The AC2 Wiki

[ete]

Things to do around the wiki:

Skin
Some parts of http://code.google.com/p/smf-wiki/ could be reused, but mediawiki 1.18 has a different skinning system, so probably not all.
Skin documentation.

CSS/pretty templates
Basically defining how tables should look and a few other things, keeping everything in the same style as the forum. Can be edited here.

Upload rest of datalinks
Other bits are more complex because a lot of the info we want is stored in alphax machine readably, so need to combine that with the descriptions.

Done:

(click to show/hide)

Graphics
The main new graphic we'll need will be the logo. Maybe one of the graphics people will put something cool together

Tidy URLs
Make them more pretty. I can do this over FTP, but maybe issues with renaming /mediawiki/ to /wiki/, will look into it.

Unified wiki/forum login
https://github.com/SimpleMachines/smf-mw-auth
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Simple_machines_forum_extensions

Set up anti spam extensions
ConfirmEdit - Seems to be using a hook from a more recent version, will either have to update MW or find an old version of confirmedit. Or edit ConfirmEdit.


Default user preferences edited, better recent changed enabled.
Gadgets, Nuke, ParserFunctions, Renameuser, Vector, WikiEditor enabled.
Meta namespace set to ACWiki

Add extensions

Some possible extensions:
Data Transfer - Allows mass data importing.
MsUpload - Vastly better upload interface.
Lingo - Gives automatic hover text on a set of terms (can be configured to first appearance on a page). Would allow abbreviations to be used without risking confusing new users.
SpamBlacklist - Excellent anti spam tool, allows us to copy over Wikipedia's banned URL list which should stop most bots.
ImageMap - Allows clickable imagemaps. Would be very nice for a clickable technology tree image, for example. Not that many uses, but they are very good uses.
Cite - Citations are cool. Not essential, but useful.
CategoryTree - Improves Category page view, allows embedding of category trees. Non essential, but some uses.
Poem - Allows a tag which preserves single linebreaks. Important for basename lists, for example.
Replace Text - Special page for mass replacing text. Helpful for maintenance, but should be restricted to only a small number of users since mistakes are annoying to clear up.

Priorities out of these: Data Transfer would allow me to import the entire enhanced datalinks. Some spam protection for once the bots notice it, probably a well configured ConfirmEdit, or maybe the user bridge will confuse them enough.

[ete]

I'll lay out my ideas for the wiki here. If you disagree or have suggestions, then please let post.

Factions
One page for each faction, both custom and official. These pages would include:
The infobox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Esp261/sandbox3 is a basic form, more will be added).
Categories (some automatically added by the infobox based on bonuses), allowing you to easily search for all sea based factions or all factions with positive Economy, for example.
A summary of the faction's playstyle and strategy.
A download link for that faction's files.
Graphics, like leaderheads, bases, icons, etc (long term).
For factions we're working on in the community faction balancing project, we'll store the text file as a subpage and allow people to fix various minor errors/add SMAX elements.

Datalinks
I should be able to mass-upload the upgraded datalinks with a bit of tedious text editing and some find/replaces once we've got the required extension. This'll give a huge set of pages, and we'll be able to watch them for changes which can then by included in the datalinks update for the games. This will be redundant with the incomplete datalinks which was being added to the official site here, but it shouldn't be extremely hard to replicate the features of that on a wiki, and it will allow for strategy sections/updates which would be almost impossible to maintain with the existing setup, and we'd be able to have more than Tech+Terrain (all the other sections seem to be non-functional).

Edit:
Our wiki: http://alphacentauri2.info/mediawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

[Green1]

It needs a option in forums to go to wiki and vice versa.

[Green1]

Sisko, for the option to link wiki back to forums, this is the way we did it when I was working on that crazy project. I am thinking the admin has to do it. I do not think bureuacrats or sysops can. (at least I did not see how to back then)

[ete]

Good point, but I think I can add the wiki one (iirc it's stored in a MediaWiki namespace page), lemme dig up the documentation..

Edit: Found it. I'll remove the Community Portal and Current Events from the nav bar too, since we're not going to be using them in the near future.

Edit2: Done.

[Green1]

Good point, but I think I can add the wiki one (iirc it's stored in a MediaWiki namespace page), lemme dig up the documentation..

Edit: Found it. I'll remove the Community Portal and Current Events from the nav bar too, since we're not going to be using them in the near future.

