HacDC Wiki:Suggestions

Suggestions for changes to HacDC wiki. Feel free to add you ideas!

Incoming Suggestions

Examine User Defaults

Mediawiki installs with a very conservative set of defaults for user preferences. Most users will never (speaking from experience) bother to change them. I'd like to suggest turning on 'add page to watchlist' for all edited pages, and email user when notifications are triggered. There are others I'll return later with a list.

• ON - E-mail me when my user talk page is changed

Leave at least one path open that other editors can contact a user.

• ON - Enable section editing via [edit] links

On busy pages, reduces editing conflicts.

• ON - Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary

Summaries are a major help to heavy users and often alleviate misunderstanding for all users. This will encourage their use.

• ON - Add pages I edit/move/create to my watchlist

A must, pretty much a cornerstone of collaboration.

We'll need a server admin to make these changes.

add DPL

Dynamic Page Listing enables the creation of, well, dynamic search results within a page. For example a list of the last 5 monthly meeting pages that updates on refreshing the page. DPL has many uses and can play a key role in moving toward a semantic wiki. You can create standard tables (forms) and pull the contents willy-nilly. It's useful and fun for the whole family! ...well, except for Bob, but he's just a grump.

Adding DPL will require a server admin.

Successful

If an incoming suggestion carried out move it into this section. Please provide a note about what was done and a date.

CSS - whitespace

add whitespace:pre-wrap; to the CSS, perhaps under p.

This will alleviate the problem in the editing layout where users have to add additional empty lines in order to control spacing.

• Done by Gatohaus 01:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC) - see MediaWiki:Common.css for changes.

CSS - tweak headers

In a long, long standing tradition the default CSS on Mediawiki has a peculiar take on header formatting. H4 all but disappears in the text, H3 is bolded while H2 is not. It's just weird I tell ya'. I'm not graphic designer, but maybe bolding them all would be more clear. ...and maybe decreasing the line spacing between the header and its text...?? (yes you can laugh at my OCD)

Header 2

some text

Header 3

some more text

Header 4

yep, even more text

• I bolded h2 - Gatohaus 02:18, 1 December 2010 (UTC). Change made in MediaWiki:Common.css.

The headers could use more help but maybe this'll do...?

Not So Successful

Suggestions that either we simply cannot do or will not do. Please provide the reason for moving a suggestion to here.