[WikiEN-l] Suggestion on how referencing system could be improved

[Magnus Manske]

Well, AFAIK we all agree that metadata like categories and interwiki
links don't really belong into wikitext. Maybe we could find a general
solution that also encompasses references (that is, the contents, not
the position information within the wikitext). We could move these
things into a separate table:

page_id INTEGER | data_type SHORTINT | text MEDIUMBLOB

The interface would then know how to present each data type:
* categories as name and (optional) sortkey
* interwiki links as target wiki and title
* references as reference ID and text

All of these could be hidden by default and only open on request. For
reference text, we would need a textarea, but the rest we could do
with text input fields.

This would also be open for extension. E.g., we could think about
moving header/footer templates into this schema. And how about the
DEFAULTSORT key?

Just thinking aloud here.

Magnus



On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 10:24 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [Making markup less forbidding]
>
>> I'd put in a vote for applying the same thing to infoboxes, too! And
>> then maybe an option for experienced users: turn off javascript and
>> see the whole <s>mess as it is now</s> wikitext.
>
> Not just infoboxes, but tables in general.
>
> I'm slowly learning how to use tables, but it is very hard to write
> complex ones from scratch, even if you copy another one. I've had to
> resort to using Excel to update the table and then insert the
> wikimarkup around the data.
>
> And when pressed for time with refs, just dumping a hastily formatted
> external link and brief description and date in some ref tags is the
> most I think people can cope with until they are organised enough to
> have some wikicode stored in their userspace to copy and paste from
> (or from various template documentations). The hope is always that
> someone else will come along and improve any poorly formatted
> references that you add.
>
> The thing that all the more complex wiki-markup things have in common
> is (until you get proficient in their use, and sometimes not even
> then) is how time-consuming it is when compared to basic text editing.
> In some ways this is due to the results being complex - doing fiddly
> layout stuff will invariably take time because it is fiddly.
>
> But there is no excuse for people coming along and wanting to improve
> existing articles to be put off by an unreadable wall of text mixed up
> with complex "ref" tags and "citation" template code. When correcting
> a spelling mistake, or wanting to reword one sentence, requires
> careful searching within the edit box, or several attempts to find the
> sentence in question in the edit box, then something has gone very
> wrong. It also means that reading the flow of an article is best done
> in "preview", but that's not a bad thing, actually, as people should
> be encouraged to use preview more. But I dread how many potentially
> new editors have clicked "edit this page" and given up if faced with a
> mess they don't understand head-or-tail of.
>
> Carcharoth
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>