Systems 2.0 Wiki Pages

[MacThule]

Ignore us. We are casually making a collective mess of the reactors page right now.

Someone has to do it.

Can't make an omelete without breaking a few eggs. This is progress.

 

[petlahk]

Someone has to do it.

Can't make an omelete without breaking a few eggs. This is progress.

I think we were having a wiki edit war without actually having a wiki edit war. xD

 

[petlahk]

arkahys

Stop. Touching. The. Templates. DukeOfRealms and Crimson-Artist are probably getting annoyed. They've said multiple times to only let the bot touch them. And considering that the bot has been run and is probably gonna see a few updates we should *really stop touching them*.

 

[arkahys]

I'am sorry if in edit mod box you have some bad value error in boxes from lasts hours, but had to modify box template (without publish) to find error of the old recovery/portability. these bad value displays was not viewable public side, only while editing page.

I report to DukeOfRealms and talk with crimson, if one of them is effectivelly annoyed or other, I'am sure that he will say me as I ask them for all work I intend to do.

aside (but less interesting to talk than 200 log lines of modification to succeed) :
Bug of "name box by adress" in {{infobox block}} is resolved.

You can name page as you want, box and image name are set by type​

Bug of "box display bad type name for some recently added block" in {{infobox block}} is resolved.

The block will be name by "name" parameter and "Type" if non name.​

Some data display blocks can be still errored but I have to discuss of that with admins before make anything (as I already done).

 

[Crimson-Artist]

arkahys

Stop. Touching. The. Templates. DukeOfRealms and Crimson-Artist are probably getting annoyed. They've said multiple times to only let the bot touch them. And considering that the bot has been run and is probably gonna see a few updates we should *really stop touching them*.

Dude it fine. Let him work on his templates .

What I said was for ppl to not make templates that we’re going to be used for only one or two pages/ something that would need frequent changing.

Arkahys is making a new info box template which would be very useful. That’s an appropriate use of templates.

 

[DukeofRealms]

Creation of new templates is great, provided there's a legitimate reason for them (as Crimson-Artist mentions).

Editing bot created templates (i.e. created by Robowl) should not happen, as they'll be wiped every single time we run the bot (which is intended).

For example, this article: Grey Hull - StarMade Wiki is a human editable page. However, there are two bot template pages embedded into the main article Template:Infobox block/Grey Hull - StarMade Wiki and Template:Production/Grey Hull - StarMade Wiki which should not be edited.

We're modifying the bot to add amboxes and comments in the template pages which inform an editor not to touch them.

Thanks for all your contributions to the wiki

 

[MacThule]

I proposed an edit to the Main Page - and opened a discussion about it in the wiki - but maybe it needs more discussion here first. I would just change it, but I don't have the permissions and suspect that there would be objections even if I had.

Community Links:
Why do visitors hit a bundle of community links before they can get to the information they're looking for? Aren't links and meta data usually pinned to the bottom of a webpage?

What Is StarMade:
The next element as you scroll down looking for info about how the game works is a "what is Starmade" block, which is important info, but not helpful and extremely redundant since literally the first three links in the "General Information" block take searchers to the exact same block of text elsewhere in the wiki. I feel like (with the learning curve this game presents) the first thing guests encounter should be essentially "Don't Panic! New players please check out this Basic Survival Guide or Shipbuilding 101."

"General Information" block:

• The first three links should be condensed to one "About Starmade" link. The current arrangement is a bit silly.
• The installation and getting started are good things to have on the main, but a link to an article about "Hiring NPC Crew Members" is an absurd red herring to give people on the main page.
• Common Problems bullet - there shouldn't be a bunch of links to uncreated pages on the main. It makes the wiki feel 'broken.'
• Changelog - unless someone is going to own updating this, it might be best if this link actually takes the user out of the wiki and to the forum game news area or something.
• I like the roadmap and terminology link - those are helpful for visitors

Game Mechanics:

• This block is mostly good, though most of the articles needs updates and polish (for example: the general shipbuilding article spins off almost immediately onto a tangent about crafting/production that should have been on a separate page).
• The "Menus" link should be removed - all these years and still uncreated. Not sure what it should even lead to.
• It looks like someone inserted a "Fleets" page link here at some point, but it doesn't show up for some reason.

Documentation:
This frame is a waste of space. Mostly red links to pages that were never made. It makes the wiki look incomplete and unhelpful. The good links could and probably should be condensed into the General Information frame.

Overall it would just be more accessible and helpful if new players landed in the Wiki and immediately saw clear, obvious links to information on shipbuilding, mining, crafting, and best practices for survival rather than a lot of stuff meant for more advanced users (along with a few dead links and redundant marketing copy) with a few helpful links mixed in for those who care to parse through the rest.

 

[petlahk]

Community Links:

I agree. This entire box should just be scrapped or moved to the bottom and made tiny.

"General Information" block:

The whole thing makes sense. I wonder if we should comment out those common problems links. But TBH I agree that they're pointless. The wording is vauge and I don't know what should go there. I see client common problems as somewhat useful, but it needs to be created first, so I say comment it out for now.

Changelog - unless someone is going to own updating this, it might be best if this link actually takes the user out of the wiki and to the forum game news area or something.

Sounds good to me.

I like the roadmap and terminology link - those are helpful for visitors

If the devs kept the roadmap up to date, sure. Maybe leave it there but move it?

Game Mechanics:

• This block is mostly good, though most of the articles needs updates and polish (for example: the general shipbuilding article spins off almost immediately onto a tangent about crafting/production that should have been on a separate page).
• The "Menus" link should be removed - all these years and still uncreated. Not sure what it should even lead to.
• It looks like someone inserted a "Fleets" page link here at some point, but it doesn't show up for some reason.

