Thanks for bringing this up! Some comments below.
On Wed, 2023-05-31 at 12:11 +0200, Derk-Jan Hartman wrote:
I'm proposing we introduce a new namespace on
mediawiki.org.
The namespace name will be Archived (numerical id to be determined)
and its purpose will be to hold pages like "Subversion" that have the
template "historical" applied to it. These pages would move info that
namespace and you would get Archived:Subversion,
Archived:Manual:Small padlock icon, Archived:Help:Extension:WebFonts
etc.
This will give us a place outside of the main content namespaces to
keep information about configurations, manuals, extensions and skins
that we want to keep, but where it will no longer pollute our set of
currently relevant information. The namespace will not be part of
$wgContentNamespaces and $wgNamespacesToBeSearchedDefault namespaces.
Hopefully this will allow for a more searchable and better
functioning
mediawiki.org when it comes to documentation for new
users, while preserving history in the spirit of wikis.
I've discussed this with various people at various points in time who
all seemed to think this was a good idea, but we've never really had
an open discussion about it that could result into action.
It is sometimes hard for me to find relevant information. Thus a while
ago I asked for deboosting search results on
mediawiki.org that include
"Template:Historical":
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T274082
Still I'd love to have a way to exclude such pages by default.
As time passes by the percentage of obsolete pages will increase. Thus
relevant information become harder to find. I consider this a problem.
FYI,
wikitech.wikimedia.org does have an "Obsolete" namespace (id 110;
talk id: 111). Though I do not know how it came to existence and how
regularly it is used (as moving pages requires special permissions).
IMHO a related issue is that authors and editors need to be more aware
of time. I've come across many pages stating "currently" or "next
July". Without going to the page history, readers cannot realize that
these strings were added years ago and that the page *is* outdated.
It may also make sense to show more visibly when a wiki page was last
edited and/or that there is a bigger chance that it might be outdated.
See
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T247987 for a vague idea.
Cheers,
andre
--
Andre Klapper (he/him) | Bugwrangler / Developer Advocate
https://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/