The English Wikipedia often is overdesigned; example: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait (and probably many a lot other countries).
1. It's hard to edit tables
2. Cut-and-paste does not work that good
3. It isn't browser friendly; in lynx it comes out this way:
CAPTION: Dawlat al Kuwayt
Kuwait flag medium.png KUW-coat.gif (In Detail)
National motto: None Official language Arabic Capital Kuwait Emir Jabir Prime minister Saad Area - Total - % water Ranked 153rd 17,820 km² Negligible Population - Total (2001) - Density Ranked 141st 2,041,961 115/km² Independence June 19, 1961 Currency Dinar Time zone UTC +3 National anthem Al-Nasheed Al-Watani Internet TLD .KW Calling Code 965
Yes, it's right aligned :-( I'm not sure whether you will rate it as a lynx bug, though...
I tend to agree. But then, I like my web pages ugly and functional.
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
The English Wikipedia often is overdesigned; example: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait (and probably many a lot other countries).
It's hard to edit tables
Cut-and-paste does not work that good
It isn't browser friendly; in lynx it comes out this way:
CAPTION: Dawlat al Kuwayt Kuwait flag medium.png KUW-coat.gif (In Detail) National motto: None Official language Arabic Capital Kuwait Emir Jabir Prime minister Saad Area - Total - % water Ranked 153rd 17,820 km² Negligible Population - Total (2001) - Density Ranked 141st 2,041,961 115/km² Independence June 19, 1961 Currency Dinar Time zone UTC +3 National anthem Al-Nasheed Al-Watani Internet TLD .KW Calling Code 965
Yes, it's right aligned :-( I'm not sure whether you will rate it as a lynx bug, though...
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(Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com): I tend to agree. But then, I like my web pages ugly and functional.
My major concern is the ease of editing issue. I have nothing against good-looking tables and nice designs that make a page easy to read, but if it makes the underlying code hard to edit, it doesn't suit Wikipedia well.
There was a large amount of discussion about this a few months ago, and I proposed some simplifications to wikitext syntax that I plan to implement at some point; perhaps after I get some of the database optimizations done, since that seems to be a higher priority at the moment (I think we set a record this morning with 470 mysqld processes on the server).
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
(Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com): I tend to agree. But then, I like my web pages ugly and functional.
My major concern is the ease of editing issue. I have nothing against good-looking tables and nice designs that make a page easy to read, but if it makes the underlying code hard to edit, it doesn't suit Wikipedia well.
One simple option would be to put the code for the table on another page, and import it -- much like we do with images. We could agree on nicer table syntax at a later date too.
I've suggested how this could be done for both tables and images here: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_pages
The English Wikipedia often is overdesigned; example: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait (and probably many a lot other countries).
- It's hard to edit tables
- Cut-and-paste does not work that good
Ugly to edit, but very useful in some instances. The country page template is one example. Having the most essential information in one common place has become tremendously useful, and I now use Wikipedia over the CIA World Factbook where the information is from, in part because it is easier to find in Wikipedia. If we reverted back to flat text, stuff like the population data would again be buried in a complex textual hierarchy. I always cringe when I come across a country page that doesn't use the new layout yet.
The lack of a table syntax is really the core problem here, and it is one that we have pushed aside many times. Many conflicting syntax proposals have been made, and any one which is chosen to implement would probably generate controversy because it isn't *quite* as capable as real HTML, or almost as complex. I favor starting with something very simple and adding more features as the need arises.
But when you have something like
||right \ Dawlat al Kuwayt \gray [[Image:foo.jpg]] \ National motto: foo \ Official language: | Arabic \ Capital | Kuwait \ Emir | Jabir \ Prime minister | Saad \ Area <BR> - Total <BR> - %water | Ranked 153 <br> 17,820 km2 <br> Negligible ||
||alignment=table |=cell \color=row
It gets a lot more readable, doesn't it?
Regards,
Erik
erik_moeller@gmx.de (Erik Moeller) writes:
||right \ Dawlat al Kuwayt \gray [[Image:foo.jpg]] \ National motto: foo \ Official language: | Arabic \ Capital | Kuwait \ Emir | Jabir \ Prime minister | Saad \ Area <BR>
- Total <BR>
- %water |
Ranked 153 <br> 17,820 km2 <br> Negligible ||
||alignment=table |=cell \color=row
It gets a lot more readable, doesn't it?
No, this looks like Perl ;) Let us use a simple list:
Magic for [[Image:foo.jpg]] to display it at the right.
* Name: Dawlat al Kuwayt * National motto: foo * Official language: Arabic * Capital: Kuwait * Emir: Jabir * Prime minister: Saad * Area: 17,820 km² (water: xxx%) * Population: 2,041,961 (2002), Desity 115/km² etc.
The rank info is of arguable value. I'd also vote to leave out the info on the "leaders"; info on them belongs to the "politics" section.
To me the resulting HTML looks good enough.
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