Well, I tried the category function on my local machine again, and it _seems_ to work OK. Before this goes "live", there's one point I'd like to mention:
In the current CVS, "category" is _not_ a real namespace. While that simplifies the search queries, it has a few downsides: * Category descriptions will be counted as articles (or is that a good thing?) * Queries (invoked every time you view a "Category:" page) do a string comparison ("Category:%") * [[:Category:abc]] will generate a category link, rather than an inline link (despite the leading ":")
I thought I'd better ask before creating a "real" new namespace, though.
Magnus
Magnus Manske wrote:
Well, I tried the category function on my local machine again, and it _seems_ to work OK. Before this goes "live", there's one point I'd like to mention:
Warning: My personal opinions follow...
In the current CVS, "category" is _not_ a real namespace.
It should be!
- Category descriptions will be counted as articles (or is that a good
thing?)
Very bad thing!
- Queries (invoked every time you view a "Category:" page) do a string
comparison ("Category:%")
Very bad indeed!
- [[:Category:abc]] will generate a category link, rather than an inline
link (despite the leading ":")
Needs to be fixed!
I thought I'd better ask before creating a "real" new namespace, though.
:-)
Greetings, Timwi
Magnus Manske wrote:
Well, I tried the category function on my local machine again, and it _seems_ to work OK. Before this goes "live", there's one point I'd like to mention:
In the current CVS, "category" is _not_ a real namespace. While that simplifies the search queries, it has a few downsides:
- Category descriptions will be counted as articles (or is that a good
thing?)
- Queries (invoked every time you view a "Category:" page) do a string
comparison ("Category:%")
- [[:Category:abc]] will generate a category link, rather than an
inline link (despite the leading ":")
I thought I'd better ask before creating a "real" new namespace, though.
It's a cause for joy to see that some progress is being made in this area. Although I seak as a non-technical person I can appreciate the concerns that Timwi has raised. Still I would dearly love to see something on line soon.
The features that I consider important remain the same as they have been at other times when this subject has been raised. An article must be capable of accepting multiple categorizations in multiple systems. Plain text categories are essential, but so too should various coding systems. My simple suggestion remains that a category which begins with two capital letters would indicate a code; exactly which code would be indicated by the specific choice of those two letters.
I know that my suggestion will lead to many schemes that go nowhere, but I believe that that process is a natural part of organic wiki growth. If a particular categorization scheme turns out to be nothing more than clutter, the community will make that decision by failing to use it.
Ec
On Apr 20, 2004, at 08:49, Ray Saintonge wrote:
The features that I consider important remain the same as they have been at other times when this subject has been raised. An article must be capable of accepting multiple categorizations in multiple systems.
A page may be assigned to arbitrarily many categories. Category pages themselves may be assigned to categories, giving rise to a hierarchical categorization system (though right now it's a little awkward to navigate.) Parallel hierarchies shouldn't be a problem.
Plain text categories are essential, but so too should various coding systems. My simple suggestion remains that a category which begins with two capital letters would indicate a code; exactly which code would be indicated by the specific choice of those two letters.
The category names are opaque to the software; it doesn't have any interest in what naming conventions are used. Codes are fine, but they should be sufficiently legible that having a bunch of them appear at the top of an article won't be confusing.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber wrote:
On Apr 20, 2004, at 08:49, Ray Saintonge wrote:
The features that I consider important remain the same as they have been at other times when this subject has been raised. An article must be capable of accepting multiple categorizations in multiple systems.
A page may be assigned to arbitrarily many categories. Category pages themselves may be assigned to categories, giving rise to a hierarchical categorization system (though right now it's a little awkward to navigate.) Parallel hierarchies shouldn't be a problem.
Perfect.
Plain text categories are essential, but so too should various coding systems. My simple suggestion remains that a category which begins with two capital letters would indicate a code; exactly which code would be indicated by the specific choice of those two letters.
The category names are opaque to the software; it doesn't have any interest in what naming conventions are used. Codes are fine, but they should be sufficiently legible that having a bunch of them appear at the top of an article won't be confusing.
I think that we agree. I suppose that the issue that I raised may be more editorial than software related. It is conceivable that at some distant future time some very popular coding systems should be recognizable by the software, but that should not become an impediment to getting a functioning category system activated.
If codes are to be allowed there must be a way of distinguishing them from plain text, and there must be a way of distinguishing them from each other. Some people may find the Dewey Decimal System appropriate, but I would suggest that something in category 537 be coded as "DD:537" rather than simply "537" . Any coding system would need to be defined and described
Ec
Magnus-
Well, I tried the category function on my local machine again, and it _seems_ to work OK.
There's still a bug in that text which is typed directly next to a category tag is appended to the category header, e.g. if I type
[[Category:Dogfood]] is tasty
then the categories header says
"Categories: [[Dogfood]] is tasty"
The text "is tasty" is thus duplicated (in the header, and where it was typed).
