On 17/03/2008, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/13/08, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: Since there is very little consensus over the "correct" ordering of metadata, any tool which reformats metadata in some rigid format is bound to step on some toes. Which is probably just an argument for *reaching* some consensus on metadata formatting, of course.
There is very little consensus about people making a point of having categories or interwiki links in a specific order or in separate parts of the document. What ordered metadata can you describe, other than the example with the comment that is used solely for ease of freetext editing and could be better defined in a permanent section on the discussion page? Unless there is any actual reason for wanting to have one category declared between a template and something else, when infact the position of declaration is completely meaningless, it seems like a distraction to talk about it being a lack of consensus.
- Edit box for header stuff, containing {{hatnote}}
- Edit box for main text, containing "Some text <<ref>> / Foo"
- List box for categories, containing blah
- Edit box for footer stuff, containing {{template}}
- List box for categories, containing foo
- List box for references
That is, the wikitext is effectively decomposed into sections, and edit boxes of the appropriate types assembled in order.
Someone is bound to mention that since it's javascript, anyone can customise it however they want, but I think that's the wrong approach. We should be trying to find a good solution that satisfies almost everyone, and end up with almost all users of Wikipedia using it.
Still don't quite see what your point is with two interleaved list boxes to accommodate a preference to define categories in a meaningless order. As far as the rest is concerned, it would be nice to have a place just for references, which may facilitate a movement away from the unwieldy system of intext full citations that we currently endure because there is no better alternative.
Overall looks promising to me.
Peter