7 Components: the Function Pages - Developers

can be generated. Others, including Jimmy Wales, reject it for aesthetic
reasons and complain that it continually causes links to be unintentionally
set. 2 They have voiced the general insight that the syntax
should differ from normal language to the extent that unintentional
layout definitions can be avoided. This requires cooperation
between several Wikians. One approach is a page in UseMod which
documents the heated battle for standardization suggestions. 3
Exchange between wikis would be considerably easier with a
standard. At the moment, the transfer of data from one wiki clone to
another without data loss is coupled with substantial difficulties.
Even if the simplest formatting commands can be easily exchanged
between themselves, the devil, as we know, is in the details. It poses
a certain risk, since one cannot be sure how long individual wiki
clones will be developed further and adapted to the current state of
the art. There is also the danger that data will become “trapped” in
an obsolete system. If the wiki community would at least agree on a
single transfer format for data, some of the insecurity in using wikis
could be eliminated.
22.1.3
Projects of the Wikimedia Group
Many Wikians are at work on projects of the new Wikimedia Foundation.
Thus, in the medium term, that foundation will be an important
source for control points for the evaluation, distribution and use
of wiki technology. Its content focus lies in the area of public reference
works: the construction of a library of free textbooks, study and
teaching materials (Wikibooks), a freely accessible dictionary (Wiktionary),
a collection of free texts (Wikisource), quotes (Wikiquote)
or biological species (Wikispecies). This area is expected to continue
to grow considerably.
Wikimedia Commons
One remarkable project of the Wikimedia Foundation is Wikimedia
Commons. It is designed to centrally store images, videos, music
and texts for all Wikimedia projects. Images stored there and available
for downloading must be in the public domain or be subject to
the GNU FDL.
An international communal and multi-language data administration
project firstly has the advantage that images no longer need to
2 Wales in a personal conversation on Dec. 28, 2004.
3 http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiMarkupStandard, 15 Jan 2005.
Interwiki
Wikimedia
Foundation
Images, text,
video, music as
free downloads
22.1 Technical Outlook �
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