Updating the Wiki - collaborators needed.

[sublogic]

Noticed that the wiki needs updating as well. Would like to see if I can help.

I figured that getting interested people together and discussing some proposals at organized updating would be better than everybody going in and changing things as we feel. I do have some ideas to start with, but would like other people who are interested to counter-check my ideas.

To try to get the ball rolling, I've started on some experiments on templates (ages since I last do mediawiki templating)

The idea is to first come up with a means of easily telling which pages needs updating and mark them as such, firstly to prevent unhappiness of people finding outdated information without knowing so, and secondarily to encourage people who knows the updated info to contribute updates.

A demo is under my user-space here:
http://kenshi.wikia.com/wiki/User:Sublogic/Test/Test1
(Note that the actual templates used now is under my user namespace. In the actual version, it should be in the wiki template space to make them easier to use)


The other issues that I scratched off the top of my head are as followed:

1. Article versioning. This helps keep track which articles needs to be updated after a game version update.

- Use a template CurrentVersion to always hold the current game version
- Use a ArticleVersion template that must be included in all pages which also declares the version of the game it was last updated for. If this declared version does not match the CurrentVersion, it will show a message that indicates the page needs to be updated, and also automatically include the page in an "Update" category, so that we can easily list all the pages whose article version do not match current version. (Note that upon changing the CurrentVersion, it may take some time before the affected pages are categorized correctly. This is done on the server side by a job queue).

Demo (same as mentioned earlier here: (Note that the templates are not declared in global space yet)
http://kenshi.wikia.com/wiki/User:Sublogic/Test/Test1


2. Entity objectification. Use of standard templates to unify information/format of articles referring to entities of the same type (e.g. Weapon classes, NPCs, Items etc). This will include unified way to extract/display information or icons and infoboxes etc. Those pages which cannot be objectified will not be affected.

TODO: after article versioning get sorted out.

Example:
http://kenshi.wikia.com/wiki/User:Sublo ... WeaponTest

The katana entity page defines its parameters using the Weapon template, but the rendering of the page itself can be done using a common template which pulls specific parameters from weapon definition to be displayed in a standard way.

3. Navigation boxes. Quick access to other related articles, or of possible interest to the reader. E.g. When viewing a weapon page, a Weapon Nav Box can appear at the bottom, which has quick links to all other weapons. There can be a way to automagically generate this on-the-fly based on method for point 2 above.

TODO: after previous 2 points.

4. Bug tracking. The aim of this is to have a semi-standard means of documenting known bugs and possible workarounds. It can go hand-in-hand with forums in the checking of whether a bug was reported, and whether a bug has been fixed. If an external bug tracking software is used by the dev, the bug id could also be linked from the wiki such that people can keep-track or contribute to the same bug report (without creating duplicates). For a start, a "Bugs" section under the related page which lists out the associated bugs will be a good start, I think. Not only may it be of use to the dev, but it can help reduce frustration of a player who encounters the bug for the first time.

[Blxz]

A good initiative. I have neither the interest nor the focus to help out unfortunately, but good work all the same. You seem to have a decent skeleton plan in place. Once you get some (wo)man/cat - power recruited you will be making some good progress.

[sublogic]

I am starting to change some stuff. My basic aim is not to update all the information (which is beyond just 1 person), more like trying to experiment and put standards into place so that it is easier to do so.

One problem I found out though: is there anybody still active with privileged rights to the wiki? some pages are protected and cannot be edited by the normal contributor. (e.g. the "outdated" "update" section on main page).

[Koomatzu]

Awesome, 517 edits in a week!

I don't know too much about Wiki myself but I think ArcaneSaint is an admin on there - Maybe you could PM him to request adminship?

[sublogic]

lol.. tinkering with templates means that unless it is saved, I won't know for sure if it is working or not... and it does not work most of the time...

For myself, I am looking more into standards and easier procedures to encourage people to put in more content, rather than I try to do that all myself (which may be too much for a small group, let alone one person). I don't think I can afford the attention to do full-time admin, so am satisfied as long as somebody still holds the "key" (rather than being left with a wiki that cannot be updated fully).

anyway, since I have not seen any active volunteers, I thought I might post the results of some of my "experiments" here, in hope that somebody will actually be enticed to contribute to the wiki, without the burden of active volunteering for it.


Wiki Experiments update summary

As somewhat mentioned in long OP, I have 3 focus atm.
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1. Version tagging pages, so that when new game version comes up, it will highlight old pages to be updated (can be as simple as updating the version value if there is no change) as well as warn readers who may be reading outdated stuff (and get pissed off when they realize it does not apply)

Added a section on it in the Editor Reference Guide
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2. Navboxes, for easier navigation to related stuff. Just done one properly, for weapons. What remains is for related pages to include it (and do similar stuff for other category of pages). If we had to use the search box to find something related to a page we are on, then it probably means that the page needs improvement. Navboxes are cost-effective means to cover some of these "holes".
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3. Pages as objects. This is an idea I came up with a long time back (not aware of other similar ideas): utilizing some template voodoo, break up pages that represent some groups of entities with similar properties into 2 sections: a data section, which is only transcluded by other pages, and store some properties and the normal page content, which is only used when viewing the page itself. Existing pages which are not "objects" can be easily "retrofitted" by refactoring the content into the templates.
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The above in english?

