Talk:Plane (geometry)/Archive 1

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Picture

Sorry, again. But this is even more a bad idea! This picture may -- perhaps! -- be used to illustrate the topological concept of a surface, certainly not that of a plane. --Peter Schmitt 00:42, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Remarks

"A plane is a surface on which a line perpendicular to a line which lies on that surface also falls entirely on the surface" — where is it taken from?? Hopelessly bad "definition".

"A plane is made up of an infinite number of straight lines" — it surely contains infinitely many straight lines, as well as infinitely many triangles, circles etc. But is it "made up" of them??

"Surfaces can be parallel" — really? what is the definition of this notion?

"Thus the surface has on it point A, point B, and point C is called surface ABC" — a plane is determined by three points (if not on a straight line), but a surface is not.

"If this crumpled picture of the Earth was spread flat on a perfectly flat table, and the picture had absolutely no thickness, then it would be a plane" — no, it would be a finite domain on a plane.

Boris Tsirelson 15:29, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Rewritten

I was bold enough to rewrite it completely. Hope you do not object. Could someone please add an appropriate lead, and probably introduction with a completely informal idea of plane? It would be also nice to have pictures to the three geometric definitions. Boris Tsirelson 09:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Analytic geometry

I added some high-school-level analytic geometry plus two drawings. --Paul Wormer 10:46, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Getting better

Excellent article! This ain't a plain-old article by any flat stretch.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 16:07, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment to Paul and me. However, a good article must have a lead, and probably introduction, right? Maybe you can try? Boris Tsirelson 17:51, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Maybe in a bit. I'm off doing errands now. Thanx for your vote of confidence in me but I'm not scientific by any flat stretch!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
I looked it over. I think you're making excellent progress on it! I'm impressed. It soon gets into technical areas that are above my pay grade that I'm not going to understand like the equations (I was an anthropology major in college! -- arrgh). A suggestion I might offer at this point is to have the first paragraph focus more on the conventional (ie simple, that is -- three points in space define a plane etc) sense of plane -- a flat surface -- because I think this is what will be sufficient for most people. So maybe add a few more sentences perhaps to the first paragraph which explains the basic sense, perhaps, if you feel it's warranted. Then, I think it would be good to make a case for why one should consider exploring the more difficult mathematical questions about a plane -- that is, why a reader will benefit fro getting more involved in this subject. And then keep your great stuff you've got thereafter. Overall, highly impressed!!! My son is into math and he may want a look at it.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 20:30, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
By the way, I've linked this article from the corresponding Wikipedia article. It does not increase our Google rank (because of "nofollow" tag...) but could attract some readers. Boris Tsirelson 05:39, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
About lead/intro I feel I am too much mathematical for doing it. I am hardly understanding what do non-mathematicians think about planes (and other mathematical objects). Maybe an antropologist or chemist would do it better? Boris Tsirelson 05:43, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
About lead/intro: isn't it sufficient what is there now?--Paul Wormer 07:17, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Oops... I am sorry, I did not note that it has appeared! Yes, probably it is OK. Boris Tsirelson 08:40, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
About the "flat surface in which a straight line joining any of its two points lies entirely on that surface" I wonder: does "flat" already mean "in which a straight line joining any of its two points lies entirely on that surface", or does it mean something different? Boris Tsirelson 08:50, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

[unindent]

The first sentence is from the Oxford Dictionary and hence "flat" is as the non-mathematician perceives it. (Undefined, intuitively clear, and perhaps somewhat redundant). I added to the lede a paragraph about Hilbert's work on classical Euclidean geometry. I found it illuminating that Hilbert assumes the plane to be an undefined object. Further the mentioning of Hilbert's book is (IMHO) a piece of information of encyclopedic nature. Feel free to change/delete/add anything. --Paul Wormer 09:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

