User:Nick Gardner /Sandbox

Setting up a group of linked articles on a common topic - some suggestions

The CZ wiki has the potential of generating more navigable and user friendly articles than would be possible on Wikipedia, by creating sets of linked articles on common topics.

Among issues to consider when creating or bringing together a set of linked articles are its provisions for coordination, terminology, navigation and adaptation.

CZ ‘s system of editors gives it a major advantage in the provision of coordination. It would obviously be a help if the active editors of the workgroup concerned were to agree in advance upon the selection of a lead editor, who would then be responsible for advising authors on matters such as consistency of terminology, avoidance of excessive duplication, and ease of navigation.

CZ experts (including me) are apt to use without explanation, terms that they mistakenly believe to be widely understood. Links to lemma article definitions overcome that problem, but without coordination the system can become chaotic with rival definitions as variants of the same concept. The creation of a central glossary as a subpage to the “main article” (of which more later) provides the required coordination, provided that authors learn to refer to it, and to use it for lemma creating. Lemma articles can’t provide an in-depth explanation of a concept but that can be provided either by a link to a stand-alone article on the concept or a link to a headed paragraph in an article on a different (using the # connector).

What I have called the “main article” could serve as the navigation centre for the new group of articles. One of its subpages could be an alphabetical index of articles and topics within articles, with links to article titles and to the headed paragraphs containing the topics. Another subpage could provide a thematic or “taxonomic” index (like the Economics/Related Articles subpage) in which links to articles and headed paragraphs are shown in alphabetical order under each of a series of subject headings . The related articles subpage of every article in the group could then display links to both indexes.

To preserve adaptability, the organising framework would be allowed to evolve as an "open system" that could develop interdisciplinary links and node articles (like the sociology/politics/economics article on social capital), and with the eventual possibility of a link from a "metagroup"

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