Well, AFAIK we all agree that metadata like categories and interwiki links don't really belong into wikitext. Maybe we could find a general solution that also encompasses references (that is, the contents, not the position information within the wikitext). We could move these things into a separate table:
page_id INTEGER | data_type SHORTINT | text MEDIUMBLOB The interface would then know how to present each data type: * categories as name and (optional) sortkey * interwiki links as target wiki and title * references as reference ID and text All of these could be hidden by default and only open on request. For reference text, we would need a textarea, but the rest we could do with text input fields. This would also be open for extension. E.g., we could think about moving header/footer templates into this schema. And how about the DEFAULTSORT key? Just thinking aloud here. Magnus On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Carcharoth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 10:24 PM, phoebe ayers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > [Making markup less forbidding] > >> I'd put in a vote for applying the same thing to infoboxes, too! And >> then maybe an option for experienced users: turn off javascript and >> see the whole <s>mess as it is now</s> wikitext. > > Not just infoboxes, but tables in general. > > I'm slowly learning how to use tables, but it is very hard to write > complex ones from scratch, even if you copy another one. I've had to > resort to using Excel to update the table and then insert the > wikimarkup around the data. > > And when pressed for time with refs, just dumping a hastily formatted > external link and brief description and date in some ref tags is the > most I think people can cope with until they are organised enough to > have some wikicode stored in their userspace to copy and paste from > (or from various template documentations). The hope is always that > someone else will come along and improve any poorly formatted > references that you add. > > The thing that all the more complex wiki-markup things have in common > is (until you get proficient in their use, and sometimes not even > then) is how time-consuming it is when compared to basic text editing. > In some ways this is due to the results being complex - doing fiddly > layout stuff will invariably take time because it is fiddly. > > But there is no excuse for people coming along and wanting to improve > existing articles to be put off by an unreadable wall of text mixed up > with complex "ref" tags and "citation" template code. When correcting > a spelling mistake, or wanting to reword one sentence, requires > careful searching within the edit box, or several attempts to find the > sentence in question in the edit box, then something has gone very > wrong. It also means that reading the flow of an article is best done > in "preview", but that's not a bad thing, actually, as people should > be encouraged to use preview more. But I dread how many potentially > new editors have clicked "edit this page" and given up if faced with a > mess they don't understand head-or-tail of. > > Carcharoth > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
