Rebuilding The Wiki

[Sirbomber]

Yeah, that's what I said.
So somebody do it so I can get started with this thing.

[Leviathan]

Well guys I realy think we should start geting this done. We need to decide on a structure for it.

I allways liked the OpenTTD wiki.

Some suggestions for sections:

Gameplay Manual
Multiplayer Manual
Development
Player Resources
Projects

We should defo keep the op2 manual on the wiki like before. Multiplayer manual will include things releated to mutlplayer gaming. Multiplayer guides and such. Development for creating content for the game.  

[Sirbomber]

I was talking to Hooman, and he said that we should probably just scrap the wiki and put the useful stuff (novellas, code snippets, guides, etc) in a special part on the main site.

I think it makes sense. I really don't care where the stuff is as long as it's not cluttered and it's easy to find.

[Mez]

I agree that the wiki was good for some content but also bad for other.

The coding section on the main site only really needs to be a brief overview, links to coding samples / examples.

Then links to relevant forum topics in the coding section.

Perhaps the same for projects, unless the project is big enough and well progressed to have its own site i.e. Renagades as it has been released, but the majority of op3's don't need to be there except perhaps for genesis. Even then the progress really should be link to the genesis site.

[Hooman]

My main point was that the wiki was not appropriate for things which should not be edited, such as the novellas.

The wiki probably also isn't so great when info needs to be completely replaced rather than patched up, especially if historical versions need to be easily accessible. Nor is the wiki particularly good in subject areas where there is not a significant number of people knowledgable on the subject. Keep in mind that mainstream wiki sites usually have a lot more people using the wiki then we have here. If we can't reasonably expect a number of people to contribute, then there's no real point in using wiki over some other format. We might also want to avoid using the wiki for things on which there are many conflicting viewpoints, since the nature of wiki means people will be editing what other people say.

I've also found the organizational structure of the wiki to be seriously lacking.


It's not so much that I oppose using a wiki, as I don't see the point. Most of the things that have been suggested for the wiki would be better suited to some other form of presentation.

[Leviathan]

Thats mainly what were here to discuss Hooman. A new organizational structure and to get rid of stuff that should not be on there. To start over and make a good wiki!

[Freeza-CII]

Why dont you just start adding on the website have it all in a centralized location.

I would think this would be best as you can make it look any which way possible.  Because Wiki is good for like text but not alot of tables and s***.

[Leviathan]

Thats the idea, to have everything in one location where all the active members can help on it.

[Arklon]

Wiki is just f***ing nasty for formatting. Probably not the best idea to turn the whole website into one.

[Freeza-CII]

Wiki is for Information not websites

[BlackBox]

Noticing the comment about "development," I have my two cents to add:

If you think code (other than short snippets illustrating how to do something) should be posted on a wiki or anything like that, I don't think it's a very good idea at all. Ideally, code that is going to be a sort of community project (any significant amount, like a whole file) should be posted on SVN or some other kind of version control system. These systems are much more suited to programmers.

With regards to making the website a wiki, my opinion is a big resounding "no." In my opinion, the website is best meant as a place to put pages and information that changes infrequently (such as the IRC / hamachi setup guides, download pages, links pages, etc). Stuff like this, help file contents, etc. shouldn't be posted on a wiki (this kind of information has no real reason to be changed often and a wiki encourages that to a point).

I think the biggest barrier to having a maintainable wiki, however, is the lack of manpower we need to keep it organized. Ideally, there should be editors who periodically clean up, revise, etc. If we can't get people who will periodically devote time to this, we shouldn't have a wiki. (And the excuse that "allowing the whole community to edit" doesn't really seem to work either. Large wikis like Wikipedia still have groups of editors, admins, etc. who go through and clean up the garbage. If we make the wiki a free-for-all then all kinds of useless crap is bound to get posted just like what we have now).

Another thing is the software used. The current software we use (mediawiki) is terrible to upkeep and maintain, and I have heard many a complaint about the terrible wiki syntax it uses. In my opinion a good wiki would either: a) have a graphical / wysiwyg editor, or B) allow a subset of HTML so that people can use what they are familiar with, rather than having to learn some new, useless markup language to write pages for the Wiki.

