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Unifying the Wikies - Community Discussion

Started by IgorEliezer, March 08, 2010, 01:37:25 PM

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IgorEliezer

Unifying the Wikies

I want to start an important discussion: It's about our documentation.

The documentation is our manuals, wikies, references, e-books and other texts that explain how to play and extend Simutrans. Documentation of Simutrans has always been a Achilles' heel of Simutrans Community. I've seen people have had a bunch of difficulties to learn how to play, modify and enhance Simutrans. Our documentation is so dispersed and redundant that it's rarely mentioned on the forums.

Once players can't understand the game and don't find a way to get a support, they get frustrated and quit. Hence, we lose potential members and developers.

The idea is simple: unifying all Wikies in one place and eliminating all duplications. E-books will continue to be stored in docs.simutrans.com.

I propose the Simutrans-Germany Wiki as the only and official Simutrans Wiki of community. It already has a multi-language interface -- once you had got an account there, you're able to edit all languages --, it has a good amount of English texts.

Frank has made a great effort maintaining and updating the Simutrans-Germany Wiki. The Simutrans-Germany Wiki is now cleaner and more pleasant to be read. Last, I had proposed the Wiki unification at the Simutrans Chat some weeks ago and several members, including Wiki writers, agreed.

I for one am willing to transferring PT-Wiki content to Simutrans-Germany Wiki because I support the idea of unifying the wikies and I see this as a good option for the community.

So, I'd like to "hear" some pieces of advice and comments before starting to do the works.




Decided Resolutions

Items in which there are enough or total concordance:

1) Unifying the Wikies is a need and shall be done.

2) Simutrans-Germany Wiki will be the only and official Simutrans Wiki.

3) Porting/Transferring material: See Tranferring Wiki texts to Simutrans-Germany Wiki.

4) Maintenance: Frank is the Wiki Maintainer and Admin.




Non-Decided Resolutions

Ideas and items under discussion:

1) Backups: where to do/store in? And how to do?

2) Moderation: how to moderate contents? A moderator per language?

3) Server and domain/addresses (not important: postponed)

Spike

I vote pro unification, too. Frank's wiki has a big coverage of topics already, and at least among the german community is well established, so I think it will be good to move the other content there.

The Hood


napik

I think, it is a great idea and I fully support it.
Tomas

vilvoh

If we have to gather all info about Simutrans in a single place, the german wiki is the best choice. It's well organized, almost all important content is already created and you "only" have to translate it so gotta unify'em all!!

Escala Real...a blog about Simutrans in Spanish...

VS


My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Zeno

Sure, you (Igor) already know my oppinion about this. All wikis in one is a need, and the german tiki-wiki is at the moment (IMHO) the best option.

Fabio


Combuijs

I absolutely agree!

I better start looking for a course of TikiWiki then...
Bob Marley: No woman, no cry

Programmer: No user, no bugs



wipi35


sojo

I think it's a very good idea. The new design is very clear. Much better and I vote for yes! ;)

But I think the searchbox should be the first in menu and the imprint and copyright can go to the bottom. So users should fast find the search-box.

More about this I write in german, if desired. ;)
"English is a easy language. But not for me." ;) sojo

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Dirk Burkholz

Even I think this is a good idea. I currently don't have the time to support all the MediaWiki installations properly and Hellmade's server makes a lot of trouble with uploading pictures.

There are only two concerns I have: I would like to have at least three superadmins and an automatic daily back-up of the files and database. I trust Frank but his server isn't controlled by the community and we need a back-up if something happens to Frank or the server. I will also propose a new back-up strategy in a new topic.

