Hi,
following the discussion about categories, I'm thinking about how to
make it easier to use for editors. Please remember, the Greatness of
Wiki is it's simplicity, and that's the reason for it's success.
Currently almost everybody is able to edit articles, but if we introduce
a complex taxonomy, or an ontology, or the edit box is filled with
near-semantic markup tags, this might change. Please, KISS! ;)
For a start: How about some mechanism, e.g. a pulldown menu, offering a
content template for a certain category? This could include an article
structure, some {{category}} related markup and maybe even some editing
help (comments, hints, etc.) which will be automatically removd when the
page is saved for the first time.
At the moment, several types of templates are mostly used as text
snippets in a certain context (e.g. template for biographical article,
template for a location, etc.); the appropriate templates have to be
located and applied to the article via cut/copy/paste - and the editor
has to know about the existence of a template for his article. Offering
a simple and easy-to-use mechanism might help the acceptance of
categories, especially when they are becoming more complex. E.g. in
Wikitravel, where some kind of article structure has been established
from the beginning; such a pulldown or other mechanics would help a
great deal, I think.
Also, if we start working not only with (more or less) one article (=
one page), but more with a series of pages in a {{category}}, we need
tools to better keep track of our movements in the 'pedia. I'd suggest
Breadcrumb Navigation (sometimes also called "Trail") for this; this
would indicate, which page we've vistited recently, and allow for quick
navigation. Several other Wikis have this implemented, so this mechanism
most probably will be understood well; it could be an optional element,
switched on or off via preferences.
Greetings, -asb