On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:24:46 +0100, Rowan Collins
<rowan.collins(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 20:36:40 +0100, Tomer Chachamu
<the.r3m0t(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Use image: [[Image:Name.jpg]]
Mention image: [[:Image:Name.jpg]]
Use category: [[Category:People]]
Mention category: [[:Category:People]]
These are nothing to do with "templates"/"transclusion", but magic
I know that. I am pointing out how the use-mention distinction was
handled in cases apart from templates, i.e. differently.
kinds of link - both "Image:Name.jpg" and
"Category:People" are the
titles of pages to which you are creating a link, but a special kind
of link because they are special kinds of pages. So, as you say, a
leading colon treats them as unspecial, so there is a use/mention
distinction.
Personally, I think the most "surprising" kind of link is
"[[Media:...]]", because it doesn't link to any page at all. OTOH, I
That is also a problem. I would want the namespace to be called
"Media", but with the translated name as "Image" for help during
transition. (This is similar to the "Project" and "Wikipedia"
namespaces: The first is new in an attempt to disassociate MediaWiki
from Wikipedia, and "Wikipedia" is an alias on Wikipedia sites for it.
You can have two names for the same namespace.)
think [[Sound:...]], [[Video:...]], or maybe a
combined [[AV:...]]
will end up being needed to provide the kind of integration we already
offer for images, but presumably the file descriptions will remain in
one namespace, so those won't be real pages either.
That's another possibility.
Use template:
{{Box}} (not [[Template:Box]] or {{Template:Box}})
-> I can understand {{Box}} as a shorthand for {{Template:Box}} as
people will rarely use namespace 0 stuff as templates, so why not
{{Template:Box}} but {{:Template:Box}} ?
Use template (substitution): {{subst:Box}} (no suggestions from me here, sorry)
Mention template: [[Template:Box]]
"Templates", unlike "Images" and "Categories", are not a
special kind
of page; linking to them doesn't do anything different from linking to
any other page. I guess it could have been decided that they *were*
That is exactly my point. The "Template" namespace is intended for
templates, so linking to it with [[Template:Box]] is a *use* of it,
not a *mention*. Mentions should be relegated to using a colon as in
[[:Template:Box]] as currently with images and categories.
special, and that [[Template:Box]] would cause a
transclusion (with
[[:Template:Box]] for "mentionning"), but the flexibility of being
able to transclude *any* page has proved useful for various cunning
schemes.
Such as what? I cannot see the disadvantage to putting these pages in
the Template namespace. Also, a secondary syntax could be made, like
that old {{msg:}} syntax. {{msg:Box}} would include [[Box]], not
[[Template:Box]].
One thing I haven't been able to decide is what the new substitution
syntax would be. I was considering ~[[Template:Box]] (thinking this
would be one in a set of substitutions, i.e. along with ~~~3 ~~~~4 and
~~~~~5.
As for "{{Box}}",
"{{Template:Box}}" and "{{:Template:Box}}", they
appear, rightly or wrongly, to all be treated equivalently by the
current code. (Arguably, the 3rd is incorrect, since the leading colon
is making no meaningful distinction).
I don't like the implied template namespace. {{:Box}} for the article
is not exactly intuitive.