Editing Template talk:Wiki/Archive 1 (section)

==link to about instead of RC?==
...wouldn't a link to an about page and an author page be ''WAY'' more handier than a recent changes? --[[User:Smiddle|Smiddle]] 18:41, 26 August 2006 (EDT)

actually no, a link to RecentChanges shows someone immediately what is happening at the wiki. [[MarkDilley]]
:If anything, the "about" link should replace the wikinode. The wikinode idea doesn't seem to have widely caught on, but most wikis have some sort of about page. Really, a wikinode seems like just one kind of about page. If you took any other about page and added a list of seven similar wikis, you would have a wikinode, amirite? [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 08:49, 20 November 2012 (PST)

::I agree that not every wiki site has a WikiNode, but it must also be said that I've also seen many wiki sites which have an empty 'about' link.  Also bear in mind that not all wiki engines support the about url, whereas all wiki engines can potentially support a WikiNode.
::Maybe we ought to have both . . . both the WikiNode and the About in the template . . . [[User:Hoof Hearted|Sean, aka <small>Hoof Hearted</small>]] • <sub>[[:Category:Active administrators of this wiki|Admin]]</sub> • <small>[[User talk:Hoof Hearted|talk2HH]]</small> 09:59, 20 November 2012 (PST)
:::Indeed. It's sort of like how [[mw:Template:Extension]] has both a "username" and an "author" field. The documentation for username says, "The author's username on MediaWiki.org (if they have one). May be omitted, but if present it will be used to link to the author's user & user_talk page. It should be provided without namespace and without [[]]s." The documentation for author says, "The extension author's name, if different from their MediaWiki.org username. Free text. If omitted then the 'username' field will be used (if present)." So there's an overlap between them, but sometimes you just need to provide one and it will take care of the rest. The fact that you include both parameters in the template doesn't mean that the rendered template has to show them as two separate items.

:::Also, it's possible for a bot to check [[MediaWiki:Aboutpage]] for the link (if the page is nonexistent, then it defaults to [[Project:About]]) and then see if there is any content there using [[mw:API:Query]], e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&rvprop=content&titles=Project:About . Then the data about the existence and location of the about page can be pushed by the bot into the appropriate wiki pages on Wikiindex. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 21:24, 20 November 2012 (PST)