Last modified: 2010-06-21 17:33:57 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
(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.
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
(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
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
(In reply to comment #4) > do you think it would be ok for the 1.5 ?.... No
what a shame !... Philippe , :(
(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".
This essentially requests what Semantic MediaWiki does, closing.
