Wikispooks:SMW Known Issues

Semantic Mediawiki is cutting edge software, which is not without its problems.

Server Load

When you save changes to the semantic data, they may not be instantly reflected in the pages served. The reason for this is that, like Mediawiki, SMW has a queue of updates. This is unavoidable and only to be expected with such software. SMW has not been subject to the same extensive testing and optimisation as Mediawiki, and so can use a lot of resources (server RAM and CPU). This should not present a serious problem to experimentation and development, provided certain issues are borne in mind:

1. Changing a lot of high use templates will increase the server queue resulting in the slower processing of semantic templates. Be careful of experiments with high use templates such as Template:SMWDocs; experiment elsewhere first to check your syntax.
2. It is possible to place the system in a non-deterministic (i.e. random) state, by stating the equivalent of (If A, then Not A). Be careful of any templates which autogenerate a lot of markup (such as Display Properties). Try to avoid their use if possible, and think it through carefully if not.

Known Bugs

The current version of SMW does has some bugs, which should be reported to the SMW developers. This is for listing bugs known to be affecting Wikispooks:

1. Column headings are omitted when querying on an inverse property - e.g. Lone_nut#Official_examples
2. Dates which have a year and month but no day create a red error message - e.g. File:King Family File Transcript.pdf

Rough Edges

This list is for points which may not merit the label 'bug', but where SMW behaviour is still sub-optimal

1. Redirects do not work perfectly when in a list - e.g. See Edward Snowden's revelations list on Whistleblower - these repeated entries (redirects) are redundant

Semantic Mediawiki

Semantic Objects Semantic Templates SMW Best Practice Semantic Properties Semantic Forms SMW Known Issues