Articles with a "/" in their name

[J. Noel Chiappa]

In the process of (finally) writing [[CZ:Article structure]], I've been doing some cleanup, and I have (again) run across the issue of how to handle articles with a "/" in their names.

(To rehearse this, for those who are unfamiliar with it, it involves articles on subjects with names like "Apollo Command/Service Module", which would naturally include a "/". The problem is that if we simply put the article at "Apollo Command/Service Module", it confuses the subpages system, since "/" is the magic character that separates out subpage name sections. In other words, it thinks that "Apollo Command/Service Module" is the "Service Module" subpage of the "Apollo Command" page.)

The most plausible solution is to put the article at another name, with a redirect from the problematic name (i.e. from "Apollo Command/Service Module", the example above). We did this for "GNU/Linux"; the article is at [[linux]], with a redirect from [[GNU/Linux]]. However, there are some articles where there is not immediately obvious alternative name.

For those, I propose a general rule, that we substitute a "-". (It could be almost anything, but "-" seems most obvious. I have no attachment to "-", and if people would prefer something else, I'm totally happy to do something else.) Is that OK?


Also, I propose to create a template similar to the one Wikipedia uses for articles on subjects with names that start with a lower-case letter (e.g. "eBay"). That template could, I further propose, automatically include all these articles in a category (if so, suggestions for the category's name gladly accepted - I was thinking of calling the template itself {{slashname}} - that should be easy to remember). Although I suppose the 'what-links-here' of the template would also serve to track them down....

What about the redirects? Should we include them in a category too - or just make them an argument to the template? (Or both?) I would definitely recommend making them an argument (in part so we can emit text on the order of 'this article should be at "foo/bar" but because of technical limitations it has to be here'). And if a category, the same one, or a different one?

Noel

[Robert_W_King]

I am sure dash "-" will be fine.

[Hayford Peirce]

A dash, en-dash, or em-dash? Just to be infuriating.... ~~~~

[J. Noel Chiappa]

A dash, en-dash, or em-dash? Just to be infuriating....

A dash - easier to type! (Besides, an em-dash might do something wierd when used in a URL, which it will have to be if it's part of the article pagename...)

~~~~

Moded interface syndrome! :-)

Noel

[Aleta Curry]

A dash, en-dash, or em-dash? Just to be infuriating.... ~~~~

Never let it be said that Hayford Peirce was not a success! 

[Derek Harkness]

I pointed out this problem back when subpages where first proposed. The solution proposed then was to change the delimiter of the subpages to a > mark. The > is actually use in the title of the subpages but not the URI. For example if you go to [[Belgian cuisine/Catalogs]] the top of the page reads Belgian cuisine > Catalogs. By marking subpages with a > or other uncommon punctuation mark, we can keep the main article titles in a normal format.

As far as users finding the pages, google gives the same results for Apollo Command/Service Module as for Apollo Command-Service Module so it's not going to cause big problems.

[J. Noel Chiappa]

The solution proposed then was to change the delimiter of the subpages to a > mark. The > is actually use in the title of the subpages but not the URI. .. By marking subpages with a > or other uncommon punctuation mark, we can keep the main article titles in a normal format.

Is that something we could still do? Would it be a lot of work? (I imagine all the subpage templates would have to change - that's a ton of work right there.)

As far as users finding the pages, google gives the same results for Apollo Command/Service Module as for Apollo Command-Service Module so it's not going to cause big problems.

Sounds like everyone's OK with the "-", then? I'll go ahead and do it, in that case; there are a number of "/" pages which still aren't set up properly with metadata because of this, and I want to get them squared away.

Noel

[J. Noel Chiappa]

Sounds like everyone's OK with the "-", then?

Arghh! I looked at {{Lowercase}}, and saw the special form {{DISPLAYTITLE:<foo>}}, and I got all excited and thought "Hah, we can use that", and I was getting set to suggest we use an unusual character (not "-", which some of the titles also contain, as well as "/"), and work out some way to swap in "/" for it, but alas...

It only works if the new title is renormalizable to the URL. In other words, only very limited changes from the actual pagename, to what is displayed (e.g. change of case in the first character) are allowed.

Blast! (We also could have used that for allowing article titles to be different from pagenames, double-blast!)

Noel

[Chris Day]

Sounds like everyone's OK with the "-", then?

It only works if the new title is renormalizable to the URL.

Just to clarify, which are the problem characters here?  i.e. the ones that are not renormalizable.

[J. Noel Chiappa]

Just to clarify, which are the problem characters here?  i.e. the ones that are not renormalizable.

What I mostly meant was that you couldn't rename "Foo" to "Bar". I'm not exactly sure what the 'normalization' process involves, but it's probably the algorithm that they apply to [[foo]] links to get the target article name - i.e. convert the first character to upper-case, that sort of thing. So the allowed changes are probably pretty minimal, and I'm not sure that there's anything that maps into "/" except... "/". If you're really interested, I can try and find the code and figure out how to read it... :-)

Noel

[Larry Sanger]

I pointed out this problem back when subpages where first proposed. The solution proposed then was to change the delimiter of the subpages to a > mark. The > is actually use in the title of the subpages but not the URI. For example if you go to [[Belgian cuisine/Catalogs]] the top of the page reads Belgian cuisine > Catalogs. By marking subpages with a > or other uncommon punctuation mark, we can keep the main article titles in a normal format.

As far as users finding the pages, google gives the same results for Apollo Command/Service Module as for Apollo Command-Service Module so it's not going to cause big problems.

That's a reasonable solution--but is it really that big of a problem that it's necessary?  I mean, how many articles are we talking about here?  Two or three?  "GNU/Linux" and "Face/Off" and "CP/M".  Any others?   

[J. Noel Chiappa]

That's a reasonable solution--but is it really that big of a problem that it's necessary?  I mean, how many articles are we talking about here?  Two or three?  "GNU/Linux" and "Face/Off" and "CP/M".  Any others?   

At the moment, not many. I've got a list of about half a dozen (see my /ToDo page), but the second two are new to me (I'll add them). So assuming we have roughly 10 now, with about 6K articles, by the time we get to 1M article, we'll have roughly 1.5K, or something on that vague approximate order.

I hadn't done a category yet, I figured the What-Links-Here of {{slashtitle}} would be enough, but looking at that 1.5K.... Of course, it's trivial (literally) to add the cat later, at least to the articles; edit {{slashtitle}}, and you're done. Adding it to the redirects would mean manually updating each one... unless (light bulb goes on) I put another template on them now, which we can edit later - hmmm, not a bad idea - everyone like that?

Noel

[J. Noel Chiappa]

it's trivial (literally) to add the cat later, at least to the articles; edit {{slashtitle}}, and you're done. Adding it to the redirects would mean manually updating each one... unless (light bulb goes on) I put another template on them now, which we can edit later - hmmm, not a bad idea - everyone like that?

I've decided I want to go ahead and do this (tag these redirects). Anyone have any feeling on what the template name should be? I was thinking {{slashredir}}, by analogy with {{slashtitle}}. And should I put them in a cat, and if so, what should it be called?

Noel

[Chris Day]

I trust you, do what sounds right.