"(Undefined, intuitively clear, and perhaps somewhat redundant)" — Ah, yes, this is why I am reluctant to write introductions; I know that I am too much mathematical for this business.
"Hilbert assumes the plane to be an undefined object" — Oh yes; this is what I mean by "In the axiomatic approach points, lines and planes are undefined primitives" in "Axiomatic approach".
"mentioning of Hilbert's book is (IMHO) a piece of information of encyclopedic nature" — surely it is. Boris Tsirelson 12:24, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Overall highly impressed with this excellent article. Not that I understand it. It's just that stuff with equations in it looks cool. Just one comment about the first sentence -- maybe it's because I'm not quite mathematical enough to grasp it -- but I have trouble wrapping my mind around the idea of a plane with only one line in it. I keep thinking multiple lines, or 2-D; but it's the handyman in me to think of a flat board, not warped, since warped boards cause problems, particularly when trying to build stuff.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Thomas the first sentence says "line between any two points". For a mathematician the adjective "any" implies an infinite number of lines, because there are no restrictions whatsoever on the choice of points. Grab (any) two points in the plane and you have a line (or a line segment) in the plane.--Paul Wormer 15:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Related lemmas

I was about to write lemma articles for the following but wasn't sure if I'd get it correct. Is a nonagon meaning nothing there? To write a lemma, click on the space to the right where it says in fuzzy lettering "Add brief description or definition" (that is, don't click on the term itself in red, and don't click on the tiny "r"; rather, when you hover your cursor above the Add brief description... a blue line should appear underneath) , then write the definition under the subpages stuff, save it. Then, when the term is red, such as Hexagon, click on it, erase the stuff inside the <!---- this stuff erase it---> so only the "subpages" thingie at the top remains, and then save it as a "lemma". Sorry this explanation isn't very good.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 15:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

...said Thomas Wright Sulcer (talk) 15:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC) (Please sign your talk page posts by simply adding four tildes, ~~~~.) forgot, sorry.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 15:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, one more thing; when writing lemmas or any article, try to include as many relevant (ie pertaining to the subject of the definition, wikilinks as possible, since they provide us with much needed Google Juice which helps boost our PageRank on Google searches and helps Citizendium appear earlier on a user's SERP page.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 15:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I would modify that to try to include as many relevant wikilinks as possible. --Daniel Mietchen 15:52, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. Exactly. Precisely. The key is relevance. --Thomas Wright Sulcer 16:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Tom, I do not agree with your tactics regarding "Google Juice".
First of all, I do not think that you are right that heavy interwiki links will help at all. In the published PageRank method, only links from other sites (best: highly ranked ones) help to increase the overall PageRank of CZ pages. Interwiki links may only shift the weight from one page to another. Heavy cross-linking (a "thicket", as you call it) will likely give the corresponding pages the same value. (Of course, not all methods Google uses are known).
Secondly, even if you were right: Having a lot of stubs, definitions, lemmas will not be a reason to visit CZ again, even if a user accidently is lead to one by Google. The only sustainable method to advertise CZ are excellent articles (even if there are only a few). We should not waste time and energy to create content that is inferior to most other content that can be found! Write a definition if it comes naturally when working on an article, but do not write definitions just to have them.
Links on pages and Related Articles pages should be relevant and useful for the reader. For instance, it does not make sense to link mother in a definition of a mythological figure (like you did). They should guide the reader where to get relevant information, what to read next!
I am opposed to "lemmas" for titles that (probably) never will be extended to pages. In such cases, definitions serve the same purpose. Most polygons do not deserve a page, thus also not a lemma.
Many pages on Google rank give the advise NOT to try to boost it artificially. I agree for one more reason: It is not professional and does not fit expert-guidance. Moreover, it certainly should be a community decision whether to apply any such methods (and which ones).
--Peter Schmitt 17:37, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(outdent)Peter, thanks for expressing your opinion. Let me say I am not certain about anything regarding PageRank, but I have been fussing with this issue as well as having done a mini-experiment here on CZ articles which you are free to peruse. I agree strength of incoming wikilinks from other websites is a big plus, and is to be encouraged. But let's say we agree about the following points:--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia gets terrific web exposure. It's got a huge database of highly interlinked articles. It has 3 million+ articles. WP is often on the first or second SERP. It has several layers of links -- category links; "see also" links; "infobox" links, etc etc. WP doesn't have forums.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Citizendium gets lousy web exposure. CZ's articles number perhaps less than ten thousand (am I right?). It is rarely on the first ten SERP pages. CZ lacks infoboxes, categories (but has the "related articles" stuff). CZ does have forums (not sure whether this helps us with interlinking or not).--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Overall, if memory serves correctly, CZ's main page has a PageRank of 5; Wikipedia's main page has an 8; Amazon's (the bookstore) has a 9. (Amazon also is highly inter-linked, allowing book reviewers to post link within reviews to other products).--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Do we agree about this? If so, let me say what I've learned recently. What I've noticed, after writing articles on SEO and PageRank, and doing the mini-experiment CZ:PageRank analysis of Citizendium articles, is that the CZ articles which perform best are not only well-written and good and packed with great information (which I'm striving for too, btw) but have the MOST numbers of inbound internal links. I'm talking Biology and Anthropology. They've been around a while (newer CZ articles don't do as well, generally). It's fully possible that sites out there on the web link to these articles, and boost traffic. But my sense is definitely that the internal inter-linking phenomenon is at work, just like Google suggests.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

