Last modified: 2010-06-21 17:33:57 UTC

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Bug 2432 - reference to a field in an article
reference to a field in an article
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: MediaWiki
Classification: Unclassified
General/Unknown (Other open bugs)
1.4.x
PC Windows XP
: Normal enhancement with 1 vote (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
:
Depends on:
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2005-06-17 08:44 UTC by philippe.vigneau
Modified: 2010-06-21 17:33 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments

Description philippe.vigneau 2005-06-17 08:44:14 UTC
Hi

this is a lack in wikipedia : I cannot reference a field written in an article A
in an article B...

for example : in the article "California" I've written the population. And in
the article "List of the US states" I want to add a line for the state
California with its population without rewriting the same information as in the
article "California"

would it be possible in the next release ?...

thanks for your answer

Philippe
Comment 1 Rowan Collins [IMSoP] 2005-06-17 13:42:14 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> would it be possible in the next release ?...

No. What you're asking for is the ability to use the wiki as a kind of database
- accessing "fields" of data from one article for automatic update in another;
the software currently has no inkling of "fields" or individual items of data
within a page, only that there are pages with text on them. There has been
discussion towards implementing such facilities - see for example
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata - but this is a large undertaking,
fundamentally changing the way the software works, so is unlikely to arrive any
time soon.
Comment 2 philippe.vigneau 2005-06-17 13:54:29 UTC
Wikidata is maybe a huge work from mediawiki... and maybe not what I want...

but maybe it is easier to reference field from a model

for example :
{{state of US|pop=100000|sky=blue|sun=shinning}}

is it to hard to reference the field "pop" from the model "state of US" in any
kind of page ?... doesn't seem so hard....


Philippe
Comment 3 Rowan Collins [IMSoP] 2005-06-17 14:28:41 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> but maybe it is easier to reference field from a model
> 
> for example :
> {{state of US|pop=100000|sky=blue|sun=shinning}}
> 
> is it to hard to reference the field "pop" from the model "state of US" in any
> kind of page ?... doesn't seem so hard....

Probably. The database doesn't store the paramaters passed to templates
("modèles") anywhere, only what pages they are used on. So the software can
determine that a page containing "{{state of
US|pop=100000|sky=blue|sun=shinning}}" refers to "Template:State of US", but
without examining the whole page (which would be hopelessly inefficient) not
that it passes it the parameter "pop=100000". Obviously, this data *could* be
stored in the database in some way, and this is simpler than some of the more
ambitious plans involved in Erik's Wikidata proprosal, but it's not trivial. 

See also this recent conversation thread on Wikitech-l:
* http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-May/029785.html
And also this older one:
* http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2004-March/021553.html
Comment 4 philippe.vigneau 2005-06-17 14:34:13 UTC
external links : exactly what I suggest ! 

do you plan to add this table in the future release ?... this would be a huge
great enhancement !... 

do you think it would be ok for the 1.5 ?....


Philippe
Comment 5 Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 2005-06-17 15:03:17 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> do you think it would be ok for the 1.5 ?....

No

Comment 6 philippe.vigneau 2005-06-17 15:04:53 UTC
what a shame !... 

Philippe , :(
Comment 7 Rowan Collins [IMSoP] 2005-06-17 18:23:12 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> do you plan to add this table in the future release ?... this would be a huge
> great enhancement !... 

I should have said, note particularly the *last* post in that thread, Erik's
response: http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-May/029823.html

Specifically, this bit:
> When I've finished the specs [...] I'll send out a call for open participation. 
> I'd like to ask you to be patient until then with your own implementation.

Since he's put a lot of thought and work into this, it's unlikely that a
cut-down version will be rushed out any time soon. 
And like I say, that approach would be *easier*, but it wouldn't be in any sense
*trivial*, or even in itself "easy".
Comment 8 Max Semenik 2010-06-21 17:33:57 UTC
This essentially requests what Semantic MediaWiki does, closing.

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