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User:Erik/ScoopWiki Notes

From iA wiki

See also: Wiki | ScoopWiki | iA Wiki/RFE

I use this subpage to scribble down notes about the ScoopWiki project. Feel free to add to it, but please don't modify my own list:

  • I might use the link_pattern described on the CamelCase page, or at least support it
  • Subpages should be supported. Wikipedia doesn't support them, but I find that feature sadly lacking. They're very intuitive (directory metaphor). I'm currently thinking of a hierarchy to implement languages, namespaces, and subpages. Are namespaces necessary when you have subpages? Not sure yet. User pages might be implemented as Users/name, with Users being a general community page.
  • For pages in different languages, it's important to interconnect them. This probably has to be done by humans, but it should be as easy as possible. Wikipedia's modus operandi with some interface improvements might work here.
  • Discussions: unsure here -- comments in Scoop style or wiki style? Probably Scoop style when using the wiki for story editing and wiki style in the rest of the wiki.
  • Unified syntax and style: Syntax and style should be the same for the wiki and the site. Ditch HTML completely, convert it, or continue to support it in parallel to an extended wiki-style syntax? Ditching it seems to have only advantages, but it might be hard to convert the other Scoop developers to this belief, especially as K5's user base would have to learn a new way of doing things.. I definitely don't want mixed HTML/wiki syntax, but it might be necessary to support an either/or option for the simple reason alone that there might be existing source material that needs to be converted. I probably want my own sites to be HTML-free though.
  • Check out (re-)structured text to see if it's a useful format. Table support would be nice to have, not mandatory. Anchors are a must
  • Revision history: should be stored for pages and stories. Revision history on multiple fields would probably be necessary. Best store complete rows, perhaps with compression in a single BLOB. Alternative = diff+snapshots. Any wiki with a good database-based implementation would be nice to look at
  • Case sensitivity: Links probably shouldn't be case sensitive, nor should page titles. But how to render them? Perhaps all words should be upper case, but that can get ugly, esp. in other languages that don't use this convention for titles. Perhaps the case used by the creator of the page should be used, and the page title itself should be an editable field like all others. That could quickly create in broken links though. This is a tricky problem. But I'm fairly certain about the case insensitivity of links.
  • Related: special characters in link titles. Probably best to avoid most of them, but a good subset needs to be found. Learn from Wikipedia -- what are the most common missing characters?
  • Disambiguation: multiple pages with the same name - Wikipedia solves this manually, perhaps it should be somehow supported by the wiki
  • Redirects are an important feature. Avoid endless redirect loops (A: redirect B - B: redirect A). Use existing syntax? It's a bit ugly, but people are used to it. Related: Move this page - should regular users be allowed to move pages?

(As this list grows, I'll have to formalize it and put items into different categories)

I would suppose that various items found in iA Wiki/RFE ought to be merged in here.. or something. <code> =) </code> Feel free to pick a topic you're having trouble wrapping your brain around, and I'd be happy to do some footwork on the issue to more fully describe some solutions that might work, from a user's perspective. I'd be useful in taking a topic like, say, wiki name capitalization, and describing some ways of handling it. My biggest strength is in finding fault with and suggesting solutions for a working system, but I might be useful during planning or re-planning stages. -- rack

Can redirect be implemented as alias? To allow a system-wise alias table. Also, pages sharing a common name could be useful too. For example, you will have library linked to all pages like: John, Dule linked to pages with : John, Dule 1981-1901, John, Dule 1912-, ...

Wikipedia used to have subpage support, but it was dumped. Difficulty in accidental linking was one big reason. If I'm typing an article related to Stalin's coming to power and I want to link to that information, under the subpage system I would have to know that the info was located at Joseph Stalin/Rise to power (and not Joseph Stalin/Coming to power, Joseph Stalin/Rising political influence, etc). There's a lot of debate on the subject scattered across Wikipedia; I'll dig some up. -- Stephen Gilbert

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