[Koha] RFCs - could we make better use of MediaWiki?

[Magnus Enger]

Hi!

I agree with everything that has been said about making RFCs more
visible and accessible, and have some ideas for how MediaWiki might
help us achieve this.

I don't think the layout of the RFCs is clear enough as it is, all of
these pages seem (at first glance) to be doing some of the same
things:
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Category:RFCs
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Category:RFCs:for_3.2
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Category:3.2

And how do you find out which RFCs have sponsors, which are under
active development etc?

*** Editing and "cataloguing" RFCs

For another project I have used the "Semantic Mediawiki"
(http://semantic-mediawiki.org/) family of extensions to MediaWiki,
and I think it/they might help with making our RFCs easier to interact
with.

It would go something like this:

1. Create a template that collects relevant information about RFCs,
building on Template:RFC

2. Create a form
(http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Forms) that makes
filling in the template easy, including lists of allowed values for
things like e.g. sponsorship status or development status.

3. Create a number of pages with inline queries
(http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Inline_queries), that list
RFCs based on given criteria, e.g.
- all sponosored RFCs
- all RFCs that do not have sponsors
- all RFCs that are in active development
- etc
It is possible to confugure what is shown in these query results, so
there could be columns for targeted Koha version etc (Basically all
the info that is collected by the template).
These pages could also link to the same results as RSS
(http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Inline_queries#Exporting_query_results:_RSS.2C_etc.),
making it relatively easy to monitor e.g. all new, unsponsored RFCs.

We could also create categories for different areas of Koha, e.g.
cataloguing, aquisitions etc.

*** Enhance RFC pages

The page for an RFC could perhaps also be enhanced in interesting ways:

* Pull in info from the relevant bug on Bugzilla
(http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Bugzilla_Reports - I havn't
used this, but it looks promising)

* Pull in info (commits) from public git repos when a branch has been
published for the RFC (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RSS)

* Provide a "standard" comment form as an alternative to the "Talk"
page (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ArticleComments)


If this sounds like something people would be interested in trying
out, I'd be happy to spend some time on setting it up.

Regards,
Magnus
libriotech.no