Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

I have a tool to migrate templates. If anyone has a particular wiki that needs templates migrating on an as needed basis, please let me know and I will be happy to help. On 10 October 2014 02:57, Romaine Wiki wrote: > Lua makes editing templates for most users impossible. Perhaps the English > c

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

Lua makes editing templates for most users impossible. Perhaps the English community has enough users to handle all edit requests for Lua templates, most smaller wikis have too less users to do that. It is not just creating a Lua template, but also that the local communities on various wikis need t

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 7:53 PM, Matthew Flaschen wrote: > Finally, I consider the "unreadable parser functions" problem essentially > solved. Lua is not perfect, but it's a usable language (and not a > Mediawiki-specific one) that is far more readable and writable than > complicated nested parse

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

I agree with the general thrust of Brad's points. There are some known major issues with templating (styling, unreadable parser functions, and templates being used for data like Information on Commons are the most important ones). However, these do not all have the same solutions. Some issue

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On 09/03/2014 07:08 AM, John Mark Vandenberg wrote: (Wouldn't it be nice if all skins could be written in Lua + LESS stored as wikipages on the wiki, instead of distributed as php files; I know of one LESS skin which works well: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Chameleon ; are there others?)

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On 09/02/2014 03:27 PM, pi zero wrote: The templates are extremely complicated in implementation, which is irrelevant. If templates were rejected based on extremely complicated implementation, that would rule out essentially everything that uses Scribuntu under the hood. I don't agree with thi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

Bumping a great thread: Is this the right page? https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fixing_templates On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 5:45 AM, Martijn Hoekstra wrote: > I'm thinking a page on Meta to start with. I'll get round to it when I get > home from work tonight CET. > > > On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 11:33 A

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 6:04 PM, Wil Sinclair wrote: > I'd like to add distribution as one of the pain points. I wanted to > have the templates that are available on enwiki for another Mediawiki > installation, but I couldn't get them to work. It seems like every > template has a maze of dependenci

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

I'm thinking a page on Meta to start with. I'll get round to it when I get home from work tonight CET. On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 11:33 AM, Wil Sinclair wrote: > Exsqueeze the ignorance. I'm still a n00b. Martijn, where should we > set this discussion up? > > It's clear that there are several peopl

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

Exsqueeze the ignorance. I'm still a n00b. Martijn, where should we set this discussion up? It's clear that there are several people who are interested in talking templates. I'm getting my hands dirty with them on another project I'm working on. I don't mean to rush you; just tell me what to set u

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 10:04 AM, Wil Sinclair wrote: > > tl;dr: We've been collectively whining about templates for long enough. > Who > > wants to help with fixing them? > > I want to help fix them. > Great to hear. Getting my ass in to gear is one of my greatest weaknesses, and from what I kno

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Sep 3, 2014 4:46 AM, "MZMcBride" wrote: > > Hi Martijn. Thanks for starting this thread. > > Martijn Hoekstra [roughly] wrote: > >* Catalog the problems with [dev issue]. Make a comprehensive list that > > enumerates the problems with [dev issue] we have now, categorise the > > problems (righ

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

> tl;dr: We've been collectively whining about templates for long enough. Who > wants to help with fixing them? I want to help fix them. > I hope we can, for the coming period, accomplish the following: > > * Catalog the problems with templates. Make a comprehensive list that > enumerates the pro

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

Hi Martijn. Thanks for starting this thread. Martijn Hoekstra [roughly] wrote: >* Catalog the problems with [dev issue]. Make a comprehensive list that > enumerates the problems with [dev issue] we have now, categorise the > problems (right now I'm roughly thinking in style, wikitext parsing >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 2:25 PM, Marc A. Pelletier wrote: > On 09/02/2014 01:35 PM, pi zero wrote: > > > (1) It's very easy to use. > > (2) it naturally promotes incremental learning. > > I'm sorry, but both of those assertions are not only wrong, but > profoundly misguided. > At first I thought,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

