more coming later

MediaWiki >

(Regarding MediaWiki version 1.15.1 or a little earlier.)

See also:

• MediaWiki calendar templating

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Introduction ∞

I have always believed it possible to duplicate the form and function of a weblog within a wiki‘s engine. To a wiki, stepping out into various other kinds of knowledge management isn’t very hard. However, wiki technology is still juvenile at best and it appears that most developers don’t see that a wiki’s technology need not be extended far to absorb other concepts like a weblog.

I have seen content management systems which integrate wiki and weblog concepts, and I have seen weblogs which integrate wiki functionality. I have even seen beautiful hacks forcibly combining these various elements.

I fiddled around, and now it’s possible to weblog in MediaWiki by leveraging its templating.

2007-04-12 – Update ∞

After having used this technique for quite some time, I can label it as feature-stable and relatively useful. There are definitely some missing parts, and some fundamental limitations from the MediaWiki versions which I’ve been using, but whatever I was doing seems to work okay.

However, I am no longer particularly active with using this. There’s nowhere to improve to, so it’s not like it matters that I’m not using it.

My philosophies have shifted back towards creating content from the “sitemap” ^[ 1 ] 2020-11-20 – This was a main-page which had a body of links of root-topics and random-entry ^[ 2 ] [[Special:Random]] concepts, and building neighbouring related-article trees.

But who knows.. I do want to do the weblog thing, but I’ll probably design a weblog from scratch ^[ 3 ] See Compiled Website before I bother trying to turn MediaWiki into a weblog using such simple templating.

This would have been significantly cooler had there been a support extension created for it..

I never did get around to converting *all* my dated works into the weblog concept.

2007-05-14 — Since the newer versions of MediaWiki (the ones which use PHP5) have significant improvements, this idea could continue to evolve. However, since I’m not using it anymore and since I’m so out of date with using MediaWiki’s more advanced features I’m really not interested in bothering..

The weblog template ∞

called [[Template:wl]]

Spoiler

; {{{1}}}:

{{wl:{{{1}}}}}

* [{{SERVER}}{{localurl::Template:wl:{{{1}}}}} permanent link]
* [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:Template_talk:wl:{{{1}}}|action=edit}} discuss this entry]
* [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:Template:wl:{{{1}}}|action=edit}} edit this entry]

Now I can simply do a {{wl|lorem ipsum}} and when I save the page I can click the handy-dandy “edit entry” link and edit the entry.

It does need to be cleaned up some.. but the concept itself works great.

Use ∞

• Edit a [[weblog]] page. Add {{wl|My title}}. Save.
• click “edit this entry” and add or modify my notes. Add any category tags. Save.

• When I want to expire an entry, remove it from [[weblog]] and add it to one or more other pages.

To simply link to a weblog page, use {{wll|Its title}}. Its contents are simply:

[[Template:wl:{{{1|1]]
}}}

This is an important shortcut so that you can link to weblog entries without dealing with the mechanics of it all.

Expansion idea: The calendar ∞

See MediaWiki calendar templating

When thinking of the larger picture, which is the greater organizational structure of the weblog, a few problems come up. The most prominant is the problem of displaying tidy lists of the entries for particular days.

This problem is partly seen with MediaWiki calendar templating.

Each weblog entry could be badged or tagged and that tag could be used to detect particular entries.

Backlinks ∞

If I have a link, such as [[example]], then I can look at its backlinks as with [[Special:Whatlinkshere/example]]. This works fine, and the page doesn’t have to exist.

The text of the link showing up in red is a bit annoying though. This does nothing:

<font color="black">[[example]]</font>

Checking backlinks is not a good idea, because then every link would exist.. not just days which have weblog entries.

But if I were to hand-make every page which does have existing entries, I could then list any entries within it. This is not feasible because there’s no automated way to do this. I cannot, for example, #REDIRECT [[Special:Whatlinkshere/{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}]]

Search terms ∞

If an entry had a keyword in its title which was easily searchable, then I could build a search term like [[Special:Search/2005-08-10]] for August 10th, 2005. Searching isn’t very bright yet, so it can’t do anything fancy like search for a keyphrase which is at the beginning of a title. So something generic like 2005-08-10 would pick out any title which had 2005 in it.

If I named my titles something like “wl2005-08-10” that would be good enough for a search: [[Special:Search/wl2005-08-10]]

• [[2005-08-10 -- Sandbox]]

• [[wl2005-08-10 -- Sandbox]]

I really like this solution. However, the problem remains.. by leveraging search terms, then all references to the Search page would be valid. Every link in the calendar would be blue. There would be no distinction between days with and days without a weblog entry.

Categories ∞

If I tag a page with a category, like [[:Category:MediaWiki as a weblog]]:

Then each date could reference a category for that date. If the date exists, it would show up as a link. Visiting the existing link would display the entries for that category.

Also, I could opt to see the backlinks of the category: [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Category:MediaWiki as a weblog]]

Checking the backlinks of a category avoids the problem that if the category page does not yet exist I cannot visit it without being forced to edit it. One workaround to visiting it directly without editing it would be to make my own custom external link as with: [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:Category:MediaWiki as a weblog}} Category:MediaWiki as a weblog] but this is not a good solution in a calendar display since such “external” links would display with an image next to them.

Checking the backlinks of a category is still not a good idea, because then every link would exist.. not just days which have weblog entries.

So by tagging every weblog entry with its own date has some great advantages.