Cube Wiki, revisited

by Aardappel_ on 07/13/2006 02:18, 39 messages, last message: 08/18/2006 23:33, 9007 views, last view: 04/20/2024 07:12

Many of you know that we had a Wiki, which I hosted on strlen.com, which got attacked by link farm bots to the point that it was unusable. I killed the wiki, preserving most of its content.

But the recent talk about documentation made me realize that we NEED a wiki. There is a lot of knowledge floating around between community members, and we are repeating ourselves. And updating the docs to cover everything from every angle is impossible... besides, a wiki is fun!

But not like last time. I don't want to host it myself anymore, so we don't have administration/security issues. Also, I don't want an FFA wiki, I want to give only known community members write access.

So in this thread, give your suggestions. First of all the question is which "hosted wiki" to go with. I have the following requirements:

1. must allow me to give write access to specific users only
2. must allow me to easily export the entire wiki as a set of static HTML pages (such that it can be included in the distribution as documentation).
3. the host must be a company that is reasonably "well established", i.e. doesn't give us the trouble that in a year it suddenly goes under etc.
4. It must be free
5. If any ads, preferably only google ads.

Some ones that may be good:

http://www.jot.com/ - has tons of cool features
http://www.wikispaces.com/ - nice and streamlined
http://wikia.com/ - very nice, but doesn't seem to support requirement 1 :(

I haven't been able to find out if any of these support requirement 2...

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#17: lets get going...

by Aardappel_ on 07/28/2006 01:58

Ok, after some more experimenting with options, I have decided to go with wikispaces.com. It is really nice and easy to use, yet fits all our requirements perfectly. It allows easy exporting of the data to both HTML and wiki-markup, so we are guaranteed that our work will be usuable either as documentation or with mediawiki, if we ever want to.

Sofar I have added myself, eihrul, and MeatROme as authors. This wiki can only be edited by known members, not by the public at large. If you would like to help, the only requirement is that I know you, i.e. you are a known quantity on this forum. Email me, or mention your email address in this forum, and I will add you to the wiki.

again, the url is: http://cube.wikispaces.com/

In terms of content, we will at first focus on any text that is complementary to the main documentation, but if all goes well, we might eventually transfer the main documentation into the wiki so it can more easily be extended.

In terms of structure, try to apply common sense. One of the cool things about the wiki is of course that the documentation can easily be restructured.

Like last time, if contributors want to scan the forums for useful faqs and such, that be helpful.

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#18: Re: lets get going...

by Aardappel_ on 07/28/2006 02:00, refers to #17

oh and... from now on every release will contain a local copy of the wiki as add-on documentation... eventually it may replace it.

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#19: Re: lets get going...

by shadow,516 on 07/28/2006 07:41, refers to #18

Love to help

My email addy is correct btw.

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#20: Re: lets get going...

by >driAn<. on 07/28/2006 21:40, refers to #17

:)

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#21: woohoo

by Aardappel_ on 08/11/2006 20:51

so, the wiki on http://cube.wikispaces.com/ is off to a good start. Here are some general comments on how we can make it better:

Do not be afraid to refactor things. Sofar it seems people just ADD to the wiki, and leave what is there in place. One of the ideas behind a wiki is that its easy to reorganize the soup of data. If you add something that makes the structure of the document less than ideal, do not be afraid to restructure other peoples text into a different set of pages and links. Do not be afraid to even delete other people's text, once you conclude it has become redundant. The original structure was just me making some example pages, it may not be ideal for the current contents anymore.

Feel free to discuss in this thread if you have major restructurings in mind, or certain conventions.

Don't let pages grow to huge amounts of text, wiki's are best when they are small sections of text per page, but HEAVILY linked.

In that same way, one of the goals of the wiki is to function as a FAQ, so if we get the 1001th post on "your server did not reply to ping" we can point people to exactly one wiki page that has all the firewall tutorials you could ever wish for.

Some stuff on the wiki is straight out of the main documentation. Duplication is not good, it means if I update the main documentation the wiki instantly contains outdated information. Since the wiki is more for FAQ/tutorial kinda stuff, and the docs more for hardcore factual reference, it is good to have each section of the wiki refer to pages in the docs where the exact command reference related to the topic can be found.

If you know of topics that have been discussed on this forum before, it is really helpfull to find these threads, and make a wikipage out of the most explanatory posts. Infact, maybe I should be typing this post in the wiki rather than on the forum, it is getting rather long... :)

If additional people want editing access, apply for it on the wiki page.

