Reply inline: 1. CATEGORY NAMING. On Fri, November 12, 2010 09:53, MJ Ray wrote:
Magnus Enger <magnus@enger.priv.no>
But I still think it would be a good idea to specify that this Cataloguing-category is for Cataloguing RFCs... Any thoughts on that?
I think it would be a bad idea. Such an RFC should be in both the Cataloguing category and the RFC category, which should let browsers identify that it is a Cataloguing RFC.
Searching for the intersection of multiple wiki categories such as 'RFCs' and 'Cataloguing' would be a simple way of finding appropriate content. Until yesterday, we did not have an effect means for making such searches implemented. See section 2 further below for the extension which I added. More use of 'RFC' in titles for RFCs would also help. MediaWiki article pages can be renamed along with their history by following the move link. A redirect is automatically created for moved article pages. (I have never renamed anyone's article except those which I had created without thinking well enough about the name.) Adding 'RFC' to the end of RFC titles which do not include 'RFC' in the title already may be helpful. With or without category intersection searches, there is an advantage to being able to add granular RFC categories to watched pages for catching new additions. There is no similar means implemented for automatically watching changes in search results. Browsing the category hierarchy in a simple manner without forming multi-category queries is also aided by having distinctive category names. I addressed some other details about how category names function within MediaWiki in an earlier message in this thread, http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2010-November/026261.html . I have also addressed some other problems with category use relating to MediaWiki extensions which we have installed, http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2010-November/026309.html . 1.1. CONSISTENCY IN CATEGORY NAMING.
On a related point, it pains me to see that there are inconsistently-named categories for RFCs for 3.2 and 3.4 but I haven't seen a way to fix that before I get time to visit each RFC and change the categories.
Inconsistent category names pained me so much that I spent many hours fixing the naming inconsistencies. On the way I added applicable categories for Koha components matching the categories established in bugzilla. In cases where more than one Koha component category was applicable, I added multiple categories. The real problem had been the proliferation of category name variants from typing a category name into the former form of the RFC template. Templates are fine for assigning fixed categories for all uses of the template but templates are problematic when the user has to type in a category name. The problem is no different for cataloguing bibliographic material without guided input for authority controlled fields. The procedure which I followed to obtain consistent category use was to create a new category with a simple conventional name or choose the most conventionally well understood of the multiplicity of variant category names for using. I then changed each page in inconsistent categories to consistent categories. Once the inconsistent categories contained no more pages, I deleted the inconsistent categories to avoid polluting the category lists with disused categories. I have not change category assignment for 'Abandoned RFC' and I am in no hurry for what I expect would not be a rapidly expanding category. 'Abandoned RFCs' in plural would be a more conventionally consistent name but again I hope that the category use is small. 2. SEARCHING CATEGORY INTERSECTIONS AND DISJUNCTIONS.
I think they should be in 3.4 and RFC categories, or 3.2 and RFC categories, as appropriate, if we can search for things in the intersection of two categories, which I also haven't seen a way to do yet.
There are a few means to implement searches for category intersections in MediaWiki. The most flexible means include adding additional indexing software along with some extensions. First we would need to fix a problem with command line scripts failing for the Koha MediaWiki installation, http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2010-November/026256.html . I have installed the MultiCategorySearch extension as the best alternative for now, http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Special:MultiCategorySearch . I have extensively modified the extension mostly to allow the drop down hierarchy of categories to be populated automatically from the current set of categories. Searches can be conducted for pages which are in one or more category.. Additionally, searches can exclude pages in one or more categories. I set the query protocol to get for bookmarking queries. Some possible extreme use might exceed URL length limits but I would not expect that to be a problem with real world use. I could also shorten get parameter names and by that point I would have done almost a complete rewrite of the extensions. MutliCategorySearch has no provision for including pages within subsidiary categories in a hierarchy. There is also no provision for combining text searching with explicit category searching in the Koha wiki at present. Some of the more flexible solutions for which we would need MediaWiki command line scripts to be working provide for searching subsidiary categories to a specified depth along with other options such as text searching. [...] Thomas Dukleth Agogme 109 E 9th Street, 3D New York, NY 10003 USA http://www.agogme.com +1 212-674-3783