Project:Forum/archive/2006

Project:Forum/archive is an archive of items from the Project:Forum page that seem done. Keeping things simple and relevant is more sacred than keeping everything. Refactoring and summarizing is also a good thing to do to items here in this archive to keep them simple and relevant.

Manual
I want to use and contribute to the Manual but it is too confusing to figure out where to put stuff at the moment. A flat namespace could help simplify it. Subpages may hurt site usability more than help because it can be hard for newcomers to guess where in the hierarchy something can be found and hard for veteran users to remember and type out the exact hierarchy under which a page is located. The Manual: namespace is redundant and should be merged with the default : (main) namespace of Mediawiki.org. Less is more. --Rogerhc 01:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The main namespace is thought to keep all non-manual and non-help stuff later, e.g. development sections, press releases, general documentation, extensions and so on. Manual: is not redundant. --Bdk 01:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Agree with Bdk. Namespaces can, furthermore, be searched specifically &mdash; which is very useful for a manual. --Swift 01:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I will put my MediaWiki system admin notes in the "Manual:" namespace and categorize them Category:Manual. --Rogerhc 23:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Correction: I will categorize my Manual contributions Category:MediaWiki Manual in keeping with existing category names, till someone eliminates the redundant "MediaWiki " prefix from the category structure. --Rogerhc 22:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Help: vs Manual:

 * The "Help:" namespace should contain generic site user and site moderator help -- how to edit wiki markup and how to use all the through the Web default features of the software. It must be kept as brief as possible so that it can easily be updated for inclusion in each MediaWiki software release.
 * The "Manual:" namespace should contain generic and also platform specific help for system administrators of server computers serving wikis running the MediaWiki software.

Clarity about what the two namespaces are for is needed so that people can find things and contribute things effectively.


 * Wrong namespace
 * $wgVariables are system administration level parts of MediaWiki. These should be moved to the "Manual:" namespace soon. Leaving them in the Help namespace sets the wrong precedent, confuses newcommers and probably violates the GFDL.
 * Done! :-) AndyFinkenstadt moved all the $wgVariabes to the 'Manual:' namespace on August 22, 2006. Thanks! I have now also updated the left sidebar link '$wg config settings' and related links on both the alphabetical listing Manual:$wg config (alphabetical) and the by function listing Manual:$wg config. --Rogerhc 06:00, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If something was left undone, please do it instead of undoing. Thanks! :-) --Rogerhc 06:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Just a short note: All redirects regarding the $wgStuff from Help: to Manual: are deleted now. I've checked for internal links before deletion, there should be no red links left, afaics. If you find any red link to Help:§wgFoo, just fix it to Manual:§wgFoo please. -- :Bdk: 15:54, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * An amazing job bdk. Well done! --HappyDog 16:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC) (hoping that the premature move doesn't mean we have to do it all again...)
 * /me grins
 * Don't worry, the clutter of redirects in the PD help namespace and the broken links have had to be removed, so or so (it wasn't a big deal, just something boring that had to be done). And I'm sure, I'll delete some more pages and fix some more links in my life. Heh, and I'm pretty sure: You too :p -- :Bdk: 22:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