Lmallet

Emm...  I don't think you will find many people opposed to this idea, as a central wiki makes a lot of sense, but we really need to have a discussion on how this is going to work.  Some topics that come to mind:

-Are we simply just translating the german version of the wiki?  Or are we translating the "best" version of a topic?  Who decides what is better and what is not?
-Are we to move stuff from the old wiki to the "new" one?  I am quite certain the FR version of "signals" is different from the PT one, which is also probably different from the DE version.
-What style are we going to use.  Newbies probably prefer a lot of pictures, more serious/technical users will want something short and to the point (which is how I feel the DE wiki is).
-Are we trying to replace SRM?

jamespetts

Unification makes a great deal of sense, but as LMallet says, the logistics must be thoroughly considered. All of the English content on the Mediawiki should be transferred (unless the English content on the existing wiki is better for any given page); where there is a conflict, there should either be some combination of the best of each version or a vote (either here or on the public forum) as to which to keep.

As to LMallett's question about the style, I suggest having a brief introduction to each topic in a style friendly to new users, and an "advanced" section with more techincal details (where appropriate) suitable for more advanced users.

As a Simutrans-Experimental developer, I should also like to request that there be space in the wiki for Simutrans-Experimental specific content: perhaps a tab or symbol wherever a Simutrans-Experimental specific feature appears, and some documentation specific to Simutrans-Experimental available by following the link.

Finally, ought some thought be given to integrating the text of the wikis with the in-game help, perhaps even automatically or semi-automatically?
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Frank

Quote from: Lmallet on March 08, 2010, 08:21:14 PM
...
-Are we simply just translating the german version of the wiki?  Or are we translating the "best" version of a topic?  Who decides what is better and what is not?
...

It is not forced to accept anything from other languages. Anyone can write characters and its pages as he wants. But it should also not harm if they are looked at others.

Basically, can only link a page with other languages. The scenario is when a page contains multiple topics for which there is in a language other than one page can be linked to only one side of the other language.

There are 2 independent navigations.

Structures = Contents of the book
Categories = loose grouping of various matters


Quote from: jamespetts on March 08, 2010, 08:40:30 PM
Unification makes a great deal of sense, but as LMallet says, the logistics must be thoroughly considered. All of the English content on the Mediawiki should be transferred (unless the English content on the existing wiki is better for any given page); where there is a conflict, there should either be some combination of the best of each version or a vote (either here or on the public forum) as to which to keep.
...

Tikiwiki also has an integrated forum, which can be used for discussions of the pages.

The English content is from the first Tikiwiki from the year 2006.



Quote from: sojo on March 08, 2010, 04:17:51 PM
...
But I think the searchbox should be the first in menu and the imprint and copyright can go to the bottom. So users should fast find the search-box.
...

@sojo
see graphics

IgorEliezer

#15
Thanks Frank for replying. I was awaiting for your say. :)

Seems everyone here at least agree on unifying in one place the wikies.

Have all wiki maintainers exposed what they think about the proposal? I don't know if all of them had :D. It's important to listen to all maintainers before doing something solid.

As for the method of "porting" the material from Simutrans Wiki to Simutrans Germany Wiki: would it be hard? quite probable once I believe it'll be made by hand:

- you'll need to open an article of the old wiki and find the corresponding article on Germany Wiki:
-- if existing: compare which is better; transfer the content or delete.
-- if not existing: create a new article and transfer the content.
- blank the old article and place a notice with a link pointing to corresponding article on Germany Wiki.
- when all pages of old wik of a subdomain were blanked, we'll redirect the address to Germany Wiki.

I know there are more details, but everything will be treated step-by-step.

Besides, you all think it's better to keep this discussion here or better moving it to the public to get more non-devotees people involved in?

EDIT: faux amis D:

Isaac Eiland-Hall

I really like this idea.

Also, since I do have two servers: For backups, it would be perhaps good to back up to my secondary server?

sojo

Frank I have seen this search-box. But in the menu is a search-box too. And I think this search box is more important than the copyright and the imprint so it can be on top.
"English is a easy language. But not for me." ;) sojo

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Frank

Quote from: IgorTekton on March 09, 2010, 03:04:59 AM
...
- you'll need to open an article of the old wiki and find the correspondent article on Germany Wiki:
...

Mediawiki article is not Tikiwiki article

The articles in Tikiwiki correspond to a kind of news system.

