User:Mcint/WikiMaxxing
I'm on-boarding myself to more extensive wiki use. I've come across some features on Wikipedia that make it more a of delight to use and navigate. I'd like to document those features here (separated, or tagged by reader vs. editor benefitting), and encourage others to try them out.
Note well
Recommendations
Hello other users of the wiki!
I recommend, in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, the Navigation popups
and section link
(URL fragment) gadgets, to help you get around more easily and link more precisely for others.
If you're going to edit the wiki frequently, there's a "double-click to edit" preference as well, and an EditTop gadget for editing just the lead section, the introductory section before any headers.
Differences
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Differences_between_Wikipedia,_Wikimedia,_MediaWiki,_and_wiki
Preferences
- Auto-number sections
- (TODO: links to section head from self, not just from page's table of contents).
Trying out
Shortcuts
- When editing, with editor open:
ctrl-opt-p
- preview,ctrl-opt-s
- save, (ctrl-opt-v
- show changes/diff)
- When browsing, go to your own userpage: Special:Mypage with
ctrl-opt-.
.
- In editing or browsing context: Toggle watchlist with
ctrl-opt-w
.
Idioms
Code - not quite quoting
- For code, literal or copyable text, or config files, useful variants include:
<tt> / <code>
/
<pre>
Folding
mw:Manual:Collapsible_elements describes
Add the class mw-collapsible to any element (div, table, list, anything) to trigger it.
mw:Manual:Collapsible_elements#With_specified_collapsible_part
Quoting: Quote template & Blockquote html
Gadgets
Pages for testing, viewing, & changing your experience:
- (Test page, outside the special namespaces).
- Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets
- Special:Gadgets: View-only list of gadgets in 3 parts: (bullet), 1) description, (Edit/Export), 2,3) Uses files: js / css.
Try yourself
You can add your own, via your Special:Mypage/common.js (or Special:Mypage/global.js).
JS was enabled for the wiki per MW Manual with $wgAllowUserJs = true;
Enable for all
Relevant links, open these first. Note Namespaces / Prefixes and Gadget(s). In order least-to-most sensitive:
- (Test page, outside the special namespaces).
- Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets
- Special:Gadgets: View-only list of gadgets in 3 parts: (bullet), 1) description, (Edit/Export), 2,3) Uses files: js / css.
- MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition : Edit this. List of name/key, dependencies, js, css. Copy definitions from another wiki. (Or figure out how to write them, and talk about it!)
Constituents of Gadget-vector-headanchor, as an example:
- See Special:Gadgets
- MediaWiki:Gadget-vector-headanchor - display description
- MediaWiki:Gadget-vector-headanchor.js - filename (incidental named well, implying scope)
- MediaWiki:Gadget-vector-headanchor.css - filename (incidental named well, implying scope)
Instructions:
- Find Gadget worth trying on another wiki. MediaWiki & Wikipedia have numerous and well-used samples.
- (Try it via the person route above User:Mcint/WikiMaxxing#Try_yourself. If you like it, and think it should be shared, talk it over in Slack#wiki or Discord# ? metaguild?, and continue.)
- Open Special:Gadgets
- Copy definition string from other wiki's Special:Gadgets into this one, Special:Gadgets.
- Follow the new linked definition files and create the pages, copying over the contents.
- Check all are loaded.
- Open your Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. Enable. Hard refresh an appropriate page to test it.
- Confirm it works & nothing else is obviously broken.
- Congrats!
Features
Wants
- QR Code generated for each page, for printing / easy UX linking back to page
- https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:QRLite
- Big list: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/QR_Codes
- Shorturl would be nice
nburl.net/w/[wiki url]
? For better, simpler QR codes
- References section - extract all URLs (or external links) into references footer section
- Better editors
- Visual Editor (maybe via/after an upgrade. IDK if requires some mw version), as available at least on Wikipedia, Mediawiki.
- Side by side editing, no scrolling to find edit textbox, nor preview (or live preview).
- Better spam handling
- Deleted 50k spam users, which had not made edits.
- Special:ConfirmAccounts. Approving manually, ha (manually, poorly, 1743 in queue in ~ 2 weeks. 1 approved. ?# legitimate but unapproved.), as of 07:06, 4 June 2023 (UTC).
- Special:SpecialPages / section: Special:SpecialPages#Users_and_rights
- Special:ActiveUsers aka "Active users list". 30 days, rolling, activity.
- Captchas have been in place, but have been computer solvable since ~2012. Accounts & edits bypass proper Google Captchas.
- IRL password (like gate code) or reading-comprehension-required as visible on https://safespace.noisebridge.net
- Tools:
- External Links from wiki: search *
- User list Special:ListUsers.
- Format, spam identification.
Username (Many spam, not all, have FirstLast123, fit in elsewhere) |
( talk (good, rare if present) |
contribs (** major determinant of spam/ban-worthy. Navigation popups allow at-a-glance mouseover viewing |
block ) (is action-link) |
(groups,...) if part of any, good sign of real/approved. confirmed/autoconfirmed just mean 3+ day old account, clicked emailed link - low signal groups. |
(Created [datetime]) :shrug:
|
- Permissions, mediawiki internal, API below user group permissions?, Special:ListGrants
Done!
...at least a little
- Popup things
- NavigationPopups (and beyond the (Article:) namespace).
- Extension:Popups
- Extension:Popups
- (Done) Page Previews
- (Done) Extension:Popups
- (Done) Extension:TextExtracts (MediaWiki 1.37+ - installed older version.) I'll gladly help with a MediaWiki upgrade at some point. Would be nice to build from nix.
- (Done) Extension:PageImages
- (Done) Extension:Popups
- Reference Tooltips
- MoreMenu
- NavigationPopups (and beyond the (Article:) namespace).