Features I would like on the Ubuntu wiki

[Henrik Nilsen Omma]

>
> As raising as the CC meeting, here are some things I would like on the
> Ubuntu wiki:
>
> Things to make my life easier:
> 1. Talk pages for all pages, not searched by default
>   
Talk pages can be made with a /talk sub-page. These have been used a bit 
in the past but haven't been very popular or very useful. The 
accessibility of such pages could be made better by adding a 'Discuss' 
link to the skin that would take you off to that page.

One alternative would be to use a PageComment macro to collect comments, 
either on the page itself or on a /talk sub-page. See it used here: 
http://www.theopencd.org/forum/lounge/testing

If we used this macro it would be fairly simple to disable searching of 
the comments, just hack the search feature to skip pages ending in 
/PageCommentData
> 2. Notification to a user to their talk page if it is edited, via
> email as well as in wiki.
>   
If someone sets up the page comment macro on their user page I guess 
they could then subscribe to the WikiName/PageCommentData page, which 
should provide this functionality.

The one worry I have about adding these features is that it turns the 
wiki into something of a forum which would dramatically increase the 
data contained in it over a fairly short time and that may lower 
performance drastically.

> 3. The ability to filter recent changes by the following criteria -
> Categories, Edits by a user, a list that users choose (watchlist)
>   
So this requires some moin development work. I'm not sure how big the 
job is. Perhaps you can start by suggesting it here: 
http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/FeatureRequests/
> 4. Listing of users in RecentChanges and Get Info to be links always,
> with a link to their talk pages
>   
When are they not links? When the person doesn't have a wiki page, 
right? In that case would you suggest auto-creating a page for them when 
they register? That would dramatically increase the number of wiki pages.
> 5. Change "Show changes" to "Show last change" and "Get Info" to "History"
>   
I agree with the second one. There is also a case for removing "Show 
Changes" altogether, since "Get Info" has that functionality.
> 6. Add buttons  labelled "Move" and "Delete" beside the above, out of
> the drop down list
>   
This sounds a bit like a power-user feature. I'm not sure making it 
trivial to delete a page via a single click is always a good thing. 
Also, I'm generally hesitant about clogging up the interface with too 
many direct links. Clean design takes discipline ;)

What we could do is make a power-user / editor skin that had extended 
functionality. You would then simply select a different skin from 
UserPreferences
> 7. Merge text and title search to both, by default
>   
That can be done, as is currently the case on the Ubuntu website. Text 
search also searches titles by default. I agree that the interface would 
be cleaner with this change. I guess the title search is not very 
useful, or?
> 8. Better handling of images and attachments, where they are their own
> first class object, ala the Image: namespace in Mediawiki
>   
Why is this useful? It let's you store meta-data about the image; 
anything else?
> Things to make docs better:
> 1. A slideshow thing, ala http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4731266.stm
>
>   
There is a slide function in Moin: 
http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/HelpOnSlideShows

Does that do what you want?

- Henrik