>It's great if this catches on, but we need a way to express multiple authors. >Could we have an "authors" field instead of "author", and use an array instead of a string? Bower uses an array for both authors and keywords: https://github.com/bower/bower.json-spec
On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 9:14 PM, Danmichaelo < [email protected]> wrote: > It's great if this catches on, but we need a way to express multiple > authors. Could we have an "authors" field instead of "author", and use an > array instead of a string? I would also prefer "keywords" to be an array > instead of a comma-separated string. > > It would also be great if the description could be fetched from the > ~/.description file read at http://tools.wmflabs.org/ if not specified in > the .json file. I would prefer to maintain a description of my tools in one > place rather than in two. Perhaps maintainers could also be fetched > automatically if not specified manually? > > Dan Michael > > > On 13 August 2014 17:15, Hay (Husky) <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hey everyone, >> for those who attended Wikimania, i hope you all had a wonderful time! >> >> One of the things that i've talked about at Mania with a few people is >> the current way of 'tool discovery', or rather, the lack thereof. >> We've seen really cool things done by the community, but i have a >> feeling many of the tools go by unnoticed, simply because nobody knows >> that they exist. Maybe they've been send around here or posted on IRC, >> but after the initial interest many of them are forgotten and lead a >> lonely life on our virtual servers. >> >> I think this is especially problematic for non-community members for >> whom the tools might be very useful. For example, as a Wikipedian in >> Residence and GLAM advocate i have sent numerous mails with links to >> the various GLAM tools made by Magnus, stats.grok.se, etcetera. >> >> But, you might say, we run all these knowledge sites called wikis >> right? And there are some pages there that list tools, don't they? >> You're right, the community has put some efforts in a few pages (1). >> However, IMHO, a wiki doesn't lend itself to easy tool discovery: >> >> * The format on how to describe a tool is unclear, thereby leading to >> both very long and very short descriptions. >> * It's not possible to easily search for tools in a certain category >> (e.g. 'GLAM' or 'editcount'). >> * The categorization of tools leads to much clicking around, >> distracting and confusing users. >> * There's no way to sort results, for example by the number of people >> using the tool. >> >> The biggest problem of all is the disconnection between the actual >> code of the tool itself (hosted in a Git repo), and the description >> advertising it. People update their tool to do something different (or >> deprecate it), but they forget the documentation on the wiki, don't >> remove it when the tool doesn't work anymore, etcetera. >> >> I believe we can, and should do better. >> >> THE PROPOSAL >> >> My proposal is to use the same mechanisms that already exist for >> package managers such as NPM (2) or 'app stores', such as the Chrome >> store (3). Basically this involes adding a small JSON file to your >> project, including a few key properties such as 'title' and >> 'description'. These files get indexed, and an easy to use frontend to >> search to all the tools is provided to end users. You could imagine a >> 'toolinfo.json' file to look something like this: >> >> { >> "name" : "WikiDataQuery", >> "description" : "An API for Wikidata items and properties.", >> "url" : "http://wdq.wmflabs.org/";, >> "keywords" : "wikidata, api, query", >> "author" : "Magnus Manske" >> } >> >> If you have a web-hosted tool, simply stick it in the root of your >> tools directory so that it's reachable by the crawler. Whenever your >> tool data changes, just update the file and the directory will >> automatically update the directory site. >> >> The link to your toolinfo.json could be added to a Wiki page so that >> it's easy to remove your tool from the directory or change the URL to >> the JSON file. >> >> I'm a firm believer in putting code where your mouth is, so i've >> hacked up a working tool directory here: >> >> http://tools.wmflabs.org/hay/directory >> >> Try searching for stuff, clicking on the labels. To add your own tool, >> scroll the page down for instructions. >> >> Current this only lists my tools, but i hope that this directory will >> soon grow with everything the Wikimedia community has to offer. >> >> I'm interested in your opinion in this proposal and, if you like it, >> add a toolinfo.json to your project! >> >> Kind regards, >> -- Hay / [[User:Husky]] >> >> 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools >> 2: https://www.npmjs.org/ >> 3: https://developer.chrome.com/apps/manifest >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Labs-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/labs-l >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Labs-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/labs-l > >
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