Pardon my long reply; I actually meant to just comment on a couple of things, and got carried away. But I really do find this topic very interesting. On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) wrote: > When it comes to your extremely complicated templates with embedded lisp, > you're

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On 09/02/2014 01:35 PM, pi zero wrote: > (1) It's very easy to use. > (2) it naturally promotes incremental learning. I'm sorry, but both of those assertions are not only wrong, but profoundly misguided. Wikimarkup, and templates, are /relatively/ easy to use for someone who has at least a passi

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On 2 September 2014 17:41, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) wrote: > my own views as a developer (both volunteer and staff)> Speaking generally, rather than about the specific issue at hand, I'm not sure how we can distinguish "something official" from "views as a staff developer". Am I missing something?

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 1:35 PM, pi zero wrote: > (1) It's very easy to use. [...] > (2) it naturally promotes incremental learning. When it comes to your extremely complicated templates with embedded lisp, you're losing *both* of these. It's no longer very easy to use (although it seems you m

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 12:41 PM, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) wrote: > as a developer (both volunteer and staff)> > > Is there an actual problem with Scribunto that drove you to writing this > lisp interpreter, or is it just that you don't like the fact that Scribunto > forces you to separate Lua code f

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) wrote: > That would take a more detailed look at what is actually trying to be > accomplished with these dialogs. For example, enwiki's Teahouse[1] has a > dialog for newbies to more easily post questions, but it's implemented as a > gadget th

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

Martijn, First, *thank you* for drafting this -- I believe this is a fundamental architectural and maintenance issue we need to resolve. It is also a long term innovation issue -- as it is one of the ways individuals can participate in extending our user experience. This would be a great case to

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 12:30 PM, pi zero wrote: > Yes, there is in fact a lisp interpreter written in Lua. It makes up for > some other weaknesses of templates. I expect most users not to have to > touch that most of the time, and when they do they'll usually be able to > just copy others' ma

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

To be clear, ordinary user of the dialog tools most certainly does *not* involve knowing javascript or Lua or html. The whole point is to arrange that an ordinary wiki users can do wonderful things using *only wiki markup*. (The hypothetical example of a url there is, btw, entirely wrong; but one

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 11:23 AM, Martijn Hoekstra wrote: > On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 4:46 PM, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) < > bjor...@wikimedia.org> > wrote: > > > > anything official> > > > > On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Martijn Hoekstra < > > martijnhoeks...@gmail.com > > > wrote: > > > > > If we ha

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 4:46 PM, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) wrote: > anything official> > > On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Martijn Hoekstra < > martijnhoeks...@gmail.com > > wrote: > > > If we have to resort to such magic to make templates do what we want, > > templates are quite simply broken; how c

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Martijn Hoekstra wrote: > If we have to resort to such magic to make templates do what we want, > templates are quite simply broken; how can we explain that to a newcomer. > "To help with these templates, all you have to know about are wikitext > templates, our

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 5:40 AM, Martijn Hoekstra wrote: > * The mobile skin obfuscates talk page access because the templates > commonly found on talk pages makes them render horribly. > * The mobile skin special-cases some templates (notably issue templates and > infoboxes) because they would

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 1:34 PM, pi zero wrote: > On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 5:40 AM, Martijn Hoekstra < > martijnhoeks...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > tl;dr: We've been collectively whining about templates for long enough. > Who > > wants to help with fixing them? > > > > Improving on templates is broad

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 5:40 AM, Martijn Hoekstra wrote: > tl;dr: We've been collectively whining about templates for long enough. Who > wants to help with fixing them? > Improving on templates is broadly what I've been doing with my dialog tools , which

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's fix templates

On 2 September 2014 10:40, Martijn Hoekstra wrote: > All this together is sufficient to assert we have a template problem. ...or to assert that we have a problem with new products being written that cope well with a theoretical ideal, but not with their real-world applications. -- Andy Mabbett