Wikibooks:Reading room/Proposals/2013/September

Enable Cat-a-lot Gadget on en.books please
Hi. I was just working through Special:UncategorizedTemplates, and I was about to do some categorization, when I realized that the most useful tool to do so is not enabled on this wiki. Can we please add the Cat-a-lot Gadget to this Wiki? If you are not familiar with the tool, see commons:Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot for all the details. In a nutshell, it gives editors an easy way to add, remove, or change categories on a page or image without having to open a lot of pages in edit mode, make the changes, and then save them all. It's a great time saver! Thanks. &mdash; Will scrlt ( “Talk”  “w:en”  • ) 10:24, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I point out that Wikibooks does not, under current procedures, categorize individual pages of a book except by putting BookCat on them, and the main page of a book is categorized mostly via subjects. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:36, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I spent a lot of time reading through all the relevant pages, templates, and categories on the subject, and I see now how Cat-a-lot--even in the hands of a well-meaning editor, like me--could cause more damage than good here. Since categorization via templates is the standard means of categorizing, cat-a-lot would sort of circumvent that. Too bad there's not a tag-a-lot gadget to do the same thing that cat-a-lot does, but with templates instead. :-) Please consider my request for cat-a-lot to be rescinded. I think there might still be some benefit to enabling it for experienced en.book editors familiar with categorization here, it probably would increase workload rather than help.
 * Would AWB be an alternative that would work here? I used to use it before I replaced my computer. I haven't reinstalled it on my newer one. But if that is a good way to tag pages and templates here with proper templates, then it might be worth it for me to reinstall. Do we need to be authorized for AWB specifically on en.books? Or would my en.wiki authorization count? If not, where do I make that request? Thanks &mdash; Will scrlt ( “Talk” •  “w:en”  •  “com”  •  “m”  ) 04:30, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * What do you have in mind to do, that would be so extensive it'd want AWB? Since AWB is the next best thing to running a bot, seems like a good principle to check with us here first.
 * (&lt;rant&gt;I've long reckoned what all the sisters really need is for wiki markup to support interactive pages, which could be used to build interactive wizards and all manner of other cool stuff. Which is why, since the foundation prefers to spend their resources on superficial stuff like Visual Editor, I'm doing it myself.&lt;/rant&gt;)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 05:01, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * AWB usage - Something like tagging all of the CPT* (and other) templates in Special:UncategorizedTemplates with their appropriate templates. It's not a huge deal to do it manually, but I'd rather speed up the process. After all, if we have the tools, why not use them?
 * My head is still reeling fro your Wndialog tools. Those are just regular templates (albeit on steroids)? I am constantly impressed by how creative people are when it comes to wikitext, parser and string functions, and magic words. Now that they have added Lua modules, things are going to go even crazier and more wonderful (though the editing tool could use some improvement). I don't think you answered me (or I didn't see it yet) -- are LUA modules enabled on en.books?
 * Visual Editor... Um. Yeah. I don't get what's hard about wikitext. I've used other wiki software, supposedly simpler than MediaWiki, but, to me at least, they are clunky and difficult. MW's wikitext is very straight forward and simple to use, read, and edit (well, tables intermixed with templates--especially esoteric ones--can't get unwieldy pretty quickly). I don't see how the Visual Editor is going to help, and I worry about how badly it will screw up the more complex wikitext on some pages (especially the kind I just described). While I guess it will be beneficial to have previously disenfranchised editors that couldn't wrap their heads around wikitext, I wonder about how good of a job they are going to do, and how willing they are going to be to abide by the policies and guidelines, let alone learn the quirks of each different sister project and language variation. If you have a bunch of editors who are unable to dedicate the time to learning the basics of a simple markup language, are they going to strive to learn anything else about their environment? Personally, as long as I can opt-out and completely disable the VE, then I will be happy. If I am forced to deal with it, well, I will adapt. I won't have a choice in that case, will I? And, if the VE makes it too hard to edit, I'll probably just fade off into the mists of memory along with many other disillusioned veteran editors. Obviously, I hope that won't happen. I don't thnk that was a rant on my part, but it was my first time expressing my opinions on VE. &mdash; Will  scrlt ( Talk | w:en | com | meta )  07:49, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes, duh &mdash; you started all this by saying you were looking at Special:UncategorizedTemplates. Back at the time we souped up BookCat to work for nearly everything, I think AWB was, in fact, used in categorizing nearly everything on the project.


