[Wikipedia-l] RFC on a few feature requests

[wojtek pobratyn]

At 10:13 09.10.2002, Brion wrote:
>There's a few feature requests that have come up multiple times, and I'd 
>like some comments from other developers and power users before I go 
>trashing the code on my own...
>
>* "Most wanted" and "Most popular" special pages list the _total_ number 
>of links to a page, regardless of how many links there are _per page_. 
>Some types of lists can hyperinflate the numbers; a list of video games 
>might link [[Playstation]] 389 times (once for each Playstation game 
>listed). The behavior that people seem to expect is a count of _pages_ 
>that link, rather than the raw number of links. I would tend to agree. 
>This can be switched by the simple addition of "DISTINCT" to a couple SQL 
>queries; is there any reason to retain the current behavior?

No really. I'm all for a change, it would make the lists much clearer and 
comprehensible.

>* On blocking vandals; there's still no interface for blocking by 
>username, and you can't get the IP address of a logged-in user except by 
>sifting through the server logs. Should we retain and display IP 
>addresses/hostnames of logged-in editors (as on UseMod), and/or allow 
>usernames to be blocked?

Editors with the ability to block others should be able to either see the 
IP of each user, or if someone's paranoid about privacy, simply
be able to block-by-username. Both are feasible solutions, IMO.

>* The administrative page rename feature on UseMod could optionally find 
>and change links to point to the new name in addition to just supplying a 
>redirect. We still haven't implemented this. Desirable?

Depends on the server-load this would cause. I don't think it's is really 
that important.

>* While the "Special:" namespace may be localized ("Spezial", "Speciel" 
>etc), the names of special pages are hardwired in English (hence 
>monstrosities like "Spezial:Recentchanges"). While these are mostly hidden 
>in the interface by descriptive names, the links, URLs, and most 
>annoyingly the tooltips on the links all show the raw internal English 
>name of the function which implements the special page. A table of 
>equivalencies could be set up, allowing more easily recognizable localized 
>names to be used. Good idea? Bad idea?

Good idea.

>* For the French wiki, the Wikipedia: namespace is tentatively set up as 
>"Wikipédia" (with acute accent on the "e"). The parser doesn't accept 
>namespaces with non-ASCII chars so this doesn't work, which is a bug I 
>intend to fix, but additionally one tester asked:
>
>   'For the francophone wikipedians without a French keyboard, would it
>   be possible for the "Wikipedia:*" links to automatically transform
>   into "Wikipédia:*"? Or, more simply, could the system interpret e/é as
>   equal in the namespace portion?'
>
>In short, allow aliases for namespaces. Good idea? Bad idea?

No idea;-) Seriously, I really don't know.
Thanks a lot for the effort you guys put into this.

regards,
WojPob