As far as I know, the only good reason is that nobody has yet taken on the task of coding this, as it would probably require some quite complex code to make the skins still look and work the same, but with this degree of flexibility. Note that when version 1.4 is released, a slightly simpler mechanism will be available for setting the content of the sidebar from the configuration files (i.e. it will be configurable by anyone with full access to the server without having to modify the actual code). On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 12:10:29 -0600, Kiss All <kissall(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes, that's one way of putting it. But it's important to keep in mind who "they" are; as is being discussed on another mailing list right now[1], there are currently *very few* developers working on MediaWiki; none of them are paid, none of them do this "full time". Like Wikipedia itself, the software is developed based on people being interested enough to put the effort into a particular thing. So "they" may just feel too busy with the rest of their lives to embark on that feature, for all I know; or maybe most of "them" aren't sure how it would be implementable, and so get on with something which they feel they have a better chance of achieving instead. There is an often repeated saying in Open Source projects: "why don't you code it yourself then?" Now, obviously, not everyone *can* code it themselves, so it's not a great thing to say to strangers, but the point is that a feature or bug-fix will only get written *if someone decides to write it*. The fact that a bug report has been open a long time, or lots of people have said they really really want it, doesn't actually get the software changed. Not that filing bug reports is something to be discouraged, certainly not; but currently, MediaWiki seems to have more people filing bugs than people fixing them. To an extent, I'm even guilty of this myself, although I now know enough about the code that I can at least help consider *how* a feature could be implemented, and hopefully therefore make the job of the next person slightly easier... Refs: [1] search for "PHP" on http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-November/ -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]