User talk:Peterblaise

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[edit] see also sub pages containing material deleted from Mediawiki.org

[edit] Please don't edit other people's posts!

Please don't edit other people's posts on Talk and other similar pages, as this annoys people, is impolite, and is generally frowned upon. Please have a look at WP:TPG#Behavior_that_is_unacceptable. —greenrd 17:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Peter Blaise responds: Hi User:Greenrd. Other than, when I am trying to add my response to an otherwise chaotic post, reformatting the entire thread for readable continuity between successive threads in that post, presenting previous contributions identifiable by author, to which I plead guilty, what are you referring to? By the way, I LOVE your User:Greenrd user_page and find that I agree with at least 10 of your self descriptions as also being descriptions of myself, from vegan right on through! Thank you very much for your entertaining and helpful sharing.
-- Peter Blaise Peterblaise 13:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Support for MediaWiki software (in spite of intolerant banning admins at MediaWiki.org) see sub page

See User_talk:Peterblaise/mediawiki for much MediaWiki software support and "meta" discussion about MediaWiki.org contributions, policies and procedures.

Note, before visiting my sub-page page above or visiting and contributing to MediaWiki.org, I suggest considering these points that were so nicely shared by Andreas Taylor at http://www.taylor.se/blog/2007/03/22/, here's a small quote with much paraphrasal and additions of my own:

Supporting software now, are we?
  • Learn to say no when appropriate
... otherwise our "yes" becomes devalued. Instead of saying "yes" all the time, yet being unable to succesfully fulfil our promises, carefully commit only to what we can handle, and handle well.
  • If everything is equally important, then nothing is important
In other words, take the time to prioritize, then work from the top priority down, one task well done at a time.
  • Don't ovethink the problem
Keep it simple, first deliver what was asked for, if time permits, suggest enhancements when appropriate, but do not struggle to make all things perfect for our own inner criteria at the expense of never delivering anything at all!
  • It all comes down to what the customer can actually touch
No matter how cool our inner, hidden programming is, the end user only see the resulting benefits ... that is, if there are any, other than the hidden, pretty code! It has to be WORKING code, first and foremost!
  • Some people just behave poorly for no apparent reason
It's not about us, it's about their unresolved childhood wounds. If they could treat us nicer, they would. They're stuck, give them wide berth, and sneak Harville Hendrix's wonderful book, :"Giving The Love That Heals" under their door to encourage them to re-raise themselves with much self love and forgiveness, and be patient and compassionate. They are hurting more than we are, and we shouldn't take that on!

-- Click! Love and hugs, Peter Blaise Peterblaise 14:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] My MediaWiki [special:version] reference

MediaWiki: 1.10.0 
PHP: 5.2.2 (apache2handler) 
MySQL: 5.0.41-community-nt 

Extensions
Special pages 
LastUserLogin (version 1.0.6) 
 Displays the last time a user logged in 
 Justin G. Cramer, Danila Ulyanov, Thomas Klein 

Parser hooks 
DynamicPageList2 (version 1.2.1) 
 based on DynamicPageList, featuring many improvements 
 IlyaHaykinson, Amgine,Unendlich, Cyril Dangerville,Algorithmix 
Subpage List 2 
 automaticaly creates a list of the subpages of a page 
 Martin Schallnahs, Rob Church 

Extension functions 
wfLastUserLogin, wfUpdateUserTouched, wfDynamicPageList3, 
 wfDynamicPageList2 and efSubpageList 

Parser extension tags 
<dpl>, <section>, <subpages> and <pre> 

Parser function hooks 
dpl, int, ns, urlencode, lcfirst, ucfirst, lc, uc, localurl, 
 localurle, fullurl, fullurle, formatnum, grammar, plural, 
 numberofpages, numberofusers, numberofarticles, numberoffiles, 
 numberofadmins, numberofedits, language, padleft, padright, 
 anchorencode, special and defaultsort 

Hooks
Hook name Subscribed by 
LanguageGetMagic wfDynamicPageList3_Magic 
LoadAllMessages wfDynamicPageListSPloadMessages 

Retrieved from "http://localhost/mediawiki/index.php/Special:Version"


So, everyone, what's yours? Go to your own MediaWiki installation and type [ special:version ] into the search bar and cut and paste your informatiopn into your own user discussion talk page. That way, we can see who's doing what, which extensions are popular (or working at all!), and may be better informed when helping eachother troubleshoot!

[edit] MediaWiki SMTP setting for intranet

How do I troubleshoot the SMTP/email notice feature? In one of our beta-test MediaWiki intranet installations, we get:

"Could not send confirmation mail. Check address for invalid characters.
Mailer returned: Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25,
verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set()"

... like everyone else installing and supporting MediaWiki software, I'm in the middle of trying to successfully implement and support MediaWiki for my users, and I'm desperately looking for a supportive community where the admins set an example of helpfulness and tolerance. Any clues to examples of successful intranet SMTP configuration for MediaWiki software?

