User:RoyZuo

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yue-N 呢位用戶嘅母語係粵語。
en-3 This user has advanced knowledge of English.
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thoughts

  • Files should be identified and reused with a unique number like [[File:M56856129|thumb|example]]. This would eliminate 1 of 3 things doing roughly the same thing: filename, caption, description; and all the rules and maintenance tasks about filename like Category:Media requiring renaming.
  • Categories should become something like tags or wikidata properties. Each category should deal with 1 specific concept. When categories behave like wikidata items, then they can take on multilingual labels and aliases. Users can therefore no longer be troubled with which name to use, which name needs to be disambiguated, etc. Intersection categories also become useless. Instead of searching for Category:Yellow houses users can search "depicts=houses; colour=yellow"; "location=london; type=photograph; date=2010-03-01" instead of Category:London photographs taken on 2010-03-01...

    Previously written: Commons:Requests_for_comment/Categories_of_photographs_by_country_by_date#c-RoyZuo-20240510175700-Limitation_of_mediawiki_search_engine.

  • Further, even "(article)" (main) namespace pages on wikipedia etc. should also become something like wikidata items. Then its title can take on lowercase initial, or any illegal characters, just like how file caption has no such limitation.


  • It has been quite some time (writing as of 20:39, 7 December 2024 (UTC)) since I started avoiding nominating categories for discussion or moving categories, even if they have obviously unsuitable titles, as long as they dont interfere with the categories I use, because it's a waste of all users' effort and time. As I now recognise, all these problems about mw:Manual:Page_title (be it filename, or category title) can be solved by a different technical design.--RoyZuo (talk) 12:23, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Commons needs its own software, instead of a variant of mediawiki. Patchworks on an unsuitable software cannot make it work.

    Users and editors have rather different needs, so there could be two modes: an editing mode specifically for editors.

    Photos, artwork scans, books, videos, audios... all have rather different kinds of metadata and need different viewing tools, so there can be different webpage design depending on the kind of content.

    Mediawiki cant do the above. It tries to create a one-fits-all page design, but ends up falling short of everything.--RoyZuo (talk) 08:59, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

more thoughts

Extended content

Templates

Dont design templates, modules or gadgets that are so complicated that only the author can easily understand.

Keep code simple and readable.

Because you should think, one day when you cannot continue maintenance, how to let other users easily take over your codes? We are all volunteers here, so dont expect users to invest a lot of time just to understand your codes. My personal style of designing templates:

  1. avoid recursive transclusion of other templates. (hard to follow through layers of templates called in other templates.)
  2. keep neat indentation.
  3. write explicit documentation.
  4. avoid setting unnecessary style (font colour, background colour, etc.), so that the look can change according to users' preferences instead of designers' choices.

Cfd

  • Cfd has been dysfunctional for a long time (as of 18:32, 9 February 2025 (UTC)).
Commons:Categories for discussion/2010/11/Category:Videos by display resolution was raised 1 month after these cats first emerged. Yet nothing could be done, despite another Commons:Categories for discussion/2017/06/Category:Videos by display resolution. Now they've grown to 10k junk cat pages.

Maintenance category

Leave sufficient documentation and instructions so that other users can easily understand the original purpose for which you create new maintenance categories.

Ways to offer additional tools to users

Ways to offer additional tools to users
method turning on/off availability (logged-out) availability (logged-in) editing self configuration
Commons:Gadgets Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets

min. 5 clicks

 ❌ (generally)

unless turned on by default (i.e. community consensus required)

 if they turn it on, or if on by default (i.e. community consensus required) ❌ (generally)

only Commons:Interface administrators can edit

 ❌ (generally)

unless it includes settings

user scripts loaded in user's own common.js always on

editing common.js to turn on/off

 ❌ if they load it in their common.js ❌ (generally)

only the script creator and interface administrators can edit

 ❌ (generally)

unless it includes settings

user scripts loaded in browser extensions

browser extensions

 browser settings if they install it in their browsers if they install it in their browsers users (because they control the source code) high (because they control the source code)
templates transcluded on pages always on (only if transcluded) always always all commons editors (except protected templates) ❌
external websites (including toolforge) depends on the website depends on the website depends on the website website creator depends on the website

Quick guide on each kind of providers.

Over the years I've developed the same utility in different forms, e.g. Template:Category helper Template:DeepcatSearch to be transcluded on the page for anyone (no account needed) to use, and MediaWiki:Gadget-DeepcatSearch.js as a gadget, which can only be used by logged-in users who know it and turn it on.--RoyZuo (talk) 06:45, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

to-do list

coding exercises

Category:User en Category:User en-3 Category:User yue Category:User yue-N