Sounds like a very good idea. To my mind there are three levels of configuration:
1. Stuff you definitely want to change (like the site icon and anything that shows up as a blank page or red link).
2. Stuff you probably want to consider changing because the default is quite possibly inappropriate (like copyright statements).
3. Stuff that you -can- change, if you're finnicky, but that most sites will be happy to leave as is (like most of the system messages).
Anyone who needs to convert the wiki into another language will probably need to do consider all three.
Ben
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Steven Dick Sent: Wednesday, 30 November 2005 4:53 p.m. To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] mediawiki 1.5: so difficult?
On 11/29/05, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/11/05, Steven Dick kg4ydw@gmail.com wrote:
It would also help if there was a page in the documentation listing all
the
meta pages that are user interface pages.
Um, you mean Special:Allmessages ? Clearly, the documentation doesn't mention that enough times yet...
Clearly, you didn't read what I said, and you didn't check Special:Allmessages either. Yes, I know about that page, yes I find it helpful, but it is not enough.
It does NOT list [[Protected_page_guidelines]] which is linked from [[protectedpagewarning]]. This is one example only.
Also, there are a large number of messages in that page, most of which are OK and do not need much tweaking for me. My complaint is that I'd like a list of pages that DO need tweaking, mostly because they don't yet exist.
I guess what I would like is a list of all pages in Special:Allmessages that do NOT exist, as well as a list of all pages those pages link to that also do not exist...
As we both have pointed out, there are already two places to go to get a list of _ALL_ messages. _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
On 30/11/05, Ben Arnold (DSLWN) BenA@datacom.co.nz wrote:
- Stuff you definitely want to change (like the site icon and anything
that shows up as a blank page or red link).
- Stuff you probably want to consider changing because the default is
quite possibly inappropriate (like copyright statements).
Perhaps someone could start a checklist of such things on meta - if it's kept to a bare minimum, it oughtn't to be too hard to reach a consensus of what is necessary. Basically, I'd say anything which specifically mentions the site's name (inc. logo etc), mission (straplines etc), copyright, or other really fundamental policies (inc. some of the variables in LocalSettings.php) needs at least *reviewing* straight away. For instance, the copyright statement *might* happen to be right, in which case you could "tick that off" straight away, but knowing to check it (and how) straight after setup is just as important as knowing how to change the logo, etc.
BTW, if anyone *does* make a page listing pages referenced by the default UI, it occurs to me it should list everywhere they are mentionned from as well, since there are two solutions to such redlinks: a) create the referenced page with appropriate content or b) edit the UI message to no longer reference that page [either pointing to the info elsewhere, or not linking at all].
- Stuff that you -can- change, if you're finnicky, but that most sites
will be happy to leave as is (like most of the system messages).
Anyone who needs to convert the wiki into another language will probably need to do consider all three.
Not sure what you mean here - translating into a totally new language will obviously involve translating everything; converting an existing wiki to a different language might be doable with maintenance scripts, though you would certainly want to pay attention to the whole interface. Crucially, though, you *shouldn't* need to configure anything more just because you are installing a brand new wiki in, say, French rather than English.
-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]
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