[Wikipedia-l] Renaming (and deletion)

[Clifford Adams]

> It would be *so* cool to have a renaming function, and not just to
> convert from the old style links to new style links.  Is this something
> we can do now or a feature we can turn on?  Or is it in the works?

    There is a renaming function, but it is only available for "admin" users.
(Admin users are those who have entered a correct admin password on the
preferences page.)  To use it, go to the action=editlinks page.

    On that page, you can add editing commands, 1 per line.  The commands (for
0.91) are:

* Rename an existing page (optionally rename links pointing to it).  The
OldPage *must* exist, and the NewPage must *not* exist when this command is
done.  The syntax is:

=OldPage=NewPage

* Rename links to a page.  The existance of OldPage and/or NewPage doesn't
matter.  (You can use this to rename links to pages that don't exist yet, or
to change all the links from one page to another similar page.)  Syntax:

|OldPage|NewPage

    For both of the rename commands, one can optionally choose to edit the
RecentChanges log and/or the text of all pages.  If these are selected (as
they are by default), all references to the old page name will be renamed,
including old kept versions and cached diffs.

* Delete a page.  The page is immediately and completely deleted (along with
all kept revisions).  If the edit-RecentChanges option is selected (as it is
by default), all references to this page are deleted from the RecentChanges
log.  No other pages are changed by this command.  Syntax:

!OldPage

    For example:

=EsperantoLanguage=[[Esperanto Language]]
=[[John F. Kenedy]]=[[John F. Kennedy]]
|[[Some nonexisting name]]|[[Another page name]]
![[Some icky bad no-good page]]
!AnotherIckyPage

    I recommend that all wiki site administrators do a full backup of the
$DataDir regularly, especially before doing commands like editlinks.  Since
the editlinks commands lock the database while operating, I also recommend not
doing more than 10-20 commands in a single request.

    For public participation, I figured that an active wiki might set aside a
page like [[Edit Requests]] for user editing requests.  The admin(s) could
occasionally look over the requests, and cut/paste them to the editlinks page
if they are reasonable.  (Renaming [[Physics]] to [[Icky Science Stuff]]
wouldn't be reasonable.)

            --Cliff
    (Did I mention that I need to improve the documentation? :-)