So. I think some of these actually need to be under tutoroials. And some of these are about to change. TBH, it might make sense to rename it starmade basics 'cus a lot of it is a set of articles that - in theory - every player would want access to.

I wrote the reactors page more as a tutorial page and less as a mechanics page. The title seems misleading and slightly overwhelming to be honest. "Mechanics." Who wants to read about mechanics? Advanced shipbuilding could go under there sure. Fleets too. Stuff about NPC factions, go ahead. But the blocks list, shields page, reactors page, manufacturing page, weapons page, and admin commands - basically everything under ships - should go under a different category such as "Starmade Basics" or "Help with building" or "Tutorials."

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Also. I'd remove or shrink a lot of the boxes. Maybe make the face of it a nice collage, or stick in a slide-show with some cool pictures. I dunno. It feels bland and somewhat menacing at the moment. Renaming that "what is starmade?" box to "Welcome to starmade - DON'T PANIC" with don't panic in big friendly letters written across the header would help. But it should be re-written with kindness in mind.

The "What is Starmade?" should be one link to the permanent forums post about schine, or the schine website.

Documentation:

Nix it.
[doublepost=1525716998,1525716630][/doublepost]Also. I think I'm gonna try to start on the basic shipbuilding page today. I think I'm gonna write it with the weapons update in mind though. That way we don't have to change it when the update hits. Maybe I'll put across the top in AmBox "Weapons section with the next update in mind." that can just be removed later.

Also, again, the starmade basics page is a bit of a mess, and will be a lot more of a mess soon. A lot of it needs to be gutted.

And as for that "Ship design page." we can just replace the whole thing with Basic Shipbuilding.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I did some slight work to the front page according to your guy's suggestions
Starmadepedia - The Official StarMade Wiki
I'm also thinking of adding more pictures as links for the game mechanic section.

 

[MacThule]

Nice, Crimson-Artist!

The General Info section taking center stage with larger font is a good start. And the icons are fun, engaging, non-intimidating. Very nice.

I still think that the "What is StarMade" blurb looks like marketing copy and probably belongs more in the Wikipedia article about StarMade than in Starmadepedia. Also, in terms of relevance, how many people visiting the wiki are actually wondering "what is this?" and how important is it to service their needs compared to players and would-be players who already understand that it's a voxel space game and just want to understand more about how it works? But it's all good - I may be worrying too much about the landing page. There are dozens of actual pages that need content work; I'm going to see to those!
[doublepost=1525737012,1525736859][/doublepost]Also, thanks for homogenizing the capitalization format on those stubs I made. I'll try to stick to the convention on those in the future.

 

[arkahys]

I get good results for template I was creating.
I pass all of these templates in "stable" state.
I wait return of schine if that is in "their shape".
Dbtest - StarMade Wiki

Even on a loaded page 3d blocks keep quite light process.

I already make doc for each of them.
Template:Ib - StarMade Wiki
Template:Blockbox - StarMade Wiki
Template:Blockboxutil - StarMade Wiki

feed back on page load are wanted !
for 3d : first may quite waiting, but cache make further navigation good.
Database IS a complex script, so the average time to edit page will be a little bit slowed but will can't be worth than this as the heavier part of script is implemented.
All of this can already allow intersting features, but could add other apparent complex script in a veary light/easy way.

 

[petlahk]

Okay. Crimson-Artist arkahys MacThule - Could you all bring me up to speed on what all the last major changes to the wiki pages or wiki articles have been? I don't want to re-do territory that may have been completed since I got burnt out.

Have the pages I assigned myself been completed since my absence or should I just pick up where I left off?

 

[Crimson-Artist]

the wiki only just recently got back online fully so theres only been a few changes since. I've reorganized a lot of pages to better fit with the style of the wiki however for a lot of the info on the weapon changes some one more knowledgeable then me is gonna have to write it. I only know so much and I would really like some numbers and statistics for each weapon.

duke is working on firing up the wiki bot again to mass edit in all the changes to all the blocks so I would look out for that hopefully in the near future.

 

[arkahys]

As seen, I don't work on content, I work on forms.
To become an "easy wiki to update" because i think contributors should focus on adding content on their respective experience to help other. I focus on this database (form based) to allow others to make interesting new pages or add, and not many boring copy/paste of "armor of this (34k block !)"
Almost done and fonctionnaly, that's allow to the actual work of duke to make the bot changing all tables with the new engine who was set.
The database was updated today to 0.201.133 (weapon update), so all info from template {{Ib|...}} {{blockbox|...}} and {{Blockboxutil|...}} are "up to date"

I planned a code for compatibility version, so {{Ib|...}} {{blockbox|...}} can call older version If people make "legacy pages"
I haven't already updated doc for this but it is fonctionnal : put ~ and the number of version of game (stored in database, actually 0.200.335 and 0.201.133 . I will add some older version later )
Ie :
{{Ib|~0.200.335|Ship core|Hp}}
{{blockbox|1|~0.200.335|Ship core|left|3d}}
this requests will return info of the block of this version..

Crimson-Artist I see some possiblity to add a new database for damages/effects/etc... (the third config file in game).
damages statistiques (with secondary effect changes), but speed, distance for shieldand power/stabi , chamber, etc...

I got some fine idea of chaging the general form of the wiki (left menu display, upper part, etc...)
As I done , It could be disturbing (but great result) so I'am checking how to do that but without making the wiki ugly during tests...