Fate of hierarchical list on Special:Allpages

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Ori Livneh

13 Nov 2013 13 Nov '13

12:36 a.m.

Following change I189ba71de[0], the hierarchical list in Special:Allpages becomes a simple alphabetic pager if the total number of pages exceeds a safety threshold. The threshold is designed to protect wikis on which the load generated by the process of generating the hierarchical list would be prohibitively expensive (bug 56840[1]). I189ba71de resolved the immediate operational issue, but there is a further question of whether we want to keep the hierarchical list at all, especially given that it cannot be enabled (in its current implementation, at least) on larger installations.

...

From my perspective, the ideal outcome of this discussion would be

that we agree that the hierarchical list is a poor fit for the MediaWiki of today, and we resolve to remove it from core. According to stats.grok.se, enwiki's Special:Allpages receives approximately 158 hits a day.[2] [0]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/94690/ [1]: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56840 [2]: http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/Special:Allpages --- Ori Livneh ori(a)wikimedia.org

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MZMcBride

13 Nov 13 Nov

2:15 a.m.

Ori Livneh wrote:

...

From my perspective, the ideal outcome of this discussion would be that we agree that the hierarchical list is a poor fit for the MediaWiki of today, and we resolve to remove it from core.

Sounds good to me. For anyone who doesn't know what a(n) hierarchical list is: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:AllPages> currently outputs one. Without objection, I'd go ahead and file a bug and mark it as easy. It should be fairly trivial to kill, I think. MZMcBride

Bartosz Dziewoński

11:02 a.m.

On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 01:36:02 +0100, Ori Livneh <ori(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

From my perspective, the ideal outcome of this discussion would be that we agree that the hierarchical list is a poor fit for the MediaWiki of today, and we resolve to remove it from core.

+1. I've never understood what purpose the Special:Allpages layout was supposed to serve. -- Matma Rex

Dan Garry

11:05 a.m.

Tim made the point that for a wiki with a very small set of pages (say, 100 pages) pages, Special:Allpages can be useful as it lets you get an overview of the content of the wiki. That's obviously not too applicable to wikis like the English Wikipedia, especially if it's creating a lot of performance issues. Dan On 13 November 2013 11:02, Bartosz Dziewoński <matma.rex(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 01:36:02 +0100, Ori Livneh <ori(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: From my perspective, the ideal outcome of this discussion would be

that we agree that the hierarchical list is a poor fit for the MediaWiki of today, and we resolve to remove it from core.

+1. I've never understood what purpose the Special:Allpages layout was supposed to serve. -- Matma Rex _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager for Platform Wikimedia Foundation

Strainu

12:24 p.m.

Hold on, are we talking about removing Special:Allpages altogether or just disabling the hierarchical view? If it's the former, It's not OK. Even for large wikis, it allows you to see near-by pages, such as pages with different diacritic signs, but which denote the same subject. Strainu 2013/11/13 Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:

...

On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 01:36:02 +0100, Ori Livneh <ori(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: From my perspective, the ideal outcome of this discussion would be

that we agree that the hierarchical list is a poor fit for the MediaWiki of today, and we resolve to remove it from core.

-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager for Platform Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Federico Leva (Nemo)

12:25 p.m.

What's different in the "MediaWiki of today" as regards allpages? I suspect it was designed to resemble encyclopedias and dictionaries' browsing by "volumes". For those who don't remember it, here is a copy: <https://web.archive.org/web/20130815011644/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AllPages> In principle, it's a useful feature to see at a glance what a wiki contains, skipping – say – the few tens of thousands of similarly named asteroids or proteins, especially if the wiki is lazy and no proper category tree is maintained. In general, if you want to get it removed you should probably discuss it on mediawiki-l, given that they performance issue affecting Wikimedia wikis seems resolved (thanks!). As regards pageviews, they're not particularly useful because you won't find the visits to the filters by namespace or whatever (which personally I often enter directly in the location bar without using the form). Nemo

Dan Garry

12:50 p.m.

It's the latter; the hierarchical list will not be displayed if there are over 50,000 pages. See the relevant bug <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56840> and the relevant patch <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/95085/> for more information. Dan On 13 November 2013 12:24, Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Tim made the point that for a wiki with a very small set of pages (say,

100

pages) pages, Special:Allpages can be useful as it lets you get an

overview

of the content of the wiki. That's obviously not too applicable to wikis like the English Wikipedia, especially if it's creating a lot of performance issues. Dan On 13 November 2013 11:02, Bartosz Dziewoński <matma.rex(a)gmail.com>

wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 01:36:02 +0100, Ori Livneh <ori(a)wikimedia.org>

wrote:

From my perspective, the ideal outcome of this discussion would be

that we agree that the hierarchical list is a poor fit for the MediaWiki of today, and we resolve to remove it from core.

_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager for Platform Wikimedia Foundation

Bartosz Dziewoński

11 May 11 May

8:10 p.m.

A bug to remove the fancy index was filed independently today: <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=65159>. I think it's about time to close this discussion properly :) I submitted a patch. -- Matma Rex

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Bartosz Dziewoński
Dan Garry
Federico Leva (Nemo)
MZMcBride
Ori Livneh
Strainu