I like the idea of such indices very much. It would be uber-cool if you could use SQL syntax to search the content of a wiki.
What I understand is that you want to create a tag/extension/template construction where the editor of the page can enter the fields to go into the table (and presumably select the table it should go to. Something like this (using the template syntax) {{indexthis|cities|name=Vlaardingen|Country=NL|population=70000|.....etc....}}
While this may seem a good idea, the first thougth that sprung to mind was that this makes for a very exploitable structure (for wikispammers). With a "normal" page the spammers are annoying, but simple revert the edit and the information is gone from the wiki (the search anyway). But how does this work with indices: * How can I delete records from the index again (for example I made a page for a city with an index record and later decided to delete the entire page. How does the record get removed from the index automagically). * How can I change records in the index (correcting mistakes/typos...). I cannot forsee a structure where I can uniquely identify individual records in the index/database other then adding another tag/template to specifically change a record which is rahter cumbersome. * How do we avoid creating multiple records in the index table.
What might (repeat *might*) make more sense is that some clever coder (like the guys at google or 'our own' mediawiki coders develop algorithms that yield better search results on wiki pages. (Because of the sometimes amazing number of cross links on a page I imagine that pages in a wiki can be searched/linked in more efficient ways then "just any other" HTML page.
Just my two cents (OK maybe 5).
Hans Voss.
On 1/11/06, András Kardos k.andris@gmail.com wrote:
An idea. I'll try to be short.
Wikipedia has a lot of information, and it is heavily crosslinked. But it's not indexed. I mean an index of people, and index of places and an index of things. And events. And countries. And lakes. And whatever. Each index is a table (in database terms), with a few required fields. You could the add a page (or a part of it) to an index (or more indexes) by specifying theese required fields of an index (probably in the wiki source). The MediaWiki software would create real database tables based on this information.
Using this you could look up things/people that happened, borned, died or whatever on a given day. Or things that happened in Tokyo, or in 1923, and put that on a Google Map. Look at Wikipedia as an intelligent "who's who" (searching not only by name). Or list books or movies that have wiki pages about them. Possibilities are quite broad. Look up pages that are in multiple indexes, "events" and "presidents of the world" for example.
"indexers" would be wikipedians who index things. Make and index, like "countries" or "operating systems" or "mysteries". And then collect things into that index. And specify the attributes (database fields) of that index. There are pages like this, I know, for database systems for example, but you see this is a different level. You could create an index of abbreviations for example...
(I don't have much time to discuss it, but if anyone finds it worth working on, please let me know. Later I might join in. Have a nice day.)
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