About the ethical dimension. We're an online encyclopedia. We're not selling stuff. It's perfectly fair and good and acceptable to permit internal wikilinking on any kind of article. I don't think we're doing "black hat SEO" and I don't think Google will come to this conclusion -- rather, we're imitating WP, and Google clearly doesn't have a problem with WP and its methods. And I don't agree that ine interlinks wash each other out like you suggest. But frankly I'm not sure. I'm doing an experiment with the article Aeneid to see if creating an article thicket boosts its web presence; I'll let people know after a month or so what the outcome is. If this experiment fails, then it's back to square one. --Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

What I love about lemma articles is that they're the fastest way to create an article, since it bypasses the drudgery of creating the related articles subpages and such. Boom, it's done. And it's easy for subsequent contributors to expand it into a fuller article. I think it's perfectly fine to have an article about each type of polygon.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Further, I think any effort here to bring more readers will have the effect of causing more contributors to want to join us. So, with this in mind, I think it's perfectly acceptable to build thickets. In this sense, my idea of what to put in a definition is inclusive -- if I can add material that's even marginally relevant, I'll try to do so, with the view that subsequent contributors, perhaps years later, can fix it or modify it, and I try to make things as relevant as possible. I agree perhaps the mother one was a stretch, but my thinking is that perhaps it might feed future articles about family or love or parenting or whatever comes along. I'm doing my best to try to make this encyclopedia a viable competitor to Wikipedia.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

But overall I won't know until perhaps a month, after the crawlers come by, and I can see whether the Aeneid experiment works.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Tom, Google already knows about Aeneas, Iliad, and Odyssey (at least). They have been cached about April 1-7.
Yes but I still have trouble finding them via Google.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Your bulleted statements are correct, of course. But from them it does not follow that interlinking is the decisive factor. WP has (almost) a monopoly, it is cited and linked from many (and many important) sites (and mirrored in various ways). Moreover, (at least) part of the ranking is determined by a "manually" determined factor. Certainly the rank of individual pages is determined to a large part by the sites rank.
The links between different domain names of the Wikimedia project may have a positive effect. (In our case: links from the forum may count.)
I'll try to keep open-minded about this. My sense is, still, that the forums are a distraction unless they have specific links to places within CZ.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
The examples you cite (Anthropology, Biology) may be linked from outside. But that CZ has many links to them (and less from them) fits my claim that these links determine the internal position ("important page on CZ"). If you link A to B, B to C, and C to A their value will be (about) the mean value of these three pages. (This is how it is explained.)
You may be right about this. I bet Anthropology and Biology have external links. But what's clear to me is that there's a clear correlation between the number of internal links and PageRank -- I bet if someone here was mathematically inclined, that they could do a scatterplot of CZ:PageRank analysis of Citizendium articles and have a more definitive measure. Overall, however, I admit that I don't know. I'm exploring. What you say makes sense mathematically in a way since it kind of assumes Google Juice is like some kind of liquid that can flow in and flow out. If this is the case, that GJ can dribble out, then I don't understand why Wikipedia would permit external links. There are tons of external links on WP (Amazon has fewer). I'm still trying to learn about this; I want to see what happens in a month or so with a few core articles like Aeneid highly interlinked, and supported by a thicket. Then I'll have a better handle on what you're saying.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Definitions should be short -- they are meant for related pages. You can create a stub without creating a lemma. If you do not want to bother with the Metadata or subpages you need not -- just do not add the subpages template. But I am still convinced that a good and long article is much better for CZ than many stubs which make the user look for another source (WP) because they want to read more.
--Peter Schmitt 22:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
OK maybe I'll write more short articles without subpages if that's okay. But I'm writing rather long definitions since I assume that someday they'll become real articles. What I'm asking for is a grace period of perhaps a month or so, in which we can have a review of the experiment. In the meantime, please permit me to write some rather longish wikilink-heavy multi-sentence definitions; it's easy to convert them to real articles, with more detail, when the time comes.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Also, here's how I see the essence of the difference between our general approaches.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Quality articles --> more readers --> more contributors (your view?)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Heavily wikilinked thickets around a few good core articles --> greater web exposure --> more readers --> more contributors --> greater quality articles (my current view which I may change)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
And what I'm saying is that I think CZ has been trying the first approach for a while now (several years). Are people happy that it's working? What I'm saying is let's try something different and see if anything changes, that's all. I think there's strong consensus among current CZers that there are not a lot of readers here; I'm trying to change that.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I am not forbidding anything (I can't, by the way, and I do not want to). I only argue my opinion (hoping, of course, that some of my arguments are convincing). And I suggest that this should be discussed on a broader scope, a discussion that might lead to some policy guidelines (or might not) ... but this will not happen until there is an EC ...
I would be unhappy, however, if you'd extend your strategy to mathemtics. There are already too many poor stubs which should be improved.
Independent of your strategy there is a question nobody has answered me to my satisfaction. (I do not expect you to answer it):
What is the advantage of a lemma (that transcludes a definition to a page) over a definition copied to that page? (Or better: A short definition on the subpage and a slightly extended stub on the page?)
--Peter Schmitt 23:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Continuation of discussion

