On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 9:16 PM, Robert Rohde<raro...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm not sure how one would make your hook system work in a way that > was practical and not totally opaque to the editor. > > An idea that has been toyed with a couple of other places is to allow > defined blocks and references to them in article text. For example: > > An article might start: > > <display name="infobox" /> > Thomas Jefferson was the third president... > > and at the end of the article have: > > <define name="infobox"> > {{infobox > ... > }} > </define> > > It would provide the flexibility to place items where needed in the > article while moving the complex wikicode into a separate segment > that's less likely to confuse novices. One could also call <display> > multiple times if there is an element (like a birth date) that needs > to be repeated in some awkward manner. > > There is actually code lying around somewhere that implements such a > system for <ref> so that the first call would not need to attach the > full reference definition but could simply use <ref name="foo" /> if a > corresponding <ref_define name="foo">...</ref> appeared later in the > text. > > Personally, my guess is that a system of placement by reference would > make for a more flexible / less confusing approach than trying to > create a system of article hooks and attach infoboxes and the like to > them.
Placement by reference aka "move all the nasty stuff to the bottom" :p I think this approach would be good combined with the ability to declare facts ala `born on [[birthday::July 6, 1946]]'. That way we no longer have nasty stuff at all - we simply reference a template such as <display name="infobox" /> which gets its arguments from the facts declared in the article which called it. The method of declaring facts in wikilinks is indeed derived from semantic mediawiki. But I just look at it as a testbed for good ideas, not as an extension for WMF to install. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l