Spring-cleaning the Wiki!

[SeanHeron]

Okay, I'm happy with the two versions now. I've made a few suggestions on the structure at http://springrts.com/wiki/SiteMapThoughts. Maybe you (and/or others!) could comment.

[Auswaschbar]

Who is wiki admin btw? Someone should start deleting some spam and 0-size pages:
http://springrts.com/wiki/Special:Shortpages

[Master-Athmos]

Well ok now you start to confuse me...
Let's just use this as the sitemap we want the wiki to have:
http://springrts.com/wiki/CurrentSiteMap

Then let's do a blank page where then e.g. there's something like this:

s3o Models:
http://springrts.com/wiki/Basic_s3o_unit_making_guide
http://springrts.com/wiki/Simple_Mod_Tutorial
http://springrts.com/wiki/Units:CreateModel
(and so on)

If you do that with all of our categories the list might get a bit long so maybe do some upper categories which have an entire page of their own. Might be more clearly arranged that way. I might create such a page later...

Well now I'm going to write a bunch of stuff of comments towards your latest edit of the sitemap. First of all you changed some category names and I want to comment on some of them / will do some changes to them later on:

Source Development

So you made "Source Development" out of "Development". I don't see the point in that. Or the other way round: What a source is developed or even better what other development is there that gave you the impression to split the more general term "Development" in something more specific? Well there is nothing like that imo and so it should just remain as "Development" just as the link in the navigation bar says...

Getting Started Development
[...]
Mod and Unit development

Apart from the first one somehow sounding wrong you also destroyed the sense between the two topics by that. The first one is about actually developing the engine - i.e. grab your C++ compiler and dive into the source code. The 2nd category is about actually using the features the engine delivers. That's why the first one imo clearly should say "Engine Development" as that part simply is about the engine itself. The best term I came up with the 2nd one then was "Game Development". You shouldn't use "Mod" here as it's not about modding some existing content but really to create your own game with the engine (you of course also can mod things but Spring isn't just about TA anymore where you mod around OTA stuff). I also wouldn't put "Unit Development" in the topic as it's just one point of the game development and as said - it's about having a clear Engine <-> Game difference...

So the unit development should get a subcategory of its own again. That also won't make you do too much clicks or something as I guess we can do that part just as it's now and i.e. put things on a single page with some table of contents:
http://springrts.com/wiki/Mod_and_Unit_ ... evelopment

# Units:CreateModel (--> Models s3o)
[...]
# Units:FBI (-->Unit definitions - FBI Files)

I don't know if that was on oversight or something but I see no reason for e.g. calling the section about s3o models "Units:Create Model" now (especially with an explicit one for 3dos right before). I guess you accidentally just put the current Wiki name of that topic there...

# Read Me First -->"Installing Spring (Windows)" (as this is the link from the Frontpage for "Windows")

Why calling the part of installing it "Read me first"? I mean you go to the help section in order to ... well get help. So you then look which topic is about the point you have trouble with. In this case this is about installing it on Windows so I don't really see a reason not to call it that way. Not doing so will give people a "hard time" finding the right topic when having problems with installing and will result in superfluous clicks for those looking for something else but presuming some valuable info in that part which turns out to be an installation guide though. Your decision also doesn't really go in hand with Linux keeping its installation category clearly named that way...

And finally:

I left out the Strategy guides on purpose, because I don't think they have a place in the "public face" of the Spring site (don't care if they're hidden somewhere). The reason is, the site is about the engine - I think it makes sense to also showcase which games are using it, but explaining those games is better left to the games one homepages, that's my opinion.

Well I see no reason why it shouldn't be there - it's an optional thing anyway. Including it won't make the Wiki's primary purpose change and that's being about Spring. But why not allowing some guides for the games? I mean the games may actually present themselves (which often also include brief guides). Considering your argumentation those pages also should be removed. That's because they imo aren't just "showcased" but quite extensively described (game dynamics, tactics and so on)...

You also shouldn't forget that not all of the mods have a website of their own and with the new Project Subforums there's no need for them to do so (those sites have quite a danger of disappearing anyway and so they have a "safe" place for their guides). Games that have external guides (like Gundam RTS) are going to just put in an external link anyway...

You also shouldn't forget that the guides are a HUGE topic with very long explanations - would be a bit lame to simply trash all that work. I mean by putting it e.g. in the "Playing Spring" category it also won't be in the "public face" as you describe it but just one subcategory of many the mods/games can link to in their description...

EDIT:
Oh and

FAQ - In use as "Help"

Should just remain Help for similar reasons I wrote for the Development section...