Mediawiki article -> Tikiwiki wiki page

Spike

Quote from: sojo on March 09, 2010, 09:10:56 AM
... the copyright and the imprint so it can be on top.

I think for websites in English the word "contact" is more common than "imprint". "Imprint" seems only to be used for books in English. But maybe a native speaker can enlighten us?

IgorEliezer

#20
Frank, what I meant by "corresponding article" was "similar article". For instance: EN Wiki has a signal tutorial article, then you'll need to find the signal tutorial article of Germany Wiki and compare each other to see which is more complete.

EDIT: faux amis D:

jamespetts

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Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

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IgorEliezer

Thanks for pointing me out a faux amis (or whatever it's called :D).

Frank

Content pages in Tikiwiki call 'wiki page'. Articles by Tikiwiki mean something else.

to distinguish

Wiki page
Article

[de]
vielleicht kann es jemand besser erklären

Im Mediawiki nennen sich die Content-Seiten Artikel.

Beim Tikiwiki bedeutet aber Artikel etwas anderes. Nämlich eine Art News-System.
Wenn von Content-Seiten die Rede ist, dann sollte nicht der Begriff 'Artikel' verwendet werden.

Content-Seiten nennen sich im Tikiwiki 'Wiki page'.
[/de]

Spike

Frank wants to say that the word "article" in Tiki Wiki refers to a news type article, maybe similar to a blog entry. A "Wiki Page" is a content page in the wiki.

Ashley

I broadly support this proposal, a single source of documentation is better than many spread out ones.

I think that we possibly need to have another discussion about ways we can make Simutrans inherently easier for new players though. Many people won't even get as far as the Wiki, and nowadays people expect some kind of built-in tutorial in games which have any great level of complexity to them.

Creation of an in-game tutorial, with scripted prompts designed to introduce players to the game would complement a unified documentation source, and give players with short attention spans a chance to get into the game before frustration sets in.

I'd also call for very regular backups of the Wiki, we've lost too much in the past. Maybe we can set it up to be automatically mirrored to Isaac's server?
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jonasbb

I support the idea of unifying the wikis.
It is much easy if all is in one wiki.

wlindley

Support!

But you mean (I hope) to eliminate "duplication" -- as "duplicities" means "lies."  *grin*

IgorEliezer

Quote from: wlindley on March 10, 2010, 01:05:24 PMBut you mean (I hope) to eliminate "duplication" -- as "duplicities" means "lies."  *grin*

;D

Back to the topic...

Seems we're having a concordance with the following items:

1) Unifying the Wikies is a need and shall be done.

2) Simutrans-Germany Wiki will be the only and official Simutrans Wiki

So, I added both of them in the 1st post under "Decided Resolutions". I hope nobody (Isaac?) come here and say "I'm con".  ;D

itec

One thing I would suggest is possibly moving the wiki from simutrans-germany to the simutrans domain, it just seems more international that way, rather then the implied german priority that housing it on simutrans-germany gives.

Frank

Quote from: Timothy on March 10, 2010, 12:45:59 PM
...
I'd also call for very regular backups of the Wiki, we've lost too much in the past. Maybe we can set it up to be automatically mirrored to Isaac's server?

sorry, the first Tikiwiki lost on Isaacs Server

rainer

I do support the entire idea and respect Frank's work
wholehartely. OTOH, due to several experiences in
this community I agree with Dirk Bucholz...

> I would like to have at least three superadmins and an
> automatic daily back-up of the files and database. I
> trust Frank but his server isn't controlled by the
> community and we need a back-up if something
> happens to Frank or the server.

...as well as Isaac...

> Also, since I do have two servers: For backups, it would
> be perhaps good to back up to my secondary server?

...and itec

> One thing I would suggest is possibly moving the wiki
> from simutrans-germany to the simutrans domain

As Frank is the "chief of content" somehow, a professionall
admin should be the "chief of the server".

prissi

Imho all parts of the simutrans infrastructure (SVN, translator, wikis, forum) would do better with more mirroring. But as for webmastering Franks has done an as good job as anybody else in the community. The translator has grown into a very powerful piece of web application, and that was entirely done by Frank.