(break for easier editing) OK, I won't lemma-ize mathematics. I only have a few thickets I'm working on and none of them are mathematical. I suggest you take a peek at the bottoms of your mathematics articles where it says "number of page views". I have no idea whether the thicket approach will do anything to page views of Aeneid; I'll try to keep everybody posted. About your lemma vs stub question -- I don't know. It's faster making a lemma. But I'll do either.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

On Google Juice

15% of the google juice received by a page is consumed by this page; 85% flows to other pages via (outbound) links. If the page contains no links, these 85% scatter over the whole net.

Thus, CZ loses some juice when a page (1) contains no links at all, or (2) a substantial portion of its links are external.

Note that the second (third, ...) internal link saves some juice only if external links exist.

In contrast, WP does not lose juice via external links, since these are declared "nofollow". Boris Tsirelson 16:53, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

And do not forget: "Google is known to penalize link farms and other schemes designed to artificially inflate PageRank" [1] Boris Tsirelson 16:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

My thoughts on all this...

I've only just discovered this discussion going on here, so forgive me for going back a while in the conversation. I've read it all, here are my thoughts. I'm going to sign each one separately so that you can comment wherever you wish.

  • Thomas Wright Sulcer said "My sense is, still, that the forums are a distraction unless they have specific links to places within CZ". I completely and utterly disagree. Whilst talk pages are the perfect place to have discussions about specific articles, as they are then seen by anyone with a specific interest in that article, they are not the place to have discussions about larger issues. The forums on the other hand, are the perfect place. This rather long discussion is a good example... it is a big discussion about lemma articles, SEO on CZ as a whole and a load of other topics that a) affect CZ as a whole and b) have nothing to do with Plane (geometry). However, since this discussion occured here, I didn't see it until it was well underway, and may have never seen it unless Peter had mentioned it on the forums. If this discussion had taken place on the forums instead, then it may have had more peoples opinions. I wonder how many other people don't know this is here and would be interested... or how many other discussions are taking place on CZ that are relevant to the whole community but are taking place in 'odd' places. --Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps my fault about not using forums enough. I focused on writing articles. Since I've been here I've written hundreds. They include good core ones which are solid, well-written, well-referenced, with great pictures, quality work, and for which I've received few, if any, compliments or "thank you" or "good job". Please see my user page. I've only recently started doing lemmas and short articles. I have trouble using the forums. It seems like endless writing to me and I have trouble getting interested in the topics. I'll try to use them more, but no promises.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Suggestion for you. Go to the forums, register if you haven't already. Log in. Scroll to the bottom and click 'mark all messages as read'. This will draw a line under all old discussions, and allow you to focus on new ones. Then, to check the forums just look for the icons that are a different colour to the others. These have new messages. Soon you will realise that forums are just like a fancy version of a talk page.--Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Boris Tsirelson said "In contrast, WP does not lose juice via external links, since these are declared "nofollow"." This is no longer true, as shown by this google engineer. External links with 'nofollow' are still counted towards the total number of links when rationing out PageRank, the only difference being that the Site that is linked to does not benefit. Also, from the same page, "In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites." Therefore relevant external links are good for our PageRank. The only reason WP turned theirs off is to deter spammers, which is a problem we do not have. --Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
More good information. Noted.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Thomas... I'm hating your experiment personally. I find it difficult to read when every other word is a link. It also means that the links themselves lose relevance. Take your Aeneid experiment for example. What does parallel (geometry) have to do with Roman mythology? Juxtaposition? Concept? Abduction? Hunger, love, cave, storm, rape, behaviour, suicide, proportion? Nothing much is my answer. Therefore the links are meaningless at best, and unhelpful or annoying at worst. I very much like the current policy of "If our target audience would find that the linked article illuminates the present article, then we should link to it." I would say that about half of the internal links in that article do not illuminate the article, and instead just make it harder to read. After all, one of the basic principles of SEO is Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. --Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
