On wikimedia projects that are not Wikipedia (Wikia in specific comes to mind) I often find myself using templates that have not been defined on that installation. The English Wikipedia (which I am most familiar with) has many very usefull templates, especially the {{citeFoo}} templates, but numerous others as well. Trying to 'import' one is a bit of a pain though. Many templates depend on other templates, and it is not often very clear how (as a fun exercise for the reader, try to import the {{convert}} template to a new wiki, and see how easy it is!). I was wondering if it might be a good idea to include a standard template library to Wikimedia installations, containing a set of utility templates along with the Wikimedia distribution. I'm cross-posting foudation, for possible discussion if this is desirable, and wikitech, for possible discussion if this is feasable.
2011/8/20 Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On wikimedia projects that are not Wikipedia (Wikia in specific comes to mind) I often find myself using templates that have not been defined on that installation. The English Wikipedia (which I am most familiar with) has many very usefull templates, especially the {{citeFoo}} templates, but numerous others as well. Trying to 'import' one is a bit of a pain though. Many templates depend on other templates, and it is not often very clear how (as a fun exercise for the reader, try to import the {{convert}} template to a new wiki, and see how easy it is!).
It is being rewritten as an extension now. The Babel extension already exists to replace {{babel}}. For some templates that's probably the right way.
It would also be much, much easier to translate them.
I was wondering if it might be a good idea to include a standard template library to Wikimedia installations, containing a set of utility templates along with the Wikimedia distribution.
Just today i thought about having a little standard template library for wikis in RTL languages. A template that produces stuff like <span dir="ltr">{{{1}}}</span>. It should be easy.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
On 20.08.2011, 22:23 Martijn wrote:
On wikimedia projects that are not Wikipedia (Wikia in specific comes to mind) I often find myself using templates that have not been defined on that installation. The English Wikipedia (which I am most familiar with) has many very usefull templates, especially the {{citeFoo}} templates, but numerous others as well. Trying to 'import' one is a bit of a pain though. Many templates depend on other templates, and it is not often very clear how (as a fun exercise for the reader, try to import the {{convert}} template to a new wiki, and see how easy it is!). I was wondering if it might be a good idea to include a standard template library to Wikimedia installations, containing a set of utility templates along with the Wikimedia distribution. I'm cross-posting foudation, for possible discussion if this is desirable, and wikitech, for possible discussion if this is feasable.
Don't forget, English is one of 300-something languages we support. And users of other languages typically don't feel comfortable with using English templates, because words like "cite book", "author" and "link" are meaningless to them. So we're speaking about 300+ sets of templates. This is both unmaintainable and burdensome. And don't forget, not every MediaWiki (that's how our software is called, not Wikimedia!) will want them. I would suppport a system that downloads them on-demand, however shipping zillion templates out of the box is simply out of the question.
2011/8/20 Max Semenik maxsem.wiki@gmail.com:
Don't forget, English is one of 300-something languages we support. And users of other languages typically don't feel comfortable with using English templates, because words like "cite book", "author" and "link" are meaningless to them.
Translating the templates' names can be easily done in translatewiki.net.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 8:35 PM, Max Semenik maxsem.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On 20.08.2011, 22:23 Martijn wrote:
On wikimedia projects that are not Wikipedia (Wikia in specific comes to mind) I often find myself using templates that have not been defined on that installation. The English Wikipedia (which I am most familiar with) has many very usefull templates, especially the {{citeFoo}} templates, but numerous others as well. Trying to 'import' one is a bit of a pain though. Many templates depend on other templates, and it is not often very clear how (as a fun exercise for the reader, try to import the {{convert}} template to a new wiki, and see how easy it is!). I was wondering if it might be a good idea to include a standard template library to Wikimedia installations, containing a set of utility templates along with the Wikimedia distribution. I'm cross-posting foudation, for possible discussion if this is desirable, and wikitech, for possible discussion if this is feasable.
Don't forget, English is one of 300-something languages we support. And users of other languages typically don't feel comfortable with using English templates, because words like "cite book", "author" and "link" are meaningless to them. So we're speaking about 300+ sets of templates. This is both unmaintainable and burdensome. And don't forget, not every MediaWiki (that's how our software is called, not Wikimedia!) will want them. I would suppport a system that downloads them on-demand, however shipping zillion templates out of the box is simply out of the question.
-- Best regards, Max Semenik ([[User:MaxSem]])
eh, Derp on the MediaWiki/Wikimedia, dunno where that came from. Also I'm not proposing to export all the en.wiki templates, but rather establish a core set of templates that could be exported (and translated!) on demand.
Regards,
Martijn
On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com wrote:
On wikimedia projects that are not Wikipedia (Wikia in specific comes to mind) I often find myself using templates that have not been defined on that installation. The English Wikipedia (which I am most familiar with) has many very usefull templates, especially the {{citeFoo}} templates, but numerous others as well. Trying to 'import' one is a bit of a pain though. Many templates depend on other templates, and it is not often very clear how (as a fun exercise for the reader, try to import the {{convert}} template to a new wiki, and see how easy it is!). I was wondering if it might be a good idea to include a standard template library to Wikimedia installations, containing a set of utility templates along with the Wikimedia distribution. I'm cross-posting foudation, for possible discussion if this is desirable, and wikitech, for possible discussion if this is feasable.
Since Wikia was mentioned in this post, I thought I'd outline how we've tackled this problem, as it might be interesting to the discussion.
