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7 Components: the Function Pages - Developers

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In Wikipedia, <strong>the</strong>re is a prefabricated text module that is placed<br />

above an article before extensive edits:<br />

'''Attention''': This article is actively undergoing<br />

a major edit. As a courtesy, please<br />

do not make edits to this article while this<br />

message is displayed, in order to avoid<br />

'''edit conflicts'''.<br />

This module can be set in <strong>the</strong> namespace Template. Our tribal initiative,<br />

for instance, has done so under <strong>the</strong> name “In Use,” and can embed<br />

this message on any page indicating<br />

{{in use}}<br />

Once in a while, someone notices that an article is unfinished but<br />

does not have <strong>the</strong> resources at that time to continue work on it himself.<br />

To coordinate work on <strong>the</strong> project, <strong>the</strong> Fire Group has added<br />

two fur<strong>the</strong>r templates that show that a page urgently needs editing<br />

and that its content must be checked. One or two members who are<br />

especially attentive in maintaining <strong>the</strong> wiki have <strong>the</strong>se two template<br />

pages on <strong>the</strong>ir watchlists, to facilitate quicker access. At regular intervals,<br />

<strong>the</strong>y access <strong>the</strong> pages and use <strong>the</strong> backlink function. In this<br />

way, <strong>the</strong>y receive a list of all pages that contain <strong>the</strong> corresponding<br />

template and thus need editing.<br />

A second important point to be observed while writing is that<br />

o<strong>the</strong>r authors must understand your source text. The more complicated<br />

<strong>the</strong> construction of your page is, <strong>the</strong> more difficult it will be<br />

for o<strong>the</strong>rs to understand, for instance regarding how certain formats<br />

can be attained. You only succeed in establishing additional hurdles<br />

for participants to <strong>the</strong> creative process in <strong>the</strong> wiki.<br />

The readability of a source text can be greatly improved using <strong>the</strong><br />

following simple means:<br />

� Use new lines to separate units. This is, admittedly, at times not<br />

easy in MediaWiki, since line breaks in <strong>the</strong> wrong place will<br />

spoil <strong>the</strong> process. On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, <strong>the</strong> page breaks are not<br />

displayed when <strong>the</strong> page is formatted, such that, e.g. you can<br />

write commands to embed templates or variables in lines.<br />

� Comment <strong>the</strong> source text. To do so, you can use normal HTML<br />

comment symbols (). Describe <strong>the</strong> structure of<br />

<strong>the</strong> page, <strong>the</strong> most important sections and special features that<br />

need attention.<br />

Unfinished<br />

pages<br />

Formatting<br />

source text<br />

9.3 You Don’t Write Alone �<br />

�<br />

�<br />

137

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