Like I said a few days ago, I don't really disagree with the assertion that these quotes can be very confusing, and I also agree with bugman's statement on the devel list that they often
"break" the logic of the article. I myself find some quote-based articles extremely irritating, too.
The point being that they should be easy to find if/when someone comes around to be bothered enough to take the time to incorporate/restructure relevant contents.
However, quotes are really just a symptom of a much deeper problem: core developers hardly documenting major changes, or not even documenting their work at all, considering it sufficient to tell others "just read the source". What is added to the wiki is usually sufficiently relevant to be added - it goes without question that the "format" is usually inappropriate, but it's still often better than just telling people "search the archives" or " read the code".
Equally, repeatedly stating, in public or not, that major contributors to the project would no longer edit the wiki due to such additions is not only pathetic, but also empowering the very people that they disagree with, for all the wrong reasons - just imagine for a second how this project would "work" if people (and even moreso,
core developers) stopped contributing merely on the grounds of disagreeing with the statements, or wiki additions and forum postings that another
user is making.
I can only reiterate my previous point: I am not as involved in FG matters these day, I fully acknowledge that "cquotes" are unfortunate for a variety of reasons, however for quite a while, the corresponding addon has been changed to create wikimedia references instead, which are much less obnoxious - besides, the script is also using a simple regex-based search/replace helper to turn 1st person speech into 3rd person.
Meanwhile, there is a growing number of "ref"-based articles, which seem to work out just fine, especially in comparison to quote-based articles:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/High-Level_Architecturehttp://wiki.flightgear.org/FlightGear_Qt_launcherhttp://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_Conce ... troductionhttp://wiki.flightgear.org/Traffic_Shaderhttp://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Using_ ... FlightGearhttp://wiki.flightgear.org/Scripted_AI_ObjectsSometimes, these don't necessarily represent acctual features, but ideas that some people working on. Thus, it does make sense to provide a broad overview, including pointers to the original discussions/postings. Even if only to make the point, that some developments have become known for being a "pie-in-the-sky" reputation by other senior contributors. We've seen that being the case when the Qt5/PUI vs. Canvas debate took place, or when it was en vogue to discuss replacing Nasal using Python - these, too, were interesting debates, and we cannot possibly expect people to read up on all the nitty gritty details of what's been said, or who said something.
http://wiki.flightgear.org/FGTrafficHowever, comparing this to the FGPythonSys article, it's actually not in such a bad shape, because quoting makes it much more obvious who made a certain statement:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/FGPythonSysFor instance, the other article created in response to this debate is this one, which is getting by with using primarily references:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Modernizing_ ... _ScriptingAll that being said, I do agree that we could introduce a dedicated section for quotes, and that we could also add a template to "veto", which is to say that articles that have an active maintainer, i.e. won't receive any quotes (I could trivially add a blacklist to the script to stop automated additions).
Finally, regarding bugman's statement on the devel list that reversions would cause quote/ref additions to stop, that is actually a little misleading: the script does not even look at the editing history of the article, and neither do I usually - if I didn't undo a reversion, it's usually because someone (i.e. bugman or Stuart) took the time to rewrite the quote/ref properly, or moved the contents to a more appropriate place - apart from that I may have simply missed it.
Speaking in general, I don't usually add quotes to articles covering features/developments whose documentation I consider actively maintained (no matter if that means dedicated README.foo files, wiki articles or whatever else).
I think Thorsten pointed out on several ocassions that he usually does not want to see quotes added to his articles, and I usually respect that - obviously, I would revisit that decision if Thorsten should take a hiatus, but any of his work should be discussed on the forum/devel list in some significant way. Equally, I would also ignore a "blacklist" if I should get the impression that relevant contents, and major changes, don't make it back into the docs.
Either way, making your, or really anyone's, contributions and involvement depend on the actions or words of a single entity, user, contributor is not just pathetic and childish, it is also putting a severe blow to the project as a whole.
Just imagine for a second that my goal would be to make core developers not use the and not use the wiki using whatever works best, and now go figure ...
Again, my offer is to modify the script to ignore blacklisted articles (it is using keywords per article to look up relevant articles), and to also use a dedicated section (or the talk page). However, truth being told, we are primarily talking about articles with quotes added by the old system, the newer one will by default only add <ref> tags, which are much less obnoxious.