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On 9/2/06, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> often when i'm writing docs i like to throw in links to wikipedia as it
> contains a wealth of information that i dont even want to try to duplicate
>
> rather than having to do like <uri
> link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo">FOO</uri> all the time, would it be
> possible to get a new tag implemented ? say something like:
> <wikipedia topic="Foo">FOO</uri>
> -mike
>
>
>

Doesn't sound like a good idea.
the <uri> tag already allows for links to sites.


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On Saturday 02 September 2006 04:31, Jesse McNelis wrote:
> Doesn't sound like a good idea.

plan on giving any sort of reasoning ?

> the <uri> tag already allows for links to sites.

i already stated this obvious fact in my e-mail
-mike

On 02/09/06, Jesse McNelis <jessta@gmail.com> wrote:
> Doesn't sound like a good idea.
> the <uri> tag already allows for links to sites.

I suppose it depends on how often documentation writers are linking to
Wikipedia, if there's a lot of links then it might be useful to add
another tag as it would also mean that (in theory at least) you could
automatically make the links point to the right Wikipedia site
depending on which translation of the docs you were viewing - e.g.
fr.wikipedia.org for the French docs.

Paul

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On 9/2/06, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Saturday 02 September 2006 04:31, Jesse McNelis wrote:
> > Doesn't sound like a good idea.
>
> plan on giving any sort of reasoning ?
>
> > the <uri> tag already allows for links to sites.
>
> i already stated this obvious fact in my e-mail
> -mike
>
>
>
If one was to add a tag for specifically wikipedia links then one may
as well add one for specifically google, slashdot, sourceforge, etc.
links too.
Imagine trying to find all the URI links in a document when every
domain has it's own tag.

This would also mean more work on the DTD and XSL while offering no
real benefits in terms of the explicitness of the markup.
Just so you can avoid some quick cut and pastes.

From the perspective of parsing or styling please explain to me how
the addition of a <wikipedia> tag would be useful?

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Mike Frysinger wrote:
> often when i'm writing docs i like to throw in links to wikipedia as it
> contains a wealth of information that i dont even want to try to duplicate
>
> rather than having to do like <uri
> link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo">FOO</uri> all the time, would it be
> possible to get a new tag implemented ? say something like:
> <wikipedia topic="Foo">FOO</uri>
> -mike

A specific tag to link to a specific site?
Not really a good idea.
irb(main):002:0> '<wikipedia topic="Foo">Foo</wikipedia>'.length
=> 38
irb(main):003:0> '<uri link="http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo">Foo</uri>'.length
=> 51

Only 13 characters difference. Whatever editor you use, I'm sure you can give
it a macro to insert something like '<uri link="http://"></uri>' for generic
external links and '<uri link="http://wikipedia.org/wiki/"></uri>' for
wikipedia articles.

Besides, using your tag makes it impossible for translators to link to the
translated version when available.

Off-topic: you should bump date & revision when you edit a document. Thanks.


Wkr,
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/\ http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/

> (in theory at least) you could
> automatically make the links point to the right Wikipedia site
> depending on which translation of the docs you were viewing - e.g.
> fr.wikipedia.org for the French docs.

The right Wikipedia site should be specified by the translator,
because there is also the possibility that the referenced Wikipedia
site is not available in the translator's language.. so "<wikipedia
topic="Foo">FOO</uri>" should point by default to en.wikipedia.org and
if the page is available also in other languages, they should be
specified through another parameter, like "<wikipedia topic="Foo"
lang="fr">FOO</uri>"..


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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Gianni Costanzi (gianni.costanzi@gmail.com)
| (http://ares.science.unitn.it/~gianni.costanzi/)
|
| Gentoo Documentation Project (GDP) Member - Italian Translator
| (http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gdp/)
|
| Free Software Foundation Member #3844 (www.fsf.org)
|
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On 02/09/06, Gianni Costanzi <gianni.costanzi@gmail.com> wrote:
> The right Wikipedia site should be specified by the translator,
> because there is also the possibility that the referenced Wikipedia
> site is not available in the translator's language.. so "<wikipedia
> topic="Foo">FOO</uri>" should point by default to en.wikipedia.org and
> if the page is available also in other languages, they should be
> specified through another parameter, like "<wikipedia topic="Foo"
> lang="fr">FOO</uri>"..

I think if you're having to specify another attribute in the wikipedia
tag then you're probably better off just sticking with <url> - a
separate tag would only be useful if it could generalise more than
just prepending http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ to the topic attribute.
If Wikipedia automatically redirected to the English version if a
translation wasn't available then it might be useful, but as far as I
can tell that's not the case.

Paul

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Hash: SHA1

Mike Frysinger wrote:
> often when i'm writing docs i like to throw in links to wikipedia as it
> contains a wealth of information that i dont even want to try to duplicate
>
> rather than having to do like <uri
> link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo">FOO</uri> all the time, would it be
> possible to get a new tag implemented ? say something like:
> <wikipedia topic="Foo">FOO</uri>

yeah, not so much of a good idea, for the translation reasons specified, and
it'd be quite a lot of backend work to cover, what, maybe 15 existing links in
non-draft/ directories?

Though it's often comprehensive enough, it's not like wikipedia is the be-all
and end-all of free information.

Not worth the time and trouble when it's easier to just use <uri>s the way
they're supposed to be used. Requiring a whole different format to write out
simple links in a doc is unintuitive and needlessly complex.
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Mike Frysinger wrote:
> often when i'm writing docs i like to throw in links to wikipedia as it
> contains a wealth of information that i dont even want to try to duplicate
>
> rather than having to do like <uri
> link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo">FOO</uri> all the time, would it be
> possible to get a new tag implemented ? say something like:
> <wikipedia topic="Foo">FOO</uri>
> -mike

A few people noted why they thought this wasn't a good idea. The salient points
as I saw them were:

- Jesse: "Imagine trying to find all the URI links in a document when every
domain has it's own tag."
- Xavier: "Besides, using your tag makes it impossible for translators to
link to the translated version when available."

Let me suggest an alternative:

<uri link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo">FOO</uri>
becomes
<uri preset="wikipedia">FOO</uri>

It remains a uri tag, but extensible. The authors could create a list of
Frequently Linked Sites as long as there's a simple transformation between the
text() of the uri tag and what the actual uri would turn out to be.

Now for the benefits:

- It's still a uri tag.
- Translators can simply tweak the transformation to point to the page in the
right language.
- It's flexible: if the author wants to add a new preset or tweak one, it's easy.

Peace,
Mike
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