08-12-2021, 11:17 PM
Sorry for the delay in responding. Busier than I'd rather be these days. Anyway..
These are actually two different Topics. They used to both be named 'Space-Time Engineering' btw, but then we decided to adopt 'Metric Engineering' as a term.
The Metric Engineering Topic is a sub-topic under the Technology > Application Topic/Section.
The Space-Time Engineering Topic is a sub-topic under the Technologuy > Technology Type or Material Topic/Section.
Basically, the intent is that a given EG article will be linked to different Topics when its being set up so that a reader could locate the article in a variety of ways. In this case, they could either search under the Application Topic or under the more general 'type or material' Topic. Most of the other sub-Topics under the latter are a better fit for what they cover. Although TBH I don't know how well that particular section of the EG has aged over the years, at least in terms of the names given to the sub-Topics within it. That may be a discussion we want to have at some point.
Getting back to the immediate topic (Ha!) - Consolidating these or deleting one of them is technically possible but would be...challenging...in the sense that as a Topic they have a lot of articles linked to them and may also be linked to in a lot of existing Articles and Topics. Plus there is the issue of whether it 'breaks' the design of the EG in the case of the Space-Time Engineering Topic since in OA space-time is sort of a material and Metric Engineering is a thing. Also, I don't think we've every deleted a Topic and so I would strongly recommend that we give it a good think, do some research as to possible impacts, and work out an organized plan for doing it if we end up concluding that that is something we want to attempt.
Coming at this from what I think would be an easier direction - We could rename the Space-Time engineering Topic - maybe to just 'Space-Time' since that is the 'material' being worked with in that case - and then rewrite the associated text to differentiate it from the Metric Engineering text. Changing the name looks at first blush like it would impact relatively few articles.
Speaking more broadly - and not to pile more on our plates - but all of the sub-Topics in this section would probably benefit from a fresh look at some point.
Thoughts?
Todd
These are actually two different Topics. They used to both be named 'Space-Time Engineering' btw, but then we decided to adopt 'Metric Engineering' as a term.
The Metric Engineering Topic is a sub-topic under the Technology > Application Topic/Section.
The Space-Time Engineering Topic is a sub-topic under the Technologuy > Technology Type or Material Topic/Section.
Basically, the intent is that a given EG article will be linked to different Topics when its being set up so that a reader could locate the article in a variety of ways. In this case, they could either search under the Application Topic or under the more general 'type or material' Topic. Most of the other sub-Topics under the latter are a better fit for what they cover. Although TBH I don't know how well that particular section of the EG has aged over the years, at least in terms of the names given to the sub-Topics within it. That may be a discussion we want to have at some point.
Getting back to the immediate topic (Ha!) - Consolidating these or deleting one of them is technically possible but would be...challenging...in the sense that as a Topic they have a lot of articles linked to them and may also be linked to in a lot of existing Articles and Topics. Plus there is the issue of whether it 'breaks' the design of the EG in the case of the Space-Time Engineering Topic since in OA space-time is sort of a material and Metric Engineering is a thing. Also, I don't think we've every deleted a Topic and so I would strongly recommend that we give it a good think, do some research as to possible impacts, and work out an organized plan for doing it if we end up concluding that that is something we want to attempt.
Coming at this from what I think would be an easier direction - We could rename the Space-Time engineering Topic - maybe to just 'Space-Time' since that is the 'material' being worked with in that case - and then rewrite the associated text to differentiate it from the Metric Engineering text. Changing the name looks at first blush like it would impact relatively few articles.
Speaking more broadly - and not to pile more on our plates - but all of the sub-Topics in this section would probably benefit from a fresh look at some point.
Thoughts?
Todd