[pmwiki-users] WikiTerms

Patrick R. Michaud pmichaud at pobox.com
Tue May 30 20:48:04 CDT 2006


On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 03:57:45PM -0700, Pico wrote:
> 
> To use the example of "title" we have (:title:) page directive 
> and the {$Title} page variable that would 
> each point to the same page under your proposal: both 
> (:[[title]]:) and {$[[Title]]} would point to [[Title]].

This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  From a typical searcher's 
perspective, they just know that they're looking for something to do 
with titles, they don't really know that they're looking for
"(:title:)" or "{$Title}".  So, we do want all of the different
forms to appear when someone does "Title".

As far as telling the difference -- I think a Wikipedia-like
disambiguation approach might be most appropriate:

    Title (Disambiguation)
    Title (Directive)
    Title (Page Variable)

> From an author's perspective, it would be best if you could 
> just identify the term, whether (:title:) or {$Title} and 
> mark it with something that identified it as a link containing 
> an escaped string.  

I'm not sure this occurs frequently enough in text to warrant its
own markup.  I'm not even sure it occurs frequently in PmWiki
documentation, as a general rule.  Do we have some ready examples
of pages where the special markup would really be necessary?

> What would not be helpful, however, is requiring the author to 
> make the necessary translations between a term and its page name 
> before being able to refer to it as a term that has been, or 
> should be, defined [...]

One of the advantages of a wiki is that authors are never "required"
to do anything, or to get things right the first time.  The important
thing is to get the information stored somewhere.  An author can
create a link called [[title]], and if that goes to the wrong place,
someone will likely notice it and fix it.  The target of [[title]]
can then contain links (i.e., disambiguation) that redirects 
searchers to the correct page, and perhaps encourages them to
correct the link that brought them to the disambiguation in the
first place.

Pm




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