User talk:Hoof Hearted

A warm welcome to my talk / discussion page, 172.68.168.187 :-)

If you wish to talk to me about a new subject not already listed here, please click on the 'new section' (or '+') tab at the top of the screen to start a new subject. Or if you wish to reply to an existing comment (either on my talk page or any other talk page), please click on the section [edit] to the right of the relevant subject header line, and please indent your replies with one (or more) colon(s) (:) as appropriate. Please, PLEASE add your signature (-- ~~~~) to all comments or replies you make.

If comments or questions are asked on this page, I will leave my answer here (so please add my talk page to your 'watchlist'). For comments or questions left on other pages, my replies or answers will be left on those specific pages (so again, please add those to your watchlist if you wish to follow any replies).

If you miss previous discussions (which are now no longer visible), you may look through any historical items of discussion by clicking on the 'history' tab at the top of the page. Occasionally, I might remove and archive completed topics which may no longer be relevant, and there is no point in having a cluttered talk page!

My talk page archives:	1 – 2011 • 2 – 2012 • 3 – 2013 • 4 – 2014–2015 • 5 – 2016–2017 • 6 – 2018–2020

Welcome to WikiIndex. Glad you are here and have added Goatopedia. Best, MarkDilley

Hi Mark, thanks for the welcome :) Hoof Hearted 01:44, 19 June 2011 (PDT)

Hello

Hi Hoof Hearted,
nice to meet you :) --Wolf | talk 03:57, 20 June 2011 (PDT)

Hi Wolf, like wise, thanks and regards :) Hoof Hearted 04:42, 20 June 2011 (PDT)

Can you help with this?

Template:Wiki - I want to add Template:Size into it. Best, MarkDilley

Hmmm . . . that looks a bit too much for me. If/when I feel brave, I'll have a go in my sandbox, and let you know how I get on. I'm not promising anything though ! Rgds, Hoof Hearted 02:43, 21 June 2011 (PDT)

Hah! been too much for me too. :-) ~~ MarkDilley

AboutUs

don't do this unless you really know what you're doning

The edit you made to AboutUs - you made as a minor edit. Any reason that you did it that way? Seems like a major edit to me. Please see my response to you on the talk page. Best, MarkDilley

I think, to mark an edit minor was a mistake that can happen quickly in the rush, or is it per preferences? What an odd idea of the MediaWiki developers, to provide such an option! Best, Wolf | talk 12:10, 29 June 2011 (PDT)

Wolf has the answer why it was marked as a minor edit - my preferences are set like that, because most of my edits usually are! And I guess I clicked the save page in haste. But what are the 'ground rules' here for what consitutes a minor vs major edit? Is it the amount of 'content', or the quality of the 'context'? Because my edit on AboutUs was minor in content, but I suppose quite major in context . . . Perhaps we need to copy wikipedias policy on minor edits, and amend it accordingly to suit WikiIndex (unless it is already hiding somewhere on this site!) And I'll head over to Talk:AboutUs and discuss further. Kind regards, Hoof Hearted 12:42, 29 June 2011 (PDT)

I think minor means a comma or so. The problem with setting this by default is that this mistakes happen. Most edits are minor to the editor, but a giant step back for mankind! ;) Best --Wolf | talk 12:52, 29 June 2011 (PDT)

gotcha! ;-) ~~ MarkDilley

Nice work!

just wanted to drop you a note. Best, MarkDilley

Thanks, I hope I'm not making any more n00bie mistakes! Kind regards, Hoof Hearted 01:06, 27 September 2011 (PDT)

My edit

here ... was a test only. I didn't make a screenshot of it, because it would had been too large. I hope this is ok. Best --Wolf | talk 02:24, 27 September 2011 (PDT)

I'm confused . . . :/ . . . Hoof Hearted 03:56, 27 September 2011 (PDT)

Maybe the image on the right made the difference - to my Browser? (FF 6.0) - with this last reply by you, there was no problem. --Wolf | talk 04:13, 27 September 2011 (PDT) ps: what exactly confuses you ?