I can attach some "data values" to a page, and make it possible to "query" it from another page. Thus, data has a central source and only one point needs to be updated if it changeds. Compare this to having "copies" of the data everywhere and having to update it when it chages.

The main advantage is: less manual work, and better information consistency.
The cost? More computation power consumed on server. Does that really concern us? probably no

I have chosen the page Katana for my main experiments (as it is almost the signature weapon). A few implementations of the above idea:

a. The article version "plate" at the top shows the game version where the article was currently updated for.

b. The infobox on the right may look similar to the one shown on the Editor Reference Guide, but the data there is not "filled in" manually like how it used to be. Instead it is drawn from the Katana page's "data part" itself. Which means that the SAME wiki source code can be used on ALL weapon pages without change, and they will display the different weapons automatically (by drawing data from current page). From another perspective, I can easily add the same infobox for Katana on other pages without having to populate the data again or update them when Katana properties changes. just for illustration, the source for katana infobox is now reduced to

Code: Select all

{{weapon infobox|Katana}}

.

c. An interesting, but not so obvious thing I tried is to create the Weaponmake pages, which represents the specific weapon-maker-model tuple that actual weapon items in-game are represented as. Initially, I was thinking that it can just sit in a table one the base weapon page like it used to be, but my adventurous spirit got the better of me, and I rewakened the long lost knowledge and battlethirst of grappling with the monster known as Templates. The end result is an almost automagic table (for weapon makes) that is relatively easy to define, like

Code: Select all

{{weaponmake table| Weapon1/Maker1/Model1 | Weapon2/Maker2/Model2 | Weapon3/Maker3/Model3 | ... }}

and no further updates needed on the page (unless it is to add/remove makes).

The actual table can handle both defined (have page and data part) and not-yet-defined weapon makes. For those not yet defined, it will display a link to create the page, assisted with a preload template (fill in the blanks). For those defined, it will automatically pull out the data and populate the table. Could seem bizarre to those not familiar with wiki templates, but we don't need to know how to build a car if we just need to drive it The stuff we need to know: It is now very easy to add a table of weapon makes (even if the individual makes are not defined yet), and it is easy to edit the data part which will automatically update all pages that includes it. Disclaimer: I probably need to test it more though, but I will need help from people to try to populate the pages and feedback on usability and bugs.

For those who are free, please help to test/feedback on
http://kenshi.wikia.com/wiki/Katana

So what's next?
My current plan is to start with weapons (guess that is the natural choice. We all love weapons!), specifically Katana, and use it as a testing ground to discover and fix problems, before applying the same refactoring to other weapon pages, and then to other entity pages (armor, items, buildings, npcs, places etc)

Like to help?
Would like to use Katana page as test drive. Will need help to fill in data for the specific weapon makes with ideally updated images as well, to make the page look more presentable. If you are free, do try it out and feedback (in this thread). Please be forewarned the system is still volatile and I may change existing methods now and then to see if something works better. But I will try to preserve any contributions done to my best efforts.

[sublogic]

Just to extend the testing a little, revamped Katana-light and Ninja Blade as well
Test @
http://kenshi.wikia.com/wiki/Katana-light
http://kenshi.wikia.com/wiki/Ninja_Blade

Also tried to add some instructions on how to convert a normal weapon page to contain weapon data.
To access, look at one of the navboxes on the above pages (near bottom of page). The base weapons are listed in the navbox, but appear in 3 ways

1. 1. A normal link without anything else, is a weapon page that already has data embedded

• 2. A normal link, with a superscript "obj" is an existing page that does not have weapon data detected. Click on the "obj" part to load the editor with the instructions.

• 3. A red text without link, with a superscript "create" is a non-existing page. Click on the "create" part to load the editor with the instructions to create the weapon. (Note: currently, the red thing is there only for testing, as we have pages existing for all weapons now).

Don't know if anybody will actually use it, but if there are any issues discovered, pls feedback to me (in this thread). thanks in advance.

[sublogic]

Coming onto the Mounted Crossbow page in the wiki stopped me for a while, mainly because the page refers to both the Mounted Crossbow as a ranged turret as well as a construction. I had to reworked existing "page data" a bit so that a page can be more than 1 entity type at once. (demonstrated by the two infoboxes on the page, one treats the page as a construction, the other as a ranged turret).

Managed to work out a more general infobox2 which supports heading, and though it may not be obvious, it cuts the templates required to display an entity type by half.

Added some more navboxes, but had not cleaned up yet.
* Navbox weaponmakers
* Navbox charstats
* Navbox constructions