[Wikitech-l] A namespace for pages without chronology

2010-10-07 Thread Alex Brollo
Special pages, if I understand all their features, are special why:
# they come from a live API query;
# they cannot be managed/created/edited by users;
# they have no chronology (it would be nonsense).

It.source uses many list pages, daily updated by a bot, containing other
project-specific queries. They are normal pages, and their chronology is
bot useless and heavy. DynamicPageList extension could solve in part such a
useless overload of web space, but its output can't be finely tuned.

So, I imagine that it could be useful to have a special namespace for
customable user-defined queries  lists, with only one special feature:
the lack of chronology stuff. I can imagine that a possible candidate for
such exotic, chronology-free pages could be Special: namespace itself;
obviously the name of user-created pages into Special: namespace should be
different from any canonical Special pages.

Am I mad?

Alex
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Re: [Wikitech-l] A namespace for pages without chronology

2010-10-07 Thread Aryeh Gregor
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 4:59 AM, Alex Brollo alex.bro...@gmail.com wrote:
 Special pages, if I understand all their features, are special why:
 # they come from a live API query;
 # they cannot be managed/created/edited by users;
 # they have no chronology (it would be nonsense).

Special pages are special because they don't have any contents stored
at all, as such.  When you view a special page, the software just
executes a particular PHP script, which can be hardcoded to do
absolutely anything.  For instance, Special:MyPage just returns an
HTTP redirect, not a page with contents.  They don't have a history in
general because they don't have any fixed contents at all -- the
contents are generated on the fly in an arbitrary fashion.

 It.source uses many list pages, daily updated by a bot, containing other
 project-specific queries. They are normal pages, and their chronology is
 bot useless and heavy. DynamicPageList extension could solve in part such a
 useless overload of web space, but its output can't be finely tuned.

Storing many revisions in history is not expensive.  Don't worry about
it.  There's no way any users, even admins, will ever be permitted to
update pages without leaving any history -- it violates the principle
of reversibility that underlies how wikis work.  Is there some problem
you have with these list pages other than the fact that they have lots
of history that no one cares about?  If not, this is useful to read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don't_worry_about_performance

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Re: [Wikitech-l] A namespace for pages without chronology

2010-10-07 Thread Alex Brollo
2010/10/7 Aryeh Gregor
simetrical+wikil...@gmail.comsimetrical%2bwikil...@gmail.com



  It.source uses many list pages, daily updated by a bot, containing
 other
  project-specific queries. They are normal pages, and their chronology
 is
  bot useless and heavy. DynamicPageList extension could solve in part such
 a
  useless overload of web space, but its output can't be finely tuned.

 Storing many revisions in history is not expensive.  Don't worry about
 it.  There's no way any users, even admins, will ever be permitted to
 update pages without leaving any history -- it violates the principle
 of reversibility that underlies how wikis work.  Is there some problem
 you have with these list pages other than the fact that they have lots
 of history that no one cares about?  If not, this is useful to read:


Thank you. Really I went back to
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/TablesWikipediaIT.htm, and list
pages (Elenco...) have a history of less than 2Mby each. You're right.

Alex
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Re: [Wikitech-l] A namespace for pages without chronology

2010-10-07 Thread Platonides
Alex Brollo wrote:
 Special pages, if I understand all their features, are special why:
 # they come from a live API query;
 # they cannot be managed/created/edited by users;
 # they have no chronology (it would be nonsense).
 
 It.source uses many list pages, daily updated by a bot, containing other
 project-specific queries. They are normal pages, and their chronology is
 bot useless and heavy. DynamicPageList extension could solve in part such a
 useless overload of web space, but its output can't be finely tuned.
 
 So, I imagine that it could be useful to have a special namespace for
 customable user-defined queries  lists, with only one special feature:
 the lack of chronology stuff. I can imagine that a possible candidate for
 such exotic, chronology-free pages could be Special: namespace itself;
 obviously the name of user-created pages into Special: namespace should be
 different from any canonical Special pages.
 
 Am I mad?
 
 Alex

There's no way admins would be allowed to run custom queries on WMF
sites. We have existing special pages disabled. Unreviewed queries won't
make into the cluster.
Now, if the query you want can be done efficiently, it could be added as
an extension.


 Really I went back to
 http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/TablesWikipediaIT.htm, and list
 pages (Elenco...) have a history of less than 2Mby each. You're right.

If you want to reduce history size, you should begin by removing
date-changing edits [1]. If you really need to show a date there, you
can include a template from all the pages containing just the date where
all of them were last updated.



1- Eg. no changes on last 16 days, but the bot is dutifully copying the
page each day
http://it.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource%3AElenco_alfabetico_degli_autori_Aaction=historysubmitdiff=662309oldid=638167


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Re: [Wikitech-l] A namespace for pages without chronology

2010-10-07 Thread Alex Brollo
2010/10/7 Platonides platoni...@gmail.com


  Really I went back to
  http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/TablesWikipediaIT.htm, and list
  pages (Elenco...) have a history of less than 2Mby each. You're right.

 If you want to reduce history size, you should begin by removing
 date-changing edits [1]. If you really need to show a date there, you
 can include a template from all the pages containing just the date where
 all of them were last updated.



 1- Eg. no changes on last 16 days, but the bot is dutifully copying the
 page each day

 http://it.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource%3AElenco_alfabetico_degli_autori_Aaction=historysubmitdiff=662309oldid=638167


Thanks! I didn't so far studied that code, nor I'm the driver of that bot,
but you're perfectly right! I'll edit it so that the page will be edited
only when the list is changed!

Alex
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