Last modified: 2005-06-19 12:56:16 UTC
Hallo! After some thousand edits at different test wiki's I experienced the need to identify pages where a special template (or page) is included. Neither [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:foo]] nor [[Special:Recentchangeslinked/Template:foo]] provides this information. The toolbox item would be extremly helpful to provide a workaround / to overcome some / many of the reported bugs. See: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2098#c3 at bug 2098: "action=purge and categories - implement a more effectiv action=update or action=rebuild" It could be implemented in showing a) inclusions in other templates no "restrictions" b) inclusions in other pages At bug 2307: "atribute OVERHEAD for each page;" I tried to forsee what would happen with a "Special:Whatincludesthis" and some templates required to build another one. To continue the OVERHEAD idea the main benefit would be / have been to be able to filter these templates out and to show them if a the appropriate checkox is activated. Best regards Reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]
Am I right in thinking that what you are actually requesting here is a page which shows what *includes* a [Template] page, rather than what *links to* it? Effectively, some kind of "Special:Whatincludesthis" page, or a switch on Special:Whatlinkshere. The main problem at the moment (and the reason that Special:Whatlinkshere currently shows these inclusions as well as normal links) is that these aren't distinguished in the database; that is bug 1065, and until that is fixed, there is no way of implementing such a tool. Once the database stores the difference appropriately, it will become a pretty obvious (and simple) step to make the tool, since inclusions will no longer show up on the existing Special:Whatlinkshere display. If I'm right in this interpretation, however: * what does your "OVERHEAD attribute" have to do with this? * what is the provided URL intended to demonstrate?
in response to comment 1 > If I'm right in this interpretation, however: > * what does your "OVERHEAD attribute" have to do with this? > * what is the provided URL intended to demonstrate? Hi Rowan! A better example we can look *now* to understand "OVERHEAD attribute" would be looking for "Templates used on this page:" at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Patrick&action=edit http://test.leuksman.com/index.php?title=Bugzilla_2307&action=edit http://jadesukka.homelinux.org:8180/mediawiki15c/index.php?title=Bugzilla_2307&action=edit I wonder why the lasts are so short and to what level nested templates are processed for that list. Please compare with the included temlates at http://jadesukka.homelinux.org:8180/golem/Yiddish where I decided to make only "template inclusions". Special:Whatincludesthis would be "the other way around". Instead of displaying a large amout of overhead templates / pages only *the relevant* would be displayed. b) The "Template:TOC_etc" from the URL is a template I used quite often 70 - 100 times (see Special:Contributions. I wondered why the "Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:TOC_etc" was showing only two pages. Regards Reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]
(In reply to comment #2) > Special:Whatincludesthis would be "the other way around". Instead of displaying > a large amout of overhead templates / pages only *the relevant* would be displayed. This rather begs the question "relevant for what/whom?" I think the main problem with an overhead attribute is that it over-simplifies this kind of thing - in different contexts, *different* things are "overhead". It seems more sensible to use existing information to filter on, such as namespaces - e.g. if you don't want to see Templates, hide things in the Template namespace. If the choice of 18 or so namespaces (and the ability to create new ones) doesn't offer a precise enough way of separating these things, how is a choice of 2 states ("overhead" versus "not overhead") going to help? > I wonder why the lasts are so short and to what level nested templates are > processed for that list. [...] > b) The "Template:TOC_etc" from the URL is a template I used quite often 70 - 100 > times (see Special:Contributions. I wondered why the > "Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:TOC_etc" was showing only two pages. That appears to be some kind of bug, unrelated to this discussion - for some reason Template:TOC_etc and others aren't showing up properly in the "What links here" and "Templates used on this page" lists, presumably because they're not being entered in the link table properly. This is rather worrying, and should probably be investigated.
