Proposal: RSS Extension to Wiki for Update Tracking
Once again, cloud returns with another full blown proposal about tracking updates for projects on Baka-Tsuki.
Background
- Baka-Tsuki lacks a good internal system that will track when chapters of a project are completed
- Which, for that matter, is really pitiful because mangaupdates tracks us better than we ourselves do.
- Using Special:RecentUpdates isn't good enough because even large edits may not be tied with a fully finished chapter, and there's a lot of random crap no one cares about.
- Currently, complete update pages (like this one) are being maintained manually which is a waste of translator's and editor's times when they could translating.
- The Baka-Tsuki Facebook and Twitter miss many (aka: most) updates on Baka-Tsuki Projects
- Only popular projects are posted on twitter/etc.
- NanoDesu's projects, for some reason, get more attention than Baka-Tsuki projects (um, why? @___@)
How do we solve this?
Well, the fact is, most projects keep track their recent updates on the recent updates page of their Project already. The problem is, it's not easy to fetch all of these updates together and compile them nicely sorted into one location.
Ideally, if we could find a solution that makes use of these
existing project updates (that should be updated by the translator when they finish a chapter), and compiles the data together, this would be the best solution. There would be zero additional work on anyone's part or behalf.
The Proposed Solution:
Install
Extension:WikiArticleFeeds. Click
-here- for more literature if you need more to understand how it works.
This extension allows an
RSS feed to be generated from a tag that is placed around a section of a page. It also allows multiple RSS feeds to be combined into one. Example:
Code: Select all
==Hyouka Project Updates Page==
<startFeed>
=====[[Hyouka]] V1C1=====
[[link|Volume 1 Chapter 1]] completed by ~~~~
=====[[Hyouka]] V1C2=====
[[link|Volume 1 Chapter 2]] completed by ~~~~
=====[[Hyouka]] V1C3+4=====
[[link|Volume 1 Chapter 3]] and [[link|Volume 1 Chapter 4]] completed by ~~~~
=====[[Hyouka]] V1C5=====
[[link|Volume 1 Chapter 5]] completed by ~~~~
</endfeed>
You get the idea. Whenever you want a new update to go to the RSS feed, you add a new section. As you can tell, it's pretty intuitive.
The best part, is that multiple feeds can be
aggregated into one super feed. This means, all of the updates from all of the projects on the Wiki can be kept
chronologically in one place (
like this). It's like recent changes, but better, since it can provide more information. It also comes with an RSS feed that readers can use.
I'm going to predict that people are going to say they don't like the formatting. Well, my response to that is that Extension:WikiArticleFeed isn't designed to look pretty. It's designed to
generate an RSS feed. If we want it to display nicely, perhaps we should also install
Extension:RSS that is meant to format RSS feeds for display.
Both of these extensions are very popular extensions on MediaWiki. They're stable, and the work for the current version of MediaWiki that we run. <3
Proposed Further Extension
It is fairly easy to link RSS feeds with twitter and/or facebook.
Here is a page if you're interested in learning how this might be done.
Basically, our RSS feed could be linked to some place else. When a new update comes, it is automatically posted (or it is sent to a moderator, who then posts it). This would solve the issue of our horribly slow twitter and facebook updates.
Potential Vulnerability
Security. But that's the issue with everything on Baka-Tsuki. If someone vandalizes any recent updates page, it goes to the entire RSS feed.
In response to this, we could possibly protect recent updates pages so only individuals in the translator or editor usergroups can edit/post updates.