 * Is Lua not available? There's a module namespace.  I was under the impression what was missing was libraries; and I've never paid enough attention to Lua to know whether there's any provision for inheriting Lua modules from some central point (commons or meta or something) or whether they all have to be brought in from elsewhere.


 * Btw, speaking of bringing in from elsewhere &mdash; the preferred way to do this is to request import.


 * The templates in my wndialog facility are actually not very powerful; they simply provide a neat interface for generating html with class tags on it. The muscle is provided by some (pointedly small) javascript in Common.js, which finds the tagged html elements and converts them into dialog boxes and buttons and stuff.  Then there's javascript elsewhere, that doesn't get expensively loaded on every page access (unlike Common.js), that makes the real magic happen.  An equivalent facility would be a lot faster if it were a wiki extension instead of being done with javascript, but a wiki extension would be subject to the wikimedian bureaucracy, which the non-Wikipedian sisters have learned the hard way to think of as fundamentally unfriendly to non-Wikipedia sisters.  So I assumed the only way to make my vision a reality would be to do it all myself, which meant javascript.  (Lua, which would only appear on the scene when I was about a year and a half into my project, doesn't provide any of the things I set out to accomplish, and in fact I've only used it once, for something that the standard magic words annoyingly don't support.)


 * I haven't decided what I think of the Lua extension. I immediate saw some downsides.  It's making programming a lot more complicated, in fact introducing a whole new programming language into the mix, thus fostering yet another high priesthood of users who know the additional language, in order to solve inadequacies of power of the magic words and template facility of wiki markup, which they could have instead devoted resources to improving.  That's in contrast to my tools whose design focuses on enabling things to be done within wiki markup, on the assumption that wiki markup is to be the one language ordinary wiki contributors deal with.  And at the same time, it doesn't really provide the sorts of fundamentally new capabilities I long since identified as the key need of the wikimedia sisters, which my tools seek to address.  There is a linguistic problem that Lua addresses, which is that the set of magic words is a rats' nest of underpowered features that aren't well coordinated with each other, and rather than attempt to apply some overall design vision to figuring out what is needed to extend the set of magic words in a coherent way, they simply bring in a full-blown programming language that already has far more coherent design than they've achieved with the magic words.  This ignores however the very real design merits of the existing template system, which I got very familiar with when developing Template:Navlist (facilities I never quite finished to the point where they'd be ready to start using systematically on all books, and now I suppose they'd want a major overhaul in consideration of Lua).  The way templates avoid unbounded recursion and therefore avoid creating exploits in a universally-available facility is quite clever imho.


 * Wiki markup is dead easy; that, in case anyone's forgotten, is why wiki markup took off like wildfire in the first place. One of the best parts of it is that if you don't know how to do something you can just imitate where it's already done.  The other day I decided to try out the Visual Editor on what seemed like a very minor edit, and only realized once I was using VE that what I wanted was to add an item to a bulleted list.  But I hadn't the faintest idea how to do that.  If I'd been a newbie contributor using the simple, straightforward text-editing interface, it'd be dead easy for me to add an item to a bulleted list because I'd be looking at examples of how to do it (the items already on the list); but afaics the Visual Editor means everything is made harder for newbies because you don't get to see examples of how things are done.  Instead of a single language of wiki markup with various gradations of skill, and examples right there to help you use stuff that's a little beyond your experience, you're provided with multiple languages (the same mistake as with Lua) and it's made harder to advance from complete ignorance.  Even if they don't discourage the veteran wikimedians with expertise from continuing to contribute, they'll discourage newcomers from becoming experts.  And the biggest problem with all the wikimedian sisters, I believe, including Wikipedia, is that it neeeds to become easier for newcomers to perform, and learn, expert tasks.  So I basically said "screw this" and went to use the simple text-based editor; why should I have to puzzle out an additional problem that's been gratuitously thrown in my way?


