2011/8/20 Łukasz Garczewski <tor(a)wikia-inc.com>om>:
On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 11:23 AM, Martijn Hoekstra
<martijnhoekstra(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On wikimedia projects that are not Wikipedia
(Wikia in specific comes
to mind) I often find myself using templates that have not been
defined on that installation. The English Wikipedia (which I am most
familiar with) has many very usefull templates, especially the
{{citeFoo}} templates, but numerous others as well. Trying to 'import'
one is a bit of a pain though. Many templates depend on other
templates, and it is not often very clear how (as a fun exercise for
the reader, try to import the {{convert}} template to a new wiki, and
see how easy it is!). I was wondering if it might be a good idea to
include a standard template library to Wikimedia installations,
containing a set of utility templates along with the Wikimedia
distribution. I'm cross-posting foudation, for possible discussion if
this is desirable, and wikitech, for possible discussion if this is
feasable.
Since Wikia was mentioned in this post, I thought I'd outline how
we've tackled this problem, as it might be interesting to the
discussion.
When a new wiki is created at Wikia, we don't start with an empty
database. Instead, we copy the contents of what we've called a
"starter wiki" into the newly created database.
Apart from the special role they play in the creation of new wikis,
starter wikis are pretty much normal wiki sites (with the exception of
tighter edit permissions to prevent vandalism).
Have a look at the English starter wiki:
http://starter.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&t…
As you can see it has a ton of different templates. All of these exist
at every new wiki when it's created.
Martijn: if your Wikia wiki doesn't have some (or all) of those, that
might be because it was created before the starter system or because
it's in a language other than English and that language's starter wiki
doesn't have the template(s) you want (yes, we have per language
starters, too).
Mail me off-list, I'm sure I can help include the needed templates in
future wikis. :)
--
Lucas 'TOR' Garczewski
Community Engineer
tor(a)wikia-inc.com
Lucas, thanks for the offer, and I will take you up on it!
In the mean time, where this may (partially) solve the problem for
Wikia, it's the more general problem that is more important. A user
creating a new wiki with our software shouldn't have to lug through a
difficult import process, or have to built some system that easily
manages imports the way Wikia did. It's no coincidence I named this
'a' standard template library in the subject line. Like the STL is not
part of the C++ language, the fact that it is freely available, and
standard, makes C++ much more easy to develop for, as there are many
building blocks readily available for programmers. Likewise, defined
templates are not part of MediaWiki, but could greatly enhance the
user experience. Wikia made the import module for a reason, and the
reason is users are greatly helped by having a standard library of
templates available to them.
Regards,
Martijn