Re: [MediaWiki-l] MediaWiki-l Digest, Vol 136, Issue 24

From: mediawiki-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: MediaWiki-l Digest, Vol 136, Issue 24 To: mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:00:56 +0000 Send MediaWiki-l mailing list submissions to mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to mediawiki-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org You can reach the person managing the list at mediawiki-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of MediaWiki-l digest..." Today's Topics: 1. [mwstake] What should we focus on? (Mark A. Hershberger) 2. Re: [mwstake] What should we focus on? (Dmitrii Kouznetsov) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon 26 Jan 2015 02:48:06 PM EST From: "Mark A. Hershberger" <mah(a)nichework.com> To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list <mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [MediaWiki-l] [mwstake] What should we focus on? Message-ID: <87h9vcg7qo.fsf(a)flynn.nichework.com> Content-Type: text/plain At the developer summit just now, we've decided to use the tag #mwstake (for twitter, etc) or the subject line prefix (like I've done here) for communication on mediawiki-l for the MW stakeholders group. The first item we'd like to discuss with MediaWiki users is what should we actually focus on? If you use MediaWiki for your own wiki, what sort of things do you think need more attention? How can we help you find out about things you need to know to run your wiki? For example, someone in this meeting said that they ran from git master because they need to run Visual Editor. I told him that I was successfully using VE on MW 1.24. This is the sort of information that would be useful for him, of course, but we need to figure out what other things we need to communicate. And, of course, sometimes I could benefit from things that you know. How can we gather this sort of information to make it more useful to everyone? Mark. -- Mark A. Hershberger NicheWork LLC 717-271-1084 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 20:15:08 +0900 (JST) From: Dmitrii Kouznetsov <dima(a)ils.uec.ac.jp> To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list <mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [MediaWiki-l] [mwstake] What should we focus on? Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1501271847001.25347(a)dima.ils.uec.ac.jp> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed" Dear Mark. I type my opinion on your request. 1. About me. I handle the mizugadro.mydns.jp/t It seems to work well during almost two years. It is not perfect: Sometimes, the text disappears after the closing references; Sometimes the tumbnail for a picture fails; I could not make work the "short name" service, Include of PDF files hapened to be different from that for other files and difficult to handle; Construction and customing of the skins also happened to be difficult; I could not handle the antispam service (I locked the self-authorization), I doubt, if they can be reproduced by colleagues; so, I do not report them. In general, I am glad, that the configuration I could arrange with your help works and I am glad, that I can use it without to enter again into details of php, html, mysql and other things. But for the case, if the point of view of a diletant helps you, I type some comments below. 2. Most important extensions: Mathjax, Poem (I use it to include the codes into the wiki-text) Service for references, Service for uploading umages (I do not remember the names of these extensions). I should appreciate the extension to provide the "short name", if it will be installed by itself, authomatically, just answering "yes" at the installing. At least two years ago, the handling requested a lot knowledge. Few years ago, for me, it was a shoke, when first time I realized, that the most of services, installed and configured at the widely known vikis (wikipedia, citizendium, etc) are not supported by default. I believed them to be parts of the core; then it happened that they are only extensions, and each of them requires some handling at the installation. The same refers to caching. I do not undertand, why is it so difficlut, that each time it should be handled manually. 2. Independence. Often, trying to improve some thing in the set-up, I saw, that I destroy some other thing. I know, how difficul is to provide the independence, but it is very important. You cannot underestimate the stupidity of the beginner, who deals with a big large package, knowing close to nothing about it, with the naive hope, that the professionals did their job, and the rest is just to plug and to use. 3. Compatibility. Often the symbols, formatting, formulas, that appear fine at one computer, look ugly at another computer. I do not know, if anything can be done about this. 4. Descriptions. When I begun to deal with mediawiki, my first impression was, that the descriptions are written in some strange, unknown to me language, slightly similar to English. It may have sense to count, how many new terms shoud the beginner learn, in order to understand the description. 5. About errors. The beginner does not know the origin of the errors: is it a defect of the internet service, or some fault in the setting of the router, or that of a server, or something is wrong with mysql, or with some configuration files, it is due to a mediawiki bug. The first impression is "Everything was working, and then - nothing". I think, these instructions should begin with very beginning: A. Check that your computer is connected to the electric plug. B. Check that your monitor, keyboard and mouse are connected to the computer. C. Check that your compiter is "on" (type "help" in the command line.) D. Check, that ... – and so on. I exaggerate a bit, but, I hope, you understand this point. 6. Instructions. Usually, the most difficult for the beginner is to understand, what tools are necessary for his/her goals. In the internet, there is tradition, that every package clams, that namely it can satisfy the needs of the user. Usually, the package tries to form these needs, instead. I think, mediawiki could be good exception. Over-vice, you get questions like "What scissors are better to hummer this screw into a wall?" Sometimes, the user does not know even the generic names of the tools necessary. 7. Options and setting. The configuration files seem to be designed, optimized for the needs of the authors of the software, not for the needs of the users. Usually, the arbitrary variation of a parameter leads to some non-working configuration. I do not know, how to organize it better; may be, my needs are different from those of the most of users. But still, you may imagine some diletant, who tries various options in order to get the result by the method of probes and errors.. So, keep in mund the question: What will be, if some stupid admin changes this option? I see, this had improved since previous versions of mediawiki, but I think, it still can be improoved. All the above are just my personal impressions. Sorry, if I misunderstand the request below. ================================ On Mon, 26 Jan 2015, Mark A. Hershberger wrote: ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l End of MediaWiki-l Digest, Vol 136, Issue 24 ********************************************