I should explain the MediaWiki:Description feature -- it's a cool new thing,
but it's a lot better if people customize it.
When main pages show up in Google results, they sometimes have odd text
showing as the description. Keywords for the topic of the wiki sometimes
appear in boxes and templates on the main page, rather than plain text, so
what Google shows can be somewhat random.
MediaWiki:Description is a way for wikis to customize what Google uses as
the description for the main page. Right now, it's set to a bland default:
"{{SITENAME}} is a database that anyone can edit."
Admins can edit that page to expand the description, up to 150 characters.
It would be great if the description included search terms that you'd expect
people to use when they're looking for your site.
Here's a few examples:
* Doctor Who Wiki is a database that anyone can edit, covering Doctor Who
episodes, characters and monsters, including the Daleks and Cybermen.
* Muppet Wiki is a database about Jim Henson's work that anyone can edit,
including episode and character guides to The Muppet Show and Sesame Street.
* Dofus Wiki is a database that anyone can edit, with articles on quests,
guilds, and everything Dofus!
So folks can go ahead and edit that on your wikis, and make it interesting
or useful or whatever you'd like.
Unfortunately, I can't help with the question about non-ASCII characters...
Maybe someone else can?
-- Danny
On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 6:28 AM, Jesús Martínez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> I found a new feature: The contents of [[MediaWiki:Description]] will
> be placed inside the content of the <meta name="description" ... > tag
> of the main page of a Wiki. That description should be shown on search
> engines, but only when the main page appears in the results.
>
> But, it doesn't support non-ASCII characters so non-english wikis
> would probably have strange characters on it.
>
> As an example, "é" turns into é�¾, and "ñ" into á�¾
>
> Encoding such characters as entities -- like é or ñ --
> does not work because they are double-encoded: é turns into
> &eacute;
>
> A fix for that would be greatly appreciated!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikia-l mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l
>
_______________________________________________
Wikia-l mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l