Imho more needed are real admins for english and other languages who really co-adop the wiki, to surmount the language barrier; especially for everything but english and german.

One should also think about a mandantory registration for editing for all languages, as the english wiki will get more spam when it gets more exposure.

ӔO

I like idea.

The Japanese wiki page is quite well done and elaborates more compared to the English page.
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Frank

#34
Quote from: prissi on March 11, 2010, 09:48:28 PM
....
One should also think about a mandantory registration for editing for all languages, as the english wiki will get more spam when it gets more exposure.

Spam will be responded to if it's there. As in the past.




Quote from: rainer on March 11, 2010, 07:51:51 PM
...
..., a professionall admin should be the "chief of the server".

not necessary and not possible because it is a V-Server




Quote from: itec on March 10, 2010, 02:13:43 PM
One thing I would suggest is possibly moving the wiki from simutrans-germany to the simutrans domain, it just seems more international that way, rather then the implied german priority that housing it on simutrans-germany gives.

The domain is simutrans-germany.com. germany stands for the location of the server.

.com is an international

This server only Simutrans run projects. Why, he may well be considered as official Simutrans server.




Add with all the demands I put forward the question of whether you really want it.

the history of the TikiWiki:

- 2005 was the first Tikiwiki Isaacs was created on server
- until about March 2006 was taken over most of the old Hajos PmWiki in the English part and a little update
- then is not much happening in the English part
- in the German part was published in February 2006 began to write
- until February 2007, the German part was quite developed in
- there was always reflect problems and failures, and in January was distinguished from the total loss, then I put the Tikiwiki the German part of new on on my own server

In the 3 years from February 2007 until today has the Tikiwiki 5 server moves and a few updates to survive.

There has been for over a year, a cat and mouse game with a spammer who then abandoned it.

The only person I trust the administration Tikiwiki of the time is Susanna. Because it is the only one who has worked intensively to Tikiwiki.

And what use multiple admins, if there is no clerk?

You only begin to write once, before we talk about the administration.

IgorEliezer

#35
IMO, before discussing about administration (once it already exists and is working very well :) ), we need to think of a proper way of getting the material transferred from the old wikies to the new official wiki, the wiki.simutrans-germany.com. Transferring the material is the main issue now. But it doesn't mean we are not allowed to talk about something else; feel free to do so. I just want to not lose the focus on the main issue.

Besides that, server is not address. If the address simutrans-germany.com is a "problem" (would it be?), we can point the wiki.simutrans.com address to the simutrans-germany site (is it possible?); so, all you'll need to do would be typing "wiki.simutrans.com" in address bar, hit ENTER, and you get the Frank's wiki.... and everyone will be happy. :D

Plus, I think it's possible to create the a bunch of *.simutrans.com addresses that point to the simutrans-germany.com sites, just for consistency. For instance, http://nightly.simutrans-germany.com would be just http://nightly.simutrans.com with no need of moving this or that site from a server to another. In fact, the visitors won't care if a site is here or there; they care if the site is easily accessible and is working. But, the address issue is not a priority now.

itec

Igor, you have pretty much hit the nail on the head in terms of what I was refering to, having to many domain names makes it harder to find things, and makes it more confusing. From a personal example I always somewhat assumed the domain simutrans-germany.com was the german speaking equivalent of this website, not that it refered to the location of the domain name.

as for it not being a priority right now you are correct, but it makes more sence to do it now while there is less chance of loosing stuff then it does to do it in the future. when the wikis are larger and more complex.

z9999+

@Frank
Is it possible to change top page of wiki ?
Currently, top page of wiki is the index page of German wiki.
I think top page should have a list to index pages of every languages.
So, bread crumb list should be like this.
Quote
top > English > Manual > Getting Started
In this case, we can navigate all wiki contents without Javascript, and we can easily know which language current content is.


As I said before, I hate content negotiation thing which was used before.
It is only useful when all language content are equally served.

So, I like current one because permanent link is working properly.
But navigation is not good as I wrote here...

