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Author Topic: Call for wiki contributors  (Read 6050 times)

Phssthpok

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Call for wiki contributors
« on: June 03, 2015, 11:10:38 PM »

The Cogmind wiki is now mature enough to make casual contributions easy. If you see an interesting item or robot, please add it to the wiki.

To add an item: go to Template:Part or Template:Robot and copy the example code, then paste it into a new page for the item you are adding, and fill in the fields.

I have seen a lot of parts that I haven't had time to create pages for yet, if anybody would like to go through my album of parts or biomatter's album of parts and create wiki pages, that would be a great service to the community. If you have a similar collection of screenshots, I can add them to this album. Eventually we would like to collect images as well as stats, and it may be easier to do that with screenshots than by trying to make the wiki display ASCII art properly.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2015, 10:43:12 AM by Phssthpok »
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Kyzrati

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2015, 11:25:35 PM »

Hear that, biomatter? "Casual contributions made easy" :P

Many thanks to Phssthpok for getting the wiki off the ground with an excellent set of templates. (Btw, I fixed your OP links since they were all formatted strangely for some reason. Edit: Now I realize it was probably a side effect of copying from Reddit markdown.)

If you guys do at some point use images, I would highly suggest/prefer that you make them using the default size 12 font set (12/Cogmind). I'll go add this note to the style guide, too. The art was made to look best at that size, as was the default font.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2015, 11:34:57 PM by Kyzrati »
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Phssthpok

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2015, 12:59:14 AM »

Thanks, Kyzrati.

What do you think of the taxonomy so far? There's plenty of the game I haven't seen yet, so I don't know  how accurate it is to treat all items as parts, and all "power" items as engines. There are a lot of ambiguous names in propulsion, so I've avoided grouping them by type. And there are so many weapons that I've grouped them at a smaller granularity than in the manual.

Can you predict any pain points with the wiki taxonomy, without spoiling anything?
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Warmist

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2015, 01:33:20 AM »

Just an idea/suggestion/(question?) could we have some parts of stuff spoilered? E.g. if i don't want "fully analyzed" robots, could templates have that?
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Phssthpok

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2015, 01:52:31 AM »

It's hard to know where to draw the line when trying to spoiler parts of a single-item page. It might be feasible to make a databox only show the basic info. But I still think the main page for an item should be the authoritative location for as much info as possible.

Maybe higher-level pages such as categories and some guides could be made "safe". Seeing the names of high-rating robots and parts doesn't tell you much about lore or mechanics. Strategy discussion on the Brawler class page doesn't tell you the specific loadout of a B-36 Bruiser.

So, if it were easy to include a truncated version of a databox on another page (possibly as a popup when hovering), we could start making spoiler-free pages that didn't encourage you to click all the way through to the spoilery pages.

This will probably require custom CSS.
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Kyzrati

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2015, 07:05:38 AM »

But I still think the main page for an item should be the authoritative location for as much info as possible.
I'd have to agree with Phssthpok on this. Trying to split up spoilery content from everything else at a low level would be very difficult to achieve when also trying to preserve the integrity and organization of the the overall content. I say take cues from how the DCSS wiki does it--most of the site is under a spoiler notice, period, in an effort to organize information in the best way possible.

Honestly I can't imagine anyone on the wiki trying to both use it and not be spoiled, since everything you need to know is already either in the game manual, or can be learned in game by examining items and robots. The only exception would be those players looking for general strategies and getting started guides, which could be found in a separate "spoiler-free" section of the wiki, while everything else is under the spoiler warning. Heavy wiki users are most likely to be either experienced players who want to look up reference data, or anyone who doesn't mind being spoiled.

What do you think of the taxonomy so far? There's plenty of the game I haven't seen yet, so I don't know  how accurate it is to treat all items as parts, and all "power" items as engines. There are a lot of ambiguous names in propulsion, so I've avoided grouping them by type. And there are so many weapons that I've grouped them at a smaller granularity than in the manual.

Can you predict any pain points with the wiki taxonomy, without spoiling anything?
Good questions, and I'm glad you're in a position to ask them and do something about it if necessary :D. When setting up the wiki I was somewhat worried that it might quickly turn into a mess from inexperienced editors just throwing data up there, but then you stepped up right away and gave us templates! Some comments:

Robots: At the highest level, the organization here is good so far, and will work fine with the rest of the game.

"Derelict" isn't a class, but is more analogous to an entire race with its own set of classes. They will become a much more significant presence once the Caves are added. So those could probably be a separate chart of their own on that page.