[Hooman]

I totally agree with BlackBox on all that.

[Sirbomber]

Let's just dump the piece of crap and devote our attention to the site.

[Leviathan]

Its not realy about have a maintainable wiki but haveing a maintainable website that dosent rely on one person to be updated. The website should be on a CMS system which trusted members have admin access to. If you want something with a wysiwyg editor I would suggest Joomla. That also allows for HTML editing.

And Sirbomber I never said it must be a wiki. We just need something that can be updated when people make new tools and such and by that person.

[Freeza-CII]

perhaps you should give the people who have the ablity to do websites access to certain parts of the site that need the attention.  Or the people that actually want to do it.

[BlackBox]

If you want something with a wysiwyg editor I would suggest Joomla.

Joomla is quite frankly a piece of crap. I'd rather not see our site get hacked every other day by 13 year old russian script kiddies.

[Leviathan]

Well some other CMS that does the job then!


So what CMS/wiki are we going to use?

[Eleri at'Xalien]

I just pulled out my old copy of Outpost 2, and discovered I was having far too much trouble so I found this website and managed to pull down a fully working version, so first, thanks.

Second, I did find the Wiki and the pages on the website, and was wondering if I could get an account or status on the Wiki rewrite? I couldn't find any of my documentation and had a devil of a time figuring out techs and such again in one of the colony games.

Is it possible if not to grab a Wiki account and to just add pages that are missing from the website, such as techs and buildings?

[Sirbomber]

Editing has been disabled.  We were going to trash it and start from scratch until we all remembered that nobody uses it anyways.

Anyways, hi there.  Come on IRC sometime during the weekend.

[Eleri at'Xalien]

Sad. For the life of me, I couldn't find tech trees or anything anywhere and was hoping the wiki would have them.

So, a bit off topic, but where would such things be located?

[Hidiot]

In some dead links.

That's right, there are no actual links :/

I suggest, uh... doing the campaigns on easy for a rough idea of their order?

[Eleri at'Xalien]

>.<

While I may have the original Outpost 2 disc, I'm not sure where my manual is to look up such things, and have no desire to go through the campaign to find out such details.

On the other hand...can I grab the information from the...'vol'? files?

Well, would it be possible even so to grab editing functions for the wiki to add such a thing, or even another sub-domain with the wiki software. Because I have to admit, I've always enjoyed this game, and think it could benefit from having more of the documentation available in a more open format.

I also, after reading the thread, do believe that even information which is fairly static such as tech. trees works out well in a wiki format. For reference, I would point to the Dwarf Fortress Wiki. An open-source game that has most of the documentation available in that format.

[Hidiot]

I think I'm experienced enough to let you know that personal experience is the best way to go.

Once you start playing multi player and pick up some essential hints, you'll probably find yourself changing your play style.
I could only become somewhat of a competent player after the first month or two of multi playing and that's considering I've played this game quite a few times during the past 10 years before that.

If you're not prepared to take a long trip to learning the techs well, then don't bother, you'll just drop it at some point.

[Eleri at'Xalien]

Quite frankly, that's not what I'm concerned about. I've played the single-player campaign numerous times throughout the years. I especially enjoy the colony games and with the discovery of this forum, am intrigued at all of the hacking that has been going on.

My main purpose in having a tech tree is for my brother and girlfriend, quite frankly, and to have a reference I can use if I lose interest and come back, which will probably occur as it has throughout the past years as well.

If you're not prepared to take a long trip to learning the techs well, then don't bother, you'll just drop it at some point.

I'm curious, are you talking about building a tech tree or playing the game?

[Sirbomber]

He's talking about playing the game, saying (let me paraphrase) "if you don't want to learn the techtree don't bother playing the game" (I think).

PS: I think you'll find these helpful:
http://gallery.outpostuniverse.net/display...t=10984&pos=-92
http://gallery.outpostuniverse.net/display...t=10984&pos=-93

Edit 2: You know, if you really want, I can probably convince BlackBox to let you have free reign over the Wiki; it's not like anyone cares about it as is.  What's the worst that could happen?  You might make something good out of it!  Just say the word.