Re: [Libreplanet-dev] Recent and future updates to libreplanet mediawiki

[Peter]

On Tuesday 12 May 2009 15:27, Danny Clark wrote:
> So the following updates have been made to the libreplanet mediawiki in
> the last few days; see http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Special:Version for
> details.

heh, been looking there for weeks ... looks good, although a few extensions 
are still missing ;(

>
> 1. Upgrade from mediawiki 1.5.3 + difficult to port custom changes to
> 1.14.0 + authentication as an extension (thanks to peabo) + migration of
> username namespace to the mediawiki default (first character must be
> upper case - many thanks to leth on #libreplanet who wrote code that
> made the Renameuser extension usable from the command line - code will
> be released shortly as it seems generally useful.)

Excellent! The user name was bugging me when looking at recent changes. Does 
lower case login now find the correct upper case User page?

>
> This change should make it *much* easier to upgrade in the future, as
> well as to install additional extensions etc.
>
> 2. Subpages enabled in all namespaces, including Main.

Good. What is the position regarding the subpage extension? I have updated it 
and have other extensions pending approval. (more below)

>
> 3. Semantic Mediawiki -
> http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki
>
> 4. Semantic Forms - http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Forms
>
> 5. Calendar - http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Calendar_(Kenyu73)

Request the namespace be changed from Calendars to Event (singular) as this 
namespace deals with events, the actual calendars can be on any page in any 
namespace, iirc. Now we can add a calendar to current events page and 
maintain current events automatically for all groups.

>
> Other than that and technical doc for that I'm planning on:
>
> 1. Installing a better search extension - I've used
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SphinxSearch and it seems nice,
> but I'd welcome feedback/suggestions on this topic.

Current searching targets the page name, but ignores any displaytitle the page 
may have. Would like the search to first match displaytitle and then page 
name. Unlike wikipedia, we're free to use the page name as an organisation 
tool (subpages) and create our own page title that may not change when the 
page is moved. This also means we can use shortened page names, without 
having a cryptic title. Searching a short page name makes little sense, while 
searching the display title does. Other than that, any search tool will do.

>
> 2. Installing OpenID support -
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:OpenID

I see LP as a large network of websites, where many groups have their own 
wiki/website syndicated together into a single large web space (the 
LibrePlanet network). In this context, openid might be more practical. OpenID 
login with third party websites, however, probably won't benefit LP. If we're 
going to have a singe mammoth website, how would openid help?

>
> 3. Installing whatever is needed to make comparison pages look as nice
> as they do on Wikipedia -
> http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Freest_hardware_comparisons still looks ugly.

If you're doing more than just a comparison table (and it seems you are), then 
I suggest making each table cell a page and create a table of page links. 
That way, a user can see what vendor has what components and select the cell 
or column link for more details. I wrote an extension to build a M x N matrix 
from subpages. This way I can create, edit, delete, move cell pages and the 
table updates automatically. The cell pages are templated with navigation 
links, so a user can navigate the whole table and its content supports levels 
of detail. This, of course, only works with tables containing medium to large 
amounts of information, otherwise the effort isn't worthwhile. Furthermore, 
because each cell is a page, they can be linked to/from and categorized 
independently of the table itself. Finally, each table represents an entry 
point to a body of related knowledge, which a visitor can search or browse 
accordingly.

The down side is that it only displays the page name. Using syntax properties 
(whatever) may enable us to extract the value from the cell page, so we can 
create a page link, but display its property as the name (e.g. price).

>
> Please tell us if there is anything else you'd really like to have, here
> or come to #libreplanet on freenode IRC to chat.

1- Change the Calendars namespace to Event (singular). This namespace is then 
reserved for chronological data, rather than just the calendar extension.

2- Create a Group (singular) namespace for group specific pages. This will 
allow members to create their group pages without interfering with the main 
(Article) namespace.

3- Enable DISPLAYTITLE to display any text, it is disabled by default. This 
will allow us to create shortened page names, subpages, and cryptic page 
names, but still display an appropriate page title.

4- Allow ordinary users to delete pages. Any deletion can be reverted, so it 
is not catastrophic and it minimizes administration. Users will feel more 
comfortable about creating pages if they know they can delete them, too. 
However, this is conditional on users being authenticated, e.g. email, or by 
an existing (authenticated) user. Or perhaps users can be given these rights 
on request?

5- Check the Current_events page link on the main side-bar. I get taken to 
LibrePlanet:Current_events, which does not exist. The page is in the Article 
namespace, not the Project. (See system messages, iirc).

6- User:Davidray page results in a db error, apparently a mix of latin1 and 
utf8 chars.

7- Move the region and area pages into categories. Require groups to 
categorize their main page (the group template can help). I am working on a 
script to automatically populate the category namespace with regions and 
areas because there are hundreds of identical pages. A tool that knows 
regions and areas will simplify this process. I'd like to use continents, 
countries, and areas (province/state) rather than just regions. Of course, if 
I can't delete pages, there might be a big mess for someone else to clean 
up :(

8- Please advise on what I still need to do to have my subpage extension added 
to the wiki. I have made a page at 
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MultiPages and 
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SubPageFunctions. I have no home for 
the tarballs, they're currently on my website, but I'd like to upload them to 
LibrePlanet, or perhaps savane?

Thanks for all the hard work!

Peter