User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox

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http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2706.0.html

http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2706.msg21441.html#msg21441

http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2706.msg21453.html#msg21453


Concerned about too much "partial transclusion" of articles

Let me try to explain the use of <onlyinclude></onlyinclude>, <noinclude></noinclude> and </nowiki> as simply as I can and in the context of what has been discussued in <url=http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2706.0.html>here</url>. I shall later herein refer to those terms as "transclusion stuff".

(1) By placing <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> around a section of text in the edit page of any article, you are segregating or placing a sort of box around that section of text. That box does not affect the display of the main article page in any way at all. Then you can develop a template that will display the content of that box somewhere else or in multiple somewhere elses.

(2) By placing <noinclude></noinclude> around some portion of the segregated text, you are excluding that portion of text from being displayed elsewhere by the template. This also does not affect the display of the main article page in any way at all.

(3) By placing <includeonly></includeonly> around some new text you introduced into the segregated text, you are entering new text that will be included in the text that is displayed elsewhere by the template but will not be displayed in the main article display. In other words, that also does not affect the display of the main article page in any way at all.

The overall net result is that the main article display is not affected in any way at all. However, the article edit page is sprinkled with all that "transclusion stuff" that is strange and weird to the majority of the CZ authors and editors.

So what are Caesar Chinas and I concerned about? Whenever some author or editor unfamiliar with the "transclusion stuff" makes a significant revison to the article, it will mess up the segregated text box and hence mess up the text displayed somewhere else by the template. If, as may easily happen, someone's revision of the article may partially delete or incorrectly re-arrange the "transclusion stuff" and that might then actually mess up the main article page as well. In effect, authors and editors will have to become fairly knowledgeable programmers to avoid messing things up.

Caesar and I are also concerened about the proposal at <url=http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2706.msg21441.html#msg21441>here</url> to sprinkle that strange "transclusion stuff" throughout the edit pages of a great many (if not most) of the developed CZ artcles and the fact that it seems to have been unilaterally started to some extent ... without a full and complete discussion here on the forums.