Topic on Talk:Flow Portal/Archive2

Transclusion-like implementation for displaying associated threads ?

3
Cenarium (talkcontribs)

As I understand it, the end goal is to provide a system that works not only for talk pages but also pages that contain "discussion components and non-discussion components". Would it then be implemented in a way quite similar to transclusion ?

If as described threads can be associated to a page (not necessarily unique), say Foo, then we should be able by a magic word such as {{#Threads:Foo}} to have a transclusion of threads associated to Foo, with various rendering options.

A talk page could be hardcoded in a manner equivalent to show the editable wiki talk page itself, that is the header, followed by {{#Threads:Talk:Foo}}, with the desired rendering (in preferences). It wouldn't do to have {{#Threads:Foo}} because we would need in numerous cases such as processes or noticeboards a threads flow for the page (for the process itself) and the talk page (for meta discussion). (This is still assuming that talk pages have an existence as a wiki page themselves.)

Then we could have complex processes where we would put {{#Threads:Wikipedia:Foo}} where we need to have it, and we could have different ones transcluded on a same page, such as {{#Threads:Wikipedia:Foo/A}}, {{#Threads:Wikipedia:Foo/B}}, etc (effectively associated to a subpage, but this isn't important, an alternative would be options). We could ask only for threads from a given date or the last n days, e.g. {{#Threads:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion|date=7 July 2013}}.

Jorm (WMF) (talkcontribs)

This is exactly what is planned for thread and board transclusion. Well, something similar; it'll be more like pages are attached to boards (and possibly multiple boards). But yes.

Cenarium (talkcontribs)

The problem as I see it is that if threads are attached to boards in a manner that is too rigid, difficult to customize, this isn't going to be worth implementation compared to just transcluding subpages (especially if templates are not supported). On the other hand, a magic word such as {{#workflow:Type|Foo|options...}} which transcludes the workflow topics as specified and could be inserted in source text would be flexible enough for all intent and purposes, if templates are supported as well.

For talk pages, this would be hard coded instead. But for adaptable non-talk boards, I don't see how else it could be made.