Also in my setup: Microsoft Windows XP Pro, Apache, PHP, PHPMyAdmin (http://www.phpmyadmin.net/).

Thank you. -- Peter Blaise Peterblaise 12:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Original Template User_talk:Peterblaise/draft [see sub page]

User_talk:Peterblaise/draft


[edit] Writing a Mediawiki Instruction Manual: How to differentiate target audiences:
Developer, Sysop, Admin, Editor, User (from wikibooks)

Peter Blaise says: I think there is poor identification and differentiation of who uses and who works in, on, around, and under a wiki. Rather than just duplicating existing resources, I suggest we brainstorm and come up with something new. I suggest a functional analysis - how each user / worker functions, what they do, and how they do it. Here are a few overlapping levels of users / workers as I experience Mediawiki installations, in order here from top (customer / end user) down to the penultimate service provider, the original coder. I find that I'm dividing my time and paying attention to three areas in my Mediawiki installations:

Content - User, Editor, Admin.
Here I see Users, Editors and Admins dealing with Articles, Discussion / Talk pages, and Categories.
Read and print content.
Contribute content.
Edit and manage content.
Manage Users, Editors, Admins.
Browser-level access to site controls.
Function - Admin, Sysop.
Here I see Admins and Sysops dealing with all the on-screen controls and what those controls do, and the underlying programs.
All of the above.
Access under the web browser.
Install, configure, update.
Operating System level tasks.
Structure - Sysop, Developer.
Here I see Admins, Sysops and Developers going behind the scenes, underneath the user interface, installing, configuring, updating, using the Operating System and other tools, and creating, finding, and installing enhancements.
Creates and modifies core software and extensions.
programmer
needs overview and details of programming.
installs, configures,
needs software choices and code information,
has access to "layers" below HTML, such as operating system and code edits.

I have no problem with one manual for all three - there just needs to be three levels of depth. Writing three or more separate manuals seems silly to me since each subsequent level of depth needs the previous level of information. I'll create a simple example:

Content
User, Editor, Admin		 Function
Admin, Sysop		 Structure
Sysop, Developer
How to use the "navigation" menu How to use the "navigation" menu How to use the "navigation" menu
  How to edit the "navigation" menu How to edit the "navigation" menu
  How to create new links in the "navigation" menu How to create new links in the "navigation" menu
  How to change the appearance if the navigation menu (css) How to change the appearance if the navigation menu (css)
    How to change the function of the "navigation" menu (php)



I can't imagine a Developer wanting a reference manual showing "navigation" menu programming controls without also at least explaining what the "navigation" menu is and how it functions, as well as how to modify it with built-in controls, without the need for programming unless they want to go beyond that. Also, as an "Function and Structure" Admin, I appreciate more than just changing the "navigation" menu with available tools, but also customizing it or adding programming-like items to it, as well as understanding where I may need to go if I want more, including a tease or invitation to "do it yourself" and dabble in Development.

In other words, I see no benefit to separate manuals, and I see all the benefits to having one, complete, all-inclusive Mediawiki reference manual. The challenge may be to easily make the depth of displayed information tunable so I can toggle or nicely enter / exit successive depths if I'm curious, and come back without getting lost.

Otherwise, I might as well just go to Google each time I need to look something up and let Google dynamically assemble my Mediawiki manual each day for me whenever I'm ready for more.

Does this make sense to anyone else? How could we accomplish this? Is there, or can we make, MediaWiki extensions that help structure a reference manual on a wiki - table of contents, page navigation controls back and forth with bookmarks to return to the same page and post it notes to highlight our discoveries, and an encyclopedic index to help us look up definitions, not just search-results listing every time the word is used? I look at Special:Version and I see no "book" publishing extensions here yet. Why is that? Peterblaise 15:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

--

References in print:

  • "MediaWiki Administrators’ Tutorial Guide"
Mizanur Rahman, Packt Publishing 2007
http://www.packtpub.com/Mediawiki/
  • "Wikis for Dummies"
Dan Woods, Peter Thoeny, Wiley Publishing 2007
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470043997.html
  • "Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools"
M. Katherine Brown, Brenda Huettner, Char James-Tanny, Wordware Publishing 2007
http://www.wordware.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=1598220284

Not yet released (as of 2007-09-21):

  • "Professional Wikis"
Mark S. Choate, Wiley Publishing 2007
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470126906.html
  • "WikiPatterns"
Stewart Mader, Wiley Publishing 2007
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470223626.html

Web references:

... and so on.



[edit] see also sub pages containing material deleted from Mediawiki.org

[edit] Hard spaces again

Things are moving along at our page concerning hard spaces. I hope you will join in again now, as we approach a crucial vote.

Best wishes to you.

– Noetica♬♩ Talk 00:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)