You can see this here: http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categories2
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Magnus-
Well, I tried the category function on my local machine again, and it _seems_ to work OK.
There's still a bug in that text which is typed directly next to a category tag is appended to the category header.
Another bug: Subcategories are displayed with underscores instead of spaces (e.g. "Rock_music" instead of "Rock music").
OK, I made "Category" and "Category talk" real namespaces. Hey, we're up to 15 now (not including "special")! Does anyone remember the time when we used to write an encyclopedia?...
Please try the current CVS, should have mucho bugs fixed now. (And plenty of new exiting ones!;-)
Magnus
Timwi wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
Magnus-
Well, I tried the category function on my local machine again, and it _seems_ to work OK.
There's still a bug in that text which is typed directly next to a category tag is appended to the category header.
Another bug: Subcategories are displayed with underscores instead of spaces (e.g. "Rock_music" instead of "Rock music").
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Magnus-
Please try the current CVS, should have mucho bugs fixed now. (And plenty of new exiting ones!;-)
Please turn E_NOTICE on in your PHP config. We use E_NOTICE now for debugging purposes.
The category code triggers a notice in Parser.php, line 291, when viewing a category page, which is this line:
if ( count ( $y ) == 2 && $y[0] == $cat )
It complains that $cat is an uninitialized variable. $cat seems to be used nowhere in Parser.php, which proves the usefulness of E_NOTICE. I suggest you replace it with the correct variable name, if any.
I've seen quite a bit of strange behavior (including such things as templates being listed as subcategories), but let's start with this stuff.
Incidentally, it would be very useful if you would add some comments to your code. Presently the only comments in the function categoryMagic() are:
# Children # Articles
Neither of which is particularly informative ..
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Please turn E_NOTICE on in your PHP config. We use E_NOTICE now for debugging purposes.
Really? I even turn off all C/C++ warnings. Who cares if it's a signed or unsigned integer, anyway? ;-) OK, turned on. New version doesn't complain no more.
I've seen quite a bit of strange behavior (including such things as templates being listed as subcategories), but let's start with this stuff.
??? I have enabled all pages that use [[Category:xyz]] to show up on Category:xyz. Should that rather be restricted to article namespace?
Incidentally, it would be very useful if you would add some comments to your code. Presently the only comments in the function categoryMagic() are:
# Children # Articles
Neither of which is particularly informative ..
Anyone remembering the original Phase II code should know that my work usually has *less* comments than this;-)
OK, some comments are in place.
Magnus
Magnus Manske wrote:
OK, I made "Category" and "Category talk" real namespaces. Hey, we're up to 15 now (not including "special")! Does anyone remember the time when we used to write an encyclopedia?...
15? ... Hm ...
0: Articles; 1: Talk; 2-3: User [talk]; 4-5: Wikipedia [talk]; 6-7: Image [talk]; 8-9: MediaWiki [talk]; 10-11: Template [talk].
That's all I know so far ... with Category and Category talk that makes only 14, or "up to" 13 in numbers (I think that's what you meant). In URLs we also have "Special:" but you said you didn't count that one. In links we have "Media:" but that uses the "Image" namespace. So what is/are the remaining one/two namespace(s)?
However, this reminded me of something. It would be useful to be able to use the Category scheme to categorise Wikipedia-namespace pages too (e.g. "Help" pages, "Policy" pages, etc.) However, those categorisations should be separate from article categorisations. Therefore would we want a "Wikipedia category" and "Wikipedia category talk" namespace too? :)
Things like "List of Wikipedians from $country" could also be replaced by a "User category" namespace. The same argumentation could apply to the "Template" namespace :)
Timwi
Timwi wrote:
Magnus Manske wrote:
OK, I made "Category" and "Category talk" real namespaces. Hey, we're up to 15 now (not including "special")! Does anyone remember the time when we used to write an encyclopedia?...
15? ... Hm ...
0: Articles; 1: Talk; 2-3: User [talk]; 4-5: Wikipedia [talk]; 6-7: Image [talk]; 8-9: MediaWiki [talk]; 10-11: Template [talk].
That's all I know so far ... with Category and Category talk that makes only 14, or "up to" 13 in numbers (I think that's what you meant). In URLs we also have "Special:" but you said you didn't count that one. In links we have "Media:" but that uses the "Image" namespace. So what is/are the remaining one/two namespace(s)?
Help / Help talk, anyone? ;-) At least, they were there when I put in the category ones...
However, this reminded me of something. It would be useful to be able to use the Category scheme to categorise Wikipedia-namespace pages too (e.g. "Help" pages, "Policy" pages, etc.) However, those categorisations should be separate from article categorisations. Therefore would we want a "Wikipedia category" and "Wikipedia category talk" namespace too? :)
I, for one, welcome our new namespace overlords ;-)
No, I think we could just make a 'base category' called "Internals" or "Maintenance" or something, and then branch "Wikipedia help" and the like from there.
Magnus
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