Where there exists a clean elegent technical solution to a social problem then it wasnt really a social problem to begin with.
Where it comes to something like ws maybe a tool to do an outline grouping a large multiarticle document into a single coherent one is whats really needed. Any solution that calls for endless templates is a bad one socially as well as technically, and at the point where you even consider something on that scale you should probably be consulting developers for a better way, like a way to do parent!child relationships. This goes for other cases too. While we dont need to be bothering the devs for every little thing, overloading the template system to get around shortcomings in mediawiki is a pretty good sign that a better way can or should exist. Process templates as seen on en,wp are another huge example of this. All the xfd stuff, requests for x, and similar processes could be handled better with a chunk of backend code than with piles upon piles of ever growing templates, and all it would take is a reasonable request, decent specification, and enough momentum to go through with the project. In fact, i think its been discussed on strategy already. These things always get derailed though, because people are apparently more willing to put up with a horrible solution than a good one that falls short of perfect. If we are doomed as some naysayers claim we are, then its that very attitude of resisting improvements and reform that will be our demise - we will be so busy arguing about what color to paint the bikeshed that we wont even see that someone is building something better across the street. The further we fall behind by allowing our goals and mission and our technology and policies to take a backseat to arguments about bikesheds the easier it will become for someone else to come in and do the job better. On 12/30/10, Fred Bauder <fredb...@fairpoint.net> wrote: >> What project are you speaking of? At en.WS the entire navigation >> structure of >> how to move between Chapters within a book is encoded in templates. I >> can't >> imagine how they could be scapped. >> >> Birgitte SB >> > > [[Moby Dick, chapter 2]] might work. > > Fred Bauder > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > -- Faith is about what you really truly believe in, not about what you are taught to believe. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l