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Forum and Wiki Cleanup?

Discussion of things not related to Sandbox
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chocolatepie33
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Forum and Wiki Cleanup?

Post by chocolatepie33 »

I'm wondering if it would be possible for us to go through the old pages of the forum and the wiki and remove the ones that are outdated, abandoned, or redundant (I recently changed the main page of the wiki because we had 2 pages both made as lists about finding video tutorials) - I'm not sure how that could affect bandwidth and other site stuff, but it generally seems kind of pointless to have lots of pages with little purpose taking up space and such. I know for a fact that I'm very guilty of creating topics with either stupid questions or stupid ideas (maybe including this very topic), all in the search for understanding and knowledge, and they're guaranteed to be of little or no use now.

I've also noticed that it seems like new users constantly ask the same or similar questions - is this due to their laziness while looking for a quick answer, or is it because they don't know where or how to find the information necessary? I've always thought the forums were a little tough to navigate as well. I also must question whether they actually read Mike's "READ HERE BEFORE POSTING A QUESTION" or Leo's "DON'T JUST USE THE WORD "HELP!" IN YOUR TOPIC TITLE!" topics, as both suggest good things to do which are increasingly ignored.

Also, more concerning the wiki, how much information on it might be outdated with the change to UI and Waterwars?
The change to UI means that any tutorials about scripting menus that use the old 3Dgui system (with newgui "name" and guitext and whatnot) are definitely outdated, so there goes at least a few pages.
Waterwars has eliminated the old possibility of using FPS as a near-RPG system, something I was pretty good with. While yes, you can have dialogue, pickups and an inventory in FPS still, it's kind of moot since you'd be focused on shooting, unless we had some kind of campaign/single player. The primary purpose of scripting in FPS mode would now just be for level triggers, such as elevators and doors, which wouldn't be very useful anyways on some maps. Put simply, unless we go for the campaign idea (which would be Mike's Last Kid Standing), any game involving pickups, dialogue and interactive character interaction should be made as an RPG game, which unfortunately isn't quite as simple as using FPS mode was - it's better, but harder to use. Not to mention you can't quite ignore the FPS hud/guns without hiding them. Even then, you never know if it'll return at a bad time.

In addition to the wiki issues of outdated pages, what happens to pages that exist, but aren't linked to because they don't fit anywhere, are useless, or were redundant? I know that I've removed links to a couple of pages that I created, then realized existed already or were pointless, such as one I believe was about useful lighting commands. Do they still exist, taking up space?

I honestly don't know what would happen if this ever actually came about, or who would do it especially. Obsidian? Pretty much retired, coming in and checking up on us every so often. I don't know who the site tech is currently, or if we have one, or even whether it would be their responsibility to do this.

Now, here's a general plan of action. Whether it sounds useful or not is up to you.

Code: Select all

forums:
-find all topics that are considered content creation or personal submissions and store them in an archive reserved for those topics. If a creator would like that topic to be deleted, they can request that. 
-take the remaining topics, sort them into support request, and find any questions that are common. Those topics will have their questions and the answers to those questions added to the FAQ page of the wiki. Other topics may be deleted or kept depending on who they may help (in terms of audience size, or period of usefulness) or whether the question is answered and answered well. 
-merge the content of the two "read before creating a topic" topics by mike and leo, making a single topic that new users would be referred to upon registering and before starting a topic. This page would provide links to the FAQ and the wiki suggesting readers to make sure that their question has not already been answered. It would also summarize what not to do when creating a topic and what to do to optimize understanding the question. They could also provide ideas on what NOT to ask, such as crazy features in Sandbox. 
-Allow changing usernames or do something about multiple accounts, a few users have done that and it seems somewhat troublesome. 
-create an official "quick answers to questions that don't need an entire topic" thread just in case. 
-maybe go through the gallery and trackers and clean those up, or remove them (the trackers) since it feels like those are just done through forum topics anyways. 

wiki:
-delete pages that have better copies to use
-delete unreferenced pages
-find outdated pages that should be related to UI or waterwars (fps mode in general) and temporarily remove them until they can be fixed
-generally improve the wiki
    -create a code of quality that all pages should strive to follow
        -structure: preview and description, main process broken down into steps, final summary.
        -quality: grammar, spelling, ease of understanding
        -content: text plus images/videos where applicable
        -audience reachability: windows/linux/mac differences for processes should be noted. 
    -try to define a clear structure on the main page, similar to what we have now
        -specifically, should we have a bunch of little pages within "getting started" and such, or should everything belong on the tutorials list page? 
        -how should the tutorials list page be sorted? By difficulty? By content of the tutorial (as it is now), or by its closeness to Sandbox?
    -rename page titles (if possible to do without destroying them) so that they're uniform, understandable, describe the topic, and follow capitalization rules as we establish. (it's very weird when you look through and you see every other title has all words capitalized while others are all not capitalized, etc, etc.)
    -should we have author establishment or not? We can always use history to find the original author of a page.
...

That's everything. If you have read this, please provide your thoughts and opinions. Good night.
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Save the wiki!
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kddekadenz
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Re: Forum and Wiki Cleanup?

Post by kddekadenz »

chocolatepie33 wrote:I've also noticed that it seems like new users constantly ask the same or similar questions - is this due to their laziness while looking for a quick answer, or is it because they don't know where or how to find the information necessary?
Than we can collect them and create a FAQ site ;)
chocolatepie33 wrote: I've always thought the forums were a little tough to navigate as well.
I agree, there are too much sub-forums.
chocolatepie33 wrote:should be made as an RPG game, which unfortunately isn't quite as simple as using FPS mode was - it's better, but harder to use.
It isn't really harder, there are just more features with bad documentation. You can script a FPS game in RPG mode, since you can add weapons.

chocolatepie33 wrote:Those topics will have their questions and the answers to those questions added to the FAQ page of the wiki.
We had the same idea :D
I would suggest to add the FAQ to the forums, too or at least a link to it.

chocolatepie33 wrote:-generally improve the wiki
-create a code of quality that all pages should strive to follow
-structure: preview and description, main process broken down into steps, final summary.
-quality: grammar, spelling, ease of understanding
-content: text plus images/videos where applicable
-audience reachability: windows/linux/mac differences for processes should be noted.
-try to define a clear structure on the main page, similar to what we have now
-specifically, should we have a bunch of little pages within "getting started" and such, or should everything belong on the tutorials list page?
-how should the tutorials list page be sorted? By difficulty? By content of the tutorial (as it is now), or by its closeness to Sandbox?
-rename page titles (if possible to do without destroying them) so that they're uniform, understandable, describe the topic, and follow capitalization rules as we establish. (it's very weird when you look through and you see every other title has all words capitalized while others are all not capitalized, etc, etc.)
-should we have author establishment or not? We can always use history to find the original author of a page.
I would like to add to the todo list:
- remove the project wiki pages, e.g. Undercover Kids
- explanation for new users how to contribute (commands) - should be part of the code of quality

I think we shouldn't have the "little pages within getting started". I think sorting the tutorials by content is fine.

That was a long wall of text and it is a lot of work. I think we need more help.
Maybe Esequiel for mapping tutorials?
Kelgar is an advanced RPG beeing developed in Sandbox
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