By Iangbruk on
More and more I'm thinking that Wikipedia is becoming THE repository for static knowledge. As I'm working on using Drupal to build static knowledge on stocks I find I'm thinking along the lines of using Wikipedia entries and also signing up for Wikipedia and cross posting new Drupal Book entries there. The first time I tried this I found that just copying and pasting the entry from Wikipedia made me have to change all the URL's. I searched for modules and just found the Interwiki module which doesn't really do what I want. I'm wondering if other people are finding need for easy copying of Wikipedia or if there are other tools out there to do this?
Comments
I sympathize
As one of the authors of the Interwiki module, I agree that it would be good to enable easier copying of Wikipedia copy. However, that isn't easy to implement. For one thing, Wikipedia's syntax involves more than just easy hyperlinking using the [[double bracket]] syntax. It also includes its own markup syntax for bold and italic text stylings, categories, footnotes, math formulae, subheads tables and a number of other things, and the syntax is still evolving.
The latest version of the Interwiki module, which I updated for version 4.5 just yesterday, provides the option of using either double or single brackets, which makes it a little bit easier to modify Wikipedia links so they work on Drupal websites. However, you'd still have to enter [[w:public relations]] instead of [[public relations]] to the produce the Wikipedia link you want. Perhaps I could modify this so that [[public relations]] automatically assumes the "w:" prefix if no other prefix is provided. Would that address your need?
For a more complete solution, however, you'd need considerably more programming effort than I'm able to provide personally, and I don't know of anyone else who is actively trying to do it.
POSTSCRIPT: I've modified the interwiki module so that its double-bracket syntax links to Wikipedia by default if no prefix is specified. This means that [[public relations]] links to the Wikipedia article on public relations. I think this should address your need. If you want to try it out, the new modification is in the CVS HEAD. (I haven't commited the change yet to the 4.5 version branch but will do so in the future if this change seems stable.)
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Research director, Center for Media and Democracy
http://www.prwatch.org
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Customer Support Engineer, Granicus
https://granicus.com
Thanks
I'm just starting to get my head around this. In the future I see the need for people being able to reference not only a full article but also specific paragraphs of Wikipedia content with proper accreditation. Besides the fact that I think it would be good P.R. for Drupal to be seen as leading the push to include properly accredited Wikipedia content (while also providing micro backups of Wikipedia??) I'm wondering if this is not the problem with blogging in particular. Rather than linking to someone's blog post I guess I'm looking for a module that includes the proper references?
Sure
I don't know if there's particular need for "micro backups of Wikipedia," since it has its own rather impressive versioning system and its own backups. Referencing "specific paragraphs of Wikipedia content" raises a whole other level of technical problems that I'm not prepared to address, and I'm not sure what you mean by "proper references." Do you mean something like a formal footnote? However, I've just revised the HEAD version of Interwiki.module in the hope of making it easier to cut-and-paste copy directly from Wikipedia articles into Drupal nodes. Let me know if that addresses any of your needs.
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Research director, Center for Media and Democracy
http://www.prwatch.org
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Research director, Center for Media and Democracy
http://www.prwatch.org
----------------
Customer Support Engineer, Granicus
https://granicus.com