That may explain it why I never saw that option. Sysops did not have access to that page the way that old project was set up.

[ete]

I've just imported a set of public domain help pages from MediaWiki.org so people unfamiliar with wikis will be able to pick up the basics: http://alphacentauri2.info/mediawiki/index.php?title=Help:Contents

Note that they won't display quite right until we get parser functions.

Edit: Did you guys ever get Stealthiswiki back up? It looks like a cool project, and there's still a load of archives around. Should be pretty straightforward to bring it back, depending on the form of the archive.

[Green1]

I will probably type a little in for you guys in a bit. I really enjoy writing good content.

Lately, though I seem to have caught this Eve Online bug pretty bad. I mean, so bad that I even think about it while working and have been on thier forums and have been living a virtual life as a militia member hoping to do orbital bombardments on DUST 514 infrantry on these planets and generally mining asteroids and blowing up Minmatar. MMOs sap my time.

Do not worry. I always come back for good 4x. I just like social games too.

[Green1]

Yeah.... this is going to take a bit. particularly if there is only 2-3 of us.

I suggest using ToC instead of the standard way wikis like Consevapedia or Rational Wiki or Encyclopedia Dramatica work. It will be easier to find our content.

[Green1]

hmm... maybe an example, because most wikis are not set up the way I am talking about.

Someone can always do a search from search box. BUT - since these are really only articles and stubs, we have an index. The project pictured was a rewrite of a book. Big articles would be listed as ToC. Difference is we have Concepts like the datalinks would be stubs that we would  link in the article.

edit... WOULD not would not..sheesh.. typing too fast

[ete]

Something worth figuring out soon: what copyright protection do we want to use for wiki pages? I'd be okay with most which allow reuse, to cover the possibility of this site going down and moving the content elsewhere to keep it going.

We'd use categories and the Concepts/Advanced Concepts/Techs/etc setup from datalinks all linked from the mainpage to make the content easy to find. Also, with the datalinks import the wiki would immediately become useful, then we'd (or I would at least) do some cleanup on the import, then we'd focus on factions for a while. It'd not requite THAT much extra content to make it a useful reference.

[Green1]

For articles, it may be a good idea just to give credit to the original author unless it is written in that article that he does not wish it to be shared.

I hear you about sites going down. STW went down long ago due to stupid drama. Fortunately one of the sysops managed to put in in dropbox to save for all time.

Good thing is, unless sisko and BU are building up nerdrage, I think the management of this site seem pretty with it and stable (Observation - not kissing up ..lol.) . If something turns different, we will deal with that as it comes.

[ete]

Slightly different point but I'm against credits in the body of the text (since it's distracting and unnecessary, especially when a document may have multiple authors who've edited it different amounts. Keeping track of what merits main text attribution is not a sane use of energy.), but for imported documents the source should definitely be listed in the edit reason as credit.

[Green1]

I was talking about imported documents.

As far as wiki made articles that we make in house, no need to credit all authors. When you write something on a wiki, it becomes property of the wiki. You are basically donating it.

Trust me, there are some things I wrote on other projects thay I know I wrote 90 percent of. But, I can not take it back for any future person project because I would be plaigurizing myself. Niether could anyone else.

When I was editing, I did frown upon too many outside links. I di not like leading people to sites outside the wiki. I always told people to rewrite information contained in off site articles in thier own words. After all, what was the point in the wiki if we just linked to things off site? We should be the source folks go to and read.

[Green1]

I've just imported a set of public domain help pages from MediaWiki.org so people unfamiliar with wikis will be able to pick up the basics: http://alphacentauri2.info/mediawiki/index.php?title=Help:Contents

Note that they won't display quite right until we get parser functions.

Edit: Did you guys ever get Stealthiswiki back up? It looks like a cool project, and there's still a load of archives around. Should be pretty straightforward to bring it back, depending on the form of the archive.

We had trouble with finding someone willing to do the hosting. We also had tons of enemies waiting to DDOS us and spam attack us from Conservapeadia. Plus, I think Firsty is sitting on the domain and refuses to come off of it. r00t was also being a twerp. I only know that out of the 5 sysops only unidyne, myself, and Vovka were doing anything. Vov was supposed to, but never did. Sad.. that wiki had tons of information.

I am almost leary of talking too much about it here with this handle. All of the 5 admins and sysops get attacked wherever we go to this day.