Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Various things about Spring that do not fit in any of the other forums listed below, including forum rules.

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SeanHeron
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Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by SeanHeron »

Wiki naming conventions: Calling all Wikieditors (and those that want to become one!).
Yes, yes, I realise, this is not the awesome ground shaking topic. But we currently have a mess regarding different naming schemes for site/wiki pages, and if we're doing an overhaul, we might as well do it properly.
Thoughts ?
Master-Athmos
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Joined: 27 Jun 2009, 01:32

Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

Well when we're talking about redoing the navigation-tree from the ground up it's not much of a big deal as we would give the pages the respective category name so that a page's address is like

Code: Select all

http://springrts.com/wiki/Development/Game_Development/Unit_Development/Models_s3o
When talking about the actual names the categories should have I think that what we came up with is pretty good. But well wouldn't this topic be doubled for discussing that as THIS ONE actually covers the new structure too...
SeanHeron
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by SeanHeron »

No, no, I didn't mean what to actually call the pages (I agree with you, what we've come up with so far there is good enough).

I did mean things like whether to make subpages like you just described, and whether to do so in every area - I must tell you though that subpages like on Wikipedia do not seem to be working at the moment...
(so if a page was named like you just described, it would not automatically have link-backs to "unit_development" or "game_development".

The problem I see with making subpages named like that always, is that it makes some quite long names... (like in your example).

But even if it didn't sound like it, I would support using the "page/subpage" convention :P! But I would only use that within an Area (ie within "Download" -> not Download/LinuxInstalling/Ubuntu, but just LinuxInstalling/Ubuntu).
And I'd even consider just using it within "Development" and maybe "Help", because they're the fullest, and most likely to get overlapping names.
Master-Athmos
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

Well the last layer for the "Game Development" part should just consist of a list of the respective pages or links and shouldn't be a real category of its own you have to choose at first. So e.g. for "Unit Development" we have one page starting with a headline saying "3do models" listing whatever articles / links we have for that followed by a headline saying "s3o models" where the respecitve links will be listed and so on. Everything would be listed via a table of contents of course...
SeanHeron
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by SeanHeron »

Sorry, but could you repeat/rephrase that ? - I'm afraid I don't quite undestand what you're saying...
Master-Athmos
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

Ok - I'll explain:
When you look at the Development -> Game Development -> Unit Development section we have lots of categories on the lowest "layer" there like for example "models s3o" or "Unit definitions" (FBI etc.). All those categories won't work like ... well e.g. HERE where you click on the category you're interested in and are guided to a new page...

Instead of that we do it like it's already done HERE that is each of the categories in our navigation structure gets a thick headline followed by whatever links etc. we have and also gets a position in the table of contents. So it's not like you click at "Unit Development" and then have to click at e.g. "s3o models" again but at that level you get a page where all the categories are put in one list. That might apply to some other places in our structure too although not to everything...

I hope I could make myself understandable now... :-)
SeanHeron
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by SeanHeron »

Yeah, I get you now, thanks! Disregarding whether that's a good way of doing it or not (I would argue - not...), I don't quite see what that has to do with ending up with long names if you went for the naming convention: Categoryname/pagename/subpagename ? Or am I missing something?

The point I had tried to make was that (at least in your example), you end up with quite long pagenames. Maybe you could say what you would suggest the pagename of your example (.../model_s3o) actually would be!

Ta, Sean
Master-Athmos
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

SeanHeron wrote:Disregarding whether that's a good way of doing it or not (I would argue - not...)
Well you save clicks that way and the page won't turn out extremely long or something and you can just scroll up and down through all the respective categories on that list. I found that practical when using it (as it's already that way right now)...

If needed you also still can give a link that scrolls to the right point of that page via the links the table of content provides. So I guess the address for the "s3o models" would look like this rather than what I posted:

Code: Select all

http://springrts.com/wiki/Development/Game_Development/Unit_Development#Models_s3o
SeanHeron wrote:I don't quite see what that has to do with ending up with long names if you went for the naming convention: Categoryname/pagename/subpagename ? Or am I missing something
If I'm not mistaken I told nothing about the length of names being an issue... :?

