[Search wiki] Mini Aricles and Use of the Main Namespace

[jer]

>> As has been noted, links within mini articles to other mini  
>> articles are
>> awkward. Using the main namespace for mini articles would make  
>> internal
>> linking  more straightforward.

My inclination is to make almost all views of a mini article be in- 
context, that you only see them in their search result.  What reasons  
are there to view them outside of that context?

>> There is also the question of what the
>> content of mini articles ought to be. One possibility is brief  
>> articles
>> about the word or term, a sort of mini Wikipedia article.

If these are short as in a sentence or two I could see this, but when  
they grow to be a body of "real" content, the actual answers to the  
search term, I worry that it's becoming an answer service and not  
something that compliments one of the core functions of a search  
result, to direct people somewhere.

>> Another is
>> adding significant material about disambiguation of the term.

Disambig, as well as poorly formed queries, misspellings (that the  
currently non-existant did-you-mean feature might not cover), and  
"hot" or fresh searches (like news, memes, so on) that are always  
harder with algorithmic approaches.

What about the usage of mini articles for straight up "this is the  
best link and isn't in the search result!" ?  Shouldn't we support  
this and use that data to index and improve the rankings?  Is it a  
problem to support that usage?

>> Either
>> alternative could occur in the mini or main namespace. If the mini
>> namespace is used in one of those ways, the question remains of  
>> what the
>> main namespace is is used for. I have tentatively assumed the search
>> namespace is for policy, the help namespace is for help. If you are
>> confused, the main namespace is an article with nothing in front  
>> of it
>> ([[Apple]] rather than [[Mini:Apple]]).
>>
>> As an alternative, I suggest that we continue with the mini  
>> articles as
>> a brief introduction to the subject and reserve the main namespace  
>> for
>> an intensive disambiguation of its subject, including suggestions
>> regarding how to use appropriate keywords to refine searches to  
>> get good
>> results for various possibilities. Whether our projected user base  
>> would
>> actively use and develop such pages remains to be seen, although I  
>> find
>> it enjoyable.

I'm starting to agree with this line of thought, and thinking that it  
might be good if Mini: is limited to a very small size, few  
sentences, and can add a "see more" which links to a regular article  
on the topic.  We can set it up so that the Mini's are only viewed,  
created, and edited in the search result page directly.

Am I at odds with current thoughts on this, or does it sound reasonable?

>> There are some discussions at Forum:Mini articles and at Forum:Main
>> Namespace I have been so bold as to provisionally advance a policy  
>> page
>> at search:Main namespace
>>
>> Fred Bauder
>
> Here's a suggested treatment I kind of like:
>
>     1. As an alternative to maintaining separate articles, the "mini"
> content could be maintained as a part of a larger article, for example
> in the form of a formal "Summary" section. That section would need to
> be extracted on the fly. Would this work?
>     2. You have put the big, "encyclopedic" disambiguation article  
> in the
> main space, and the "dictionary" article (which also provides some
> disambiguation, which is good) in the Mini space. To keep the bulk of
> links and articles simple, I would prefer to do it the other way
> around: Put the small, "mini" article in the main space and the large,
> detailed one in a different namespace, such as "dis[ambiguation]" or
> "extended". Or give it an extension, as in "innocence/disambiguation"
> or "innocence (disambiguation)".
>     My guess is that there will always be many more small articles  
> than
> large ones. Keeping the bulk of the articles in the main space will
> make linking simpler. Notice all those "create" and "edit" links in
> parentheses behind the "search query" (keyword?) links. Currently,
> they all point to Mini. Most links will intend to refer to the small
> articles. The namespace prefix would vanish, simplifying the links.
>     --RainerBlome 00:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
>
> Perhaps the extended articles could use the Search namespace and we  
> could
> put policy in some other namespace such as policy.

If interacting with Mini: is abstracted/hidden through the search  
result page, I think it would be best to keep it the way it is, so  
the regular articles are in the regular namespace.

One *very* long term thinking is that others could mimic the "Mini:"  
namespace on their own wiki's, and a crawler can build a database of  
mini articles from any wiki on the web.

Jer