[Wikipedia-l] Re: Simple XML ideas

[Jan Hidders]

From: "Larry Sanger" <lsanger at nupedia.com>
>
> I think your solution is actually less user-friendly.  We simply need to
> retain namespaces (they work fine, for the most part) and provide unique,
> user-friendly templates (I guess) for pages in different namespaces.

Well, it seems that the battle is over, and I lost. :-) I'm still not really
convinced because I feel that you are seeing threats that are not really
there. Was consistency ever a real problem when we still had subpages? Yes,
some articles contained pieces of discussion that belonged on the Talk
pages, but that was usually solved in time. Also in my proposal the pages
would not exactly behave the same: The talk pages would not have a Talk
link; below non-Talk pages there would be link to a corresponding Talk page;
the system pages would not have an edit link; the user page is where you
arrive when you click your name after the login; and finally there is of
course the contents of the page itself (people read you know :-)). Giving
them a different background color is something that I would not have a
problem with. But the buttons, links, menus, et cetera should basically look
the same, be in the same place and do the same things although some might be
missing or disabled. This is lesson #1 from user interface design: the
interface should not be modal.

Let me make one other final remark: What I am missing a bit at the moment is
an obvious place to put my personal stuff. It's now all in
Jan_Hidders/Whatever because that is where the script put it, but actually
it should be in user:Jan_Hidders/Whatever, or should it? Yes it should,
because it is clearly not an encyclopedia article so it should be in the
user: namespace. Would it be an interesting idea to push new users in the
right direction by, dare I say it, reintroducing subpages (no, please, don't
walk away, hear me out) but limited to home pages only?

Anyway, I had my day in court and I'll leave it at that. I'll be happy to
help implement whatever you guys suggest.

-- Jan Hidders