Not sure why I said "English Wikipedia" - but I mean all Foundation sites of course :)
On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 10:43 PM, Brian <[email protected]> wrote: > Mark, > Keep in mind regarding my Semantic drum beating that I am not a developer > of Semantic Mediawiki or Semantic Forms. I am just a user, and as Erik put > it, an advocate. > > That said, I believe these two extensions together solve the problem you > are talking about. And for whatever reason, the developers of MediaWiki are > willing to create new complicated syntax, but not new interfaces. > > In your assessment, do these extensions solve the interface extensibility > problem you describe? > > To the list, > > Regarding development process, why weren't a variety of sophisticated > solutions, in addition to ParserFunctions, thoroughly considered before they > were enabled on the English Wikipedia? > > Should ParserFunctions be reverted (a simple procedure by my estimate, > which is a good thing) based solely on the fact that they are the most clear > violation of Jimbo's principle that I am aware of? > > The fundamental issue is that in complex domains (like "writing an >> encyclopedia"), you can't fully analyze and understand the domain ahead >> of time, use that understanding to provide an easy-to-use >> domain-specific language or interface, and then be done. So for >> Wikipedia, it's virtually impossible to provide a built-in set of simple >> formatting features (a person infobox, a map-dot-placement feature, >> etc.) that are both easy to use and cover all situations. Domains >> change, understanding of domains changes, new issues come up, and *users >> need some way to develop their structures and representations as they're >> being used.* If you *don't* allow that, what ends up happening is that >> people keep using the simple features you've provided, but in more and >> more convoluted ways to try to force the system to do what they want. >> > > -- You have successfully failed! _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
