2011/8/20 Łukasz Garczewski tor@wikia-inc.com:
On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com wrote:
On wikimedia projects that are not Wikipedia (Wikia in specific comes to mind) I often find myself using templates that have not been defined on that installation. The English Wikipedia (which I am most familiar with) has many very usefull templates, especially the {{citeFoo}} templates, but numerous others as well. Trying to 'import' one is a bit of a pain though. Many templates depend on other templates, and it is not often very clear how (as a fun exercise for the reader, try to import the {{convert}} template to a new wiki, and see how easy it is!). I was wondering if it might be a good idea to include a standard template library to Wikimedia installations, containing a set of utility templates along with the Wikimedia distribution. I'm cross-posting foudation, for possible discussion if this is desirable, and wikitech, for possible discussion if this is feasable.
Since Wikia was mentioned in this post, I thought I'd outline how we've tackled this problem, as it might be interesting to the discussion.
When a new wiki is created at Wikia, we don't start with an empty database. Instead, we copy the contents of what we've called a "starter wiki" into the newly created database.
Apart from the special role they play in the creation of new wikis, starter wikis are pretty much normal wiki sites (with the exception of tighter edit permissions to prevent vandalism).
Have a look at the English starter wiki: http://starter.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&to...
As you can see it has a ton of different templates. All of these exist at every new wiki when it's created.
Martijn: if your Wikia wiki doesn't have some (or all) of those, that might be because it was created before the starter system or because it's in a language other than English and that language's starter wiki doesn't have the template(s) you want (yes, we have per language starters, too).
Mail me off-list, I'm sure I can help include the needed templates in future wikis. :)
-- Lucas 'TOR' Garczewski Community Engineer tor@wikia-inc.com
Lucas, thanks for the offer, and I will take you up on it!
In the mean time, where this may (partially) solve the problem for Wikia, it's the more general problem that is more important. A user creating a new wiki with our software shouldn't have to lug through a difficult import process, or have to built some system that easily manages imports the way Wikia did. It's no coincidence I named this 'a' standard template library in the subject line. Like the STL is not part of the C++ language, the fact that it is freely available, and standard, makes C++ much more easy to develop for, as there are many building blocks readily available for programmers. Likewise, defined templates are not part of MediaWiki, but could greatly enhance the user experience. Wikia made the import module for a reason, and the reason is users are greatly helped by having a standard library of templates available to them.
Regards,
Martijn