115 times 3 times 7 equals 2415 plus the leftovers on the next page here http://stargate-wiki.org/wiki/Special:AllPages such a thing IS verifiable as you can EASILY access that info.

Well as i created that page and own the freakin' wiki then yes i can manipulate the stats. YOUR edits are unconstructive and biased and seek to misrepresent the wiki. Wiki stats can be hardcored to say theres 50,000,000 pages when there could only be 4, while All Pages does show how many there really are, stats can also be wrong, as is the case with my wiki. As far as I am concerned, your edits appear more to be vandalism. Escyos 05:07, 28 September 2011 (PDT)

Tidying

Hi Hoof Hearted,
I think that it is not a good idea to "tidy" user-namespace or discussion pages. And the spaces between == Headline == and headline markup can help recognizing the article structure faster (for me it is like this).
Best regards. Wolf | talk 03:47, 2 January 2012 (PST)

Hi Wolf – and Happy New Year to you :) In trying to 'improve' WikiIndex, particularly in the internal 'wikilinks' aspect, I've been reading talk pages to see which way discussions and concensus was heading – but many seemed devioid of wikilinks (maybe because these were shortly after the 'birth' of WikiIndex, and said pages and/or templates had yet to be created)! The tidying is primarily adding these wikilinks (which are one of the fundamentals of a 'good' wiki, help prevent duplicate entries being created, and give pointers to future readers of talk pages); and the removal of excessive whitespace – with the aid of the {{TOCright}} (excessive whitespace is a pain in the rear on low resolution or smaller monitor screens such as netbooks, tablets (iPads and the likes) and smartphones - because you end up having to scroll excessively).

I do not understand your concern over this: == Headline == – and the different effects it creates between this: ==Headline== ?? I was aware of some older browsers (particularly early Firefox versions) had problems rendering certain web codes – but I thought those issues had been resolved! I personally use either IE8, Comodo Dragon 16 (based on Google Chrome) or Firefox 8.0 – and don't have any issues of display rendering. Perhaps I have mis-understood, if I have, would you be kind enough to explain further. – Best regards, --Hoof Hearted 06:54, 2 January 2012 (PST)

Regarding the space next to the headings: I referred to wikitext readability, not HTML rendering. ...and Happy New Year to you :-)
Best regards Wolf | talk 13:11, 3 January 2012 (PST)

Need to ask a question off wiki

Is there a means to contact you off wiki as I have a question for you that you might be able to answer for me as you seem to understand MediaWiki? Thanks in advance! TeraS 12:07, 2 January 2012 (PST)

Got your email HH and I replied! Thank you again! TeraS 06:43, 9 January 2012 (PST)

Your work

Hello, your work has been awesome. Please don't take my work as meaning it isn't. There were a lot of mistakes in the deletions, I think because of a template that drew in some delete pages, I was just trying to fix those and understand others, granted hurriedly. I didn't have a ton of time, so I defaulted to the way I communicate on a wiki most times, via recent changes, I was positive you would see that :-) I will try to grab some more time to look at other stuff. Please AssumeGoodFaith with me as will I :-) I look forward to working wikily with you. Best, MarkDilley

OK, cool - thanks for getting back to me, and my apologies if I appeared to 'hassle' you; I guess time is short for us all, hence why I thought you were maybe 'avoiding' me! Kind regards, and best for 2012 :) --Hoof Hearted 07:00, 8 January 2012 (PST)

Not a hassle at all, the thrill of active collaboration!! I look forward to working wikily with you more and more. Figuring out all things that lay ahead. Best, MarkDilley

userspace edits

Hi Hoof Hearted,
as I have already indicated, in my opinion, there is hardly any change in the competence of other users that are so urgent that it can not be left to them. I would prefer to send them a message about it at first, i.e. I question the value of changes like this. Best regards, Wolf | talk 03:08, 10 January 2012 (PST)

Broken language templates [fixed]

Hi Hoof Hearted,
some templates seem to be broken, I suspect it's after one of the recent edits to language templates for user pages. For instance your user pages looks not really good and my own too. :-( Sadly I've not enough time right now. Would you be so kind as to have a look to it?
Many thanks in advance! Best, Wolf | talk 04:42, 10 January 2012 (PST)

