It's interesting to think about how complex the wikipedia text is compared to something like github flavored markdown or even standard html tables (although I guess it eventually renders into standard html so it's not more complex than the latter when all other html elements are considered in addition to <table>)
For example the swatch internet time infobox is dynamically updated
{{short description|Alternate time system by watch maker Swatch}}
{{Infobox
| image = [[File:Swatch beat Logo.svg|200px|alt=Logo of Swatch Internet Time]]
| caption = Logo of Swatch Internet Time
| title = Time{{efn|at page generation }} {{purge|(update to view correct time)}}
| label1 = 24-hour time (UTC)
| data1 = {{nowrap|{{#time:H:i:s}}}}
| label2 = 24-hour time (CET)
| data2 = {{Time|CET|dst=no|df-cust=H:i:s|hide-refresh=yes}}
| label3 = .beat time (BMT)
| data3 = {{nowrap|@{{#expr: floor( {{#expr:{{#expr:{{#expr:{{#time:H|now + 1 hour}}3600}}+{{#expr:{{#time:i}}60}}+{{#time:s}}}}/86.4}} )}}}}
}}
bawolff 4 hours ago [-]
I always found it ironic that the table syntax is designed to resemble ascii-art type tables, and then literally nobody writes it in a way that looks like an ascii art table.
notpushkin 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah, because it’s a PITA to align everything by hand.
But the spaces around | make it easier to read, than, say, CSV.
echelon 38 minutes ago [-]
> Yeah, because it’s a PITA to align everything by hand.
For now. I get the feeling we'll have tooling everywhere that does this soon.
I was recently tab-completing a Markdown table and whatever autocomplete model I had just fixed the table up without any intervention.
fao_ 2 hours ago [-]
Honestly it continually surprises me how people forget about TSV
It's the perfect format, more or less! CSV, but no difficulty around commas, and the only major risk being an editor that converts tabs to spaces
stogot 4 hours ago [-]
I’ve spent countless hours at employers fixing Xwiki syntax errors mixed with HTML. The parsing engine must be complex
decimalenough 1 hours ago [-]
That's putting it lightly, since Mediawiki templates are Turing-complete.
I'm not up to speed on my parsers anymore, but I believe Parsoid remains the most complete implementation, while mwlib is a reasonable compromise.
I am not a regular contributor to Wikipedia but the little time I have spent contributing there has exposed me to its very elaborate culture, with barnstars being one artefact of that culture, alongside policy acronyms everyone seems to know by heart, WikiProjects organised around every imaginable topic, userboxes that are little badges that say something about you, etc.
I've had the desire to contribute so many times, but each time I was blocked. I don't think Wikipedia accurately measures how much contribution they lose because of the hostile treatment of new editors and what I believe are poorly implemented editing policies. Their policies likely haven't been revised since a decade or more, they should do a survey about it.
bityard 3 hours ago [-]
Pretty much all wikis would have a "Sandbox" page for trying out that particular wiki's individual syntax and features.
chungy 2 hours ago [-]
I'd wager that most wikis use the MediaWiki software, which is what Wikipedia runs on.
There are both, every user has their own sandbox. But this one is there to encourage first time visitors and the uninitiated to make changes , so they know that anyone can contribute uninhibited.
kemayo 7 hours ago [-]
Though, just to be clear, the per-user ones are also public. They're just a convention where if you make a subpage of your user page and call it "Sandbox", nobody is going to complain about the encyclopedic value of your edits.
For example the swatch internet time infobox is dynamically updated
{{short description|Alternate time system by watch maker Swatch}} {{Infobox | image = [[File:Swatch beat Logo.svg|200px|alt=Logo of Swatch Internet Time]] | caption = Logo of Swatch Internet Time | title = Time{{efn|at page generation }} {{purge|(update to view correct time)}} | label1 = 24-hour time (UTC) | data1 = {{nowrap|{{#time:H:i:s}}}} | label2 = 24-hour time (CET) | data2 = {{Time|CET|dst=no|df-cust=H:i:s|hide-refresh=yes}} | label3 = .beat time (BMT) | data3 = {{nowrap|@{{#expr: floor( {{#expr:{{#expr:{{#expr:{{#time:H|now + 1 hour}}3600}}+{{#expr:{{#time:i}}60}}+{{#time:s}}}}/86.4}} )}}}} }}
But the spaces around | make it easier to read, than, say, CSV.
For now. I get the feeling we'll have tooling everywhere that does this soon.
I was recently tab-completing a Markdown table and whatever autocomplete model I had just fixed the table up without any intervention.
It's the perfect format, more or less! CSV, but no difficulty around commas, and the only major risk being an editor that converts tabs to spaces
I'm not up to speed on my parsers anymore, but I believe Parsoid remains the most complete implementation, while mwlib is a reasonable compromise.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Alternative_parsers#Known_imp...
I am not a regular contributor to Wikipedia but the little time I have spent contributing there has exposed me to its very elaborate culture, with barnstars being one artefact of that culture, alongside policy acronyms everyone seems to know by heart, WikiProjects organised around every imaginable topic, userboxes that are little badges that say something about you, etc.
By the way, I added a few userboxes for the Logo programming language, in case there are any Wikipedians out here who happen to love Logo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:User_logo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Xaosflux
One particular thing that comes to mind though, is that Fossil (https://fossil-scm.org/) has a private local-only sandbox: https://fossil-scm.org/home/wikiedit?name=Sandbox. It saves to your browser's persistent storage, but never on the server.