in response to comment 3 > "relevant for what/whom?" Wikis live through communities. Decisions and policies should be made together. Only a community can say if it wants to see (*by default*) *all* the included templates at http://jadesukka.homelinux.org:8180/mediawikirtl/index.php?title=%D7%99%D7%99%D6%B4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%A9_-_Yiddish&action=edit (sorry bugzilla will probably break this link) or not. In the next version of Temlate:Task inclusions will be made *only* trough templates. This means that http://jadesukka.homelinux.org:8180/mediawiki15c/index.php?title=Betawiki:Templates/Template:Task&action=edit would show about five time the number of templates as displayed now. My question is: Is this informative or not? Again only the community can answer this. Please look also at http://jadesukka.homelinux.org:8180/betawiki/Kuva:Special_wantedpages_01.jpg where many "backlinks" to "foo/stealth lonks" where used. I heared that [[de:]] used them for a long time and there might be good reasons for that. Example: Some months ago I compared [[eo:Special:Whatlinkshere/Lingvo]] (language) with the list(s) of languages in order to add all to a new category language. Many of the relevant articles did not contain this word so wikifying without adding new content / sentences was not a simple task. My personal opinion is that stealth links can help, also in "stubs" at emerging wikis. What I want to say is that there are many methods to find a page but often you need to make more the one attempt. Newbies would stop after the first unsuccessful attempt. Again the questions is "what is reasonable" and the answer is not simple. After 7.000 edits at the test wikis I saw that not all sitiations can be handled the same way. There might be a recommend way do do "what was done until doday" in 80%-90% of the edits. To do somthing *new* implicates by definition modifications. That is darvinism and evolution. But that is philosophy. Regards Reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]
(In reply to comment #4) > in response to comment 3 > > "relevant for what/whom?" > > Wikis live through communities. Decisions and policies should be made together. Fair enough; I guess my concern was that a simple "yes or no" attribute would not be flexible enough to reflect the different kinds of filtering that might be useful - which would tend to vary depending what task the user was carrying out, rather than following any fixed pattern. > Only a community can say if it wants to see (*by default*) *all* the included > templates at > http://jadesukka.homelinux.org:8180/mediawikirtl/index.php?title=%D7%99%D7%99%D6%B4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%A9_-_Yiddish&action=edit It looks to me like most of the "templates used" in that example are actually only linked to (the database can't tell the difference), but I take your point (and your next example is more to the point) - it might be useful to filter those lists somehow. Although it would seem to me that basically *all* templates are "overhead"? The purpose of the "templates used in this page" list is, quite simply, to provide clickable links to bits of content that show up on the page but aren't directly edittable; it's a convenience thing, and also reduces the confusion new editors have that they don't know what to edit. It seems to me that hiding some of them again would reintroduce that very confusion; better layout than a list when there are lots would certainly look less ugly, though! :) > Please look also at > http://jadesukka.homelinux.org:8180/betawiki/Kuva:Special_wantedpages_01.jpg > where many "backlinks" to "foo/stealth lonks" where used. I heared that [[de:]] > used them for a long time and there might be good reasons for that. I don't understand why you'd ever want to do this; if you want something to link to a page, why would you link instead to another page with a similar but different name? And if you want to add links purely for the purpose of looking up their backlinks, that's what [[Category: links are for, surely? Then you don't need a special "stealth links"/"overhead" marker, because they're all neatly contained in the Category namespace. (As for them not showing up in Wantedpages - just create them! Create them blank - or, more logically, as a redirect to the thing they're supposedly "stealth links" for.) > Example: Some months ago I compared [[eo:Special:Whatlinkshere/Lingvo]] > (language) with the list(s) of languages in order to add all to a new category > language. Many of the relevant articles did not contain this word so wikifying > without adding new content / sentences was not a simple task. What was wrong with just adding the category tag? Isn't that the whole point of categories? And if a page doesn't mention a particular word then it *shouldn't* show up on the Whatlinkshere list; and the other way around, too: if the article is improved by a link to the term, then it should mention that term. > Newbies would stop after the first unsuccessful attempt. I'm lost; are we still talking about "stealth links" here? How do they help anyone find anything? "What links here" is never going to be a reliable way of finding related articles, except in a kind of "browsing randomly" kind of a way. For logical organisation of related topics, we have built-in category support. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the whole point. Can you give a simple summary of what "stealth links" are, and what problem they are intended to solve? [We're well off the topic of this bug, but never mind]
This bug (and others) could be easily solved by modifying the link table to include what kind of links exists, as well as from what page.
(In reply to comment #6) > This bug (and others) could be easily solved by modifying the link table to > include what kind of links exists, as well as from what page. *nods* hence marked dependency on bug 1065
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 1065 ***
explaining open item from comment 2 at bug 2456: "Templates used on this page:" is not updated (properly) while a page is changed refers here