Maybe we could eliminate the - useless - table from the template? [...] --Wolf | talk 14:24, 10 January 2012 (PST)

I repaired the templates, I hope I got them all. If you encounter any suspect layouts, please let me know! Best --Wolf | talk 13:06, 9 February 2012 (PST)

Contact problems, reloaded

Hi HH,
a contact opportunity via wiki mail would be not sooo bad, I think. I uploaded a (kind of) howto and linked it to Tera's talk page - I guess you already have seen it. Best, Wolf | talk 14:27, 10 January 2012 (PST)

Hi Wolf - thanks for the pic on Tera's page! I think there may be a problem with the MediaWiki software though - as I did add a valid e-mail, clicked on the "confirm e-mail address", and I got a confirmation message "WikiIndex requires that you validate your e-mail address before using e-mail features. Activate the button below to send a confirmation mail to your address. The mail will include a link containing a code; load the link in your browser to confirm that your e-mail address is valid." . . . but I never received the e-mail. I tried the resend e-mail (about three times) but still no e-mail. Also, it won't let me amend my signature either (which is why I still have the default signature), nor will it let me change my timezone (which should be GMT). Maybe one of the Admins can look into this, thanks, --Hoof Hearted 15:35, 10 January 2012 (PST)

I see. BTW: My screenshot was so large as to have enough context. There's no reason to change timezone or signature. But, yes, the e-mail options were a suggestion too (if there are no deeper problems with the e-mail settings). What about spam filtering? Is it likely that your e-mail provider blocks the confirmation mails? I'll try it now with my gmail-account, and start a test account on wikiindex for this. --Wolf | talk 00:29, 11 January 2012 (PST)

...no problems found with Testing E-Mail Confirmation ok. The CAPTCHA is very special ;-) Best, Wolf | talk 00:45, 11 January 2012 (PST)

Sorry about the annoyance: did you check it again? Regards, Wolf | talk 13:48, 11 January 2012 (PST)

No worries about messaging me :) — but still sadly not had an e-mail confirmation :/ What is the address of this confirmation e-mail, so I can add it to my 'contacts' in my web-mail, thanks. --Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 14:02, 16 January 2012 (PST)

bummer you are not able to receive an email from the site, the email would be coming from jrs.oregon@gmail ... can you email me at markwdilley@gmail, would like to chat with you off wiki. Best, MarkDilley

you are doing great work here!! get ahold of me when you can. Best, MarkDilley

I think, Hoof Hearted, you should have admin rights. Mark, what do you think? If I only had the rights, the matter would be settled. Wikily, Wolf | talk 00:18, 26 January 2012 (PST)

Blush, and double blush! Mark, you should now have mail (hopefully). Wolf, what can I say . . . thanks for your comments of appreciation and support - but does that mean you want me to do even more work on here? :P Best to you all, --Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 01:20, 26 January 2012 (PST)

I think you work hard enough :-) Best --Wolf | talk 01:25, 26 January 2012 (PST)

Doh! . . . bounced e-mail 'Unrouteable address' markwdilley@gmail - me thinks I messed up. Take two! :/ --Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 03:32, 26 January 2012 (PST)

When changing to inactive template

You don't need to deal with any of the other fields if you don't want to - they are all deactivated. ref. Best, MarkDilley

I am afraid that such changes break the whole semantic framework introduced last year. I strongly recommend not changing the property names. I hope that only a few of such changes occured since they do more damage than good. Cheers --[[kgh]] 12:17, 2 February 2012 (PST)

So do we just leave them as they were when in the 'active wiki' template? Apologies, I forgot what I was doing, I've been out of the loop for a while :( Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 10:25, 30 August 2012 (PDT)

I "tweaked" your rights ;-)

Congratulations!
I hope you are happy about beeing a {{sysop}} now :-)
Best regards --Wolf | talk 13:03, 9 February 2012 (PST)

