MediaWiki talk:Shark

Hey, so, I'm really, really against using this feature for actual content. I like using it for meta-information (this is a stub, this page will be deleted, this is a disambig page), but I don't think we should put actual data in this way.

I've got a lot of reasons. First, it makes it about 10 times more difficult to figure out who the authors of a page are. Second, it makes it really hard to leave out procedural stuff. If you can't tell whether included articles are "real" content or not, you have to leave them all in.

So, I'd prefer we didn't do this. I know it would make things like shark info really easy, but let's just plan on doing something like:

There are sharks in this area, be extra careful.

See also: Shark safety

...and give the full story on shark safety at that other article. --(WT-en) Evan 14:37, 25 Sep 2004 (EDT)


 * OK, fine with me. I just wanted to see if there was anything complicated about making such a box.  I'm happy to refrain from using it for Wikivoyage, but man if MediaWiki isn't starting to look like one heck of a general purpose CMS. -- (WT-en) Mark 15:08, 25 Sep 2004 (EDT)


 * On second thought, perhaps the second objection you list here could be dealt with by using a namespace... something like MediaWiki:Content:Shark. Of course I haven't tested that, and don't know if it will work, but if it does it would make it easy for downstream distributors to decide which included articles are real content.


 * As for attribution, perhaps we could create a skin which does attribution automagically? I dunno, I'm not so quick in PHP yet, but it might be a good excercise, no? -- (WT-en) Mark 15:15, 25 Sep 2004 (EDT)


 * There's automatic attribution in the 1.3.x Mediawiki series. I haven't installed it yet -- should be coming soon. It doesn't try to put in attribution for templated stuff, though. --(WT-en) Evan 15:31, 25 Sep 2004 (EDT)


 * Still, it shouldn't be that hard to add. I'd like to read the rest of your objections to using includes for content though, 'cause these two seem to have easy solutions.


 * Actually I can think of one. It makes figuring out what to edit harder for new contributors.  Actually that's probably the very best reason not to use them. -- (WT-en) Mark 17:56, 25 Sep 2004 (EDT)