Last modified: 2011-04-14 15:13:52 UTC
In Wikipedia there is a problem that occurs very often. A user wants to move Article A to Destination B and Copies & Pastes it, thereby the Version-History goes lost which is an offend to the GNU-FDL (and other license-modells). That problem has been solved technically, the "move"-feature was introduced that also moves the version history etc. My idea now is, that {{subst:}} should do the same, let me explain why: If often occurs that a passage from one article has to be moved to another article. At the time you have to copy (or cut) that passage and paste it into the other article. If the passage is long enough that it can be protected this will be the same offend to the GNU-FDL as the above. Most users don't know about this, even if they are aware of the problem as mentioned above. The solution to the "skilled" user is to add a note where he got it into the "summary / sources" what-youve-done-version summary, linking the article where he got it via a wiki link (this is possible). But that's a bit annoying :) The more important thing is that if you include something via subst: basically the same problem occurs, but here most of the users are even more unaware as {{subst:}} is a part of MediaWiki (or WIkipedia for them) and it is not believed to produce licensing-breaking situations. So my feature-request is that {{subst:}}-includings automatically add an additional explanation to the version-history, auto linking where it was substituted from. To be usefull {{subst:}} needs to be able to include other pages partly, for example via "article#section". Example: <Page A> =C= ccc =D= ddd </Page A> <Page B> {{subst:Page_A#C}} </Page B> so Page B will be: "ccc" (i've testet this in current [[:de:Benutzer:Warhog/Sandbox|German Wikipedia]] where it does not work, so i guess it isnt implemented yeat (i'm speaking of the {{subst:article#section}}-behaviour}}. I've filed the bug having high priority as i believe that this is an important feature. (Bug #6785)
The bug #6785 which i mentioned above in my last chars is the bug that bug depends on. just a few more words on this bug: With that new behaviour {{subst:}} would be the ideal tool to manage such partly movings (for such lazy peopla as me). Further detailed Example: Recently there was an article in our Wikipedia that had grown over time as most of them do ;) . It was a sports article, desribing the sport and a few tournaments. As the article grew there were very much facts added which where in the wrong place there. As the article became very huge those details and facts were moved to other pages. Imagine an article about soccer/football having all the information of the FIFA World Cup. You'll surely move that information to an own article "FIFA World Cup 2006" or something like that (like it is in fact practically done). Would you think of the licensing problems? Using {{subst:}} that would be no problem. If the article about soccer/football had an own section "FIFA World Cup 2006" you'll simply create the Article "FIFA World Cup 2006" with {{subst:Soccer/Football#FIFA_World_Cup_2006}}. If there is no such section you simply create one. Later on you can remove that if necessary. I hope you all got the point - plaese excuse my maybely not-so-well english.
This bug doesn't have to do with either bug 6785 or bug 6787. Either could be implemented without this, and this could be implemented without either. And while I agree that the underlying copyright issue is important, let's let the devs set the priority.
*** Bug 16444 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
