[Wikipedia-l] some other remarks

[Jan Hidders]

Hello again,

I also wanted to make some other small remarks but thought it best to put
them in a separate mail.

About the lay out of the pages: I usually read Wikipedia with a small font
and in that case the header becomes a lot of white space because it stays
the same height because of the Wikipedia logo (which I like very much,
btw.). If the logo would be reduced to half the size then the header would
consume far less space.

About the mark-up language: I've seen some request for more mark-up features
and even full HTML and XML. Since I'm very fond of the WikiWiki-concept this
sends shivers down my spine. I would actually vote for the opposite, i.e.,
to abandon all HTML mark-up and even those that only looks like HTML. For a
good example look at what the mark-up languages are on MoinMoin or PhpWiki.
An alternative mark-up for tables, for example, would have prevented
problems such as there were with incorrect HTML on the page for Quaternions.

This also brings me to another issue. Shouldn't there be a definitive
thourgh formal description of the syntax of the mark-up language (in for
example BNF) and its semantics? They are trying to do something like that at
PhpWiki at the moment.
(http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/FormalWikiGrammar) If such a thing
had existed, would that not have helped Magnus? I also feel it is a point of
principle because it would make the content of Wikipedia more open and
usable for other people who would also like to write software that operates
on its contents, or for us if we want to convert old content with old
mark-up to a newer mark-up. I'm willing to invest some time in such a
description if some people agree with me.

On reporting bugs: I'm confused by the three pages for reporting bugs. I
understand the separate page for the "minor" issues but why are the other
two (the usual Wikipedia bugs pags and the PHP script bug reports page) not
merged? The bugs for the usemod script should of course be checked if they
still apply, and if not then filtered out. Has this not been done because
nobody has yet taken the trouble (or the responsibility), or is there
another reason?

By the way, if I sound critical, I didn't mean to. I think the step to a
database-based Wikipedia is a step of major importance and I am amazed at
the amount of time and effort that you guys have spent on this. Thank you,
thank you, thank you.

Kind regards,

-- Jan Hidders