On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 20:36:40 +0100, Tomer Chachamu the.r3m0t@gmail.com wrote:
How about fixing our own first? That is, template syntax:
I'm not sure what you think needs "fixing" here.
Use image: [[Image:Name.jpg]] Mention image: [[:Image:Name.jpg]] Use category: [[Category:People]] Mention category: [[:Category:People]]
These are nothing to do with "templates"/"transclusion", but magic kinds of link - both "Image:Name.jpg" and "Category:People" are the titles of pages to which you are creating a link, but a special kind of link because they are special kinds of pages. So, as you say, a leading colon treats them as unspecial, so there is a use/mention distinction.
Personally, I think the most "surprising" kind of link is "[[Media:...]]", because it doesn't link to any page at all. OTOH, I think [[Sound:...]], [[Video:...]], or maybe a combined [[AV:...]] will end up being needed to provide the kind of integration we already offer for images, but presumably the file descriptions will remain in one namespace, so those won't be real pages either.
Use template: {{Box}} (not [[Template:Box]] or {{Template:Box}}) -> I can understand {{Box}} as a shorthand for {{Template:Box}} as people will rarely use namespace 0 stuff as templates, so why not {{Template:Box}} but {{:Template:Box}} ? Use template (substitution): {{subst:Box}} (no suggestions from me here, sorry) Mention template: [[Template:Box]]
"Templates", unlike "Images" and "Categories", are not a special kind of page; linking to them doesn't do anything different from linking to any other page. I guess it could have been decided that they *were* special, and that [[Template:Box]] would cause a transclusion (with [[:Template:Box]] for "mentionning"), but the flexibility of being able to transclude *any* page has proved useful for various cunning schemes.
As for "{{Box}}", "{{Template:Box}}" and "{{:Template:Box}}", they appear, rightly or wrongly, to all be treated equivalently by the current code. (Arguably, the 3rd is incorrect, since the leading colon is making no meaningful distinction).