You'll also probably want to add a separate chart for NPCs. Revision 17 is the only one in the game right now, but there are more coming.

The class pages and subvariant pages both work nicely (though we may want to do something about the blue link color being nearly unreadable on the black background in the text boxes).

Items: This page will need a new "Non-part Items" section. This could cover Matter and Data Cores, which count as items but not parts. More importantly, there is also a category of of actual part-like items that cannot be attached (but can be held in your inventory unlike Matter/Data Cores). Right now there is only one such item in the game, the so-called "Signal Generator," the function of which no one seems to have figured out yet ;). There will be more items like that in the future.

Propulsion I would think could be grouped by their subtype, unless you prefer the idea of having them all in a single chart, which is kinda neat, too, though it goes sort of against the method that types are handled for utilities/weapons.

There is no inherent difference between Engines, Cores, and Reactors, a naming scheme chosen purely to reflect low/mid/high-tier power sources. Seeing as "Engines" is used in game as a subtype, it probably makes more sense to rename the Engine page to "Power Sources." Putting those all on the same page and in the same chart does makes a lot of sense.


Otherwise it's all looking pretty good so far.
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Phssthpok

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2015, 08:31:05 AM »

Quote
Propulsion I would think could be grouped by their subtype, unless you prefer the idea of having them all in a single chart, which is kinda neat, too, though it goes sort of against the method that types are handled for utilities/weapons.

This is difficult because of the overlap between part names and type names. Most type pages can be created under the exact name that appears in the databox, and most part pages can consist of little other than their databox (which could be useful later for transcluded part databoxes).

So, potential naming schemes for the type pages could be "Flight Units" (succinct, but requires some template logic) or "Flight Unit Parts" (ugly when applied to other types such as "Ballistic Gun Parts"). I'll take a swing at propulsion-only template logic for the former.
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Kyzrati

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2015, 08:39:02 AM »

I see what you mean. I don't see a particular problem with the existing system, just that it's inconsistent. If there ends up being a good reason for the inconsistency, as with naming conflicts, then it's still a serviceable approach.

Perhaps the propulsion subtype pages could use an alternate title format to get around that? Something like "Propulsion/Flight," "Propulsion/Hover," etc. This method could be extended to other non-propulsion types as well, though they don't really need it like propulsion does, and would feel more redundant as a result.

As you say, a "Parts" suffix would be an ugly way to handle it. Hm, it's a dilemma.
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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #8 on: June 04, 2015, 03:13:02 PM »

Right now there is only one such item in the game, the so-called "Signal Generator," the function of which no one seems to have figured out yet ;). There will be more items like that in the future.
We just don't talk about it. You don't always find it and when you do you can't always get to it before it blows.

That and it's usefulness thus far is kind of meh. Not useless, but not entirely worth an inventory slot generally.
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biomatter

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #9 on: June 04, 2015, 03:14:57 PM »

...That is the complete opposite of what you said on IRC yesterday, Arseface. Are we being cheeky? ;)
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Arseface

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2015, 04:39:00 PM »

...That is the complete opposite of what you said on IRC yesterday, Arseface. Are we being cheeky? ;)
I said it has uses. Not that it's generally useful.

I'll take it if I've got an empty slot.
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Kyzrati

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2015, 09:23:56 PM »

Ah, last I heard from several players they still had no idea what it did. Someone even carried it all the way to the end of the game out of curiosity =p

It was mostly just a fluff item, the last one I added to the game, actually, as a final test of some broader systems. I think it could be really useful in the right situations, but yeah it's not guaranteed you'll get it so nothing to rely on.
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Phssthpok

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #12 on: June 04, 2015, 10:04:47 PM »

Perhaps the propulsion subtype pages could use an alternate title format to get around that? Something like "Propulsion/Flight," "Propulsion/Hover," etc. This method could be extended to other non-propulsion types as well, though they don't really need it like propulsion does, and would feel more redundant as a result.

This works pretty well. Each databox can link to Slot/Type, and unambiguous type pages can redirect to their simple name.

Then 100% of part type pages can have tables organizing all their parts, and we can transclude the tables on the slot page for convenience, while still having a single authoritative location for editing them, like so: Propulsion
« Last Edit: June 04, 2015, 10:38:27 PM by Phssthpok »
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Kyzrati

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Re: Call for wiki contributors
« Reply #13 on: June 04, 2015, 10:12:18 PM »

That looks quite nicely, yeah!
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