Time for the annual Spring Site Fight

[smoth]

Wordpress is not a substitute for a wiki EVER.

[Forboding Angel]

Wordpress is not a substitute for a wiki EVER.

That isn't what he is suggesting, smoth. Re-read his post.

He is saying that for disconnected pages (meaning, top level pages on a website) it isn't really suitable, because it doesn't really perform the job well. And in that, he is absolutely correct.

He isn't suggesting that we replace mediawiki with WP, what he is suggesting is that for certain top level pages, we not use mediawiki (and that makes perfect sense).

Certain pages like Development and wiki are unavoidably necessary to have as mediawiki. That is fine, but other pages, like about (for example) are better served by them not being wiki pages. Once again, that is absolutely correct.

That doesn't all of a sudden mean BURN THE WIKI. It means, use the wiki for what it's best at, and the website engine for what it is best at.

In some cases (Like the development page), you have to compromise and meet in the middle.

[knorke]

We need to showcase:
This is what the engine does.
This is what it can do
Here're examples of people who did it thatyou can go play
Here is where you get started

doesnt current frontpage do that?
(as best as avaivable content like videos allows)

Actually, (header image) Would be a layered div above (as in - On top of) "pretty rotating headers".

ok, can not see that in the scribble.
But if now talk is already about details such as fonttypes, maybe it is already past ms paint mockups.

what he is suggesting is that for certain top level pages, we not use mediawiki (and that makes perfect sense).

imo the pages like about and faq get edited often enough that wiki is ok.
Why would development-page not be wiki, it links to everywhere in wiki, it is PART OF the wiki.

[Forboding Angel]

The point is that the wiki is rigid and inflexible, and isn't suited for top level pages of a website.

To be fair, I said this in the original post:

Spring engine logo would be overlaid on top of the rotating images by use of div + z-index.

The front page does do all of that (sort of), but not in a good way.

This isn't so much about change as it is making everything better. Of course, by simply doing this, it will be better.

Font types is a side discussion really. Just a random thought thrown in the mix.

[smoth]

The point is that the wiki is rigid and inflexible, and isn't suited for top level pages of a website.

Wordpress would be good for a frontpage but would not have forum integration. Nor would it be able to properly supplant the forum. I could see doing wordpress with it wrapping around the forum and wiki but WHY? so you would jack up the whole site for the front page to be marginally better? The front page is like 1% of what this site has to offer. Wordpress is not forum software or documentation software. What we have now gives us both. Sure there may be a better forum than phpbb by now but that isn't going to be wordpress. That isn't what wordpress is for.

So why not look for better forum software, it might have support for a better front page as well?

[luckywaldo7]

doesnt current frontpage do that?
(as best as avaivable content like videos allows)

Videos in the astonishingly high definition of 284x160.

[knorke]

there is 10mb limit
(i actually wanted to add a video once but could not find a way to convert it so small)
yea replacing that player with youtube would be good.

[abma]

+1 for replacing the "showcase" videos with some HD youtube video. the current showcase is like 10 years old. also i would be fine with some hard-coded video urls as it shouldn't change often.

patches welcome: https://github.com/spring/spring-website

frontpage should be https://github.com/spring/spring-websit ... tpage.html

and
https://github.com/spring/spring-websit ... ex.php#L67

imo the sql query should be replaced by an array with youtube urls / ids.


i'm not sure if replacing the whole site makes sense as it is a LOT of work. you've to migrate all data. i personally prefer smaller steps... replace parts of it like the front-page, teaser, ...

do we already have a video that could be used as showcase?

[Forboding Angel]

Lots to choose form here: https://www.youtube.com/forbodingangel

i'm not sure if replacing the whole site makes sense as it is a LOT of work. you've to migrate all data. i personally prefer smaller steps... replace parts of it like the front-page, teaser, ...

That depends on what you mean by whole site. If by whole site you meant the framework, then yes, it is necessary to replace it all at once.

But we can throw up a good enough front page initially and within a day, me, af, etc can have it up to snuff. Plus it can all be done on the test side first anyway, and then moved over.

The biggest benefit to this that I see would be the ability to work directly on the site instead of having to use github as a middleman. That's really shoddy.

[AF]

Wordpress is not a substitute for a wiki EVER.

I have a task for you, go re-read my posts in thsi thread, coutn how many times I said we should get rid of Mediawiki, and count how many times I said Mediawiki should be kept, and count how many times I said some things mediawiki will always be best for.

I think you'll find nowhere did I say WordPress is a substitute for a wiki. I said some pages are not suited for wikis, if they were, they'd already be wiki pages ( frontpage isn't in the wiki, bug reporting isn't a wiki thing, forum frontpage isn't a wiki thing, galleries aren't a wiki thing, menus and banners aren't defined using the wiki, etc etc etc etc etc ).


Also Forb, I'm aware the typography on my own site needs some adjustments, I'm not happy with how it scales on smaller screens or how it handles longer post/page titles

[AF]

The point is that the wiki is rigid and inflexible, and isn't suited for top level pages of a website.

Wordpress would be good for a frontpage but would not have forum integration. Nor would it be able to properly supplant the forum. I could see doing wordpress with it wrapping around the forum and wiki but WHY? so you would jack up the whole site for the front page to be marginally better? The front page is like 1% of what this site has to offer. Wordpress is not forum software or documentation software. What we have now gives us both. Sure there may be a better forum than phpbb by now but that isn't going to be wordpress. That isn't what wordpress is for.

So why not look for better forum software, it might have support for a better front page as well?

