User:M.mendel/Wikibase

What is a Wikibase?
A wikibase is an object-oriented database implemented on top of the wiki using wiki template code to acess it.

Once the decision was made to remove the Skillbox calls from the skill articles and store them separately, in effect a database was created. Only noone knew, so it doesn't work as well as it could.

Each skill article in Template: namespace is a database entry. Its article name is its identifier and single key; and the fields it calls Skill Box with are its attributes - the data, if you will.

Even now, there are two ways to retrieve this data: Clearly, as of now, method 2 is superior: itis more readable and uses less system resources.
 * 1) grab the content of the template with msgnw: and parse it using #pos:, #replace: or #explode:, e.g.   {#explode: |=|1}}  will retrieve the value  of the field Profession from the skill Abaddon's Chosen. It does that by determining the position of the field within the template with #pos:, discarding everything before it with #sub: and cutting out first the bit between the pipes and then the piece after the = with #explode:. The value of this field should be Monster: it is . Cost: Pre-expand include size: 1027/2097152 bytes, Post-expand include size: 1228/2097152 bytes, Template argument size: 0/2097152 bytes.
 * 2) call the skill directly, using a custom skill box that only returns the needed field:  should be Monster: it is . Pre-expand include size: 417/2097152 bytes, Post-expand include size: 32/2097152 bytes, Template argument size: 21/2097152 bytes.