OMG, oh heck . . . I hope I don't break anything :p !!!
Thanks Wolf, much appreicate your confidence in me, warmest regards :) Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 10:27, 30 August 2012 (PDT)

question about protection of page

Hi, curious why you think there is a need to protect this page? I don't see it being vandalized, and even if it was, I don't see it as a problem in normal Recent Changes patrolling fixes. Look forward to your thoughts on that. Best, MarkDilley

Hi Mark. It was already protected by TeraS (here) - all I changed was the 'move' function to sysops only. Registered users can still edit it as before, they just now can't move it. And I have to confess, I often 'forget' to check the RecentChanges . . . I suppose we all work in different ways. Anyway, if you wish, I can revert my change in protection. Best regards, Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 14:21, 31 August 2012 (PDT)

Many thanks for the update! :-) I missed that it was previously protected - no worries - if I feel like I want to unprotect the whole thing later, I will just be bold :-) RecentChanges is pretty much the first thing I read on most wiki! :-) Best, MarkDilley

Here is another question for me. Doesn't look like that page has been spammed very much, curious about your thinking. Best, MarkDilley

That was spammed really badly on April 2012 (a really massive amount of spam links), and then five times in 2007 - all by IP editors. Granted, I agree it hasn't been spammed 'much' recently - but I feel that Category:All is a 'major' category - effectively a 'front door' to WikiIndex, and it is for this latter reason why I personally think this needs protection (and it is only protected from IP editors - regular logged-in users can still edit). IMVHO - there are just some crucial pages which we should pre-emtively protect. And don't the regular sysops on here have a hard-enough time in keeping on top of the spammers? :-/ Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 08:48, 8 September 2012 (PDT)

For me, an OpenEdit wiki is extremely important. I personally think an open door to new editors is important - that said, I will be fine leaving it protected for now. Cheers, MarkDilley

Harrassment

Yes, just someone trying to isolate me from wiki communities. Best to revert, protect and ignore. Its kind of a stupid thing to do - why would I want to take down a site which freely advertises and links to my wikis. Thanks. Escyos (talk) 13:27, 3 September 2012 (PDT)

Thanks

Hi Hoof Hearted,

I just noticed that you are active again. Thats great :-)
Currently, I've unfortunally not much time for WikiIndex. Best regards, Wolf | talk 00:32, 6 September 2012 (PDT)

Hi Wolf, Vielen Dank für den Dank :-) Good to see that someone is monitoring my work here! Sadly, some real-life challenges have gotten in the way of me spending more time here on WikiIndex . . . hopefully I have some of them back under control now! Herzliche Grüße --Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 01:01, 6 September 2012 (PDT)

Ditto!!! :-D yay!

Thank you for fixing my wikipage up!!! <3

KyuKyu (talk) 15:31, 11 October 2012 (PDT).

Cite

Have you considered installing mw:Extension:Cite? It comes in pretty handy when one is documenting events or otherwise providing links. Thanks for all your hard work on WikiIndex, by the way. It's a quite useful project. Leucosticte (talk) 02:47, 13 September 2012 (PDT)

Hi - yes, WikiIndex is very useful, and interesting - I never new just how many wikis were/are out there!!!

Your comment on the Cite extension should really be addressed to either MarkDilley (who is the site owner), or to Category talk:Active administrators of this wiki; as I'm not a 'crat (just a mere sysop :p ). Personally though, I'm not sure of the importance of the Cite extension - here at WikiIndex, we basically just catalogue other wikis. As yet, we don't need to provide any verifiability here on WikiIndex, we leave the verifiability issue down to the actual wikis themselves. Can you think of any specific instances here on WikiIndex where using footnotes/references would be useful? Thanks for your interesting thoughts though, and keep up your help on here, best regards, Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 03:01, 13 September 2012 (PDT)

An example would the RationalWikiWiki article. Leucosticte (talk) 00:36, 15 November 2012 (PST)

I'm still not convinced we need it (and I'm not being hostile to your suggestion either :-) ). This section touches on what WikiIndex is for, and this disclaimer also sort of reinforces that position. The simplest way to provide 'citation'-types of links is just add a URL in single square brackets, nested within the text. If more generic external links were needed, you can add them under an 'External links' sub-heading (and list them by number using the hash # key, and then add an in-line superscript comment - something like 'see external link No.1'). Best regards, --Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 07:13, 15 November 2012 (PST)

Blocking old IPs

It's been 5 years since any of those IPs vandalized the site, so there is pretty much no chance that they are used by the same person. I personally don't think IP addresses should be banned for more then a month unless there is persistent vandalism over a very long period of time from it.