It's only an experiment. Why hate it? Doesn't make sense. The idea is to try to figure out stuff. It's only on one or two particular areas -- classical mythology, particularly the Aeneid, with some spillover into Greek tragedy. The lemmas and short articles are not meant to be read by you; rather, by crawlers, with a specific purpose in mind. Not sure what you're getting at about parallelism juxtaposed with Roman mythology; generally, I try to use relevant wikilinks on related topics, and I think that the majority of my wikilinks are to related subjects. The entire Aeneid thicket is meant to be fairly contained, but some terms like prince may be applicable to other areas -- Aeneas was a prince. It happens that I have diverse interests, and like to help out in many areas, including brain morphometry, Panton principles, and Plane (geometry)..--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
What I meant was if you go to the Aeneid article you will find links to the article 'parallel (geometry)', the article juxtaposition, etc. I was questioning the relevance of these links to an article about something to do with Roman mythology. Also, it is only an experiment... you must expect that some people will hate the entire thing. --Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I see what you're saying here. I think this is going to happen at times, but overall the general direction is that the wikilinks will point to related articles. The idea of a wikilink on Wikipedia is that if a user is interested in a particular term -- doesn't know what it means -- or wants more information about it -- they can click on it and get a detailed accounting. What I think I was intending here wasn't parallelism with math, but parallelism in terms of English writing structure -- so there should be a wikilink to Parallellism (writing) or somesuch. But overall, if you look at all of the wikilinks in the Aeneid article, they deal with stuff from the Aeneid -- characters, places, events, poetic styles, etc.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
  • As well as this, excessive irrelevant linking may harm our pagerank. If google is on a page about a greek god and it links to pages on a huge variety of subjects from mathematical concepts to the weather, it will have serious doubts about the validity of any of our links. In addition, if we get reported for spam and they decide we are using 'Links intended to manipulate PageRank' then the whole of CZ could theoretically get blocked. --Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Harm our PageRank? What PageRank? 0? You're talking like we're some successful encyclopedia with something to lose. We're at the bottom. Nobody reads us. I think the only way to go is up, and that merely doing things the same way they've been done up to now suggests a kind of blindness. And I wouldn't worry that we'd get reported for spam -- a non-issue. The idea that the "whole of CZ could get blocked" is borderline absurd. When I write a quality article like Romantic love, and then I search in Google with these terms -- "Romantic love" and "Citizendium", I get NOTHING. Like I even put the word Citizendium in the search bar, and Google doesn't think we, or my article, exists. Further, you're overblowing your worries about Greek gods linking to mathematical concepts and to the weather. Most links are to related subjects.Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
You said yourself that CZ's main page has a pagerank of 5. See your talk page for why Lady Gaga and others aren't turning up. As for Romantic Love, well did you really expect such a huge and often talked about topic to hit the top ten in a search? If you put "Romantic love" and "Citizendium" you do NOT get nothing. Instead you get the MOST RELEVANT result, which is the CZ article on Love, with a nice little link to the section that links straight to Romantic love. Our pagerank is just fine. And borderline absurd? Not at all. If google decides that "our little website" is trying to manipulate links to gain pagerank they can block us completely. We wouldn't be the first site they've done it to, and we sure won't be the last. --Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Hey you're right. Love comes up!!! Great! Guess who wrote that? I DID. And you're right it's fresh material and great pictures. PageRank = 3. How did this happen? I bet there are some other sites out there linking to it. It's not heavily interlinked. It has a page access count of 109 times (but that may go up with the higher PageRank). Love, btw, is one of the TOP articles on WP in terms of eyeball traffic (which is why I wrote it along with the "romantic love" and "bromance" articles -- it was a "hot" topic). Still, who is going to put the term "Citizendium" into ANY Google search other than us? Nobody. We're not on the map. If you type "Romantic love" by itself, we're not even in the first 10 SERP pages. Nobody reads that far, so like it or not, I still think we have a huge readership problem, and I think we need to keep exploring stuff.
I disagree that the wikilinks are excessive or irrelevant. Wikipedia is LOADED with wikilinks. We should follow their example. Wikipedia lets talk pages and user pages get crawled. Citizendium doesn't. Wikipedia has great web exposure. Citizendium doesn't. See any relation? I think sooner or later that CZ will get wise and let Google crawl everywhere. In anticipation of that, I'm putting wikilinks as often as I can. They're worth their weight in gold.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
