Re: [Wikitech-l] [recommended reading] do terrible things to your code

Regarding your 3rd point, we have discussed this in our organization (NASA) and we have considered some ideas on how to improve the situation. Between changes in templates and other transcluded material including content re-used via Labeled Section Transclusion and query results via Semantic MediaWiki there are many ways a page could change without "direct" documentation on the page itself. As we are considering how to share data between a network/farm of wikis, this compounds the problem. Just to throw an idea out there, we talked about possibly incapsulating any transcluded material in a very thin box with some form of link to the source. This might work for "bulk" material like infoboxes entirely made up by templates and queried data. It might also work for paragraphs transcluded via LST. But it probably becomes a nightmare for bits of data like a single-digit value for the mass of an object. Maybe we could instead make transcluded content a different color or font style with a hover-link to the source. I'll add that this isn't just a point about being able to pull up an historical version of the page (without portions of it being the current version due to transclusion), but it's also a point about confusing non-"power users". I have encountered many users who ask me "How do I edit this value on the ABC page?" when they don't see it in the edit source view. Sure, I can educate them on the different mechanisms we use, but it is a very common question. It seems we are straying from the core characteristics of a wiki[1] (easy to use, promote associations, invoke sustained usership). I'll add in a 5th point straight from the blog: People have one name. This isn't typically a problem on open/public MW instances where users are used to the optional anonymity of an online username, but in firewalled/corporate/enterprise environments the users might not go by their username. John Smith in accounting would be difficult to mention via Echo/Thanks if you didn't know his username was jsmith5. Here's a few more thoughts on falsehoods: - Once a user joins a wiki, they will continue to contribute (general decline of usership) - If a wiki has lots of users, the content is reliable [2] - If a user watches a page, they will review revisions [3] - If you pay people to use a wiki, they will [4] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki#Characteristics [2] http://enterprisemediawiki.github.io/slides/WikiAccountability2/#/2 [3] http://enterprisemediawiki.github.io/slides/WikiAccountability2/#/4 [4] http://enterprisemediawiki.github.io/slides/WikiAccountability2/#/20/2 Daren On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 9:35 AM, Brian Gerstle <bgerstle(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: -- __________________ http://enterprisemediawiki.org http://mixcloud.com/darenwelsh http://www.beatportfolio.com