As for Plasmarelais, I don't think there was any malicious intent involved there - the redirect worked because of the site's interwiki feature. Elassint 14 September 2012

Blocking old IPs . . . yes, I suppose you are correct on that. In my defence, I'm using a netbook, and I often miss the bottom of the page (forget to scroll down) on my woefully small screen. I've noticed that many had been previously blocked for short-term periods. I'll refrain from this from now on. :)

Re Plasmarelais - I'm not at all convinced of any 'innocence'. Plasmarelais is an admin on Wikia - and is no doubt very aware of the intricate nature of combining a 'redirect' with an 'interwiki'. IMVHO, that was quite a sneaky thing to do - and it took me a while to figure out how to 'undo' a new page creation (with no history) which went straight to a hard redirect. The correct and decent thing would be to just have a common-or-garden http:// url to his Wikia page - not the forced redirect! Finally, why just create a forced redirect to another wiki site, but not carry out any constructive editing to this wiki? Rgds Hoof Hearted • talk2HH 13:39, 14 September 2012 (PDT)

E-mail notification subject

Hi Hoof Hearted,
I reverted your change. I hope you will agree with my reasons. Best regards, Wolf | talk 04:30, 17 September 2012 (PDT)

Off Wiki Question

HH, do you have any idea why a MediaWiki installation (1.19.2) would reject an edit with normal words in it through the spam filter when an Admin User was editing it? Is there any means to control the spam filter? Thanks in advance for any clues! TeraS (talk) 19:30, 6 October 2012 (PDT)

You're absolutely right

with your change! My simple goal was only to prevent clashes between text and the infobox. Thanks! --Wolf | talk 05:10, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

Thanks :) We really need an updated screenshot which shows licenses and backup links. :/

Pardon, I don't understand what you mean. Can you give me a further hint? --Wolf | talk 05:36, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

And do you like my colour-coding of the other templates (Template:MultilingualMain, Template:Wiki Engine, Template:Wiki Farm and Template:WeblogPost), and my pictures in Category:Wikis reachable by WikiTourBus and its subcats? Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 05:22, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

The colouring and picture I like. Best --Wolf | talk 05:36, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

The screenshot is the picture at the top of the Template:Wiki page - it looks like it was made in 2006 - long before the Wiki License and backup files were added - are you able to update this please? The 'baloon' descriptions also need updating to show that some of the fields now use formal structured data from Properties and Filters - as defined by the Form:Wiki, Best Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 05:46, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

I can try to update the image, what about the text updates: Would you contribute it (for proper English)? Best --Wolf | talk 08:18, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

I'll gladly help with the text updates - though they should be similar to the help ones in the Form:Wiki - if you use this to create a 'dummy' or test new wiki, you should see the help texts from the blue question mark icons. I'll pass on the image though - my graphics design skills are zero! :( Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 08:24, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

Ok: Form:Wiki is the source of the texts - some are rather expansive... I'll try the Image... later... --Wolf | talk 08:41, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

I suppose the Form:Wiki texts need to be expansive because it does not rely on the picture! And the Form will also be used for less proficient editors - whereas the Template:Wiki with the picture will be used by more experienced editors - so the text can be trimmed appropriately. :) Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 10:19, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

This is my today's draft (see above). What do you think? --Wolf | talk 15:45, 12 October 2012 (PDT)

Are you the owner?

