On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 17:59, Banlu Kemiyatorn
<object@gmail.com> wrote:
Why using wiki template didn't allow every page to look the same?
It does allow every page to look the same. On the other hand, messing with a ton of markup is painful, and requires you to know exactly which templates exist, what properties exist, etc. I personally don't care for either; that is one of the reasons why I don't edit public wikis.
What about removing of some properties from the template, or adding new ones? It can be handled, sure, but why bother with the pain?
I will always consider using a wiki for something private (documentation, presentation of my work, …). On the other hand, for something like a software index, a relational database is ideal, isn't it? Well, if it's ideal, why not make use of it?
How is it ideal? Let's take a look. Each piece of software has some properties such as title, image and homepage, it has several releases, it has one or more source code repositories, it has requirements, it has build instructions, … I think it's a textbook example of something to use SQL-based databases for.
And if it really is the case, Wiki bot would easily do the job.
Relying on a bot to do cleanup after humans is not nice, and neither is infalliability of a human reviewer guaranteed. Especially if the original submitter did not fill out all the data, or provided extra data; where is the bot or the reviewer supposed to get that data from, or where is the bot or the reviewer supposed to place them if they don't fit into a template?
Having specific, precisely defined fields where you enter data is great. Having a consisted method of presenting that data is also great. Ability to easily visually reorganize data, or analyze it, is also great.
While you can do that by parsing the wiki using a bot.. ehm, why not simply organize the data properly in the first place?
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Regards,
Ivan Vučica