At some point in the past, it was determined that the StringFunctions extension (now part of the ParserFunctions extension) would be disabled on enwiki. I know saw a comment to the effect of: if StringFunctions was turned on, it would only encourage people to start writing parsers in wikicode.
Maybe other people were already aware, but not me, that we have a set of hacked-up string functions on enwiki, for example [[Template:Str len]]. There's a whole category of them at [[Category:String manipulation templates]].
I'd like to know the current opinion of the server ops about these things. Is there any chance of StringFunctions being enabled? If not, should we feel free to work around it as these templates do?
I'm writing to this list so it will be possible to link from enwiki to the mailing list archives, so responses on-list would be best.
- Carl
I too don't understand precisely why string functions are so discouraged. I saw extremely complex templates built just to do (with a high server load I suppose in my ignorance...) what could be obtained with an extremely simple string function.
Alex
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Alex Brollo alex.brollo@gmail.com wrote:
I too don't understand precisely why string functions are so discouraged. I saw extremely complex templates built just to do (with a high server load I suppose in my ignorance...) what could be obtained with an extremely simple string function.
This seems like it comes up every few months. I think the prevailing opinion on why StringFuncs wasn't ever going to be enabled was think wikimarkup has been bastardized enough as is and StringFuncs would send the wiki into the next circle of markup syntax hell as it would be giving editors more rope to hang themselves with.
Alex Brollo wrote:
I too don't understand precisely why string functions are so discouraged. I saw extremely complex templates built just to do (with a high server load I suppose in my ignorance...) what could be obtained with an extremely simple string function.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6455#c92 (and subsequent comments)
MZMcBride
@2010-12-28 22:22, MZMcBride:
Alex Brollo wrote:
I too don't understand precisely why string functions are so discouraged. I saw extremely complex templates built just to do (with a high server load I suppose in my ignorance...) what could be obtained with an extremely simple string function.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6455#c92 (and subsequent comments)
I would say en wiki admins simply need to remove such abuse form things like: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Asbox/templatepage&ac... This is just a quick example I found - maybe the category was needed at some point, but you can do the same working on a dump or with a bot and just get it done once.
2010/12/29 Maciej Jaros egil@wp.pl
@2010-12-28 22:22, MZMcBride:
Alex Brollo wrote:
I too don't understand precisely why string functions are so
discouraged. I
saw extremely complex templates built just to do (with a high server
load I
suppose in my ignorance...) what could be obtained with an extremely
simple
string function.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6455#c92 (and subsequent comments)
I would say en wiki admins simply need to remove such abuse form things like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Asbox/templatepage&ac... This is just a quick example I found - maybe the category was needed at some point, but you can do the same working on a dump or with a bot and just get it done once.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
@2010-12-28 22:22, MZMcBride:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6455#c92 (and subsequent comments)
I read almost all that talk but I'm far from satisfied. I know (and I meet sometimes) that there are tricks to emulate some string function by very complex, and I suppose, much server-loading templates; but such emplates can be built from advanced users only (that are few) while they can't be written by normal users (that are many), It likes to me simply as another case of "safety through obscurity": is this approach consistent with wiki philosophy?
Is it a good idea to remove a tool-1 simply to avoid its abuse? Wouldn't it much better to have both the tool-1, and another tool-2 designed to avoid the abuse of tool-1? Is wiki project as a whole to be removed, just since there are definitely many tries to abuse of it, requiring a great effort of developers, sysops, bots, and users, to fight against those tries?
I don't understand.
Alex
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:22 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6455#c92 (and subsequent comments)
Thanks, that's very helpful. What I was hoping for here was a response from one of the WMF staff about whether the position has changed on StringFunctions and (if not) whether templates like [[Template:str len]] are acceptable. Having a clear statement in place to link to would be ideal.
- Carl
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org