Proposal:Wiki Page Tours

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Every proposal should be tied to one of the strategic priorities below.

Edit this page to help identify the priorities related to this proposal!


  1. Achieve continued growth in readership
  2. Focus on quality content
  3. Increase Participation
  4. Stabilize and improve the infrastructure
  5. Encourage Innovation



Summary

A project whereby anyone can create a tour (list) of Wiki pages along with annotations. The tour can be followed by anyone, and registered users can even bookmark certain pages (such as that they particularly like) as well as bookmark the last page in the tour they toured.


Proposal

An extension to all Wiki projects or a new Wiki project that enables the creation/editing of tours (lists) of Wiki pages as well as enabling the tour guide (creator) to leave annotations about the pages. The tour with links and annotations is embedded within an HTML page (for example) that any person (a tourist) can work through.


Motivation

Using the example of a general reader/non-specialist wanting to learn the basics of how the human brain works and what its major parts are called: When you begin to probe Wikipedia about the brain [[1]], the general reader quickly becomes overwhelmed by obscure brain part names, functions and interrelationships regardless of how clearly the Wikipedia articles are written.

To assist the general reader, a person (the tour guide) may therefore create a tour called, for example, "Human Brains 101." In that tour, the tour guide creates a sequence of Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wiki Commons pages, for example, embedded into the tour page. Without using actual pages (and perhaps incorrect information), it might look like this:

Welcome to Human Brains 101. On this tour, we learn about the most important parts and functions of the human brain. If you need to leave the tour but want to come back again, just right click on any link and press Control B. If you are a registered user, the place in this tour will be automatically saved to your account.

First, read <page 1#section6> to get an overview of the human brain.

Great! In that page we learned that the human brain is larger by ratio to the body than any other animal. Next, take a brief look at this graphic illustration to get an idea of the placement of the parts of the brain:

<Wiki Commons 356>

And now take a look at these Wiktionary pages to get a brief insight to the important parts of the brain: <Wik 1> <Wik 2> <Wik 5>

... ... ...

The last page might be a little difficult to remember, but what is important to keep in mind is...

For further tours on the human brain, I recommend my <Human Brains 102> and <Human Brains 103> tours. Also check out these great tours:

<Wiki Tour Guide 145's Getting to Know the Amygdala> <Wiki Tour Guide 546's How Synapses Really Work>


Key Questions

The bookmark idea may be difficult to implement. For example, where in the user's account would bookmarks be stored? How exactly is the bookmark created? (Perhaps it's a sort of watch list.) The format with which the tour is created has many possibilities. Perhaps starting it with a basic Wiki page and then later adding a new character subset (as seen when editing a page) might be a suitable way to begin. Should this be incorporated simply as part of Wikipedia, as a new project or in some intermediate form?


Potential Costs

Not sure. The setup for the name space, the programming and storage at least. Probably not a project that would incur many expenses.


References

Community Discussion

Do you have a thought about this proposal? A suggestion? Discuss this proposal by going to Proposal talk:Wiki Page Tours.

Want to work on this proposal?

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  1. .. Sign your name here!