The primary advantage even without auto-linking to the previous topic is that you just can go into your browser's navbar and like delete a part of it to get to one of the upper categories again...
SeanHeron
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by SeanHeron »

Master-Athmos wrote: If I'm not mistaken I told nothing about the length of names being an issue... :?
Sorry, that was me phrasing unclearly again: What I meant was exactly what you said: I think the length of pagenames is an issue! So what is your position on that?
Master-Athmos wrote: The primary advantage even without auto-linking to the previous topic is that you just can go into your browser's navbar and like delete a part of it to get to one of the upper categories again...
True, that would work - but I doubt very many people would navigate like that, so I don't think it's a strong argument.

To repeat - I'm also in favor of Page/subpage style convention, I just think we need to make sure we keep sane pagename's (ie not too long)!
Master-Athmos
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

Ok - I see...
Well I'm all for the system I describe where you mimic that folder like structure in the Page/subpage style. Navigating "upwards" by simply deleting a part of its end might not be a very strong argument for it but I think it really is handy especially when you get linked to one of the deeper articles and you want to know where exactly that one was about / what else might be there concerning the general topic...

It imo also is the most intuitive style for naming the categories as people are used to such a system. So the only disadvantage that might come up are long addresses. I don't think we're close to getting insanely long links as the example I gave is one of the longer ones and when I put it in my navbar it eats up just like 60% of the available space so there would be room for quite some longer links visible without scrolling (and people with more than a 1280x1024 resolution probably have even more space there unless they didn't increase the fontsizes by a lot...

But even if a link would get too long to fit into the navbar without "scrolling". I don't think that'd be an issue at all. On the one hand the "http://springrts.com/wiki/" part would be of no real interest anyway so it wouldn't be bad if it wouldn't appear in the navbar anymore and then I don't think the link length has any big importance. You pretty much said it yourself when saying navigating upwards by deleting a part of the link wouldn't be important / done by much people. So the other way round only a few people will have an in-depth look at the actual link at all but just click themselves through the wiki so they aren't really affected by the link length...

Still what stays is that it's an intuitive system allowing a "backwards navigation" that also should be easy to handle for us who edit the wiki. Currently I don't see another system with that much advantages... :-)
SeanHeron
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by SeanHeron »

Again, I have not made myself clear enough... my problem with long pagenames is not in the browsers navbar, but that people have to write these pagenames in the wiki when they want to link to a page.

Even though I think the nested approach for the site structure is definitely the way to go, one advantage of websites is that you can easily crosslink. Long Page-names make it harder for users/Editors to do that.

Edit: Plus people are more likely to use a convention the less clunky it is - I think you'd end up having to move a lot of pages made by people who can't be bothered making pages with names that long, if you wanted to enforce the convention your proposing.
Master-Athmos
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

You always type in the addresses by hand? :shock:
Why not simply copy -> paste the respective links one wants to use?

That's at least what I think anyone would do leading to the actual link length being pretty much unimportant as you just copy it and paste it wherever you need it... :?
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by lurker »

Having to copy and paste just slows things down. Long links make sharing annoying and aren't needed for good organization.
Master-Athmos
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

Well I don't know how fast you can type but I'd say the time difference it takes to write a link yourself and copy one (let's assume we'd have short ones) is marginal. I mean we're talking about a Wiki and if a "few second job" bothers you after writing a textwall of an article something is going wrong...

Plus in the end the main thing the Wiki should be about is usability and if a user can jump around and understand the structure by simply looking at the link in his navbar that's quite an advantage imo and I see no hurdle for those writing something for the Wiki...
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lurker
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by lurker »

With many interlinks the structure wears down. Short category bits can work, but layers upon layers of nesting just makes it more awkward and can hurt navigation.
Master-Athmos
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

While I still don't see how the system would hurt navigation (as I still see this on the pro side for what I proposed) - what would you suggest for the naming scheme?
SeanHeron
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by SeanHeron »

I can hardly believe your still arguing this... compare writing [[Evo RTS]]
to [[Development/Game_Development/Unit_Development#Models_s3o]] ... (and no, I don't want to have to copy+paste).

