Talk:Stranger

My concerns are less than Peter's but still there

While I am very much in favor of "thickets", I see the key mechanism being the Related Articles pages, started with relatively short definitions in R-templates, and extended into articles as they grow in length. A definition as long as was written when this was only a lemma is hard to read on a substantial Related Articles page, or even at the top of a Talk Page.

Lemmas were intended as a way to link to concise definitions, or slightly more lengthy definition that were never expected to be full articles (e.g., an expansion and explanation of a complex acronym or term of art). They evolved to be an adjunct to Related Pages.

I do not believe that creating wikilinks for ordinary words, which need no more than dictionary definitions, either help contextualization or readability.

Tom, I say this as having "walked the walk" of expanding lemmas that seem to have started as part of writing on mythology, and principally explore that definition. At the very least, then, if you must use a lemma, qualify it to be mother (mythology) or parent (Greek tragedy); don't let it appear to be a general definition. If you would be general about a term with many meanings, start a full article and use subheadings for the various meanings; perhaps only a sentence or two under each.

I generally dislike, if for no other than formatting reasons, to put sources in definitions. The restricted exception is when the definition comes directly, or with slight editing, from a controlled indexing vocabulary such as Medical Subject Headings. Howard C. Berkowitz 12:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your thinking. What I'm getting here is what not to do, but it's less clear to me how to do. What I'm looking for is a way to meet the objective of rapid creation of acceptable material which serves as a support system for quality articles, and has the purpose of attracting readers and hopefully future contributors. The lemmas are fast to create, and what I had been told were easy to expand into larger articles; but now the whole issue of "what's a definition" and "what constitutes a valid definition" has come to the forefront, and my actions have created bickering and dickering over details. There are guidelines that when writing a lemma article, the definition doesn't have to be short -- I distinctly remember reading these guidelines. About sources in definitions -- this doesn't bother me, but it bothers others, so I'll stop. About subpages like the Related Articles subpage -- I'm not a big fan of subpages. They're slow to load. I think it adds a secondary step for both readers and contributors -- a tiny tab which obscures exactly what information is related -- I prefer the Wikipedia "See also" system without subpages as being simpler, straightforward, easier for readers, faster, and less likely to cause unnecessary fuss between contributors. If I create short articles without the subpages command at the top, and without a "Related Articles" subpage, would this be acceptable? But if I find that it takes me 5 minutes to do each "short article", that's too long. It must be efficient and simple.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand that subpages have a learning curve, but, until a future Editorial Council should rule otherwise, the CZ standard is Related Pages, not See Also. The concept of a "thicket" is consistent with a consensus about contextualization being desirable, but there is no consensus that doing it, and associated things, to improve Google Juice is necessary.

With help from Chris Day, I first originated the idea of a lemma, so I can share my thinking on its original purpose, which was not to be a shorthand way of writing an article. Some of the original needs were military, such as as describing the purpose of an AN/FPS-99 radar, which would only be explained further in an article on fixed air and space search radara.

I can only say that there is a consensus that Related Articles pages are a good thing. Now, it's one thing for more experienced contributors to create them for beginners, or for subject matter experts to add terms that may not be common knowledge (e.g. Delphi method), but it stretches the idea of collaboration when someone writes lots of articles with the assumption that other people will polish -- especially when the articles are on topics that other contributors wonder if they deserve articles at all, or are more dictionary definitions.

If you aren't doing Related Articles, you won't see how sources in definitions impacts their formatting. Lemmas have become multipurpose, but no particular usage should damage others.

Of course there will be bickering over details; it's still a young project. At least the details are discussed. They should be discussed and defined much more efficiently by the Editorial Council and Workgroups, which really should be in the process of establishment, except that one controversial issue is holding up the ratification of the Charter that authorizes them. Personally, and officially as a minority (but not of one), I believe the less controversial Charter parts dealing with the EC should be voted upon, with the controversial topic of an Executive being taken up in a second pass. There is no question that the EC will define conventions, although an Executive might deal with their implementation. No EC, and the role of the Executive is moot. But that's my opinion. Howard C. Berkowitz 13:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)