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Wikipedia: Sandbox

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Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#12

Post by notpushkin »

bawolff wrote: post #9
firasd wrote: post #6

It's interesting to think about how complex the wikipedia text is compared to something like github flavored markdown or even standard html tables (although I guess it eventually renders into standard html so it's not more complex than the latter when all other html elements are considered in addition to ) For example the swatch internet time infobox is dynamically updated {{short description|Alternate time system by…

I always found it ironic that the table syntax is designed to resemble ascii-art type tables, and then literally nobody writes it in a way that looks like an ascii art table.

Yeah, because it’s a PITA to align everything by hand.

But the spaces around | make it easier to read, than, say, CSV.

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#14

Post by fao_ »

notpushkin wrote: post #12
bawolff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found it ironic that the table syntax is designed to resemble ascii-art type tables, and then literally nobody writes it in a way that looks like an ascii art table.

Yeah, because it’s a PITA to align everything by hand. But the spaces around | make it easier to read, than, say, CSV.

Honestly it continually surprises me how people forget about TSV

It's the perfect format, more or less! CSV, but no difficulty around commas, and the only major risk being an editor that converts tabs to spaces

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#15

Post by anthonyIPH »

Tried to edit on my mobile (T-Mobile - US) and got this:

  Your IP address has been blocked     from editing Wikipedia.

  Blocked by Xaosflux

  Block will expire in 7 months
Curiosity led me to Xaosflux's Wikipedia page where I see they have been active since 2005 with over 85k edits!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Xaosflux

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#16

Post by chungy »

bityard wrote: post #11

Pretty much all wikis would have a "Sandbox" page for trying out that particular wiki's individual syntax and features.

I'd wager that most wikis use the MediaWiki software, which is what Wikipedia runs on.

One particular thing that comes to mind though, is that Fossil (https://fossil-scm.org/) has a private local-only sandbox: https://fossil-scm.org/home/wikiedit?name=Sandbox. It saves to your browser's persistent storage, but never on the server.

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#17

Post by decimalenough »

stogot wrote: post #7
firasd wrote: post #6

It's interesting to think about how complex the wikipedia text is compared to something like github flavored markdown or even standard html tables (although I guess it eventually renders into standard html so it's not more complex than the latter when all other html elements are considered in addition to ) For example the swatch internet time infobox is dynamically updated {{short description|Alternate time system by…

I’ve spent countless hours at employers fixing Xwiki syntax errors mixed with HTML. The parsing engine must be complex

That's putting it lightly, since Mediawiki templates are Turing-complete.

I'm not up to speed on my parsers anymore, but I believe Parsoid remains the most complete implementation, while mwlib is a reasonable compromise.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Alternative_parsers#Known_imp...

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#18

Post by echelon »

notpushkin wrote: post #12
bawolff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found it ironic that the table syntax is designed to resemble ascii-art type tables, and then literally nobody writes it in a way that looks like an ascii art table.

Yeah, because it’s a PITA to align everything by hand. But the spaces around | make it easier to read, than, say, CSV.

> Yeah, because it’s a PITA to align everything by hand.

For now. I get the feeling we'll have tooling everywhere that does this soon.

I was recently tab-completing a Markdown table and whatever autocomplete model I had just fixed the table up without any intervention.

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#19

Post by pixel_popping »

anthonyIPH wrote: post #15

Tried to edit on my mobile (T-Mobile - US) and got this: Your IP address has been blocked from editing Wikipedia. Blocked by Xaosflux Block will expire in 7 months Curiosity led me to Xaosflux's Wikipedia page where I see they have been active since 2005 with over 85k edits! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Xaosflux

I've had the desire to contribute so many times, but each time I was blocked. I don't think Wikipedia accurately measures how much contribution they lose because of the hostile treatment of new editors and what I believe are poorly implemented editing policies. Their policies likely haven't been revised since a decade or more, they should do a survey about it.

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#20

Post by hmry »

fao_ wrote: post #14
notpushkin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because it’s a PITA to align everything by hand. But the spaces around | make it easier to read, than, say, CSV.

Honestly it continually surprises me how people forget about TSV It's the perfect format, more or less! CSV, but no difficulty around commas, and the only major risk being an editor that converts tabs to spaces

I agree it's great, but that risk is so major that I stopped using it. "There's a 50% chance that your editor will invisibly corrupt the data you enter, and another 30% chance to corrupt the entire file" is just not usable...

Especially in Zed where the only way to switch hard tabs is buried in the settings menu, and impossible to change per buffer.

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