There's no known way syntax for table layout that works equally well for
novices and experts. So, why not encourage authors to upload any tabular
information as a file? Then one of our vast programming staff can
convert it.
Many computer users are familiar with creating tables (A) in Word or
Excel; or (B) ASCII tab-delimited or comma-delimited format.
If we make it easy for contributors, they will contribute lots of good
stuff.
Ed Poor
Eclecticology wrote:
>Tarquin wrote:
>>Could the WatchList page be limited to a number of days like RecentChanges?
>>Mine is getting rather long & it takes a while to generate.
>>Maybe a truncated WatchList page could give a link to a complete
>>watchlist which would be displayed as a dumb list with no dates &
>>times of edits (which I presume is what causes the load on the server)
>At the risk of being slightly sarcastic, wouldn't a better solution be
>to edit your own WatchList to remove things that you no longer really
>need to watch?
No, I want a long Watchlist too, and I agree with Tarquin.
I want to know if *any* of these pages is edited, however minorly,
but I don't want to wait for them to load on the special page.
For my money, adopting the format of other special pages,
listing only the past 3 days or the past 30 edits by default,
will be quite sufficient; no need for new formats like dumb lists.
-- Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia-l(a)math.ucr.edu>
>===== Original Message From "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor(a)abc.com> =====
>There's no known way syntax for table layout that works equally well for
>novices and experts. So, why not encourage authors to upload any tabular
>information as a file? Then one of our vast programming staff can
>convert it.
>
>Many computer users are familiar with creating tables (A) in Word or
>Excel; or (B) ASCII tab-delimited or comma-delimited format.
A version of this is already in place; I've gone around and converted a number
of preformatted ASCII tables into HTML ones. Preformatted ASCII is ugly, but
as an interim measure I've got no problem with it.
Jens Frank wrote:
>I've hacked the phpwiki code to add a new namespace
>[[math: ]] so you can write formulas like [[math:a^2+b^2=c^2]] or
>[[math:\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\frac{1}{n}=\infty]].
>The code will make TeX create an image (PNG) of the formula. Those
>images will be cached, they will be created only once and will be
>shared between articles. ( [[math:E=m c^2]] might be used on many
>pages ).
I really like this idea! Some comments:
Be sure to include the TeX source as ALT text in images.
We only need to implement math mode, since everything else is already covered.
I'd look at LaTeX2HTML, with renders math formulas differently from the rest.
We should be able to get by with copying just what is used to make its GIFs
(except that we would render them as PNGs instead, of course).
LaTeX2HTML doesn't process TeX (or even LaTeX) in full generality,
yet it seems to be very popular for putting math papers on the web.
This suggests that we can get a fast program that handles limited markup
but which is sufficient for everything that we need to do.
It might be nice to have something to implement simple <var> tags still,
for the case of an isolated variable name floating among some text.
$$...$$ will still work for that, or any similar idea.
Some will suggest using $$...$$ for the general math formulas.
Aside from the fact that this looks funny to TeXers
(since TeX properly uses $...$ inline, which we can't do),
I think that using explicit namespace syntax is a good idea,
assuming that we really do store the gifs in such a namespace.
The syntax is just as easy to use, and it's best to let
the workings of the system be transparent when this is user friendly.
The only thing that $$...$$ has over [[math:...]] is
in the situation of a very short formula like a single letter,
and there it's better to use <var> instead of a gif *anyway*.
(Contrary to popular opinion, I've never suggested $$x \leq y$$.
What I suggested was $$x$$ ≤ $$y$$, which won't fool any TeXer
into thinking that it's actual TeX; the markup is merely *inspired* by TeX.
Jheijmans wrote:
>Some time ago, I posted a question on the talk page of Year in Review,
>regarding the use of the Year in Review/Backwards pages, which are all
>orphan pages. I received one reaction (from Toby) voting for deletion
>after I put it on the votes for deletion page, but it was not deleted by
>any sysop. Now that I am one myself, I can do that, but I want to bring
>this topic to the attention for one last time. Unless I receive
>reactions, I'll delete the pages.
Well, as a member of the radical Redirect Don't Delete Party,
I actually think that they should be redirected to their forward versions.
However, I ain't gonna lose any sleep over this one ^_^.
-- Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia-l(a)math.ucr.edu>
Tarquin wrote:
>http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Wiki_markup_tables
I like the look of Tarquin's proposal the best.
I do worry that it isn't sufficiently powerful;
I have some comments in the talk page already about that
(although my specific example may be moot because of other developments).
So it needs work, but it looks nice.
-- Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia-l(a)math.ucr.edu>
Lee Daniel Crocker (?) wrote:
>Secondly, Wikipedia is dynamic in nature, and I don't think we should
>play by the same rules as static websites in terms of keeping old
>links alive. Certainly in some cases it's warranted; if someone
>moves "James Earl Carter" to "Jimmy Carter", and the old one has been
>around for a long time (not just a few days), then it's reasonable to
>expect that there may be external links to it and there's no reason
>not to leave the redirect. But if it is, say, a misspelling, I'd
>rather just delete it. We are under no obligation to keep our
>mistakes around forever, and if someone links to it and finds it
>broken, we have done him a service by forcing him to correct it.
>Likewise, if someone creates a page and I think it needs a different
>title, if I catch that error within a day or two and move it, I'll
>just delete the old title. There's not point in cluttering the
>database with a redirect that's just a mistake, and hasn't been
>around long enough to accumulate links.
As a member of the Redirect Don't Delete Party,
I've no inherent opposition to deleting pages
that have only been around for a few days.
It's these pages that have been here since February that bother me.
-- Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia-l(a)math.ucr.edu>
Jeroen Heijmans wrote:
>Also, because much of the deletions that do occur do not comply with the Wikipedia
>policy on permanent deletion of pages (especially rule 6), I'm sometimes confused.
I don't think that it's possible for a deletion not to comply with rule 6;
it's *failures* of deletions that don't comply with that rule.
That's because, unlike other rules, it says *to* delete,
which the other rules say *not* to delete.
That is, it doesn't say to delete *only* pages with names
that will never become the names of encyclopaedia articles;
it says to delete those (leaving open the possibility of others),
except where that conflicts with the other, restraining rules.
(Hence the language about keeping the other rules in mind.)
At least, that's the way that *I* read it.
-- Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia-l(a)math.ucr.edu>
Some time ago, I posted a question on the talk page of Year in Review,
regarding the use of the Year in Review/Backwards pages, which are all
orphan pages. I received one reaction (from Toby) voting for deletion
after I put it on the votes for deletion page, but it was not deleted by
any sysop. Now that I am one myself, I can do that, but I want to bring
this topic to the attention for one last time. Unless I receive
reactions, I'll delete the pages.