As I've been working on my Disinfopedia, a couple of things have come
up that I thought I'd share:
(1) I've decided to use the Wikipedia interface as-is, except that
I've inserted a navigation bar at the top with some local links to
the rest of our PR Watch web site. This means that I've had to insert
a line of code into Skin.php, SkinNostalgia.php, and
SkinCologneBlue.php. The line reads as follows:
$s .= wfMsg( "navbar" );
In Skin.php, I put this line just before the line that says
$s .= $this->topLinks();
The actual text and HTML for the navbar appears in Language.php,
where I inserted a definition of "navbar" in the $wgAllMessagesEn
array.
Would it be possible to insert my line of code into Wikipedia's
"official" version of pages Skin.php, SkinNostalgia.php and
SkinCologneBlue.php, along with a definition of "navbar" as a null
string in Language.php? This would make it a little easier for me to
keep my copy of the scripts harmonized with future revisions. Also,
the "navbar" might provide a useful hook to other people who want to
customize the interface.
(2) For the time being, I'm abandoning my original idea of having
separate input templates for different types of articles (e.g.,
articles about people, organizations, etc.). However, I've given a
little more thought to the idea of adding object-typing and
structure, and I wonder if perhaps this could be done through some
additions to the Wiki syntax. Perhaps "::" could be used to specify
an object TYPE, and "->" could be used to specify an object PROPERTY.
Examples:
[[person::Abraham Lincoln]]
[[employee->Archie Bunker]]
In addition, each Wikipedia article could be considered a de facto
object definition, with some syntax that enables explicit
specification of object properties and superclasses. For example, you
might have an article about "person" which includes the following
code:
[[property->date_of_birth]]
[[property->gender]]
A separate article about "Nobel Prize winner" might include the following text:
[[superclass->person]]
[[property->year_of_award]]
[[property->award_category]]
These definitions wouldn't appear in the display versions of
articles, but they could be useful in other ways, e.g., customizing
the input templates for new articles or data mining. For example, an
article about Albert Einstein might include text which says:
[[object_type->Nobel_Prize_winner]]
'''Albert Einstein''' (born [[date_of_birth->March 14, 1879]]), was a
[[physicist]] who first proposed the [[theory of relativity]]. He was
awarded the Nobel Prize in [[year_of_award->1921]]. Notwithstanding
his personal pacifism, he supported the scientific research that led
to the development of the [[weapon_of_mass_destruction::atom bomb]].
Finally, perhaps there could also be some sort of syntax for
automatically inserting a list of all objects of a given type. For
example, the bottom of the article titled "Nobel Prize winner" could
have a line at the bottom that lists all articles with this object
type, sorted by year of award.
What do you think? Is there any merit to these ideas? I'm still a
Wikipedia newbie, so I apologize if this all seems half-baked.
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------
up that I thought I'd share:
(1) I've decided to use the Wikipedia interface as-is, except that
I've inserted a navigation bar at the top with some local links to
the rest of our PR Watch web site. This means that I've had to insert
a line of code into Skin.php, SkinNostalgia.php, and
SkinCologneBlue.php. The line reads as follows:
$s .= wfMsg( "navbar" );
In Skin.php, I put this line just before the line that says
$s .= $this->topLinks();
The actual text and HTML for the navbar appears in Language.php,
where I inserted a definition of "navbar" in the $wgAllMessagesEn
array.
Would it be possible to insert my line of code into Wikipedia's
"official" version of pages Skin.php, SkinNostalgia.php and
SkinCologneBlue.php, along with a definition of "navbar" as a null
string in Language.php? This would make it a little easier for me to
keep my copy of the scripts harmonized with future revisions. Also,
the "navbar" might provide a useful hook to other people who want to
customize the interface.
(2) For the time being, I'm abandoning my original idea of having
separate input templates for different types of articles (e.g.,
articles about people, organizations, etc.). However, I've given a
little more thought to the idea of adding object-typing and
structure, and I wonder if perhaps this could be done through some
additions to the Wiki syntax. Perhaps "::" could be used to specify
an object TYPE, and "->" could be used to specify an object PROPERTY.
Examples:
[[person::Abraham Lincoln]]
[[employee->Archie Bunker]]
In addition, each Wikipedia article could be considered a de facto
object definition, with some syntax that enables explicit
specification of object properties and superclasses. For example, you
might have an article about "person" which includes the following
code:
[[property->date_of_birth]]
[[property->gender]]
A separate article about "Nobel Prize winner" might include the following text:
[[superclass->person]]
[[property->year_of_award]]
[[property->award_category]]
These definitions wouldn't appear in the display versions of
articles, but they could be useful in other ways, e.g., customizing
the input templates for new articles or data mining. For example, an
article about Albert Einstein might include text which says:
[[object_type->Nobel_Prize_winner]]
'''Albert Einstein''' (born [[date_of_birth->March 14, 1879]]), was a
[[physicist]] who first proposed the [[theory of relativity]]. He was
awarded the Nobel Prize in [[year_of_award->1921]]. Notwithstanding
his personal pacifism, he supported the scientific research that led
to the development of the [[weapon_of_mass_destruction::atom bomb]].
Finally, perhaps there could also be some sort of syntax for
automatically inserting a list of all objects of a given type. For
example, the bottom of the article titled "Nobel Prize winner" could
have a line at the bottom that lists all articles with this object
type, sorted by year of award.
What do you think? Is there any merit to these ideas? I'm still a
Wikipedia newbie, so I apologize if this all seems half-baked.
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------