Wikisource:Labeled section transclusion

Here is a suggestion for enabling sections of texts at Wikisource to be transcluded. The current statement of the concept as code (in XML-style syntax) is thanks to User:Eloquence, who strongly suggests that the function be termed "Labeled section transclusion" (as we have called it on this page).

The following sections briefly describe how labeled section transclusion would work, and its rationale.

A section of text (an individual chapter, subsection of a chapter, a numbered paragraph in a classical text, an individual verse) might be marked off something like this:

<begin section="Paragraph 1"/> ...text of the section...<end section="Paragraph 1"/>

The slashes inside the tags are XML-style, which is similar to <br/>, <references/>, etc.

NB: Sections may overlap (different sectioning mechanisms may be used within the same text), so a syntax where the end tag is ambiguous is not acceptable.

When calling up that section, it would be done like this:

{{Text##Paragraph 1}}

The double-## syntax is suggested because a single "#" has the problem of being normally used for regular wiki sections, so users might intuitively try transcluding sections and be confused when it doesn't work. That is why "##" is suggested as an alternative. Other non-title characters would work, too.

The first clear statement of this concept as code used ParserFunctions, and is thanks to User:Pathoschild.

Mark off a section of text like this:

{{#section:name|start}} ...text... {{#section:name|end}}

Call up that section of text like this:

{{pagename#section:name}} or {{pagename#name}}

Though the preceeding coding syntax (XML-style) seems to be more appropriate according to the Mediawiki developers, this statement by User:Pathoschild was the first success at stating the idea clearly, and subsequent developments are thanks to his help!

Those who study classical texts quickly learn that they have what we might call today a "hypertext" nature. This means that generations of scholars over many centuries refer to and cite each others' works, all within the same corpus. This results in a kind of literature that consists of primary texts (often in multiple versions), multiple commentaries on them, multiple super-commentaries, and even super-super-commentaries.

This scenario accurately describes the literature of Aristotelian science, rabbinic literature, classic church literature, Islamic literature, and is probably true for other cultures as well.

Also, the clear division of books into large subsections called "chapters," which is typical of the modern books at Wikisource, is very different from the numerous complementary ways that ancient, classical, and medieval texts were divided, commented on, and cited.

At present, there is one very specific feature missing in Mediawiki that would be of enormous assistance for pre-modern literature. Such a feature would allow the creation of different editions of the same corpus with no duplication of text:

• Editions that present parallel versions (such as parallel translations) of individual passages and compare them;
• Editions which present collections of commentaries on individual passages;
• Editions which allow a commentary to be presented both in running form and/or in individual units together with the primary text that it comments on.

Currently, the only way to build the above editions is by putting each small unit of text on its own page, and then transcluding masses of such smaller units every time you call up the commentaries on one verse, or present one chapter based on transcluding individual verses. Otherwise the texts have to be duplicated a great many times, something which is unhealthy for a number of reasons.

Small Wikisource text projects that have tried to implement the presentation of such texts under present circumstances find that they need to create thousands of pages, each with just a small unit of text, just in order to present variations of what is not a large quantity of text at all. These clutter up the template namespace or the main namespace, and call for a namespace of their own (perhaps to be called the "Passage:" namespace, for individual passages of a text). All of this just to cover a small amount of text.

Creating slightly larger works based upon such texts would eventually require tens or hundreds of thousands of individual pages, and hundreds of thousands of cumbersome manual actions on the wiki.

Having what is intuitively the opposite function (i.e. putting the entire version of a book on one page with invisible section markers, and then transcluding portions of it in relevant places) would be much more feasible and far less messy.

Currently, the Bible and its commentaries provide an excellent example of the problem (but they are by no means the only example). At Hebrew Wikisource, for instance, just to present the very short book of Jonah properly with its commentaries required the creation of literally hundreds of transcluded text-units (the work was done by User:Nevuchadnezzar). The process currently works, but not in a reasonable way.

