Wikibooks:Reading room/Proposals/2014/December

The process of converting classic talk pages to Flow
(BG: Flow). There are various ways to convert talk pages to Flow. Discussed at this page. I would like to know what we would like to have. Please join the discussion and spread it to other language village pumps. Gryllida 00:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Flow must not be allowed to happen. Imposing it would be fatal.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 00:52, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Customization to Common.js
I'd like to add a one-executable-line snippet to our (admirably short and simple) Common.js. This takes a bit of explaining, I guess.

My intent is to enable a particular kind of site customization: page-specific javascript &mdash; allowing admins to customize any page on the wiki with a javascript file to be executed whenever that page is loaded. This is javascript by page rather than by user; even IPs get the benefit, since Common.js applies to them too. En.wn has had page-specific javascript for many years. Although it can be used to customize the appearance of a particular page (en.wn does this for a few pages), it's particularly useful for setting up a particular page as a "verb" (rather than a "noun"). There should be no observable performance penalty from this facility, for any page that doesn't get customized with page-specific javascript.

My central interest in this type of customization is that it is the first step to porting my interactive dialog tools here from en.wn. I believe the dialog tools, and particularly the wizard-like semi-automated assistants that can be built from them, could over time become a major asset to Wikibooks (and to Wikinews, of course, which is why I've undertaken the development of the dialog tools there). I've tried to summarize the full process of porting the dialog tools here (though I expect eventually I'll be moving that page, since its page name is actually one of the things that ought to be changed for project-generality).

The actual technical addition would be the following, just below the book-specific block.

This would be executed when any user (even an IP) loads any page (even a Special: page). When loading wiki page PAGENAME, it checks for existence of a page called, and if there is such a page, loads it as a javascript file. The customization is limited to admins, since the customizing page is in MediaWiki: space. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * fine by me, but beware the WMF staffers who sometimes don't like us mere mortals customising the interface in "inappropriate" ways. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 17:27, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * We cannot control bad decisions by the WMF. We can make competent decisions, ourselves.  If our competent decisions are successful and gain momentum, there's some chance the WMF might recognize the need to take them into account.  If we hold back from making competent decisions, in mere anticipation of contradictory bad decisions by the WMF, we guarantee that eventually the WMF will make bad decisions with impunity. I have been told, in the past, that my dialog tools shouldn't conflict with VisualEditor (should we have the misfortune to have that inflicted on us at some point).  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:13, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I have [ made the edit], so if I were to muff the edit so that it broke something, we'd be observing such shortly hereafter; and, conversely, lack of negative impact would also be observed starting from now. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:03, 20 December 2014 (UTC)