Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)Wikipedia.org> writes:
Yes, I think a special page listing the namespace
contents would be a good
idea. I'm not sure why I didn't do that to start with. But please note:
soon, all custom messages will be moved to a different namespace (probably
Template:) and only the internal messages will be in MediaWiki:.
By making All_messages a special page, you can
hide it to all but
sysops,
> developers and/or bureaucrats, who are probably the ones who should see
> and maintain these variables.
I just wrote and uploaded a "SpecialAllmessages.php" page. It is slow to
generate, but I do not know if it is significantly better or worse than
loading "MediaWiki:All_messages".
Rows, where the current text is different than the default text, are shown
with a different background color.
If this flies, 'InitialiseMessages.inc' should be modified not to generate
"MediaWiki:All_messages" and perhaps should delete it out of existing
databases.
I just noticed "MediaWiki" is a constant in the PHP file. This should be
generalized.
No, all users should be able to view, comment on, and ideally edit the
MediaWiki namespace. Some messages cannot be edited by all users because
either they are written in unfiltered HTML, or because changing them could
make reversion difficult. Many non-sysops have made useful contributions
to
the MediaWiki namespaces, usually asking a sysop to make a given change
for
them.
I require that a user must be a Sysop because it is so slow to generate
this page. Someone may want to move it to more general access. It may be
possible to speed up generation of this page, though not without making it
more difficult to maintain.
Nick Pisarro