And you can hardly assume everyone is always writing textwalls.. look at what we've been doing so far!

Anyway, to move ahead from this discussion, I'd suggest this naming convention:
  • - In "About", "Games", and "Download", use no subpages as default (if for some reason they should be used, then use Page/subpage).

    - In "Development" (where "subpages" have traditionally been used), I'd decide on a few central Category or pagenames (something along the lines of the "map" "unit", and such we have now), and try to see if we can fit everything in those - so that any page name is never longer than page/subpage.

    - "Help" I'm unsure on, but would tend to think no subpages as default.
(As said, I'd go for "/" for marking between page and subpages).

Edit: On making it easy for people to see where they are - this is far better solved with other methods. One would be highlighting the linkbar section you're currently in (though I'll admit, getting that to work with the wiki is probably not trivial - check out BountySource for some neat features/examples of that working - I don't think it's Mediawiki though...)
Master-Athmos
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

Well imo lazyness shouldn't beat a better navigation structure and yes I think you can call this lazy as we're talking about something that'd take you mere 1-5 seconds longer (if at all). Concerning the "textwalls" argument: Well how long did it take you to write the very last post you did here? Few entries in the Wiki are going to be that long as it'd be a damn short article and when you write e.g. something in the development part you usually won't be able to write things down "fluidly" like when posting here. Now relate this to additional 1-5 seconds of work for each of the few links that there are going to be. It's marginal and thus I'd call not wanting to do the copy paste method lazy...

Plus you're sort of playing it easy with e.g. your Evo RTS example. If you want to stay true the the "maximum is page/subpage" suggestion try writing this:

Code: Select all

Introduction_to_multiplayer_lobbies/Springlobby
Having the respective page open in your browser would make the copy/paste method even FASTER than typing all of this yourself. So my suggestion has the more clear navigation structure with an easy way to get up as many levels as you want at any time just by editing your navbar and has no really relevant time component slowing you as it'll work either faster, just as fast or just marginally slower than typing short category names...
SeanHeron
Engines Of War Developer
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by SeanHeron »

Question: Are you signing up to maintain that Naming convention singlehandedly ? Otherwise, I'm afraid you'd better give it up.
Master-Athmos
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Re: Wiki/site pages Naming scheme ?

Post by Master-Athmos »

Well I seem to fail to see any real "problems" in the way I suggested to name the categories. I've also seen no worked out alternative yet. You've just said that the maximum you want to have is a "page/subpage" naming. Yet you've not really explained all the details like:
SeanHeron wrote:But even if it didn't sound like it, I would support using the "page/subpage" convention :P! But I would only use that within an Area (ie within "Download" -> not Download/LinuxInstalling/Ubuntu, but just LinuxInstalling/Ubuntu).
And I'd even consider just using it within "Development" and maybe "Help", because they're the fullest, and most likely to get overlapping names.
That's actually what I rate as a huge con of your way of doing it: It's confusing. If someone wants to write something / create a new page he has to look up many things: Do I have to do the next page as a subcategory or not (i.e. check at which level it exactly is)? In which main category (Download / Help / Development etc.) am I posting anyway? May I use subcategories there? And maybe most important: Where can I look up all these rules (as you've yet didn't say a word of where someone would get the info on the not self-evident "rules" you came up with)?

So when someone wants to write something that's pretty confusing and without knowing he'll probably name it whatever he wants and what seems to fit in his opinion. In contrast to that my method is pretty much self-evident and requires no topic (wherever that one may be) you need to look up in order to know what and what not to do plus it has all the advantages I described at length in my previous posts...

I also still have seen no counter-argument yet for the only con you could spot on my suggestion being the "time consumption for writing links". As I said - copy/pasting existing links is actually faster for longer stuff and creates no real slowdowns when working with rather short names. Still you seem to sit at your PC with a stop watch next to you measuring every single second of the minutes long task of writing an article... :wink:

So please explain why such a little little extra amount of time needed for some mere links is so bad that you want to dump the advantages of that method and want to introduce those confusing rules is described at the beginning?
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