[Wikipedia-l] RE: [Wikitech-l] I never metadata I didn't like

Sun Dec 7 22:21:58 UTC 2003

The Cunctator wrote:
> I didn't say we should implement a category scheme purely by code. I can
> think of several better methods to providing the utility of categories
> than inserting hidden metadata tags.

They are not hidden! Categories would, in fact, be displayed more 
promently than "ordinary" links, like language links. And hit "edit", 
then you see the matching source. If that ain't visible enough...

> I should have more time in the coming weeks to make some explicit
> suggestions--that is, mock up examples, etc. 
> 
> I think that having a categorization project (a la dmoz for Wikipedia)
> would be a fine idea, as long as the work, and the data, are separate
> from the root Wikipedia. 

How about this: When you edit a page, all "meta-links" (language links, 
categories) are parsed out of the article text and displayed in a 
smalled edit box below. When you save your edit, these just get pasted 
at the end of the article. That way, they will work like they're 
separate, and still use the existing goodies (versioning etc.).

> In fact, the best thing would be to work on developing ways for outside
> projects to hook easily into the Wikipedia content without having to be
> a Bomis-hosted project, prolly by having an XML hook.
> 
> If we did so, I could imagine a group at the MIT Media Lab or the Cyc
> project figuring out some bad-ass way of navigating Wikipedia content,
> etc.

If we (some distant day, after many file cabinets of 
consensus-finding;-) do that, then we'd run a little script and extract 
all the category links from the database into an XML file. That will 
make a great starting point for the MIT people!

Magnus