sylvain at chicoree
Nov 23, 2009, 5:24 AM
Post #5 of 6
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First of all, thanks for your replies.
In short, in my first message, I failed to explain the targeted use case - which
has somehow moved away from BUG-235. So here it is:
o I was targeting general MediaWiki wikis, not necessary Wikipedia
o My primary concern was to allow an administrator to easily add support for
conversion. Without relying on the end-users (the "contributors") good will or
technical knowledge.
Now for the long answer.
wiki [at] konsoletek wrote:
> {{Convert}} on Wikipedia isn't one single fancy template, it is actually
> several hundred.
I think it is actually several hundred with the new design (as of NOV-2009), but
the old design was requiring several thousands (!) templates. According to [1]
with the new design "new options could be implemented by changing just a few
subtemplates, rather than hundreds at a time".
jcsahnwaldt [at] gmail wrote:
> Why not just use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Convert ?
On its side, {{Convert}} has the advantage of being able to convert many
different things. Keeping it with the vast diversity of knowledge carried by
wikipedia (from converting musical notes to pitch [3] to converting weapon
calibres [4], all of this with several different algorithms). Moreover, by
working at "template level", any contributor is able to edit/update/fix it.
Without requiring any special privilege.
Someone may argue that it has its own drawbacks[2], but anyway Wikipedia is a
special case: it has enough manpower to fix and/or update both this template and
the articles that uses (or should use) it.
This is simply not the case for the general MediaWiki user. I think of one "in
house" wiki that requires handling of some fancy units. Like expressing
quantities as kibibytes as well as kilobytes. Or express throughput as bytes/s
or bits/s. Eventually using those values for producing embedded graphics.
I don't think those units are supported by {{Convert}} now, and the point is
that it requires a substantial amount of work for a non-specialist of that
template to add support for them.
For small wikis, I think it is more effective to let the administrator install a
new extension or edit a few lines of PHP to provide the support for a new
conversion.
Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+wikilist [at] gmail> wrote:
>> The idea would be something like:
>>> {{#unit: 1000 ft|m}} => <span title="304m (1000ft)">304m</span>
>
> It would make more sense to have it output simply "304". That way it could
> be effectively used in a template to achieve any desired formatting.
I agree with that. In order to be effectively used in template, the "converter"
should only perform the conversion and let the formating at the caller's charge.
Last, but not least, I spend a few hours this WE working on a prototype. It
sounds promising. I intend to upload a demo in the following hours.
Best regards,
Sylvain.
----
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:A_plan_to_reduce_Convert_subtemplates
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Analysis_of_Template:Convert_problems
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Convert/note
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Convert/calibre
Aryeh Gregor a écrit :
> On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Sylvain Leroux <sylvain [at] chicoree> wrote:
>
>
>
>> The idea would be something like: {{#unit: 1000 ft|m}} => <span
>> title="304m (1000ft)">304m</span>
>
> It would make more sense to have it output simply "304". That way it could
> be effectively used in a template to achieve any desired formatting.
>
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sylvain [at] chicoree
http://www.chicoree.fr
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