When a new wiki is created at Wikia, we don't start with an empty database. Instead, we copy the contents of what we've called a "starter wiki" into the newly created database.
Apart from the special role they play in the creation of new wikis, starter wikis are pretty much normal wiki sites (with the exception of tighter edit permissions to prevent vandalism).
Have a look at the English starter wiki: http://starter.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&to...
As you can see it has a ton of different templates. All of these exist at every new wiki when it's created.
Martijn: if your Wikia wiki doesn't have some (or all) of those, that might be because it was created before the starter system or because it's in a language other than English and that language's starter wiki doesn't have the template(s) you want (yes, we have per language starters, too).
Mail me off-list, I'm sure I can help include the needed templates in future wikis. :)
2011/8/20 Łukasz Garczewski tor@wikia-inc.com:
On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com wrote:
On wikimedia projects that are not Wikipedia (Wikia in specific comes to mind) I often find myself using templates that have not been defined on that installation. The English Wikipedia (which I am most familiar with) has many very usefull templates, especially the {{citeFoo}} templates, but numerous others as well. Trying to 'import' one is a bit of a pain though. Many templates depend on other templates, and it is not often very clear how (as a fun exercise for the reader, try to import the {{convert}} template to a new wiki, and see how easy it is!). I was wondering if it might be a good idea to include a standard template library to Wikimedia installations, containing a set of utility templates along with the Wikimedia distribution. I'm cross-posting foudation, for possible discussion if this is desirable, and wikitech, for possible discussion if this is feasable.
Since Wikia was mentioned in this post, I thought I'd outline how we've tackled this problem, as it might be interesting to the discussion.
When a new wiki is created at Wikia, we don't start with an empty database. Instead, we copy the contents of what we've called a "starter wiki" into the newly created database.
Apart from the special role they play in the creation of new wikis, starter wikis are pretty much normal wiki sites (with the exception of tighter edit permissions to prevent vandalism).
Have a look at the English starter wiki: http://starter.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&to...
As you can see it has a ton of different templates. All of these exist at every new wiki when it's created.
Martijn: if your Wikia wiki doesn't have some (or all) of those, that might be because it was created before the starter system or because it's in a language other than English and that language's starter wiki doesn't have the template(s) you want (yes, we have per language starters, too).
Mail me off-list, I'm sure I can help include the needed templates in future wikis. :)
-- Lucas 'TOR' Garczewski Community Engineer tor@wikia-inc.com
Lucas, thanks for the offer, and I will take you up on it!
In the mean time, where this may (partially) solve the problem for Wikia, it's the more general problem that is more important. A user creating a new wiki with our software shouldn't have to lug through a difficult import process, or have to built some system that easily manages imports the way Wikia did. It's no coincidence I named this 'a' standard template library in the subject line. Like the STL is not part of the C++ language, the fact that it is freely available, and standard, makes C++ much more easy to develop for, as there are many building blocks readily available for programmers. Likewise, defined templates are not part of MediaWiki, but could greatly enhance the user experience. Wikia made the import module for a reason, and the reason is users are greatly helped by having a standard library of templates available to them.
Regards,
Martijn
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martijn Hoekstra" martijnhoekstra@gmail.com
On wikimedia projects that are not Wikipedia (Wikia in specific comes to mind) I often find myself using templates that have not been defined on that installation. The English Wikipedia (which I am most familiar with) has many very usefull templates, especially the {{citeFoo}} templates, but numerous others as well. Trying to 'import' one is a bit of a pain though. Many templates depend on other templates, and it is not often very clear how (as a fun exercise for the reader, try to import the {{convert}} template to a new wiki, and see how easy it is!). I was wondering if it might be a good idea to include a standard template library to Wikimedia installations, containing a set of utility templates along with the Wikimedia distribution. I'm cross-posting foudation, for possible discussion if this is desirable, and wikitech, for possible discussion if this is feasable.
+25. I had to pull the book citation template out of Wikipedia to use it on a Wikia site, and it was a 2 hour process.
Cheers, -- jra
On 20 August 2011 21:01, Jay Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
+25. I had to pull the book citation template out of Wikipedia to use it on a Wikia site, and it was a 2 hour process.
Yes. Speaking as a MediaWiki tarball user (at work), this doesn't require a fork (as Fred contemplates) - it just needs an extra tarball, or maybe an XML export file of importable templates, or maybe both (necessary extensions plus template XML).
This discussion has also come up on one of the technical lists - a "light" MW tarball, and a tarball with the extensions one would expect to see on Wikipedia included. Including a standard template set would fit right in with that.
This discussion may belong on wikitech-l or mediawiki-l ...
- d.
On 20 August 2011 21:01, Jay Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
+25. Â I had to pull the book citation template out of Wikipedia to use it on a Wikia site, and it was a 2 hour process.
Yes. Speaking as a MediaWiki tarball user (at work), this doesn't require a fork (as Fred contemplates) - it just needs an extra tarball, or maybe an XML export file of importable templates, or maybe both (necessary extensions plus template XML).
This discussion has also come up on one of the technical lists - a "light" MW tarball, and a tarball with the extensions one would expect to see on Wikipedia included. Including a standard template set would fit right in with that.
This discussion may belong on wikitech-l or mediawiki-l ...
- d.
I'm thinking about including anything routinely used as either as an extension, stylesheet, or required program which is needed to make an import from Wikipedia display properly. For example the timeline extension and its required Ploticus program. In short all the things which throw a content oriented user into programing mode. Some of these things might not be possible. Shared hosting plays a role in this matter.
Fred
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org