BACKGROUND: Mediawiki has very small core of php developers. As a CMS, it is ages behind the abilities of Drupal 7 or other current systems. Unless building on the strength of the wiki concept, improving the ability of community members to develop and deploy javascript editors etc. without requiring server access, Mediawiki may fall behind even further. With jQuery and the resource loader renovated, opportunities are now excellent to pursue this path.
Presently can be provided by php-developers (the small and - for good reason - tightly controlled community), by admins for all pages, or for individual users (self-created or as personally enabled widgets). For all pages is often too dangerous to become a basis for agile improvements, for one self is not very motivating.
ENHANCEMENT REQUEST: What may be be missing is a hook that enables Mediawiki-ns-based javascript on a specific page (apologies if I overlook an existing feature).
I propose to add a tag to load admin-provided scripts from the Mediawiki namespace. It could be
<javascript>Mediawiki:XYZ.js</javascript>
or
<javascript>XYZ.js</javascript>
but should always be limited to the Mediawiki namespace.
Such javascript is only executed for page on which the tag is present (in practice, the tag will most likely be included through templates). This could be the ground on which more agile experiments can be run, and on which topic-specific functionality is deployed by the community for the community.
Version: 1.20.x
Severity: enhancement