[pmwiki-users] Re: yet another documentation suggestion ...

Radu radu at monicsoft.net
Thu Aug 4 14:14:42 CDT 2005


I've been lurking on this metadata thread for now because I have 
mixed feelings about metadata. So here are my 2c

It's supposed to help, but generally it winds up making extra work 
out of thin air.

Like Pm, I prefer to let the metadata be part of the page as much as 
possible. If it some data describes other data, it may at least serve 
as [visible] context for it.

And yay for section edits! That would help a lot with some of the 
really long pages. I just hope that people won't abuse it, resulting 
in horribly large pages with gigantic histories, thus more time to 
wait between edit saves (and page displays) :)

At 02:34 PM 8/4/2005, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
>On Thu, Aug 04, 2005 at 12:06:24PM +1200, John Rankin wrote:
> > Whether the metadata should be embedded in the page content or
> > as an associated metadata record is an open question:
> >
> > + having a metadata form makes it easy for people to add metadata
> > + the metadata doesn't get in the way when editing a page
> > - people need to understand what 'metadata' means
> > - updating the content of a page can make the metadata incorrect
>
>I tend to come down on the side of embedding metadata in the page
>content, as opposed to creating separate fields for it.  This is
>especially true if any of the metadata needs to be versioned in the
>page history.
>
>Even with the metadata in the contents there can be forms to
>update it, and when we implement section edits it may be easier
>to allow edits where metadata isn't in the way.  :)
>
> > The markup [[PageName?action=dc]] would show the metadata
> > associated with a particular page.
>
>Sounds like a terrific idea to me, I'll write up a module for it.

Cheers,
Radu
(www.monicsoft.net) 





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