I have a question. Inquisitor Ehrenstein (talk) 14:09, 18 October 2012 (PDT)

Nah, I'm just a lowly sysop! :p MarkDilley is the owner of WikiIndex. Any of the active sysops should be able to answer general questions, so you can try me if you like, or leave Mark a message if you prefer. Best regards, Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 01:49, 19 October 2012 (PDT)

think their edit was ok

It was on their account page, showed who there were - so I think this edit your reverted was ok. :-) My two cents. Best, MarkDilley

Tags etc

Hi Hoof Hearted. Thanks for your updates to my page on LGBT History UK. A couple of questions:

You've changed my categories to tags. Could you possibly explain what the difference is, as I can't find any documentation about this?
I notice that some Wikis (including LGBT History UK) don't show up in the list of pages for a particular category/tag when I'm logged out, but do when I 'm logged in. Can you explain this, please?

Thanks - Ross Burgess (talk) 23:23, 30 October 2012 (PDT)

Hi Ross. The long answer to your first question on tags is here - Template talk:Tag. The short answer is basically because WikiIndex is merely an index, we don't have conventional articles in the main namespace - we generally use categories for non-wiki specific info, hence why we use tags to wikilink categories within the prose of the text, rather than a meaningless list at the bottom of the page.

For your second point . . . I have absolutely no idea! :( I'm also aware of the differing look between when I'm logged in and logged out - but wasn't sure it that was simply due to my browser (Maxthon). Maybe if you leave a note at Category talk:Active administrators of this wiki, maybe one of the MediaWiki geeks might be able to answer that question.

Thanks for your contributions, and best regards, Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 04:18, 31 October 2012 (PDT)

Latest downtime

Hi Sean, I get notified when site goes down - that is about all I see. Currently it is pretty infrequent. Best, MarkDilley

Thanks ...

... for adding the Babel boxes to my user page. :) I gather you are sysop on WikiIndex. Could you please also help me authenticating my email address? I did not receive the authentication mail. So, I tried to re-send it, to no avail. Is there anything I or you can do in order to fix this? Thanks, again! --Aschmidt (talk) 16:56, 18 November 2012 (PST)

Hi, glad you liked the babel boxes, you are very welcome. :)

Yes, I am a sysop, but not a bureaucrat . . . so sadly, I'm not able to help you with any account related problems (which include e-mail authentication). I too have never recieved any e-mail authentication, so I too can't use e-mail here on WikiIndex! :( There are two fairly active 'crats who might be able to help - you could try either MarkDilley or Wolf Peuker. Best regards, and thanks for your contributions, :) --Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 03:41, 19 November 2012 (PST)

Sean, how does being a bureaucrat help with solving this issue? Best, MarkDilley

Canonical interwiki prefixes

Here's an essay I wrote concerning standardization of interwiki prefixes. Development of InterwikiMap is proceeding briskly; after it passes code review at WMF's Git repository, I'll start deploying it more widely. Meanwhile, I want to create a standardized list of interwiki prefixes for propagation across the wikisphere. I'm hoping that the proper prefix will be pretty obvious for most of those 20,000 wikis, but I haven't yet delved deeply into it because some data is currently processing. Maybe later today I'll be able to take a closer look.

Right now, the InterwikiMap extension only propagates and retrieves prefixes and URLs. I think it should also handle other site information — basically, everything we can get our hands on that might be useful. I started a list at mw:Extension:InterwikiMap/Data. This extension will extend the API to both make more data available (e.g. for use by bots that could help update Wikiindex pages with new statistics, if you want to allow those on your site) and to retrieve such data from other wikis). A wiki could also create a custom filter saying that it wants to, say, only include prefixes that either are of a wikifactor 10 or better, or are on the whitelist. This could be rather powerful when all the functionality has been developed, and make some pretty useful improvements to Wikiindex possible. Please let me know if you have some ideas for functionality that should go in the extension. Thanks. Leucosticte (talk) 10:15, 20 November 2012 (PST)

LGBT History Project

Hi Hoof Hearted. Thanks for the suggestion. I've added a WikiNode. --Ross Burgess (talk) 16:01, 20 November 2012 (PST)

You're welcome :) You might also want to consider joining the WikiTourBus project. Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 07:49, 25 November 2012 (PST)

Special:ReplaceText

If you want to replace MediaWiki with Wikia as the engine in all wikia articles then that is the feature to use, there's no reason to mess around with bots.