CZ is not WP. WP has over 3 million articles, CZ has just over 13 thousand. CZ has a lot of content copied directly from WP. WP has become a phenomena and is linked to from half the websites on the planet. These are the reasons that WP has 'great' web exposure and CZ doesn't. As for anticipating something that CZ may or may not do in the future... well I'd say don't, especially as you are in my opinion breaking an actual CZ policy in doing so: CZ:Article_Mechanics#Link_copiously.2C_but_relevantly --Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Why is WP dominant and CZ obscure? Why do so many websites link to WP? It isn't just because WP had a head start (although this was a factor I believe). Rather, I think there are continuing policies which hurt CZ, and smart choices WP has done and continues to do, such as wikilinking, no forums, no subpages (my view which I can't prove, but serious questions in my mind). And note that the policy says "Link copiously" -- most articles on CZ, in my view, are seriously underlinked, so most of the encyclopedia is, in a sense, breaking its own rules.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Again, I disagree the links are irrelevant. I don't see why that would make the usefulness of pages like the Special:WantedPages go down. I don't see the connection.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Your last comment linked to the article weight, despite it not being at all relevant to the conversation. This, by definition, makes it an irrelevant link. It does however, add +1 to the count on the Special:WantedPages page even though the link isn't actually necessary. If you go through CZ and link every use of the word 'weight' EVEN if it is not relevant then you would artificially increase its ranking on the Wanted Pages list. Then, someone would go to that page and go "oh look, 500 articles link to the non-existant article 'weight'. That must be a pretty important topic to all of those articles, so I'd better write a really good article for that." Meanwhile Greek tragedy, which is currently desparately needed by 'only' 274 articles will get ignored, even though each one of those 274 links may be very important. --Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
The term weight has a sense in which it means how important something is. There is a relation. Is it 100% relevant? Of course not, but nothing is; but consider that there may be a possible future benefit -- if I'm right and wikilinks increase web presence (and I'm studying this) -- then if a scientist here in the future decides to write an article on mass or gravity or weight, then there may potentially be more readers for him or her, because the wikilink combined with others may help boost readership of a future, unwritten article. If I write on the forums without a wikilink, this possible connection and benefit is lost.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
  • On the issue of lemma articles... I don't personally see a use for them, or find them helpful. With regards to SEO, they probably damage our rating more than help it as they are just duplicate content to a search engine (eg the Definition page and the Lemma article are duplicates of each other). I believe that Peter Schmitt's suggestion of "a short definition on the subpage and a slightly extended stub on the page" would be better, especially if the stub had slightly different wording to the definition page. --Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
The good thing about lemmas is this: they're fast to create. I can avoid what I consider to be fusswork with related articles subpages. It gets right to the issue. If someone can tell me a fast way to write competent short articles for a thicket, I'm all ears. Right now the lemmas are the best. The whole idea of my experiment is to see what would happen to things like PageRank. Let's try it. And I don't think it makes sense for you to argue for the status quo way of doing things when the current methods clearly are highly ineffective in bringing us quality readers or contributors.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Write stubs. Ignore the subpages template. Take a look at CZ:Start article with subpages. It says "You can still use the simpler way. Really! Don't feel obliged to use this; it's more important that you write sentences, which you can always do without writing fancy code." That simpler way is the way for you it seems. Let someone else go in afterwards and add the subpages template and the related articles, talk page, bibliography, etc. Really, nobody will mind.
Do I still have to put the {{subpages}} notice at the top of the stub page (in the edit mode)? What happens is that I feel guilty that somebody else will have to come along and write the metadata, related articles, bibliography, external links etc etc and then I end up doing it, and the whole thing takes 4x as long.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Also, there is a difference between changing policies because they are wrong, and changing policies because they are old. Just because it is old does not mean it is wrong. The 'status quo' is just as valid as anything else, and in this case I believe it is superior.--Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
