[Foundation-l] Template Overkill

[Stephanie Daugherty]

Where there exists a clean elegent technical solution to a social
problem then it wasnt really a social problem to begin with.

Where it comes to something like ws maybe a tool to do an outline
grouping a large multiarticle document into a single coherent one is
whats really needed.

Any solution that calls for endless templates is a bad one socially as
well as technically, and at the point where you even consider
something on that scale you should probably be consulting developers
for a better way, like a way to do parent!child relationships.

This goes for other cases too. While we dont need to be bothering the
devs for every little thing, overloading the template system to get
around shortcomings in mediawiki is a pretty good sign that a better
way can or should exist.

Process templates as seen on en,wp are another huge example of this.
All the xfd stuff, requests for x, and similar processes could be
handled better with a chunk of backend code than with piles upon piles
of ever growing templates, and all it would take is a reasonable
request, decent specification, and enough momentum to go through with
the project.  In fact, i think its been discussed on strategy already.

These things always get derailed though,  because people are
apparently more willing to put up with a horrible solution than a good
one that falls short of perfect.

If we are doomed as some naysayers claim we are, then its that very
attitude of resisting improvements and reform that will be our demise
- we will be so busy arguing about what color to paint the bikeshed
that we wont even see that someone is building something better across
the street.

The further we fall behind by allowing our goals and mission and our
technology and policies to take a backseat to arguments about
bikesheds the easier it will become for someone else to come in and do
the job better.

On 12/30/10, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>> What  project are you speaking of?  At en.WS the entire navigation
>> structure of
>> how to move between Chapters within a book is encoded in templates.  I
>> can't
>> imagine how they could be scapped.
>>
>> Birgitte SB
>>
>
> [[Moby Dick, chapter 2]] might work.
>
> Fred Bauder
>
>
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