assignment" (and many others) are excessively DOS-centric. For instance, Linux does not give a damn whether a partition is primary or secondary, and so do the newer NTs (to a lesser extent).

--Uriyan

I agree with most of this -- there's no point in separating out a "file system types" article from "file system", just list them there. A separate article for "network file system" is probably OK, there would be enough material eventually and it's handy for linking, but isn't essential at the moment given a redirect from "network file system". I don't think the "screen full" is a very useful guide, since firstly screen sizes and fonts differ widely, and 2ndly it's more important to consider whether the split material is actually a useful article before splitting it out. e.g., would any other page need to link to it directly? -- anon.

I know that screen size is a very fuzzy concept but it's inescapable. I think that in most, maybe even all, cases, the only reason why "any other page [would] need to link to it directly" is if the virtual article (eg, 'buddhist shrines') isn't given its own section (in 'shrines') or if that section is at least a screenful away from the top. So if 'buddhist shrines' is at the top of the 'shrines' page, or close enough to it, then you can just redirect 'buddhist shrines' links to 'shrines'.

I've spun off pages from other pages and it's always because I think their content buries everythig else on the original page. For example, nobody will link to 'History of operating systems' directly but even incomplete, the content of that page made up 60% of 'operating system'! If someone had tried to even mention research OSes on 'operating system' (and why not?) it would have been completely buried under two screens' worth of history.

Another example. If I add a mention of the impact of cars on urban design and social life at the end of the automobile article, do you think anyone will ever read it? --Ark


 * SolKarma welcome aboard! Sorry your user experience here has been a bit of a culture shock but we are trying to write comprehensive encyclopedia articles here and not a thesaurus or dictionary. When you are new, it is usually best to add-to and edit pre-existing articles so that you can get your feet wet. Please don't take the above comments as "us being harsh on you" -- because it isn't. We all really care about the project and want the best for it. Nobody should expect any newcomer to know exactly what the project is about on the first day -- but sometimes enthusiastic newcomers like you get a little ahead of themselves. I know I did when I was new. Now let's all get back to work creating the best encyclopedia on the internet! --maveric149


 * Ditto, welcome, it's always charming to see new faces (ok, nicks) 'round this place. Hope you'll enjoy Wikipedia! --Uriyan

SolKarma, apparently you still don't understand what the wikipedia is about. There's no such thing as a "how to" entry here.

Um, no, we had some how-tos awhile back. I don't know if they're still here, and I don't know how to go about finding them since the words "how to" are too short for the search engine (?). Koyaanis Qatsi, Saturday, June 8, 2002

Are you referring to the meta-articles like "how to edit"? --Ark, Saturday, June 8, 2002

No. I don't remember what they were on, though. There are also still some recipes around, which are probably more "how-to" than the traditional encyclopedia allows. Koyaanis Qatsi

Are you referring to How-tos? -- CYD

Some of those on there (the non-meta ones) and there were others too--more mechanically based IIRC, but oh well. Koyaanis Qatsi