Forum → Semantic MediaWiki

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Community consensus is needed for extensions like Semantic MediaWiki to be enabled.

Just a quick over on the purpose, I plan to use SMW in the new infoboxes, as well I've noticed that Vixen Windstorm has been adding a lot of Wikipedia style non-atomic categories to the wiki (ie: Categories like "2007 Video games" which is basically an intersection of "Video games" and things "released in 2007"). The idea of using forms to edit infoboxes also has SMW as a prerequisite to that idea. And non-atomic categories, even without the complex infoboxes, can be cleaned out if we have SMW enabled so we can at least manually annotate pages with semantic properties. (There was also a note on Talk:Dende)

So for a short overview of the idea behind Semantic MediaWiki, is the ability to annotate pages with data.

For example Goku might be annotated with data like:

[[Category:Characters]]
[[Name::Goku]]
[[Name::Kana name::孫 悟空]]
[[Name::Kana name::カカロット]]
[[Name::Romaji name::Gokū]]
[[Name::Romaji name::Kakarotto]]
[[Name::Anime name::Goku]]
[[Name::Anime name::Kakarot]]
[[Name::Manga name::Son Goku]]
[[Name::Manga name::Kakarrot]]
[[Name::Alternate name::Son Gokou]]
[[Name::Alternate name::Son Gokuh]]
[[Name::Alternate name::Son Gokuu]]
[[Name::Alternate name::Kakarott]]
[[Name::Alternate name::Clown]] (by Vegeta)
[[Name::Alternate name::Zero]] (Harmony Gold Dub)
[[Appears in::DB]]
[[Appears in::DBZ]]
[[Appears in::DBGT]]
[[Race::Saiyan]]
[[Ability::Flight]]
[[Ability::Kaio-ken]]
[[Ability::False Super Saiyan]]
[[Ability::Super Saiyan]]
[[Ability::Ascended Super Saiyan]]
[[Ability::Ultra Super Saiyan]]
[[Ability::Full-Power Super Saiyan]],
[[Ability::Super Saiyan 2]]
[[Ability::Super Saiyan 3]]
[[Ability::Super Saiyan 4]]
[[Knows attack::Kamehameha]]
[[Knows attack::Spirit Ball]]
[[Team::Z-Fighters]]

Basically, all this would end up as data about Goku (and 90% of this stuff we can actually extract from a good infobox system). Each an every one of these pieces of information can be used inside of queries. Using Special:Ask anyone can go and say, search for "all characters who are of the race Saiyan or Half-Saiyan, and can use the Kamehameha" ([[Category:Characters]] [[Race::Saiyan||Half-Saiyan]] [[Knows attack::Kamehameha]]). But not only that, using the #ask parser function we can dynamically generate entire lists of information right out of the data extracted from infoboxes, and on top of that not just page lists, we can list the actual data itself.

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But basically, again... I need community consensus before the extension can be enabled. ~NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) ^(talk) Dec 18, 2008 _@ 03:48 ^(UTC)

I really liked what could be done using semantic MediaWiki(the Special:ask part I really liked).--Sk 05:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I support it. Storm 06:53, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Heh, most people complain that Special:Ask isn't useful unless you know the query language. Well, hopefully sometime in the future one of the other semantic extensions will support creation of actual search forms. ~NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) ^(talk) Dec 18, 2008 _@ 17:51 ^(UTC)

To say the truth I know nothing about SMW or what it does, or Special ask or whatever-LOL. It just sounded nice .Anyway I also support it--Sk 18:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I support this as well. This doesn't just mean smarter searches, but more automation, and ultimately less maintenance work for us. --  talk contr 07:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I would like to recommend strongly against this. Semantic MediaWiki is powerful, there is no doubt of that, but it is also one of the most complex extensions around. It's a great way to confuse and put off new users, something I think any wiki should avoid. I would recommend trying to keep the edit area free of confusing code... a simple template is a good template! MediaWiki is a powerful piece of software, and there is a lot you can do with it, but why risk over-complicating things and risk driving away new editors? -- sannse (talk) 19:27, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Only if you use it the wrong way. Semantic MediaWiki isn't really meant to be used with plain semantic code within pages. It's meant to be used with semantic templates, ones you can enter data into and end up with annotations. My preferred method of doing that, is by making use of infoboxes. Infoboxes are filled with piles of data that normally just sit in a box and aren't noted in any special way, but a bit of annotation on them and pages become full of annotated data. I've been planning on working on some new infoboxes here as well, once the ones on the Narutopedia get completed. The infoboxes I build normally actually make it much easier to work on pages, the syntax for the parameters is normally much simpler.

As for the complex syntax, I think I've seen otherwise over on the Narutopedia. For awhile, since the jutsu infoboxes haven't been finished yet, we've been annotating pages with raw semantic tags right below the category tags. Once we got rid of the old categories, made a bot fix up the tags, and notified the active editors of the new syntax, everyone seams to have taken to the semantic tags just about as well as the category tags. It seams like new editors don't care about whether you use category tags or annotate the page, they just look at a few other pages that are similar to the one they are editing, and copy bits of what was done there. ~NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) ^(talk) Dec 20, 2008 _@ 23:40 ^(UTC)

That was one of my main concerns as well. Playing with Special:Ask at Narutopedia, I still can't figure out how to use it properly (every query I enter produces the same 20 results). It's annotation capabilities sound useful, but from experience it's very confusing to use for people who are unfamiliar with it. That's not to say I no longer support it, I just thought I'd voice my concerns over it. Storm 00:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)