I will make sure it is linked from the various web pages soon, that should ensure more traffic.

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#22: Re: woohoo

by shadow,516 on 08/11/2006 21:20, refers to #21

that reminds me... the readme.html wont open in IE7 :(

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#23: Re: woohoo

by kurtis84 on 08/12/2006 00:28, refers to #21

Ok, I've finally got around to looking at this wiki thing...a good idea indeed. I've applied to join on the site, and I can see a few things I would like to add in there. I would hope that all the time I've burned mapping could produce some good tutorials, and/or tips for new mappers, and players.

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#24: IE7?!

by Greywhind on 08/12/2006 01:27

Why the hell are you using IE 7? Get ANY other web browser! They're free!

Unless you're on a computer where you can't download anything, in which case I understand and feel your pain.

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#25: ..

by makkE on 08/12/2006 01:40

Kurtis, I think your help is much appreciated, since you got to be one of the most experienced sauer mappers :)

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#26: Re: woohoo

by pushplay on 08/12/2006 03:37, refers to #22

More importantly IE7 is beta so it's not our problem.

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#27: Re: IE7?!

by Passa on 08/12/2006 04:03, refers to #24

"Unless you're on a computer where you can't download anything"

Then why would he need a browser?

IE7 is much better than IE6. So don't put them in the same boat.. BUT its BETA and buggy, messes up Steam (try play CS 1.6 with IE7).

Anywho, get Opera, or Firefox. I would use Opera but I don't like its configuration menus and a few other things at that (I'm fussy).


Ontopic; yeah I think that kurtis, being easily the best Sauerbraten mapper atm, would be a great asset to writing articles etc in the wiki. I also think meatrome would be a great help with that wiki stuff. I might add some stuff on server hosting myself..

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#28: Re: Participation

by MeatROme on 08/12/2006 12:06, refers to #27

I'm on the wiki already :)
Thanks for your trust in me!

The scripting issues is what I'm focussing on ATM ... but it's progressing veeeery slowly and is currently still too much a copy of the original docs.
Maybe that is what aard was talking about a couple of posts up!?!

Never fear - the concept is still budding on me and I still have plans that will restructure those pages some more ... I'm trying to "go with the flow".

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#29: Re: IE7?!

by shadow,516 on 08/12/2006 16:09, refers to #24

I actually LIKE IE7 (yes, better than firefox or opera), so don't push it.

I've tried them all, and with a greasemonkey port for IE7, I have no reason to use Opera or Firefox.

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#30: Amen, Praxtibel.

by Greywhind on 08/12/2006 23:17

Title says it all.

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#31: Re: IE7?!

by shadow,516 on 08/13/2006 01:58, refers to #30

umm... deal with it?

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#32: Re: IE7?!

by Passa on 08/13/2006 02:10, refers to #31

Linux users are just lazy.
Its not Windows fault its so popular its victimised by virus makers..

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#33: Re: IE7?!

by kurtis84 on 08/16/2006 01:39, refers to #33

this is off-topic here, but..
prax: I too have this cookie problem with this forum ( my cookies all work fine in every other site they are needed ).

I just close my browser, and reopen it...usually doesn't take more than a couple times, and out of nowhere, my cookie is working again.

makes no damn sense to me at all

I am running winxp, and this site doesn't work at all with IE since a few updates back, I'm not wasting my time going through IE's preferences and security settings every damn update...I use firefox, so I don't mind that.

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#34: license problem

by drian@job001 on 08/18/2006 12:35

The wiki content license may cause problems if we add general engine docs like the command reference to the wiki. Assume someone uses the engine for his own XY project and added and modified some scripting commands, then he must not take the command ref from the wiki and change it to fit his own project as the no-derivative-works clause doesn't allow this:

- No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.5/

This isn't a problem at the moment. But keep in mind that the wiki content and the number of editors may grow and suddenly it becomes hard to change the license as you need the agreement of every participating editor (=copyright holder).

Another way would be an agreement for all editors to assign their copyright to you (aard). So you can control who gets permission to alter the wiki content for own projects.

Just a thought.

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#35: Re: license problem

by Aardappel_ on 08/18/2006 19:06, refers to #34

I have just changed it from no-derivative to share-alike. Is that cool with all contributors?

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#36: Re: license problem

by shadow,516 on 08/18/2006 19:16, refers to #35

sounds good to me

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