[SeanHeron]

Hey, quick answer - sorry to see you misunderstanding me (and yes, I didn't say so clearly anywhere I guess :/) - if you didn't notice, I changed all the links to the links actual name (like you pointed out a few times!). I'm definitely not in favor of using that name! That's why I put the prefered name behind it (in brackets or with an arrow pointing to it, etc.). Because I think we should move the page to the name we want to use!

Which brings me to a point I wanted to raise though: Naming conventions! We have all kinds now, with "Units:such and such" being quite common. I'd support assinging names to broader topics, but then I'd like to use Mediawiki Sub-page functionality (this would usually be "Units/suchandsuch"), because that would normally create a link back to the "mother" page. Doesn't seem to work here though...

Sorry again for having caused you so much effort in answering all of the "name changes" (which weren't intended as such...)

[very_bad_soldier]

As we are talking about wiki:
As mentioned before I can not login to the wiki with my account. Someone (I think Tobi) guessed it could be related to underscores in my username. Any chance to get this fixed pls?

[Master-Athmos]

Ah ok I see - then my wiki edit might have been a bit superfluous but well you still get the category names by hovering your mouse over them...

Well the point of "moving to that name" and the not so conventional naming of some categories is why I proposed to "start at zero", build up the basic structure and then copy paste the old content in using that link list page I told of. Imo this would be the more clean and maybe even faster solution. I'd vote for doing that...

@very-bad-soldier:
In the wiki user list your enlisted as "Very bad soldier" so try it that way without the underscores...

[SeanHeron]

I'm fine with whichever way - I wanted to concentrate on other Wiki stuff now anyhow.
I want to go for revamping the top-level pages! Perhaps starting with Downloads or Games. And then I'd "work downwards" from there :D.

If you do want to get started though, I'd suggest we discuss some more on the rough structure (and suggestions I made regarding that) at SiteMapThoughts (I've moved my comments to that page's Talk page, I'd suggest you reply there).

[Master-Athmos]

I'm fine with whichever way - I wanted to concentrate on other Wiki stuff now anyhow.
I want to go for revamping the top-level pages! Perhaps starting with Downloads or Games. And then I'd "work downwards" from there :D .

Well when it's about editing articles I wanted to start in the "game development" part sorting out which stuff there is outdated and so on. So I guess we won't start editing each other's commits...

If you do want to get started though, I'd suggest we discuss some more on the rough structure (and suggestions I made regarding that) at SiteMapThoughts (I've moved my comments to that page's Talk page, I'd suggest you reply there).

The idea is good but wouldn't you prefer just creating a topic for that here in the forum. Well I guess I'll just do one:
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19755

So let's discuss there...

[Master-Athmos]

Sorry for doubleposting here but I just got a suggestion to fix the special characters:

That would be about changing the charset from utf-8 to iso-8859-1. So who exactly is the admin of the Wiki and would that help in our case?

[SeanHeron]

No idea on who's admin, or the character thing :/. I've finally had to come to agree with you though, that having the "current" link name at the front, rather than the one we want, is not the way to go . So I've switched them all round, it's now the wished for name, followed by an arrow to a page we might use. Sorry for the hassle . Hope you're good with it like this!

Edit: just finished a deprecating Spree, and all the old mods are now "gone" ! (look here if you want to find them: http://springrts.com/wiki/Category:Deprecated)

[jK]

new wiki css layout in work:



all opera users with usercss can already test it:
http://home.arcor.de/jkei/springwiki.css

[Master-Athmos]

Looking good!
You have no influence on the charset on the CSS level do you?

[jK]

utf8 is the correct charset.
the wiki pages are broken, just replace special chars with their entities.

[Master-Athmos]

Hmm ok - an automatic solution would have been nice though...

[SeanHeron]

Ooh, looking very shiny! I bet that took a good bit more than my predicted 5 minutes as well... sorry for taunting like that :/.
Userccs must be one of the most well hidden features in Opera . But if ever the event arose again, I'd know now what to do and how to test my CCS! Thanks jK!

[HeavyLancer]

Just gone on a deprecating spree: I suggest that anyone with admin rights look at the category:Deprecated page to look for anything that should be deleted.

[Master-Athmos]

Why is Maximum Annihilation on that list or Spring1944?

[FLOZi]

The S44 page is very out of date.

I'll poke neddie into doing a new one when he is feeling better.

[Master-Athmos]

Yeah but as the project still is active it should be more about poking you doing something about rather than making it ready to be deleted...

I'd also keep the Final Fronier entry - a version compatible with latest Spring shouldn't be too far away...

EDIT:
Edited the named mod entries...

[SinbadEV]

http://springrts.com/wiki/Chess_Mod

I've been not-modding for while... I don't think I have a copy of the Chess mod kicking around and I highly doubt it still works... is it available to download anywhere even?