[Taxacom] Wikipedia classification

[Kleo Pullin]

It's like classifying humans, then, they're treated differently from other
animals?  In spite of DNA evidence to the contrary that they're also 
storing genetic information as ...

It's not overloading the page for the reader to let them know that one 
Robert Smith is a mathematician and another an architect.  Adding "senior 
synonym" provides the same amount of information and does not overload 
either the page or the reader.

A disambiguation page should consider getting a reader to the correct 
article quickly.  They're not articles but rather guides for the reader.  
If they don't guide the reader in any way, they're useless.  If the page 
contains no additional information that could take the reader to the 
correct article, Wikipedia might as well shoot the reader to one article 
on a dice roll and give hatnotes there, as the hatnotes at least have 
additional information.  This way some of the readers might actually get 
the article they need, the rest will have a chance at selecting, rather 
than just a list of synonyms with no clue.

Sometimes Wikipedia misses the boat completely, often where matters of 
style overtake the underlying purpose.  This is one of those cases.

Kleo


--- On Sun, 7/5/09, Una Smith <una.smith at att.net> wrote:

> From: Una Smith <una.smith at att.net>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Wikipedia classification
> To: "TAXACOM" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Date: Sunday, July 5, 2009, 8:02 AM
> Roderic Page wrote:
> >Like Kleo, I can see no reason not to include more
> information on the  
> >disambiguation page. Even authority and date would help
> (telling the  
> >reader that one name is older than the other).
> 
> The principle is don't overload the disambiguation page
> with details
> but give the reader the essential information to decide
> which entry
> they want.
> 
> Both synonyms were published in 1830, so year alone does
> not help.
> Also, most readers won't appreciate the significance, nor
> care.
> 
> 
> >I'd expect the page "Latreillia (crab)" to be about the
> crab genus,  
> >but it's a redirect to the family Latreilliidae  
> >(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latreilliidae ). This
> doesn't make much 
> > sense. Surely the thing to do is make a  page for
> the genus Latreillia 
> >Roux, not have it redirect to a family?
> 
> Yes, of course there should be an article about the
> genus.  Please
> make one.
> 
>     Una Smith
> 
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