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Here is a request, following up on Mike’s recent reminders that
when you create an entry called “foo”, please don’t forget to add a
[[!redirects foos]]
line.
There are other editorial aspects that I would like to ask everyone to keep in mind when creating an entry:
For the nLab to grow large in a useful way, it is important that the hyperlink structure satisfies some basic robustness conditions. So I would like to ask that
For instance, when you create an entry Monster group and tell the reader that the monster is a finite simple group, imagine the reader who doesn’t know what these terms mean, and provide hyperlinks to simple group, finite group.
Conversely, imagine that the reader who doesn’t know the monster yet is unlikely to have heard of sporadic finite simple groups in the first place. So he will have a small chance finding the monster on his quest for truth around the nLab if the monster is only linked to from sporadic finite simple group. Since the monster is an important example of a finite group, add it as a linked example there, too. Or even as an example at group.
This may sound a bit tedious, but I think the trouble of adding some handful of cross-links the moment an entry is created, has a great effect on the usefulness of the nLab and is small compared to the trouble it saves later on.
Is it possible to have this message appear in the Edit Box when someone actually creates a new page?
Thanks for the reminder, Urs. Having it appear in or next to the edit box is not a bad idea.
I created simple group. Incidentally, I can’t remember how diacritical marks are to be made in page names, but I wanted a link to a (so-far nonexistent) entry “Jordan-Hölder theorem”.
In theory, the naming conventions still require Jordan–Hölder theorem, but they are in flux, so you probably shouldn’t worry about it.
:) Thanks for the reminder, Urs. I am suitably chastened.
I am suitably chastened.
I hope you don’t take this in a bad spirit. I could have used many other entries by other contributors as an example. It was just chance that I happened to take yours.
I found myself busily editing entries you all create by filling in missing links, and I thought maybe its more efficient if I ask you to help me do that.
Sounds like we need more Lab Elves :)
@Urs,
I know - I was trying to amend someone else being slightly slow in adding a broken link, but it adds more links and they add more links and so on. It’s a never-ending problem
@Eric
+1
adding a broken link
Right, but I am not so worried about “broken links” aka links to non-existent pages. Eventually the pages will come into existence and then the link will work.
I am more worried about missing links. Better have a page with lots of links to pages that do not exist yet, than have a page not linking to pages that do exist. :-)
Sounds like we need more Lab Elves :)
That never hurts. But putting the right links to an entry also requires that one knows enough about the given topic, so it’s likely the author of an entry him- or herself who is best suited to do it.
Recently for instance when I tried to provide missing links for a new entry by Todd related to algebraic theories, Toby complained (rightly, i suppose) that I added a link as an example in a place where it didn’t belong. The problem was that I wasn’t the right person to provide these links, really.
I endorse what Urs is saying here. (My complaint that he references above was very specific.)
I’ll mention again that it would be good if we could include a remark along these lines next to the “create” edit box when someone is actually in the process of creating a new page. Is that possible?
Regarded “wanted links” (they’re not really broken), I agree. Better to have broken links than missing links. Plus, when someone comes along and sees a link is wanted, they just might be inclined to provide at least a stub.
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