Editing Forum:SMW

Of general interest to SMW users is one possible generalized solution to these sorts of computationally intensive projects. Familypedia wants to welcome these features, while not slowing down the browsing experience of visitors to the site. One way we could do this is to ask such projects to create a subpage to the main article where the calculations can then be made. Genealogical relationships present problems most of which require [[wikipedia:Exponential time|exponential explosions of time]] for calculation. What does this mean in laymans terms? It means that calculating descendants is 2 times the cost of the first, then four times (2^2) for the next generation, then eight (2^3), 2^4, 2^5 and so on. You get out to 16 generations and the calculation is potentially 65,000 times slower than the first generation calculation. Although most everyone's tree of known descendants is typically more sparse, and there are nowhere near this number of operations, these calculations tend to get progressively slower for each added generation. This applies to other kinds of family history relationships such as for [[wikipedia:Six degrees of separation|Six degrees of separation]]/ "human web" type features- For example, "My great great, great grandfather was best friends with your great great grandfather". Anyway, if such calculations are performed at times other than when the viewer is looking at the main article, this calculation penalty is substantially reduced. The researcher then may add time consuming calculations without being constrained by concerns of community objections about article rendering speed. Only viewers of that particular project page would experience the slowdown. {{User:Phlox/Sig}} 16:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Of general interest to SMW users is one possible generalized solution to these sorts of computationally intensive projects. Familypedia wants to welcome these features, while not slowing down the browsing experience of visitors to the site. One way we could do this is to ask such projects to create a subpage to the main article where the calculations can then be made. Genealogical relationships present problems most of which require [[wikipedia:Exponential time|exponential explosions of time]] for calculation. What does this mean in laymans terms? It means that calculating descendants is 2 times the cost of the first, then four times (2^2) for the next generation, then eight (2^3), 2^4, 2^5 and so on. You get out to 16 generations and the calculation is potentially 65,000 times slower than the first generation calculation. Although most everyone's tree of known descendants is typically more sparse, and there are nowhere near this number of operations, these calculations tend to get progressively slower for each added generation. This applies to other kinds of family history relationships such as for [[wikipedia:Six degrees of separation|Six degrees of separation]]/ "human web" type features- For example, "My great great, great grandfather was best friends with your great great grandfather". Anyway, if such calculations are performed at times other than when the viewer is looking at the main article, this calculation penalty is substantially reduced. The researcher then may add time consuming calculations without being constrained by concerns of community objections about article rendering speed. Only viewers of that particular project page would experience the slowdown. {{User:Phlox/Sig}} 16:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

'''UPDATE: the said subpage was introduced shortly after the above discussion. See [[Help:Sensor page]].''' — [[User:Robin Patterson|Robin Patterson]] [[User talk:Robin Patterson|(Talk)]] 04:43, May 31, 2010 (UTC)

'''UPDATE: the said subpage was introduced shortly after the above discussion. See [[Help:Sensor page]].''' — [[User:Robin Patterson|Robin Patterson]] [[User talk:Robin Patterson|(Talk)]] 04:43, May 31, 2010 (UTC)