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Wikipedia: Sandbox

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Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#31

Post by Inityx »

sph wrote: post #28
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…

Day 1: we’ll adopt a simple markup language because our users are not programmers Day 2: our users have complicated needs so we’ll basically reinvent Lisp expressions, but worse. Day N: whatever this markup language is —— I’ve seen this happen so many times it’s not even funny anymore. Well, at least it’s not YAML.

> so we’ll basically reinvent Lisp expressions, but worse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#32

Post by jbaber »

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.

Often enough I just make a regular html table, the 'pandoc -f html -t mediawiki' or 'pandoc -f html -t markdown' as the case may be.

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#34

Post by bawolff »

saagarjha wrote: post #30
bawolff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically this just means you have to create an account. Mobile ips are often blocked because of the sheer amount of spam and they switch so much that its difficult to block individual offenders.

They block logged in users too.

Sometimes yes, but usually not at a mass range level except in extreme circumstances.

The block in this case appears to be this one: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalBlockList?targ...

In that specific case, logged in users are still allowed, however you cannot create new accounts when visiting from that range, so you have to already have an account, or go somewhere else to create one.

The error message blocked users get should link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Advice_to_T-Mobile_I... with more info on how to still edit.

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#35

Post by bawolff »

sph wrote: post #28
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…

Day 1: we’ll adopt a simple markup language because our users are not programmers Day 2: our users have complicated needs so we’ll basically reinvent Lisp expressions, but worse. Day N: whatever this markup language is —— I’ve seen this happen so many times it’s not even funny anymore. Well, at least it’s not YAML.

Ironically it wasn't even intentional. Wikipedia users discovered a way to create an if statement by themselves, originally there was no conditionals.

Anyways, now a days you can use lua, so most of the wikisyntax is just glue code calling a lua program

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#36

Post by fao_ »

hmry wrote: post #20
fao_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Even vim lets you set that per-buffer so that's more of an editor problem than anything else, lmao

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#37

Post by clawsyndicate »

reddalo wrote: post #24
pixel_popping wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not trying to defend Wikipedia at all costs, but you should also think about how much spam and trolling would happen on their platform if they didn't have these annoying blocks for non-registered users. I run a pretty simple SaaS with a free tier and the amount of spam that I have to manage is high; I don't want to even imagine how difficult it must be to run a website where anybody can edit pretty much anything.

[dead]

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#38

Post by notpushkin »

yellowapple wrote: post #26
hmry wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You'd think more editors would be smart enough to recognize that it's a TSV file and therefore should preserve the tabs, in much the same way that you'd think editors would be smart enough to recognize that something's a Makefile and therefore should preserve the tabs.

It gets tricky when you have a TSV inside Markdown. I don’t think I’ve ever seen tabs used for indentation in Markdown in the wild, though it probably does work.

We could, however, make the Tab key insert spaces if the cursor is in the beginning of a line, and a literal \t if it’s in the middle. This way, you can write a TSV table pretty much anywhere you want.

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#39

Post by saagarjha »

bawolff wrote: post #34
saagarjha wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They block logged in users too.

Sometimes yes, but usually not at a mass range level except in extreme circumstances. The block in this case appears to be this one: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalBlockList?targ... In that specific case, logged in users are still allowed, however you cannot create new accounts when visiting from that range, so you have to already have an account, or go somewhere else to create one. The error message b…

I can never edit Wikipedia when I have private relay enabled unfortunately :(

Re: Wikipedia: Sandbox

#40

Post by bawolff »

saagarjha wrote: post #39
bawolff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes yes, but usually not at a mass range level except in extreme circumstances. The block in this case appears to be this one: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalBlockList?targ... In that specific case, logged in users are still allowed, however you cannot create new accounts when visiting from that range, so you have to already have an account, or go somewhere else to create one. The error message b…

I can never edit Wikipedia when I have private relay enabled unfortunately :(

Well yes, the entire point of a private relay is to make it impossible for websites to be able to distinguish between you and a spammer.

There are exceptions to this policy, but you generally need to have a really good pre-existing reputation to qualify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IP_block_exemption

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