Zeno

I will give my sincere opinion on the ideas under discussion:

Quote from: IgorTekton on March 08, 2010, 01:37:25 PM
Ideas and items under discussion:
1) Old material: How to transfer the texts from the old wikies to the new one.
2) Backups: where to do/store in?
3) Backups: How to do?
4) Superadminstration: how will the wiki be administrated ?
5) Server and domain/addresses
1) We need a translator crew to add the new content by hand. Then we need a protocol for adding content.
As example:
- I guess we need a main language as reference, that should be german since it's the most content language currently in the wiki.
- Then need to send Frank or other people he designs to add that content in the reference language.
- When the content is available in reference language, translators can start translating to other languages.
That is only an example of a way of doing it. Maybe there are other ideas. I think it's important to make a more "closed" discussion group for this, with wiki admins and translators. At the end they will be the ones who will do the work.
2) Maybe Frank agrees to send his backups somewhere else for conservation purposes. We should ask him.
3) I'm sure that Frank has a valid backup system. So no discussion here.
4) Frank. Of course. He will decide to change the admin hierarchy if needed. So nothing to discuss here neither.
5) Current servers work fine, no need to change. Maybe pointing wiki.simutrans.com to Frank's server is a good idea. Maybe simple portal with links to the current wiki at simutrans-germany.com does the job.

You'll probably detected I've expressed some ideas in a somehow direct (severe) way: that's because I detect a general assumption (feeling) of Frank's wiki to be converted to official wiki. I would like to express my absolute opposition to that feeling: Frank's wiki *is* Frank's wiki, and if we accept to make it the official one it may be a good idea, but then we *must* accept that the official wiki will continue being Frank's wiki. AFAIK he never agreed to donate his work of many years just because we had a fantastic idea of unifying wikis (actually if I was him I wouldn't). Maybe we should wonder about that before posting our great ideas for free (and it's a critisism for the general situation, not for anyone's particular comment/behaviour).

IgorEliezer

Quote from: Zeno on March 12, 2010, 08:54:09 AMthat's because I detect a general assumption (feeling) of Frank's wiki to be converted to official wiki. I would like to express my absolute opposition to that feeling: Frank's wiki *is* Frank's wiki, and if we accept to make it the official one it may be a good idea, but then we *must* accept that the official wiki will continue being Frank's wiki.

If something is becoming official, it doesn't mean the owner will donate their stuffs. Calling official is a way of community telling something will be their reference. For instance, Isaac owns this server and he allows us to use this forum and his webspace, even so this forum is an official forum of community.

Also, calling something official is way of separating what deserves our care, attention and support from what doesn't. For instance, there's a Simutrans page on Orkut: whatever may happen there doesn't have to do with us, it's not our responsibility. It's their problem.

Therefore, if Frank's wiki is becoming official, this means the community will give all needed support, will use it as reference and the community will offer this wiki to the public in their official webpages.

And I'm not being severe. ;D

Zeno

Oh, thanks for the *official* clarification then ;)
It's just that I was worried about the feeling that some roofs were being constructed before the foundations.

z9999+

Quote from: Frank on March 12, 2010, 10:27:01 AM
The Tikiwiki uses a voice recognition of the browser if the pages are accessed using their names.

It is possible to put another home side forward.

Furthermore, there is the category page, which lists all existing categories.

And then gibs or the page, which lists all structures.

Okay, Tikiwiki can't make a list to index pages of every languages.
Then wiki.simutrans.com must have this list just like current one.

Spike

You know, one can kill good ideas by discussing them. In the beginning we all agreed that Franks wiki will be a good place for Simutrans documentation and that it will be good to move all content there.

Then people started to pile up demands and complaints. At the moment there is such a high pile of demands and complaints that the basic idea is about to fail - not because it was a bad idea, but because people demand too much perfection.

So either do it, or talk until the idea died.