Special:ReplaceText will only work on one string of text - my issue would need to look at two strings, but replace just one . . . so I can't see how that would work????? Or have I missed something? :/ <<<confused.com>>>

Frankly I don't see how Wikia counts as its own engine however, it's just MediaWiki with an ugly skin and some features. Elassint 24 November 2012

Wikia may be based on MediaWiki, but it is so uniquely modified to the extent that no other host or provider can display the same as Wikia - hence why it should be differenciated from traditional MediaWiki sites. MediaWiki has spawned many clones (and not all MediaWiki look-alikes are written in PHP), and those are recognised as a wiki engine in their own right. Indeed, WikiMatrix now lists Wikia as a separate engine here (sadly, WikiMatrix seems offline at the moment). To list all individual Wikia wikis in the category:MediaWiki is highly distorting, especially to those genuine MediaWiki sites, and especially when emijrp finishes his bot trawl through all 200,000 Wikias. IMVHO, I would suggest that it is best to index Wikia wikis under a Wikia wiki engine (especially as there are over 200,000 of them!), and keep the Wikia category a sub-category of MediaWiki. Best regards, --Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 00:56, 25 November 2012 (PST)

Data

Hi Hoof, I started creating a wikitable of all of WikiIndex's data: http://meta.inclumedia.org/wiki/User:Nathan_Larson/Wikitable My intent was to then gather even more data, by polling all of those wikis' APIs for their site info, and add that to the table as well. However, as the size of the table increases, it becomes unmanageable for MediaWiki. I think the software just wasn't designed to handle tables (or pages) of that size.

Therefore, what I will do is create a clone version of WikiIndex that allows large amounts of data to be accessed in the way that MediaWiki's designers intended, which was through templates and categories. So, I will significantly revise Template:Wiki to include the stuff that I need. And then you guys can look at it and see what aspects of that, if any, you want to incorporate into your site.

There is quite a lot of data out there, if you want it. My suggestion would be to use collapsible sections in the wiki template, like what you see in the mw:Template:Extension template that is used in pages like mw:Extension:InterwikiMap or mw:Extension:FlaggedRevs. Notice how you can expand a lengthy list of parameters, hooks, etc. Each of those hook (hook1, hook2, etc.) also puts the page in the appropriate category. We could do the same with languages, for those wikis that have more than one language, as well as other kinds of data. There is a lot of potential to make it easier for people to find wikis meeting various criteria that they're interested in.

Using bots, it shouldn't be too hard to maintain, either. I'm going to create the prototype and put all the bot code out there along with instructions on how to use it. That way, if I get hit by a bus, you still have it. Or we could just skip it and move straight to working on interwiki prefixes. Leucosticte (talk) 22:43, 24 November 2012 (PST)

Search bar

I think it would be cool to put on the Template:Wiki a search bar that lets you type in, say, "Barack Obama" and see that wiki's article on that subject. That way, users interested in seeing what a wiki has to say about a particular topic could find out quickly, in one step rather than two. However, I think I would have to write a new extension to implement that functionality, and MarkDilley would have to install it. Leucosticte (talk) 05:44, 29 November 2012 (PST)

That's a radical suggestion . . . can you point me to any wikis which use that type of infobox, so I can check it out. I fear installing any new extensions might be a stumbling block though - especially if they arn't 'stable extensions' which are say used by Wikipedia. Sean, aka Hoof Hearted • _Admin • talk2HH 09:40, 29 November 2012 (PST)

Oh, this would be quite cutting-edge, I think. Regrettably, someone or another has to volunteer to be the guinea pig. OK, check this out:

http://en.rationalwikiwikiwiki.org/wiki/Mises_Wiki — No search bar
http://en.rationalwikiwikiwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia — Conservapedia search bar
http://en.rationalwikiwikiwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki — RationalWiki search bar

Notice how it works. There is this slightly modified template which has a modified InputBox tag near the bottom. Notice one of the parameters is urlparameter=search URL. So, on pages like RationalWiki where the Wiki template is transcluded, you put, e.g., search URL=http://rationalwiki.org/w/ and it knows where to go when it's searching. What do you think? I think it could be handy for users. Leucosticte (talk) 14:39, 29 November 2012 (PST)