WP can be both, you argue from your inexperience, but that's irrelevant anyway because there's such a huge amount invested in PHPBB anyway. The hassle of integrating media wiki, phpbb, wordpress, or any combination of the 3 either all togethe ror one to the other, is a huge maintenance nightmare.

The only thing that should change about MediaWiki is the theme. I'm not suggesting we hoist it into a WordPress template, that would be simply insulting my intelligence, and it demonstrates a profound lack of Smoth'ish reading comprehension.

If once the new WP Mediawiki and phpbb themes are built and deployed you still want to talk about integration, then we can discuss it. Until then talk about integrating users is irrelevant, offtopic, and counterproductive


Here's my last sketch but it's old now and could do with updates:

[AF]

For reference, Wordpress would cover the functions not currently covered by PHPBB Mantis or MediaWiki.

Namely these pages:

• The frontpage
• Screenshots, media, and videos
• Frontpage News

Front page news would have comments turned off and replaced with a link to the appropriate forum thread. Page and post designs would be made but their use would be at the discretion of those running the site.

Code wise, menus would be generated and then exported on save into html that can be included in the themes of the forum and mediawiki. there's no need to hoist unnecessary WP code into another system, and vice versa, to do so would complicate things.

Typography wise, it should be kept fairly generic, standardised, and sans-serif. Perhaps a fancy font for headings, but general text should focus on readability, that means max widths (likely 500px~) on paragraph tags, appropriate typographic spacing and hierarchy, and generous empty space to frame words.

Right now everyone capable of doing a new site is specialised in WordPress. I'm sure PHPBB can be crufted into doing a similar design, but the cost in time and effort is far higher, regardless of skill, maintenance is far higher, and the flexibility is far lower. There are other things we can experiment such as custom BBPress installs vbulletin or SimpleForum but that's a discussion for another day.

[Forboding Angel]

Honestly AF, that sketch never really has told me anything.

Can you draw in some context?

[AF]

It's the frontpage, all the units portrayed are separate sprites representing a single unit. The same with the backdrop. The idea being given a collection of units with an image, and some basic faction/game date, it'll auto-generate a battle between 2 forces on a backdrop as the frontpage. Maybe we'll allow an animated GIF is someone wants to make a flame flicker but otherwise a static scene that changes every day.

Other than that, the design tries to emphasise a single thing to do, rather than it being a collage hocus pocus shmorgas board of click this No you must click that ALL LOYAL FOLLOWERS OF THE GREAT TOBI MUST CLICK HERE The great ogberbg demands your attention in this corner

On the other pages we can have the header cloud fade into a generic plain background so that the focus remains on the content/wiki/forums, and put a random unit in the header poking behind the cloud/dust plume/mushroom cloud/battlefield hill/whichever. That element can also act as a header/tagline for call to actions and page titles, so it can say "FORUM" with the logout and control panel buttons, with the classic forum layout underneath, or WIKI, and some basic breadcrumbs

[Forboding Angel]

That would actually be pretty interesting. I can hear the complaints now though.

And that would be that it is posing the Spring Engine as some sort of shitty gamemaker type deal with a crummy "put shit here and do stuff now" type of ui.

I strongly disagree that that is what it would be like, but I feel as though your design is a little much for starters.

We both know that the home page will be a custom page template, so what I would pose is that we make a design for the main page somewhat similar to what we have now (without all the fail that you mentioned) and you do what you are thinking as another custom page template, so we can look at it and then if everyone is ok with it, we just change a setting in a dropdown box and viola!

Is that something that would be agreeable to you?

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I am going to suggest something a little more radical than that though. Decoupling the forums from the site design.

It would also be rad if we could use a slightly different (and updated) theme for phpbb. Something based on prosilver (current is based on subsilver2).

There is a switcher for them here:
https://www.phpbb.com/styles/demo/3.0/? ... 1de967ae7b
so you can preview them.

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The fact of the matter is that we can do anything with wordpress as the backend, up to and including making this site EXACTLY the way it is now. But WP allows for so much added functionality that it's nearly impossible to describe everything we can do with it. In fact, it would be easier to describe what we can't do with it (because the answer to that is "nothing").

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Regarding databases... There is no need for the wp user database to contain anything more than people who work on the site. If we want comments on stuff we can just implement disqus (because it allows for anon-google-facebook-etc logins). But that said, I'm not thoroughly convinced that comments are even necessary (although disqus integrated into wiki is bombtastic - because lets be honest, wiki talk pages are a fucking joke).

But back to the point, the wiki and forum user db is already linked. I don't see any reason why we would need to interfere with that in any way.

[SinbadEV]

Didn't read everything but MY suggestion would be to start with a better wiki design and work from there. The wiki style we currently have is dreadful and messy.

something halfway between wikipedia and indiedb.

[AF]

I've already suggested that, with the minimal header design for integrating arbitrary software with the design.

[Forboding Angel]

Didn't read everything but MY suggestion would be to start with a better wiki design and work from there. The wiki style we currently have is dreadful and messy.

something halfway between wikipedia and indiedb.

Bad idea. The wiki is not suited as a website frontend (or backend). Not even close.

[SinbadEV]

Didn't read everything but MY suggestion would be to start with a better wiki design and work from there. The wiki style we currently have is dreadful and messy.

something halfway between wikipedia and indiedb.

Bad idea. The wiki is not suited as a website frontend (or backend). Not even close.

From what I'm reading (think I've caught up) I agree with the people saying the core pages shouldn't be wiki... but that doesn't change the fact that the wiki is terrible... it's trying to be part of the site to support the download and about pages which makes it not work well for the annotated cross-linking documentation it's supposed to hold.

[smoth]

wiki can be edited by anyone, get on it.