VS


My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

sanna

Quote from: Zeno on March 12, 2010, 08:54:09 AM

1) We need a translator crew to add the new content by hand. Then we need a protocol for adding content.
As example:
- I guess we need a main language as reference, that should be german since it's the most content language currently in the wiki.
- Then need to send Frank or other people he designs to add that content in the reference language.
- When the content is available in reference language, translators can start translating to other languages.
That is only an example of a way of doing it. Maybe there are other ideas. I think it's important to make a more "closed" discussion group for this, with wiki admins and translators. At the end they will be the ones who will do the work.

Actually I do not quite agree with this very formal protocol. We are talking about a wiki where translators will work for the fun of it; and I see this protocol as removing most of the fun. Tikiwiki allows translations to be made no matter what the base language was/is; I see no reason why when incorporating material from other wikis, we should await a "reference language" translation in order for other to translate that material into their language of choice. There is also no need for each language page to be an exact translation of another page... the purpose of each page is to give information on how a certain aspect of Simutrans works in the manner most suited for the intended audience.

I would wish that every page that is translated would state on the page itself from which language/page it has been translated and which version of that page. Updates later on should of course update this information. Furthermore, I think it is very important that every page clearly states which stable version of Simutrans that it describes, and that primarily stable versions should be described.

However, something that might be useful is some sort of "badge of officialdom", especially if we talk about having material from the wiki being incorporated/replacing in-game help files. For such pages there might be a need for a more exact translation of a "reference page".

Now I have said my piece in this discussion and I am heading back to the TikiWiki to do some actual translating/adding material; something I would advice you all to do. Lets get some work done, and we will figure out the fine details later. *smile*

Zeno

I agree with Sanna that the example I used is too rigid, slow and expensive. On the other hand, I can see a "free for all" mode could be too relaxed, and as result we would get the same that we have now (many different wikis), but all in one server.
I really don't know what, but something far from these edges could be nicer. (Writing as I think) maybe some just rules, or a common content structure - folder-like or whatever - for all languages, use of wiki templates to keep same formatting, dunno...
What we all should agree is on making translators work as easy as possible, because in the end it's that work the one we should encourage.

IgorEliezer

I don't see a discussion can kill an idea. What can kill the idea are indifference, indisposition and lack of perseverance. The discussion was opened mainly to not let any maintainer, writers and people who'd get interested out of process.

Once the discussion is open, unexpected opinions are quite expected. :D

(I said unexpected opinions, not unpleasant opinions)

I don't know why the grip with Frank's ownership over his server and his work. Isaac owns this server and maintains this forum, and nobody feels uncomfortable for it.

The main idea still remains the same: one wiki in one place for whole community. All community works are voluntary, so I'd adopt a flexible way of editing the wikies. If one feels the wiki for their language is in disadvantage, then start to write. In-game help texts work this way.

Last, I don't see better way to transfer the texts from old wikies to Frank's wike: manually: cut-paste-format-save. After it, blank the page and put a note warning the visitors that the text is now in Simutrans-Germany Wiki. I'd like to hear if there's a better way of getting the texts transferred than above. I wouldn't want to waste the texts on EN-Wiki.


Frank

#47
Quote from: IgorTekton on March 12, 2010, 06:59:42 PM
.... I'd like to hear if there's a better way of getting the texts transferred than above. I wouldn't want to waste the texts on EN-Wiki.

example page for this

en MW Line Management

en TW Line Management ( text 2006, graphics v0.102.2.1 )

What they mean, text import, or update existing text?

Much has already been written in English 2005/2006. In Mediawiki, it was later posted again. In my opinion there are far fewer new en Mediawiki as there have been at that time in Tikiwiki 2006 were.

to compare
de Line Management
sv Line Management

IgorEliezer

Quote from: IgorTekton on March 12, 2010, 08:58:15 PM
I meant text import. :)

I want to be sure that all subjects which MW covers are in TW. If MW has a text that doesn't exist in TW, we need to import it.

Also, maybe both MW and TW cover the same subject, but MW has a deeper and longer text, so we'll need to edit the TW text and erase the MW text.

Topic split. Project NOT DIED!

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=4681.0