My problem isn't that the policies are old but not working. Proof? no readers. QED.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Thomas, regarding your theory on "Heavily wikilinked thickets around a few good core articles --> greater web exposure --> more readers --> more contributors --> greater quality articles". Lets assume for a minute that heavily wikilinked thickets around a few good core articles does indeed lead to a greater web exposure (which I doubt). Web exposure in this case is limited to better search engine ranking... which does not equal greater web exposure. Now lets assume that more people see CZ in their SERP and click it. They find a lemma, or a stub, or just a bad article in general. In the majority of cases, their next reaction will be to hit the back button on their browser and if in the future CZ appears on their SERP, they just won't click it... especially after the second or third time. Only a small minority of people will actually click far enough to find an advanced article. Therefore I would like to rework your theory. Heavily wikilinked thickets around a few good core articles --> greater exposure in search engines --> more first time readers getting poor first impressions --> fewer returning readers --> less contibutors. SEO isn't everything. --Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
It's an experiment in only one area -- the Aeneid like I said. I disagree that greater search engine ranking won't lead to greater web exposure; rather, higher SERPs mean more eyeballs here. But my further problem with your argument, above, is this: you wrote Now lets assume that more people see CZ in their SERP and click it -- that's just it. People won't see CZ articles to begin with. They sure aren't seeing anything now. We have practically no readers except for a few key articles. Need I repeat that? The idea of the thickets is to bring more readers to the core articles, not the lemmas. And the lemmas can be expanded if and when we get more contributors. I agree the core articles should be good. But frankly, I really don't know what will happen. I'm trying to be open-minded. I urge you to be similarly open-minded. What's the harm in trying a new approach?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
We have practically no readers except for a few key articles? Can I ask, when exactly did they grant you access to the google analytics account? How do you know how many readers we have? I just clicked random page a few times, and the counter was each time over 100 page views. DNA came up and that was almost 4000. That is hardly 'no readers'. As shown here the forums alone get almost 10 thousand views per day. Here [Image:Editsbyday30.png] you can see that 300-500 edits happen a day. Bit of a slump last month, but other than that we have [Image:Editing users.png] usually got over 100 authors making edits a month - not bad for a relatively small wiki. Thats hardly no editors.
Go to any article. Go to the bottom of the page. It says how many times the page has been accessed. My article Love has been accessed 109 times. It was written perhaps a month or so ago. So what's that? A handful of readers a day, if that. Not much to brag about. But hopefully this will go up. DNA? Accessed 3858 times in total, but it's been around since February 2007. Do the math: in 3 years, over 36 months, it's gotten 3858 visits, or about 107 visits per month, about 3 per day; probably many of these are CZers hoping to fix the article. Not much to brag about. Or, am I misreading this statistic? Does this mean how many people have edited it? I think it means readers, and the readership is negligible. On Wikipedia, my "criticism" section of the United States Congress -- it gets THOUSANDS of readers each day.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Also, you missed my point. It is better for someone to never come to CZ than for them to come to CZ, get a bad first impression and never come back. --Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't think my stuff is so bad that someone will take one look at it, throw up their hands, and say "this is crap" and never come back. I don't. I don't think that's how it works. I do think CZ needs more pictures (I've added dozens). I wonder whether the sea of red wikilinks on a page has a detrimental effect on readership.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I am much more inclined to agree that "Quality articles --> more readers --> more contributors". This is because quality articles will give a good first impression to first time readers, who will return for more. Hopefully these high quality articles will get linked to from other parts of the Internet, which will increase our overall web presence. --Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps. But haven't we been trying this approach? Hmmmm? And has it worked? Hmmmm? Why not try something different? What can we lose? We're not going to lose any readers if we don't have any readers to begin with.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
If my aim was to have millions of people read poorly written articles I would be contributing to WP not here. Has the approach worked? Yes. It has worked and it is still working. The changes we need to make are not reducing the quality of our articles, but instead in improving the processes behind them. This is what the charter will, hopefully, resolve. Answer me this... can we honestly and with any degree of believeability claim that "Our 121 expert-approved articles are reliable and of world-class quality, rivaling the best printed encyclopedias" if several thousand of our other articles are poorly written or just very very short? --Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I disagree that the CZ approach has worked. I can point to articles in The Guardian comparing CZ and WP, and thinks WP wins hands down in every measure, including article quality. The chief flaw (in my view) about WP is anonymous users; I like CZ that we're all identified here. A big plus for CZ. But in my view, WP gets practically everything else right. And if your sense of success is writing a few good articles that only a few people read, then I'll have to disagree. For me, a big incentive is having people read my stuff.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
