Difference between revisions of "User talk:Xenocidic/Reddhott3"

Revision as of 04:01, 25 August 2008

One important thing to note about this page is that actually works pretty well on mobile devices that don't support the 'standard' tab system. For example from my cellphone I normally can't view anything but the first tab contents, but on this page I could view each tab's contents. --Jimmcq 20:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It should also be possible to hack the headers to look like how our tabs look now, I just had a hard time finding the tiny icons. –xenocidic (talk) 20:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

That's good to know, since we've wanted to support mobile devices better, but I'd like to know what the original problem was that we needed to fix? If this all came about because you couldn't navlink to a tab, this is a major overhaul for a minor issue.

I'm just going to mention a few concerns off the top of my head, that need to be factored into splitting up articles into separate namespaces:

1. Search ambiguity - If you search for Reddhott, instead of getting one unambiguous article as we have now, which the wiki can promptly show you, you get multiple namespace articles that match article titles, and the searcher is forced to perform an extra step to get to the desired article. I don't like changes that increase the burden for the visitor (i.e. extra steps). We're supposed to be making the site easier to search and navigate, not harder. Also, if he picks a transcluded one, does he get the navigation to get to other tabs? Adding hacks to handle special cases to do 'x' if it's transcluded, and 'y' if it's not, means there's a problem that needed to be considered in the design.
2. Search hits - We've just increased the number of hits returned by a multiple of four or five. If you search for something that happens to show up in each tab, you now get 5 hits, instead of 1 hit. We shouldn't increase the number of search results. (Sure, you can search by NS, but the burden shouldn't be on the user to filter the results by toggling search scope.)
3. Editing across tabs - I routinely do this, and it's certainly faster than having to edit 4 times as many articles. I just had to do 31 edits for Seed Pouch -> seed pouch across two tabs, and I'm happy I didn't have to waste time doing 62 instead of 31.
4. Patrolling - The number of articles we'd have to patrol is going to shoot up. I've been here during the busy peaks, where it was barely possible to stay on top of reviewing edits, and I don't want to imagine what it would be like, if we have 3x the edits, for Standard, Just for Fun, and Pocket Paradise.
5. Namespace collisions - I've stressed this before, several times, that one of the Reorg goals is to avoid Reorg 2.0. If some new game comes out down the road, and it has JfF mode too, then we've got a bit of a problem. We need to stick with longer qualified names, instead of 3-letter acronymns, so we don't run into ambiguities in the future. And even if you call the new NS JfF2, that's a very confusing convention.

I haven't sat down and thought about this carefully, to see if there are other issues that we also need to consider. --FeralKitty (talk) 05:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, some excellent points. The major problem that this solves is not forcing the editor to view the entire wikicode for 5+ articles when they just want to change one tab. It also solves the (minor) linking to tabs issue. And finally, it means that the user is not downloading content for all 5 games when he may only look at the content for one. Not sure if this would give a boost in performance or not. I'll go thru the numbered points -

1. Search ambiguity - typing "Reddhott" into the search tab would bring you to the "All" copy of Reddhott, which transcludes all copies. alternatively, it could bring you to the classic tab.
2. search hits - this is true but could be seen as a benefit, as the user may want to confine their searching to one platform and/or game.
3. editing across tabs - no solution for this. I am working at getting AWB working here so that I can do bot edits with expediency.
4. patrolling - if we install navigation popups, patrolling will a lot easier, but yes, it increases the number of pages needed to be watched.
5. this is why in Reddhott 3 the tip namespace has been disambig'd to TIPJFF:.

There's definitely good and bad to this proposal, and based on the above it may in fact introduce more problems than it solves. Again the major concern is that I don't think having newer editors viewing the entire code for all of the tabs is the best way to go. If they're not completely overwhelmed and turned off, they'll probably introduce errors in some way. Other ways to solve this are proposed here: User talk:Xenocidic#My schedule. –xenocidic (talk) 10:59, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

• P.S. If this proposal gets shelved one way to allow mobile browsers to see all content would be to have them used a custom .css and turn off the headertabs for htem. –xenocidic (talk) 11:01, 25 August 2008 (UTC)