On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 3:36 AM, Michael Dale <md...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 01/20/2011 05:00 PM, Platonides wrote:
>> I would have probably gone by the page_props route, passing the metadata
>> from the wikitext to the tables via a parser function.
>
> I would also say its probably best to pass metadata from the wikitext to
> the tables via a parser function. Similar to categories, and all other
> "user edited" metadata. This has the disadvantage that its not easy 'as
> easy' to edit via structured api entry point, but has the advantage of
> working well with all the existing tools, templates and versioning.
>
This is actually the biggest decision that has been made, the rest is
mostly implementation details. (Please note that I'm not presenting
you with a fait accompli, it is of course still possible to change
this)
Handling metadata separately from wikitext provides two main
advantages: it is much more user friendly, and it allows us to
properly validate and parse data.
Having a clear separate input text field "Author: ____" is much more
user friendly {{#fileauthor:}}, which is so to say, a type of obscure
MediaWiki jargon. I know that we could probably hide it behind a
template, but that is still not as friendly as a separate field. I
keep on hearing that especially for newbies, a big blob of wikitext is
plain scary. We regulars may be able to quickly parse the structure in
{{Information}}, but for newbies this is certainly not so clear.
We actually see that from the community there is a demand for
separating the meta data from the wikitext -- this is after all why
they implemented the uselang= hacked upload form with a separate text
box for every meta field.
Also, a separate field allows MediaWiki to understand what a certain
input really means. {{#fileauthor:[[User:Bryan]]}} means nothing to
MediaWiki or re-users, but "Author: Bryan___ [checkbox] This is a
Commons username" can be parsed by MediaWiki to mean something. It
also allows us to mass change for example the author. If I want to
change my attribution from "Bryan" to "Bryan Tong Minh", I would need
to edit the wikitext of every single upload, whereas in the new system
I go to Special:AuthorManager and change the attribution.
> Similar to categories, and all other"user edited" metadata.
Categories is a good example of why metadata does not belong in the
wikitext. If you have ever tried renaming a category... you need to
edit every page in the category and rename it in the wikitext. Commons
is running multiple bots to handle category rename requests.
All these advantage outweigh the pain of migration (which could
presumably be handled by bots) in my opinion.
Best regards,
Bryan
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