$wg config
I'm not too happy with the name Manual:$wg config. What was wrong with Manual:Configuration settings? --HappyDog 18:34, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm okay with an alternative name. There are other configuration settings that will be documented in Manual that are not $wg variables. Will they all be listed an the Manual:Configuration settings page? If yes, I like that name Manual:Configuration settings. If no, then I prefer a more specific name like Manual:$wg config. I'm open to either with the above understanding. --Rogerhc 19:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * True, however "$wg config" is not easy to find if you don't know that's what it's called. I guess a suitable 'MediaWiki Configuration' page which links to '$wg config' as well as any other configuration issues would resolve this problem though.  Maybe just leave it how it is for now and see how things develop. --HappyDog 19:15, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I also would prefer Manual:Configuration settings as I didn't really understand the recent move from Help:Configuration settings to Manual:$wg config on August 31. We should be very clear with page naming, $wgFoo indicates a single setting, therefore $wg config might be a bit confusing for newbies, and they wonder which specific setting this could be (if a link to this page found in a list for example). So a really readable name for this page seems to be meaningful. Short is good, but please, not shorter than reasonable.
 * If there're no objections I'll move the page "back" to its old name (but in the Manual: namespace, of course) within the next days (+ the corresponding pages + linkfixes). -- :Bdk: 22:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Rob has moved Manual:$wg config to Manual:Configuration settings and I have moved the alphabeticall listing and updated what links I found. If you find more, please update them too. --Rogerhc 22:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You can use the 'what links here' function to check for links: $wg config $wg config (alphabetical). As you can see, the only pages that still link to them are this page, Project:Current issues and a user page, which is fine, as they are all discussions of the move. --HappyDog 16:04, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, move it back. I'm afraid I disagree with renaming it "$wgConfig". robchurch | talk 11:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sidebar offline?
Moved from Project:Current issues

MediaWiki:Sidebar is not being sourced for some reason today -- instead I am seeing the default original MediaWiki install sidebar today on mediawiki.org instead of the custom sidebar that is defined in MediaWiki:Sidebar. I had this issue on my own wiki a couple weeks ago and it turned out in my wiki's case that the server had been rebooted and Memcached had not been started up. Rather than restart Memcached for my low usage site I simply commented out the cache settings in my LocalSettings.php and things were fine again. Not sure what happend here on mediawiki.org and I'm not a system admin here anyway so cant help directly. As for MediaWiki:Sidebar here, it worked last time I edited it here (12 September 2006) and I am the last person to have edited it according to its history at moment of this note. It was working all week as I left it but it is not being sourced today for some reason (Memcached off?). --Rogerhc 00:26, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It's correct now. ...that was weird. I "Reloaded" MediaWiki:Sidebar in my browser and the sidebar is correct now. It was wrong on two separate computers and I had to go to, and then "Reload", MediaWiki:Sidebar on both computers to get the correct sidebar back on each. Konqueror on linux box and Firefox on Microsoft box. I'm not a mediawiki.org system administrator so I won't worry about this. Strange though. --Rogerhc 00:42, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I just did a null edit at that time (00:22). This happens project wide on Wikimedia's wikis now and then (not very funny, of course). No need for a big section on this page. -- :Bdk: 00:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh. I see. I don't understand the wisdom of also using pages in "MediaWiki:" namespace to define things such as MediaWiki:Mainpage-text, MediaWiki:Extensions, MediaWiki:Extensions-url, MediaWiki:Skins and MediaWiki:Skins-url. Do pages other than MediaWiki:Sidebar reference them? Anyway, they seemed to need refreshing, too. So I just now did null edits on those. They work okay in left sidebar again now. --Rogerhc 03:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If we would not store the navigation links and labels in seperate messages, interface translation would be difficult.
 * It also makes no difference regarding the above mentioned fallbacks (to the default version) if such things are stored in extra messages or not. -- :Bdk: 07:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Archived --Rogerhc 22:24, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Mediawiki:Sidebar
Just wanted to bring a comment I made to Mediawiki talk:Sidebar to the attention of the community, both as a request for comments and in the hope that someone with admin rights still comes to this project. --Swift 01:27, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. Thank you for suggesting this. --Rogerhc 00:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Un-done. I moved Forum link out of the left sidebar and into the Community portal page. I hope that is a logical place for it, along side Project:Support desk and others. Community portal is prominently just under the Main page link at top of 'navigation'.-- Rogerhc 08:28, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Forum link is back in left sidebar under 'navigation'. I'm fine with that. --Rogerhc 23:02, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I will further reorganize the left sidebar today. It is in bad need of it. Off site links should be in an '*off site links' box only. '*navigation' box should represent this wiki's structure. We are not an encyclopedia -- we do have some wiki front doors that need listing there, such as '**Manual:Contents|Manual', '**Help:Contents|Help', '**Community portal|Community portal'. --Rogerhc 00:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Done.--Rogerhc 08:29, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Archived --Rogerhc 05:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)