Wikipedia talk:Wiki Markup Language

A Primer on Displaying XML in Wikipedia

You'll go through agonizing several iterations of <nowiki> and non-breaking spaces until you finally realize that what you're looking for is the <pre /> tag (view the source):

<xmldoc>
	<node>this is a test</node>
</xmldoc>

When you hit the tab key, you'll tab to the next field, which is usually the copyright link. To get around this, open up a text editor, put a tab there and copy it. Paste it multiple times if necessary, and you'll create beautifully formatted XML!Chrisbbehrens 23:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Focus on History?

How about keeping just some of the Wiki specific information in such a format (BTW, the name should be changed to ensure that no confusion is created with WML, the Wireless Markup Language):

<wikiarticle>: The header for a wiki article
         <history>: start of the history section, that basically mirrors the history page in a wiki.It would include multiple revision tags:       
                  <revision>: start of a specific revision information
                  
                  <version> a version id (similar to the oldid variable in the URL) </version>

                  <date>Time Date Stamp</date>

                  <user>Which user made the revision</user>

                  <type>Bot Edit? Minor Edit? Section Edit? </type>

                  <description>The description of the change (edit summary)</description>
            </revision>
         </history> 
</wikiarticle>

This would allow to tackle the whole history specific part of wikis. We can then fall back on things like the Dublin Core or RSS (or ATOM) for the rest of the formatting? What do you think?

--TNL 22:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This history format looks good to me. I'm leaning towards an expanded RSS 2.0 format after some consideration; we'd have all of these tags as a namespace extension (Wiki? probably). Chrisbbehrens 02:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as the "WML" issue, what do you think about using ".WIKI"? There's no law that says it has to end in "ML". It might confuse some people initially, I guess. Alternately, we could use "WKML". The only other significant technical meaning I know of for that is "Windows Kernel Module Loader". I couldn't find any reference to it being an existing XML format on Google.

At some point, we might think about the value of a public key signature on these docs; Wikipedia takes enough heat for inaccuracy without mashups misrepresenting content.Chrisbbehrens 23:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I made one change to the revision schema; it just seems to me that "type" should be an attribute rather than a node, so I've made that change in the example for the stub article. Chrisbbehrens 03:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to start referring to the format as WKML. WML is irretrievably identified with "Wireless Markup Language" (even to the extent that it's in Wikipedia). I'm not too fond of WKML as a name, so I'm going to think of it as a placeholder until we can come up with something more elegant.

It occurs to me that having "Wiki" or "Wikipedia" in the name might be a mistake; perhaps we should be thinking more broadly along the lines of "Encyclopedic Information Markup Language", or whatever.Chrisbbehrens 03:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

How about Article Markup Language? Or Editable Content Language? LangWiki? Something has to work. I don't really agree that it would be a mistake to use the word 'wiki'. Naming this after Wikipedia would be a bad idea, though. —67.124.10.226 00:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Media Wiki Support

I think some of us need to focus on getting media wiki to support WML or whatever it will be called if we want it to be widly adopted.

Yeah, probably a good idea to line up some PHP talent to work on that project once we're a little further along with this stuff.Chrisbbehrens 03:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm starting to dig into Wikimedia codewise. It's becoming clear to me that the top down approach of looking for tag examples and XML-izing them is not going to work...Chrisbbehrens 23:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Notice: some kind of link is needed so WML users will be able to update the wiki. - Nirelan

Theoretically, the consumer can create the relevant link using the title, though we might create a more strictly formatted attribute for that purpose.Chrisbbehrens 03:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I've created the "linkback" attribute for this purpose. Chrisbbehrens 22:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Credit for Nick Irelan

Nick Irelan seems intent on getting credit for having started the group, igniting several version battles. I don't care if he gets it or not; unless there's an official Wikipedia policy prohibiting this, I say leave it there.Chrisbbehrens 22:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Date Format

I've proposed a date format on the main page. React and discuss.Chrisbbehrens 23:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I've started the ball rolling with an extended example; it should be fairly obvious where I've left off.

Basically, the idea is that there is a catchall "template" tag, and where there's a better structure, we use that. To put it another way, the "<tag>...</tag>" model may translate to "<template type='tag'>", or it may translate into "<tag />".Chrisbbehrens 02:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

What is the purpose and implementation of WKML?

My understanding is that articles will be written in the same markup they use now, but the Wiki software will convert them into WKML for syndication, etc. Is that correct, or is WKML inteded to be a replacement for the current wiki markup? Noldoaran 22:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I think your understanding is correct, i.e., the sole purpose of WKML is for syndication. If there are plans to replace the wiki markup, I haven't heard of them.Chrisbbehrens 20:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Scrubbing HTML?

There's HTML in the content? Is this a proposal to not have styled text in WKML? I might be misunderstanding renotate, which is not a word I've seen before. Brock 07:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)