The enabling of labeled section transclusion would be of great assistance to Wikisource for Bible and for many other classical texts from a range of cultures.

This tool could be an enormously useful: Any and all of the texts-units at Wikisource that should be presented in a variety of complementary forms, whether in terms of presenting parallel translations or collections of commentaries on individual units. Such a feature would remove the need to duplicate those units of text.

This proposal for a Mediawiki extension may be found at:

• bug 5881 Partial transclusion of text (Bug 5881)

Unfortunately, the Bugzilla proposal was only clarified towards the end of a very lengthy discussion. This wiki page reflects the current status of the proposal.

Please contribute to the discussion both on this page and at the bug, and add your vote to the bug.

Developer feedback has been on two levels: content and coding.

• Most reservations have been in terms of content, because this concept has less relevance to Wikipedia-style articles: Why would anyone want to mark of part of a Wikipedia article to be transcluded? However, even those who had such reservations had no problem with the idea that the function could be appropriate to Wikisource.
• The above XML-style syntax is the latest suggestion for how this could be appropriately coded.

According to User:Eloquence, the coding for this function "should be manageable," though it would have to deal with a few technical issues that might be tricky:

• Parsing the sections without choking: There may be typos, missing end markers, dupe sections, etc.
• Indicating where a section is being used (refined Special:Whatlinkshere, needed for fixing broken transclusions).
• Making sure all the proper table and cache purge operations are done whenever a section is added/modified/removed.

Discussion of technical issues continues at the talk page.

This opinion poll is regarding the desirability of having labeled section transclusion enabled as an available tool for Wikisource. If made available in the future, it will be used for those texts in which the community deems it appropriate (and not for others). Having the tool available does not require its use in any or all cases.

This poll does not deal with the technical feasibility of implementing the function in the software (if it proves too difficult on a software level, it will obviously not be implemented anyway).

Note: If you support this, please vote for the bug as well.

• Support Dovi 19:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC) (as author of the proposal)[reply]
• Support.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. --BirgitteSB 22:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Support -- Danny 03:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Support -- Banjee ca 02:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Support -- Something like this would be extremely useful. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 23:21, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Support --Kernigh 21:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Object I hope it doesn't seem too presumptuous to be contrary to consensus, when I only got involved with wikisource during the last converence session. To me, this seems like feature creep. This would only be used in wikisource, and doesn't seem that difficult with the current functionality in the software. I don't think it's a good idea to add new syntax and software features for simple things.Sanbeg 15:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Important discussion of technical alternatives in the wake of the above comment may be found at the talk page. A summary follows in the next section.

See the talk page for extensive discussion of the alternative solutions summarized in the following subsections.

Put each individual small passage of text on its own separate page (ideally there should be a separate namespace for these small sections) and transclude them individually in whatever multiple contexts they should appear in.

Implemented at Hebrew Wikisource. Check out the individual verses of the Book of Jonah with commentaries, whose index is here. This small book transcluded hundreds of small elements, and there are other texts like it at he:.

Disadvantage: This method is extremely labor-intensive, and also involves the creation of huge numbers of separate pages.

Proposed by User:Sanbeg and implemented for examples at English Wikisource.

Implemented at Hebrew Wikisource, this solution is similar to that of User:Sanbeg in that the text is put into a template, but it utilizes the parser function "if" rather than "uninclude".

This has been implemented extensively at Hebrew Wikisource by he:User:Svgb. For an example, see the wiki-code for this text. The page itself appears blank because it is in a template; sections of it are called up on other pages.

When a page is transcluded, selectively hide desired parts of it by using parameters. Implemented at French Wikisource.

• Example: fr:« C'était alors, quand, les chaleurs passées, » The transcluded page uses the template "NouveauChapitre" as a delimiter.

The template "Page" is called with two parameters, "from" and "to".

• Example: fr:Essais_-_Livre_I_-_Chapitre_6
• User's manuel: fe:Aide:Affichage_par_pages (French)
• Also see: Wikisource:Subdomains coordination