  • In all honesty I think that the main reason we have a lack of readers is the bit on the front page that says "Our 121 expert-approved articles are reliable and of world-class quality, rivaling the best printed encyclopedias." One of the first things that most people will think when they read that is "only 121?". Yet there are (rough estimate) over 50 articles that are Ready_for_approval and over 1000 articles that are. This also puts off potential authors and editors too. Of course, this isn't likely to change until the EC is ready, which is waiting on the charter (what isn't?). --Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't like the "121" either. I don't like the "Draft article warning" at the top of each page either. More shooting ourselves in the foot.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I disagree. The draft article warning is very important. We are trying to establish ourselves as reliable and as having world class articles approved by experts. Without that warning people will come here, pick holes in our drafts and laugh at us on twitter. The solution is to increase the number from 121, and increase the number of "this is an approved article" templates... not to lower our standards. --Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't like them either. Again, we return to the problem of the Forum as the place where discussion happens. As a member of the Charter Committee, I am incredibly frustrated. The discussion on the Forum is nasty and going nowhere, mostly battles with a few people. My own solution, which, of course, is not ideal, is to recognize the Committee is stalled over arguments over an "executive", perhaps a "managing editor". Without rehashing the arguments, the reality is that an executive won't solve the problem, or even be functional, without an Editorial Council and Management Committee. It is my recommendation that a Charter draft that does not include the executive controversy be readied for ratification. If it is ratified, the EC and MC then can be elected and start working, and either another pass made on the Executive aspect -- or the EC and MC can determine the need for an Executive. For the record, I am a member of a nonzero minority on this point, although the vote is close. I see only Forum pressure breaking this loose. Howard C. Berkowitz 01:16, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm with Howard and User:Meg Ireland that the "Draft Article Warning" is a mistake. Only a very few people in my view are thinking about citing the information for sake of accuracy, and these people will probably know to keep researching and checking sources. But what the message does say to the vast majority of our (piddling pool) of readers is "Don't Trust this Article!" and "We May Be Mistaken". I think this is an unnecessary warning.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
  • With regards to your experiment... I've only had a quick skim through it but it seems to me that the original, developed articles have a higher page rank. The articles that have 0/10 are either short or still contain much WP content (such as Open access and Lady Gaga).--Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
PageRank correlates with "what links here". It also correlates with age (articles here longer are also more likely to have more inbound wikilinks). It's only a correlation. How does this happen? I don't know. Suggest read my article about SEO.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
The article on SEO still contains huge chunks straight from Wiki. Thats why it isn't showing in many google searches, same as several of your articles. I suggest that you read your article on SEO. I also suggest that next time you port something from WP you port an unedited version, then edit it. That way we can check easily how much has, and more importantly has not, changed. --Chris Key 01:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I still don't think your assertion that "Wikipedia content within a CZ article causes lower PageRank" is proved; but it definitely might be a variable, and we should include it in further analyses and keep thinking about it (you might be right about this). When I first came here, I ported many of my Wikipedia creations here directly (and got attacked by people thinking it was substandard because it was from Wikipedia). As I've been here, I've been writing more and more original material.Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I think thats it. I didn't mean to write quite that much, but there we go. Next time I'd really appreciate it if discussions such as this took place in the forums, or at least were linked to from there. --Chris Key 23:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Well. :)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Again, I'll try using forums, but my primary focus is on bringing quality content here. Please read my user page regarding "My experience at CZ" if interested in getting a handle on where I'm coming from.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
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