 * It seems they're throwing technical solutions at the wrong problems because (a) they've mididentified the technical problem, per above, and  (b) they're in denial about the very real social problems that have been discouraging newcomers from Wikipedia for years.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:42, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Development Stages
Hi,

I would like to suggest to repaint the 75% image in blue:

This image is used for the development stages:

The order of the colors is not logical. It is too close from 25%. It's confusing at a glance. Ftiercel (discuss • contribs) 20:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) I have long thought that the colors are, um, a bit "weird". It would seem that they should go from a more alarming color (red) for the smallest one (developing text), to something like pumpkin or gold for maturing, something calm and mellow--like the blue you recommend--for Developed text, and the bright green and the gray make sense where they are. I think that Maturing text is okay with the violet, but once Developed changes to blue, they might be too similar. That's why a gold/orange color might be a better choice. &mdash; Will scrlt  ( “Talk”  “w:en”  • ) 09:27, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, so I can change the Developed text. Then I will wait to see if anybody agree and after that we can change the Maturing text but it will need at least one more support. Ftiercel (discuss • contribs) 06:46, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Hem, guys, this image is used by many many different projects (Wikisources and others). You should not change the image on Commons before discussing with the other projects! If you want a different colour, you should either upload a modified file locally, or use a different Commons file. Thanks for understanding. --Candalua (discuss • contribs) 10:56, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the cautionary warning. I was aware of that, and I had already downloaded the source files to change their colors and reupload as a new set. I also was thinking of making a set that works in 1/8s. Sometimes the jump between 1/4s--especially in larger books--can be quite big. We already have one that works in decimals (although it looks totally different), so there appears to be nothing sacred about 25% increments. Traditional, maybe, but not inviolate. I just need the time to get it done. &mdash; Will  scrlt ( Talk | w:en | com | meta )  16:23, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Personally, I find it can be quite subjective trying to put a percentage on completion, so I prefer the coarser increments. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 20:43, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Hem, it was not just a "cautionary warning"... :D Ftiercel alread did that, that's the reason I came here :) Anyway, now the original version has been restored, so all's well that ends well :) Candalua (discuss • contribs) 16:32, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I have only asked the wikibooks community because De728631 told me that only wikibooks widely uses this image. I have just asked wikisource. Meanwhile, Candalua, have I your +1 too? Ftiercel (discuss • contribs) 20:44, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * De728631 was evidently wrong :) From the discussion on Commons, it is now clear that there are just too many projects that use the image... I don't think it's practical to open discussions on every single one of them (there is not just en.source, but lots of other languages...). Why don't you just upload the blue version here on en.wikibooks? From what I can see, local upload was restricted but users with Sysop or Uploader rights can still upload files locally, you should ask one of them. This would serve your purpose without disrupting any other projects. :) Candalua (discuss • contribs) 08:16, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I have just uploaded new versions with another name: [[File:00 percents.svg]] [[File:25_percent.svg]] [[File:50 percents.svg]] [[File:75_percent.svg]] [[File:100 percent.svg]] Ftiercel (discuss • contribs) 17:30, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Temperature conversions in Lua
I've created Module:Temperature, which is an attempt to make temperature conversion a little bit more standardized and nice-looking.

The module could use a little polishing, and I'm going to be working on that over the next couple of hours, but I'd appreciate suggestions about what it should look like.

The first few improvements I'm going to work on will be adding gas mark conversions (according to the existing Cookbook:Oven temperatures page) and playing with the output of temperatures. I'd really like to trash the ref-based implementation and use tooltips instead, but I think that will require some gadget hacking and I'd rather not jump to that if I don't have to.

I'll likely also be writing a conversion module for other measurements - cups, teaspoons, gallons, quarts, etc., over the next week or so. I don't know what that will look like yet.

Cheers! --MarkTraceur (discuss • contribs) 21:36, 29 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Update, I've converted it to using H:title, so it should work a little better now. See the documentation for a how-to. :) --MarkTraceur (discuss • contribs) 23:06, 29 September 2013 (UTC)